Two Nations Under God The Deuteronomistic History Of Solomon And The Dual Monarchies

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- The Sins of Jeroboam -- Jeroboam, Prophecy, and Josiah -- The Fall of Jeroboam -- Innovation as Renovation: Josiah and 'The Scroll of the Torah ' -- Josiah's Reforms: Recovering The Davidic-Solomonic Kingdom -- Cult and Kingdom: The Deuteronomistic Presentation of the Monarchy -- Bibliography -- Index of Citations -- Index of Authors.

The figure of King Solomon is central to our understanding of the history of Israel and Judah. This volume of collected articles brings the reader up-to-date with the latest scholarship in the field. The work consists of twenty-four chapters and provides important studies in the historical approach to Solomon and to 10th century B.C.E. Judah and Israel with archaeological surveys of the neighboring regions, sociological surveys, and literary readings of the biblical texts. With suggestions for further research and indexes.

A comprehensive treatment of the history and components of Kings represents a departure from standard single-authored commentaries on it. Focusing on composition, sources, literary techniques, peoples and characters in the text, and on later transmission and reception of it affords students of the Books with a new resource, and sound bibliography.

An old prophet of Bethel lies to the man of God from Judah, only to lead him to disobey God’s command and to die as a result. The man of God is killed for disobedience, while the old prophet lives on and eventually even benefits from the death (2 Kgs 23:18). Why did God punish his prophet who was deceived, not the one who deceived? The text keeps silent about this as well as about the motive of the old prophet’s lying. This strange story takes up a big portion of the Jeroboam narrative (1 Kgs 11–14). For what purpose would the narrator have included the story in his coverage of Israel’s history during the reign of King Jeroboam? Does this story have any relevance to the rise and fall of the first king of the northern kingdom? If so, how? As it untangles the difficult details of the story, this book reveals the narrator’s perspective on the way God intervened in the history of Israel and focuses on the suffering that God’s prophets sometimes had to undergo as bearers of God’s words.