Book Of Kings Research Articles

The question of future hope in 2 Kgs 25.27–30 and the book’s dynastic framework in 1 Kgs 1.1–53 and 2 Kgs 11.1–20

The present study revisits the question of future hope in the Book of Kings by inquiring into appropriate intertexts for interpreting the report of Jehoiachin’s release from prison in 2 Kgs 25.27–30. As will be demonstrated, this passage shares the literary motif of ‘two contestants struggling for a throne’ (כסא‎) with both 1 Kgs 1.1–53 and 2 Kgs 11.1–20. These three accounts occupy structurally important positions within the book (beginning, climax, end) and use this motif to communicate Davidic dynastic permanence.

The Climax-Decline Pattern in the Book of Kings

Abstract The Book of Kings is the main source for reconstructing the chronology of the monarchic period in Israel, but it contains many contradictions and raises difficulties that make the reconstruction disputed to this day. The prevailing approach tends to attribute historical credibility to the biblical data, while few have suggested that some of the numbers have been deliberately manipulated to create symbolic or meaningful schemas. The purpose of the present study is to reinforce the artificiality of these numbers by presenting two cases of a »climax-decline pattern« at key points in the Book of Kings’ chronology, in which a king with the longest reign in the history of a kingdom is followed by a period of deterioration towards disaster over the same duration. If these regnal years have been reworked to incorporate them into the book’s literary design, then they may mislead the historian who wishes to use them to reconstruct a relative or absolute chronology.

Understanding the Logo and Motto of Pope Francis' Visit to Asia and Oceania from the Relationship Experience of Biblical Figures in Concerning to International Law and Relations

This paper aims to ensure that Christians can take advantage of the phenomena of globalism and localism associated with Pope Francis' visit to the Asia Pacific. The selection of Biblical figures is taken from figures who are relevant to the phenomenon of International Relations and Law. From the Old Testament is taken the experience of the relationship between the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. The relationship between the Queen and the King at that time reflects that in Old Testament times International Law was already known in accordance with the situation of that time. The figures in the New Testament were chosen by Paul. Selected verses are primarily taken from the Book of Kings I and the Acts of the Apostles. In the midst of positive and negative aspects in the phenomena of globalism and localism both in the past and present, the niche of Christianity is living with hope. Hopeful Christians are people who live by God's promises. When their lives do not go as expected, they are not simply discouraged because they believe that God continues to work. In utilizing globalism and localism, Christians have a niche in the form of living a life full of hope in the midst of ever-changing times. Events of globalization, international relations, and understanding of locality have become important inspirations for the visiting activities of religious figures in various parts of the world to realize global goodness, including Pope Francis' apostolic journey in Asian and Oceanic countries.

In Nehemiah's Footsteps? Uzziah at the Service of the Chronicler's Ideology

Uzziah ruled in Judah for many years, yet the description of his rule in the book of Kings is laconic. The book of Chronicles, on the other hand, provides an extensive description of his reign that stems from authorial ideology, theology, and processes of identity formation. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah describes a series of confrontations from four directions, with Uzziah’s battles with the Philistines, the Arab tribes, and the Ammonites being three of these fronts. The Chronicler, writing several decades after Ezra-Nehemiah, was aware of the Ezra-Nehemiah text or its narrative, and developed the figure of Uzziah as a great king, thus serving his own national, economic, ethnic, and religious goals.

Monarchy by Divine Right as per the Books of Kings in “The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosius”

The present study aims to address the issue of monarchy by divine right in The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosius, which, due to its defining role in the most important work of the Romanian Middle Ages, allows one to observe how Saint Neagoe Basarab bases his teachings on references to the Holy Scriptures and to the Old Testament in particular. Furthermore, the chosen topic allows one to also understand the specific pillars of Slavic Byzantine Eastern theological culture which Neagoe Basarab highlights authentically and originally in his remarkable work.

Toward a Better 'Hezekiah': The Literary Structuring of Isaiah 1-39

This study proposes a new structure for Isa 1-39 in its received form that brings together the observations of numerous studies concerning individual units and themes within this larger section of the book. Whereas parallels have been discerned between Isa 1-12 and Isa 13-27, here it is argued that those parallels can be found in Isa 28-39 as well. Particular attention will be paid to how the pieces of the book contribute to the reader's evolving perception of the figure of Hezekiah. The person or school who crafted the book called Isaiah initially exalts the figure of Hezekiah such that the naïve reader might be led to hope that Hezekiah was the idealised Davidic ruler of Isa 1-12. Therefore, Hezekiah's failure in Isa 39 that leads to the exile is all the more disappointing. The presentation of Hezekiah in the book called Isaiah comes into starker relief when compared to the presentations in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The Chronicler's re-telling of the Hezekiah stories points backwards to the Isaiah editors' priorities in adopting material from Kings.

