Samuel at the Threshold

In this book, Graeme Auld brings together his work relating to Samuel and the Former Prophets in an invaluable single volume. Including 'Prophets through the Looking Glass', which has been described as marking a paradigm shift in our thinking about the Bible's 'writing prophets', and which led the author to equally novel proposals about biblical narrative, the first part of this volume traces the route through the looking glass to his radical argument in Kings without Privilege (1994). The apparently straightforward, but actually controversial, claim is defended that the main source of the biblical books of Samuel-Kings and of Chronicles was simply the material common to both. The major portion of this volume of collected papers explores some of the fresh perspectives opened for reading the present books of Samuel, the books from Joshua to Kings as a whole, and the Pentateuch.

Graeme Auld is Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Contents: Preview: Introduction; The former prophets. Looking through the glass: Prophets and prophecy in Jeremiah and Kings; Prophets through the looking glass: between writings and Moses; Gideon: hacking at the heart of the Old Testament; Amos and apocalyptic: vision, prophecy, revelation; The making of David and Goliath; Solomon at Gibeon: history glimpsed; Vision of a new future?; Solomon and the Deuteronomists; Prophets shared - but recycled; What was the main source of the Books of Chronicles?; What if the chronicler did use the Deuteronomistic history?. A Further View: Re-reading Samuel (historically): 'Etwas mehr Nichtwissen'; History - interpretation - theology: issues in biblical religion; From king to prophet in Samuel and Kings; Bearing the burden of David's guilt; The Deuteronomists and the former prophets, or what makes the former prophets Deuteronomistic?; The Deuteronomists between history and theology; Samuel and Genesis: some questions of John Van Seters' 'Yahwist'; Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph; Leviticus at the heart of the Pentateuch?; Leviticus: after Exodus and before Numbers; Samuel, Numbers and the Yahwist-question; Counting sheep, sins, and sour grapes: the primacy of the primary history?. Bibliography; Indexes.