Chapter 7 discusses how the Transfiguration is seen within the Synoptic Gospels – and especially in the careful New Testament and Patristic scholarship of Daniel Kirk, Teresa Morgan and Peter Anthony-- as the principal occasion when the moral and spiritual perfection of Jesus received divine affirmation. Alongside the patriarch Moses and the prophet Elijah, Jesus is glimpsed in the Transfiguration narratives, falteringly, as someone immensely special and divinely endorsed, by three of his disciples, who (in Luke and two sixth-century church mosaics) are themselves included within the cloud (perhaps even theösis) that envelops Jesus, Moses and Elijah. This chapter examines both Aquinas’ and recent Eastern Orthodox accounts of the social implications of transfiguration. It also notes that transfiguration has been deeply disfigured by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1945.

Like the later prophets, the Hebrew prophets were divinely authorized whistleblowers. The prophet Nathan confronted King David over his adultery and murder; Isaiah and Jeremiah confronted their kings over their alliances with foreign powers; Elijah confronted King Ahab over the murder and dispossession of his neighbor. Prophets from Amos to Jeremiah excoriate the priests of their day for making a mockery of Temple worship by attempting to bribe God with sacrifices and pious words. The prophets insist that all religious rites must serve righteousness, that moral purity comes before ritual purity. No wonder the Hebrew prophets were condemned and persecuted by priests and kings for being both heretics and traitors. The Hebrew prophets almost never attempted to exercise priestly or political power; they simply attempted to veto the abuses of priests and kings in the name of God. The Hebrew prophets, like our later prophets, were more than merely critics; they were also visionaries of peace and social justice.

Chapter 5 describes the rhetorical and theological relationship between the Elijah/Elisha narratives and the greater book of Kings, both the Solomon stories on one hand (1 Kings 1–11) and the episodes dealing with Israel’s and Judah’s political demise on the other (2 Kings 9–25). It argues that Elijah and Elisha become the “hereditary carriers” of two theological concepts introduced through Solomon: the hope that children might surpass their ancestors in life-giving wisdom and that the temple might provide a durable paradigm through which to imagine Yhwh’s ongoing care for Israel’s land and people together. In this sense, Elijah and Elisha “prophetize” the Davidic promise of 2 Samuel 7, showing that Yhwh responds to sin with a power capable of reversing death. The chapter likewise maintains that a series of Davidic kings – Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah – “re-royalize” the two prophets’ characteristic acts of resurrection and other forms of life preservation as depicted in 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 8. Because Elijah functions as their typological ancestor, these prophet-kings become the seeds through which Israel’s redemption after catastrophe might be imagined.

Chapter 2 presents a detailed study of the first major leg in the Elijah cycle in relation to its immediate context, 1 Kings 12–16. It begins by observing that Elijah functions as a theological icon rather than as a complete psyche on par with the protagonists of modern histories and novels. An agrarian hermeneutic applied to this same material illumines the text’s holistic interest in physiological healing (1 Kings 17), agroecological renewal (1 Kings 18), and social health (1 Kings 19). As a result, Elijah the Tishbite emerges as the prototypical ancestor of Yhwh’s preserved remnant, a prophetic community that the implied reader, too, is encouraged to join. In contrast to the political and theological disaster that the larger book of Kings narrates, 1 Kings 17–19 suggests that Yhwh raises the dead in multiple dimensions.

The conclusion summarizes this volume’s primary scholarly contributions according to three, key subjects: a canonical approach to Kings and the application of an agrarian hermeneutic (Chapters 1 and 2), exegetical examination of the Elijah narratives (Chapters 2, 3, and 4), and the relationship between the Elijah narratives and the book of Kings as a whole (Chapters 4 and 5). The author concludes by pointing readers toward new insights that the study may generate with respect to the New Testament’s typological extension of concepts central to the book of Kings.

Chapter 3 examines three progressively related chapters whose main character is Ahab, not Elijah, and thus whose connection with the Elijah narratives (or lack thereof) has attracted much scholarly discussion. It demonstrates that an agrarian hermeneutic generates new insight on the unit’s rhetorical coherence alongside 1 Kings 17–19. In contrast to Elijah’s theological submission to and physiological dependence on Yhwh, 1 Kings 20–22 dramatizes Ahab’s corresponding theological autonomy from Yhwh, leading to the material loss of life and land. Ahab’s story – interwoven with Elijah’s (see 1 Kings 21) but also remaining separate from it (1 Kings 20 and 22) – therefore pre-enacts the Exile in which the book of Kings resolves.

This volume begins by introducing the reader to a leading question at the heart of contemporary Kings research: does hope characterize the biblical book in question, or only despair? Within this frame of reference, the introduction serves as an entry point to the scholarly debates surrounding Kings’ compositional history and genre, as well as the canonical approach and agrarian hermeneutic by which the exegetical portions of the present study proceed. Such an approach provides readers with a fresh perspective on the kerygmatic contribution that the Elijah narratives (1 Kings 17–2 Kings 2) make to the overall text. Placed in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, these prophetic stories portray Yhwh’s life-restoring power under circumstances that pre-enact the removal of the Davidic monarchy and Solomonic temple – precisely the situation in which the book of Kings resolves (2 Kings 25). The Elijah narratives therefore declare that Yhwh maintains his interest in Israel’s life and land even under such conditions; in so doing, they contribute to a “life typology” in Kings that signals hope for David’s (and thus Israel’s) future in the open-ended aftermath of destruction.

Chapter 4 focuses on Elijah’s immortality, the doubling of his spirit, and Elisha’s role as Elijah’s prophetic heir in the narratives to follow. On paradigm with 1 Kings 17–19, the Elisha narratives depict Yhwh’s renewal of Israel’s land and people together. Moreover, these stories suggest that Elijah’s paradigmatic vitality – even in the prophet’s physical absence – outstrips the theological catastrophe (1 Kings 20–22) with which it contrasts. Thus, as a rhetorical extension of the prophet’s non-death portrayed in 2 Kings 1–2, 2 Kings 3–8 communicates a hope for Israel that proves crucial to the book’s overall message.

This chapter shows how the story-cycles of Elijah and Elisha use royal illness to provide a Yahwistic perspective for the political and cultic crises of the ninth century. In 1 Kgs 22:52–2 Kgs 1, Elijah uses Ahaziah’s illness as an opportunity to emphasize the superiority of Yahweh as the national god of Israel. In a similar vein, we witness in 2 Kgs 8:7–15, how Elisha uses the illness and death of Ben-Hadad to anticipate the disastrous effects of Hazael’s reign, which leads to a temporary period of hardship for the Israelites and can be interpreted as a punishment for Baal-worship. In both instances the oracles associate the king’s illness and premature death with the cultic misconduct of dynasties and people.