The Trinitarian House of David: Martin Luther's Anti-Jewish Exegesis of 2 Samuel 23:1–7

Abstract

The second book of Samuel was a neglected work in the theological, exegetical, and liturgical traditions of the Western church from the Patristic era through the Protestant Reformation. The theological developments and articulations of the early church focused on the books of Genesis, John, and the great Pauline corpus;1for example, 1 Corinthians was central to the fourth-century trinitarian debates2and Romans to the soteriological discussions of the entire western tradition.3Similarly, the book of Psalms had an enormous impact on the liturgical life of the church as well as its christological statements.4One need only cast an eye back to Augustine's numerous commentaries on the book of Genesis to understand the profound depth with which certain books of the Christian Scriptures were interpreted in the early and medieval church.5