Alter begins his introduction by introducing the Deuteronomistic influences that pervade the Book of Kings. “The Book of Kings proper exhibits an approach to politics, character, and historical causation that is quite different from the one that informs the David story…. The Deuteronomistic compiler repeatedly invokes the stipulation that there can be only one legitimate place of worship, which is the temple in Jerusalem—an idea that became firmly entrenched only with King Josiah’s reforms around 621 B.C.E., scant decades before the Babylonian exile…. Again and again, the compiler, with his overriding concern for the exclusivity of the cult in the Jerusalem temple, inveighs against both northern and southern kings in formulaic language for allowing the people to burn incense and offer sacrifice on “high places,” that is, local ritual altars…. It seems likely that a good deal of circumstantial detail about the various kings was deemed irrelevant to this narrative, encompassing four centuries of Israelite history, that is meant to expound the cumulative chain of actions that led to two nationally traumatic events, the destruction of the northern kingdom in 721 B.C.E. and, 135 years later, the destruction of its southern counterpart.”
Alter begins his textual analysis by going into detail about the Deuteronomistic interpolations in the book, beginning in 1 Kings 2:3-4, “These two relatively long verses are an unusual instance of the intervention of a Deuteronomistic editor in the dialogue of the original David story that was composed perhaps nearly four centuries before him…. The very mention of the Teaching [torah] of Moses is a hallmark of the Deuteronomist, and as phrase and concept did not yet have currency in the tenth century. The long sentences loaded with synonyms are also uncharacteristic of the author of the David story.”
In 1 Kings 3:1, Alter relates the historical political background that is often incorporated into the biblical story. Alter also includes a bit of semantic exposition, “And Solomon became son-in-law to Pharaoh. The Hebrew verb, although it involves marriage, indicates an establishment of relationship between the groom and the father of the bride. The marriage is thus politically motivated and will be the first of many such unions for Solomon in his effort to consolidate the mini-empire created by his father…. took. This ordinary verb often has the force of “marry,” as here.”
Alter describes the defining trait of Solomon, wisdom, which is evidenced repeatedly in the biblical narrative. In 1 Kings 9:2, “the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time. Solomon’s royal enterprise is framed by two revelations. Early in his reign, God appears to him at Gibeon and grants him the gift of wisdom (3:5-14). The wisdom is first manifested in the episode of the Judgment of Solomon and in his composing proverbs. His great building projects, now completed, may reflect another kind of wisdom because they consolidate his rule. Now God comes to him to tell him that the sanctity of the Temple is divinely ratified.”
Alter often informs when the biblical story conforms or contradicts the extant historical records. In 1 Kings 14:25, “Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. Finally, the biblical text gives us a Pharaoh with a name. An inscription at one entrance of a sanctuary at Karnak in fact offers a list of towns in Judah and Israel that Shishak attacked in the course of a sweeping military campaign in 926 B.C.E. Jerusalem, however, does not appear on the list. The language of the biblical text here is a little vague: Shishak “came up against Jerusalem” and “took the treasures.” This leaves open the possibility that he besieged the city without conquering it and that he extorted the treasures from Rehoboam in return for lifting the siege.”
The prophet Elijah is often cited as a biblical precursor to Jesus. In 1 Kings 17:14 and in 17:24, “The jar of flour will not go empty nor will the cruse of oil be drained. This is the point at which Elijah’s role as a miracle worker becomes explicit…. It is obviously Elijah, not Moses or Isaiah, who establishes the template for many of the stories about Jesus in the Gospels. It was also this aspect of Elijah as a miraculous and compassionate intervener on behalf of the wretched of the earth that was picked up by later Jewish folklore. His other role, as implacable reprover, was not embraced by folk-tradition…. Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth…. The two aspects of Elijah’s mission—wonder worker and prophesier-reprover—are interdependent, the former demonstrating to skeptics the authority of the latter. This pattern, which will be picked up in the stories about Jesus, does not appear in the reports about the prophets before Elijah.”
In 2 Kings 20:17, Alter again reconciles the historical record with the biblical narrative, “a time is coming when everything that is in your house and that your fathers stored up till this day will be borne off to Babylonia. This dire prophecy is presented as punishment for Hezekiah’s imprudence in exposing all his treasures to the eyes of the Babylonian visitors. Many scholars think that the episode was added over a century later in an effort to explain the despoiling of Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim in 597 B.C.E. or in the final destruction of the city in 586 B.C.E.”
Alter notes a final moment of Deuteronomistic insertion into the narrative in 2 Kings 22:8, “I have found a book of teaching. The identical designation sefer hatorah occurs in Deuteronomy 30:10…. For two centuries, the scholarly consensus, despite some dissent, has been that the found book is Deuteronomy. Although attributed to Moses, it would have been written in the reign of Josiah…. The book “found” in 621 B.C.E. was also not altogether identical with Deuteronomy as we have it, which almost certainly included some later elements, and was not edited in the form that has come down to us until the Babylonian exile. The major new emphases of the book brought to Josiah were repeated stress on the exclusivity of the cult of Jerusalem (“the place that I shall choose”) and the dire warnings of imminent disaster and exile if the people fail to fulfill its covenant with God.”
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