Book contents
- The Bible’s First Kings
- The Bible’s First Kings
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
- Chapter 1 Israel’s United Monarchy
- Chapter 2 Untangling the Threads of the Biblical Account with Literary Critical Scholarship
- Chapter 3 Deconstructing (and Reconstructing) the United Monarchy as Historical
- Part II The Archaeology of the Tenth Century BCE
- Part III A New Paradigm
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 2 - Untangling the Threads of the Biblical Account with Literary Critical Scholarship
from Part I - The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2025
- The Bible’s First Kings
- The Bible’s First Kings
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
- Chapter 1 Israel’s United Monarchy
- Chapter 2 Untangling the Threads of the Biblical Account with Literary Critical Scholarship
- Chapter 3 Deconstructing (and Reconstructing) the United Monarchy as Historical
- Part II The Archaeology of the Tenth Century BCE
- Part III A New Paradigm
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Is the biblical story about Israel’s “United Monarchy” history, fiction, or somewhere in between? This chapter reviews the scholarly discourse about the texts and introduces critical Bible study. Since the inception of critical scholarship, Bible scholars have noted that the narrative contains tensions and even contradictions that demonstrate the impossibility of accepting the details of the biblical narrative as an accurate reporting of events. Nevertheless, researchers long distinguished between the core narrative arc of the Saul and David stories, which was relatively consistent between the sources, and the many contradictions, alternative details, and smaller points, which were understood as attempts at polemic and apologetics, pushing one agenda or another, or simply rhetorical flourish. This meant that while many of the details in these accounts cannot be taken at face value as historical, the same critical reading of the text led biblical scholars to believe – until recently – in the historicity of the bigger picture. The reasons why this consensus has changed are primarily due to broader, “archaeological” considerations that are discussed in Chapter 3.
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- The Bible's First KingsUncovering the Story of Saul, David, and Solomon, pp. 20 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025