An Intertextual Analysis of Jehu’s Violence in Kings and Chronicles (2 Kgs 9-10 and 2 Chr 21-24)

ABSTRACTGiven his disregard of the Northern dynasty, the Chronicler's reference to the story of Jehu's coup is presented with extreme brevity: only three verses (2 Chr 22,7-9) as against seventy-three in Kings (2 Kgs 9-10). In this article, I will try to demonstrate that this dramatic abridgment does not keep him from adopting the violent terminology used in these accounts and other violent stories in Scripture, and from applying them to our case, the set of stories bracketed by Jehoram and Joash, which parallel the chronology of the House of Omri. He does so in two ways: expanding the accounts of these kings with stories peppered by acts of violence and reworking stories from the Book of Kings by taking the tenor and terminology of violence to a higher level. Thus, Jehu's uncompromising war on the House of Ahab and the culture of Baal recurs in Chronicles in the Chronicler's war against the Judahite kings who adopted the culture of the House of Ahab.

Purpose for Elijah and Elisha in the Books of Kings

The study of 1 and 2 Kings often assumes that the division between the two books was an arbitrary one that was made about halfway between the beginning and end of the text of Kings. The investigation of this question reveals not only a rationale behind the division between the two ‘books’; it also raises the larger question of the contrasting roles played by the kings who begin and end the text, and by the prophets whose central role in the books provides hope and life. By tracing major narrative arcs across the beginning and end of 1 and 2 Kings as well as across the appearances and departures of Elijah and Elisha, the themes of physical death and spiritual life set a dramatic tone in the pages of these accounts and provide hope in the midst of judgement.

Mesopotamian Synchronistic Chronography and the Book of Kings

The Book of Kings uses a particular synchronistic framework to present the parallel histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 17. Some Ancient Near Eastern chronographic compositions (synchronistic king lists, the Neo-Babylonian chronicle, the so-called Synchronistic History) also record chronological relationships between ruler sequences in neighboring kingdoms. This paper distinguishes between synchronized dating and synchronistic compositions, offers a comparison between these compositions and the Book of Kings, and discusses aspects of the latter’s characteristics and pragmatics. The extant Mesopotamian synchronistic compositions presuppose and express a special connection between Assyria and Babylonia. It seems that a similar idea—applied to Israel and Judah—also stands behind the synchronistic composition in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 17.

Seeing Puppetry: Winter Report from New York City

Seeing Puppetry: Winter Report from New York City

تفنيد الروايات التوراتيّة الخاصّة ببدايات التواجد اليهودي "في مدينة القدس في التاريخ القديم"

Throughout the ages, the history of any country has not been subjected to forgery and distortion, as has the history of Palestine, with the city of Jerusalem at its heart, according to the whims of the researchers who dealt with it, whether they were politicians, Archaeologists, or educated, in the service of the Zionist project of the need for the Jews to return to what is they called it (the Promised Land), and the rebuilding of what they called (the Temple of Solomon). It seems that the writings of these researchers were based mainly on what was mentioned in the books of the Old Testament, especially the books that were added to the Old Testament after the death of Moses, peace be upon him, and which were codified by the priests of the Children of Israel several centuries after his death. In these books, especially the second book of Samuel and the first book of Kings, their writers baptized fabricated heroic deeds that were attributed to David and his son Solomon, peace be upon them. It was attributed to David taking possession of the city of Jerusalem and taking it as the capital of his rule, then it was attributed to Solomon that he built a temple to God in this city. But recent studies have refuted these allegations, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt that is unfounded.
 The study relied on two main approaches: the historical approach and the analytical descriptive approach, in order to show the value of refuting the narratives of the Jewish presence in the city of Jerusalem in the time of David specifically, and it proved that the beginnings of the Jewish presence in the Holy City were during the period of Persian rule of Palestine, although their presence during This period and what follows were no more than autonomy.

