Narrative Art And Poetry In The Books Of Samuel Vow And Desire I Sam 1 12

Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel is the vast undertaking to interpret all the material in Samuel. Everything that the text has to offer can only be understood and appreciated to the full, and its interpretation can only lay claim to full validity by means of an integral view. Therefore the author has developed a textual model which regards and covers the composition of the Samuel books as a hierarchy of twelve levels. The Hebrew text is the long section which inextricably interweaves the demise of king Saul and the rise of David into a subtle and complicated dialectic of election and rejection. The author's model of the 'semiotic scale' enables him to chart the different levels of the textual hierarchy and exactly determine the weight and range of action of each formal fact within the whole.

Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel is the vast undertaking to interpret all the material in Samuel. Everything that the text has to offer can only be understood and appreciated to the full, and its interpretation can only lay claim to full validity by means of an integral view. Therefore the author has developed a textual model which regards and covers the composition of the Samuel books as a hierarchy of twelve levels. This is the fourth and final volume of the author’s integrative reading of the Samuel material in its entirety. Vow and Desire turns to the beginning of First Samuel and describes chapters 1-12. They contain the thematic basis of the whole composition by relating the crucial transition between two periods. The Judges period, represented by Eli and Samuel, is drawing to a close and the new order shows us the prophet Samuel who finds himself forced to anoint Saul as king, and thus to inaugurate the monarchy.

Is it ever right to lie? Does the Bible allow us to deceive? These are perennial questions that have been discussed and debated by theologians for centuries with little consensus. Entering this discussion, Just Deceivers provides a fresh analysis of thisimportant topic through a comprehensive examination of the motif of deception in the books of Samuel. While many studies have explored deception in other Old Testament texts-especially the patriarchal narratives of Genesis-and a few articles have initiated examination of this motif in Samuel, Just Deceivers builds upon this groundwork and offers an exhaustive treatment of this theme in an important portion of the Hebrew Bible. Newkirk takes the reader through the books of Samuel, investigating every occurrence of deception in the narrative and exploring how the author depicts these various acts of deception, and then synthesises the results to offer an exegetically based theology of deception. In so doing, this study both challenges commonly held views concerning the Bible's stance on falsehood and illustrates the importance of attending to the sophisticated literary character of biblical narrative.

Much of the drama, theological paradox, and interpretive interest in the Book of Samuel derives from instances of God's violence in the story. The beginnings of Israel's monarchy are interwoven with God's violent rejection of the houses of Eli and of Saul, deaths connected to the Ark of the Covenant, and the outworking of divine retribution after David's violent appropriation of Bathsheba as his wife. Whilst divine violence may act as a deterrent for violent transgression, it can also be used as a model or justification for human violence, whether in the early monarchic rule of Ancient Israel, or in crises of our contemporary age. In Divine Violence in the Book of Samuel, Rachelle Gilmour explores these narratives of divine violence from ethical, literary, and political perspectives, in dialogue with the thought of Immanuel Kant, Martha Nussbaum and Walter Benjamin. She addresses such questions as: Is the God of Samuel a capricious God with a troubling dark side? Is punishment for sin the only justifiable violence in these narratives? Why does God continue to punish those already declared forgiven? What is the role of God's emotions in acts of divine violence? In what political contexts might narratives of divine violence against God's own kings, and God's own people have arisen? The result is a fresh commentary on the dynamics of transgression, punishment, and their upheavals in the book of Samuel. Gilmour offers a sensitive portrayal of God's literary characterization, with a focus on divine emotion and its effects. By identifying possible political contexts in which the narratives arose, God's violence is further illumined through its relation to human violence, northern and southern monarchic ideology, and Judah's experience of the Babylonian exile.

This book offers a synchronic exegesis of Saul's night visit to the witch of En-Dor (1 Sam 28:3-25), focussing on the web of repetitions of visual elements, of symbols, of sounds, of entire scenes, and of keywords. Kent shows how an artistry of repetition and non-repetition helps to build characterization, plot, and structure, as well as prophetic fulfilments, foreshadowing, and inter-textual warnings. In his argument Kent draws on theory from the study of narrative film and other areas of criticism to devise new tools for the practice of biblical exegesis. With new techniques, new questions arise that promise to keep the Hebrew Bible at the centre of contemporary theological study.

This synchronic study of the books of Samuel examines the multifaceted character of David. His is a complex tale, seemingly designed to explore the human dimension of a traditional motif: divine election and rejection. Through speeches and actions, David is revealed as a man who never quite understands his fate. Why has Saul been rejected and why is David not rejected? If Saul sinned, David sinned boldly. The man, David, through poetic soliloquies (2 Sam. 1.19-27; 22.2-51; 23.1b-7), explores this question.

David and Goliath, the call of Samuel, the witch of Endor, David and Bathsheba — such biblical stories are well known. But the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, where they are recorded, are among the most difficult books in the Bible. The Hebrew text is widely considered corrupt and sometimes even unintelligible. The social and religious customs are strange and seem to diverge from the tradition of Moses. In this first part of an ambitious two-volume commentary on the books of Samuel, David Toshio Tsumura sheds considerable light on the background of 1 Samuel, looking carefully at the Philistine and Canaanite cultures, as he untangles the difficult Hebrew text.

Scholarly study of Samuel continues to wrestle with how we interpret this pivotal text. Even such basic matters as the question of what kind of literature it is remain unresolved while older questions such as the nature of its text and sources are debated anew in the light of material from Qumran and of current approaches to Hebrew narrative. Recognizing the importance of questions such as these, David Firth explores and introduces fresh ways of reading Samuel as a unified and yet complex text, which displays high levels both of literary artistry and of theological commitment. Although some stories in the books of Samuel are well known, and in the case of David and Goliath even proverbial, much of the content of these books is strange to modern readers. It is a story about a woman wanting a child, for example, that relates the beginnings of monarchy within Israel. Even the question of the monarchy is problematic, for we are introduced to not one royal family but two-those of Saul and David. David is ultimately shown to be the king chosen by God, yet by the end of the book he is only just managing to hold on to the kingdom as it is nearly torn from him by rivalries within his family. These arresting stories are perplexing, for Samuel's writers seldom tell us how to read and interpret them. Firth presents these complex and fascinating stories as part of a bigger picture, enabling students to chart their way through the literary and historical issues of the Samuel narrative. Firth addresses issues of historicity, sources, date and authorship, as well as -- crucially -- appreciating the text as a literary whole.