Table Of ContentThe Books of Kings
Supplements
to
Vetus Testamentum
Edited by the Board of the Quarterly
h.m. barstad – r.p. gordon – a. hurvitz – g.n. knoppers
a. van der kooij – a. lemaire – c.a. newsom – h. spieckermann
j. trebolle barrera – h.g.m. williamson
Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature
Editors
craig a. evans and peter w. flint
VOLUME 129
The Books of Kings
Sources, Composition, Historiography
and Reception
Editors
André Lemaire and Baruch Halpern
Associate Editor
Matthew J. Adams
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The books of Kings : sources, composition, historiography and reception / edited by
Andre Lemaire and Baruch Halpern; associate editor, Matthew J. Adams.
p. cm. — (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum; v. 129)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17729-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Bible. O.T. Kings—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Lemaire, Andre.
II. Halpern, Baruch. III. Adams, Matthew J. (Matthew Joel)
BS1335.52.B66 2010
222’.506—dc22
2009051492
ISSN 0083-5889
ISBN 978 90 04 17729 1
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................................................. ix
Terms, Sigla, and Abbreviations ..................................................... xi
PART ONE
TEXTUAL TRADITION OF THE BOOK OF KINGS
The Septuagint in the Text History of 1–2 Kings ........................ 3
Adrian Schenker
Qumran Fragments of the Books of Kings ................................... 19
Julio Trebolle
The Text of 1–2 Kings Used by Josephus ...................................... 41
Étienne Nodet
PART TWO
KINGS AS A LITERARY WORK
Theories of the Redaction(s) of Kings ............................................ 69
Gary N. Knoppers
Characterization in Kings ................................................................ 89
Robert L. Cohn
The Literary Structure of Kings ....................................................... 107
Robert L. Cohn
The Composition of Kings ............................................................... 123
Baruch Halpern and André Lemaire
Books and Writing in Kings ............................................................ 155
Alan R. Millard
PART THREE
KINGS AND ITS NEAR EASTERN MILIEU
The Book of Kings and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography 163
Mario Liverani
vi contents
Kings and External Textual Sources: Assyrian, Babylonian
and North-West Semitic .............................................................. 185
Alan R. Millard
PART FOUR
THE PEOPLE OF KINGS
The Moabites ...................................................................................... 205
Paul-Eugène Dion and P. M. Michèle Daviau
Edom and the Edomites ................................................................... 225
André Lemaire
Ammonites and the Books of Kings .............................................. 245
Walter E. Aufrecht
Hiram of Tyre and Solomon ........................................................... 251
Edward Lipiński
The Aramaeans of Syria: Some Considerations on Their Origin
and Material Culture .................................................................... 273
Hélène Sader
Philistines in the Books of Kings .................................................... 301
Seymour Gitin
External Textual Sources – Neo-Hittite States ............................. 365
Kenneth A. Kitchen
External Textual Sources – Egypt ................................................... 369
Kenneth A. Kitchen
External Textual Sources – Early Arabia ....................................... 381
Kenneth A. Kitchen
PART FIVE
DETAILED ISSUES OF KINGS
“The Prophets” – References to Generic Prophets and Their
Role in the Construction of the Image of the “Prophets of
Old” within the Postmonarchic Readership(s) of the Books
of Kings ........................................................................................... 387
Ehud Ben Zvi
Priesthood and the Development of Cult in the Books of Kings 401
Wolfgang Zwickel
contents vii
Dates and Calendars in Kings ......................................................... 427
Gershon Galil
Law in Kings ....................................................................................... 445
Raymond Westbrook
Officialdom and Society in the Book of Kings: The Social
Relevance of the State ................................................................... 467
Izabela Eph‘al-Jaruzelska
Institutions of Trade in 1 and 2 Kings .......................................... 501
Daniel M. Master
Archaeology and the Question of Sources in Kings .................... 517
William G. Dever
PART SIX
RECEPTION IN JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY
Kings in Josephus .............................................................................. 541
Silvia Castelli
The Books of Kings in the New Testament and the Apostolic
Fathers ............................................................................................. 561
Magnus Zetterholm
Elijah and the Books of Kings in Rabbinic Literature ................ 585
Karin Hedner-Zetterholm
Cumulative Bibliography .................................................................. 607
Indices
Selected Subject Index .................................................................. 667
Biblical Source Index .................................................................... 680
Author Index .................................................................................. 700
PREFACE
The Books of Kings present one of the most difficult units for analysis
in all of the Hebrew Bible. Like the Pentateuch, they have multiple
sources and a complex history of assembly. Unlike the Pentateuch,
however, they lack, for the most part, anything even remotely resembling
ongoing parallel narrative sources by which the history of composition
may in some measure be controlled. In addition, Kings treats a truly
international cast of agents in contexts where, for the most part, the
authenticity of the characters and of their contact with one another
can be confirmed or at the least reasonably inferred. There is history
in the book, as well as theology and judgments and indeed a whole
historiographic theory. Most scholars have for more than a century
regarded Kings as the culmination of a history beginning either with
Joshua or with Deuteronomy.
Kings also presents perhaps the most varied cast of characters in the
Hebrew Bible. These include individuals, both named and unnamed,
and classes of human beings, from foreign kings and functionaries and
neighbors to commoners in Judah, whose graves are desecrated toward
the end of the books. In the circumstances, the scope for thematic and
substantive analysis is wider than in most other cases. This variety is
reflected in the content of the present collection.
We have attempted to arrange coverage of detailed topics, including
the books’ reception and the roles of the characters in it, essentially
alien to other Biblical works. Even the closest parallel, Chronicles, is
a mere epigone when it comes to the complexity of the source and
authorial layering as well as the detail furnished in the book. Non-
synoptic elements of Chronicles certainly offer an interesting subject
in themselves. Yet, for all its advantages in lateness and exposure to a
wider historiographic tradition, Chronicles remains far more simple
and less intellectually challenging than Kings, more dogmatic and less
supple, more a comic-book version, however self-aware, of a work
whose existence it presupposes.
The editors wish to express their gratitude, thus, to the contributors
to this volume, whose work both exposes and evokes the subtleties
and the vast complexity of its subject. We trust that readers will find
the information included in the text of value, and that the authors’