Ḥamza versus Rustam: Comparing theḤamzanāmawith theShāhnāma

AbstractThis paper compares theḤamzanāma(Book of Ḥamza) with theShāhnāma(Book of Kings), the two most popular works performed by the storytellers of Safavid Iran (1501–1736), focusing on their heroes, Ḥamza and Rustam, respectively. Following an overview of theḤamzanāmathat helps to identify its main intertexts, themes, and narrative elements: theShāhnāma; the Islamic Alexander tradition; andʿayyārī(trickery); the paper re-examines how Ḥamza is modelled after Rustam by looking at his epithets and narrative functions. It then turns to their differences, which are most discernible in Rustam's epithet used as the name of Ḥamza's enemy, the split between the ideals ofjawānmardī(generosity) andʿayyārī, and Ḥamza's unheroic weaknesses. This latter serves to emphasize God's compassion at his martyrdom while giving storytellers an impetus to continue their performances.

Saul and David, Israel and Judah: The Book of Samuel as Paradigmatic History

Abstract This study makes the case that within the books of Samuel-Kings as a whole, the book of Samuel presents two nested iterations of paradigmatic history, each of which anticipates the subsequent monarchic history with a distinct thematic focus. The more detailed of these two iterations—the story of Saul’s and David’s reigns in 1 Sam 9– 2 Sam 24—typologically anticipates the subsequent history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as narrated in 1 Kgs 12–2 Kgs 25. This paradigmatic “preview” of the fates of Israel and Judah is further condensed in the stories about Eli and Samuel in 1 Sam 1–8, which anticipate elements from 1 Sam 9–2 Sam 24, the book of Kings, and beyond.

Benjamin and the Anonymous Ten Tribes of Israel: A Holistic Approach to Tribal Confusions

Abstract This article weighs in on new debates about the affiliation of the tribe of Benjamin between Israel and Judah in the early monarchy. It points to two underappreciated aspects of the Hebrew Bible’s account of tribal realities in the books of Kings: the anonymity of the ten tribes attributed to Israel in 1 Kgs 11–12, and how unusual the absence of a complete and detailed account of tribal arrangements in Kings is in the context of a Primary History as a whole. It argues that both of these realities reflect a deliberate effort to obscure Benjamin’s northern origins and that, in fact, it is impossible to come up with a plausible list of ten Israelite tribes without Benjamin.

Alison G. Salvesen and Timothy Michael Law, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint

Alison G. Salvesen and Timothy Michael Law, eds. <i>The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint</i>

Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible. By Mark G. Brett

Neither ancient Israel nor Early Judaism composed political treatises, legal charters, or political commentary on history or social life. And yet, social ideals, including ideals about the construction, use, and limits of power, are woven into the fabric of the Hebrew Bible. Mark Brett has written a wide-ranging survey of the political theology of the Bible’s writers, from the monarchic period to the age of sceptical wisdom. His tools for reconstructing this ‘political theology’ are social-historical, and his presentation diachronic. The result is a comprehensive history of the competing socio-political ideologies contained in the Bible, culminating in a reflection on the ways that these ideologies have influenced the course of nations and empires even into the modern age. ‘Political theology can be understood very broadly as God-talk located in the context of multiple, often competing, perspectives on social life’, says Brett, and the oldest instances of this brand of God-talk are found in the book of Samuel. The adoption of a monarchic framework was not based on existing legal sanction but on the persuasive power of tribal elders to convince kinship groups to support the institution of a monarch. The early monarchy was governed by a law laid down by Samuel, not by the Torah of Moses. The ‘constitutional monarchy’ of Deut. 17 was still a long way off, historically speaking. Even the evaluation of the long line of Israelite and Judahite monarchs in the book of Kings was independent of deuteronomic logic. The fall of Samaria and of Jerusalem, Brett argues, were based on the principle of intergenerational punishment, a juridical perspective that was rejected in the theology of Deuteronomy (e.g. 1:39, 7:9–10). The core ideals of monarchic political theology, centralization and social justice, are ‘Yahwistic’ in Brett’s terminology, not ‘deuteronomic’.

The Temple Context for the Law in Chronicles

This paper examines how the Chronicler’s aim to promote the temple affects his presentation of the law. The books of Kings assert that Israel and its kings were obeying the law if they worshiped Yahweh alone and not in addition to foreign gods. The Chronicler, on the other hand, evaluates a king’s adherence to the law based on the king's efforts to facilitate proper worship at the temple.

Keith Bodner. The Theology of the Book of Kings. Old Testament Theology.

Keith Bodner. The Theology of the Book of Kings. Old Testament Theology.

The Land and Its Kings: 1–2 Kings

The Land and Its Kings: 1–2 Kings

Characters and Characterization in the Book of Kings, edited by Keith Bodner and Benjamin J. M. Johnson

Characters and Characterization in the Book of Kings, edited by Keith Bodner and Benjamin J. M. Johnson