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The redaction history of kings is rarely discussed without also addressing the redaction history of other books in the Former Prophet or, more broadly, other books in the Enneateuch. That this is so reflects some basic facts. First, as the MT and the Versions readily attest, the book of kings continues the narratives that conclude the book of Samuel introduces the monarchy of Saul and David and the book of the Kings begins with the story of David’s final years and the rise of Solomon. Indeed, the title of 1 and Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings in the LXX bear witness to this narrative unity. Second, some of the characteristic vocabulary, style, and themes found in earlier books, especially those found in Deuteronomy, are also found in Kings. Third, the writers of Kings cite specific earlier passages and themes from Samuel, such as the citation of and allusions to the Davidic promises (2 Sam 7), in their own work. Forth, the Deuteronomistically-worded speeches, prayers, and summarizing reflections that orchestrate the transitions between major epochs within the monarchy are also found in certain books that precede Kings in the Hebrew canon (Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel). [1] Fifth, certain motifs, such as the prophecy-fulfillment schema that operates on both short-range and long-range levels, tie Kings to the books that precede it in the Hebrew canon. [2]

 

Over the past four decades scholars have taken divergent paths in explaining the redaction history of Kings and the rest of the Former Prophets (sources, blocks, layers, books, interpolations, glosses, or some combination thereof). Whatever the individual case, most recent studies view the compositional history of the book of the Kings as a much longer and more complicated process than Noth imagined some six decades ago. Scholars generally recognize a rich variety of theological commentary within the work. Because this diversity of themes extends to Deuteronomistic compositions (speeches, prayers, summarizing reflections), one cannot attribute all of the diversity found within the book of Kings to the heterogeneous sources that a single Deuteronomist incorporated, but did not rewrite, within his larger work. The thematic diversity extends to Deuteronomistic commentary itself.

Rather than thinking of the primary composition of Kings as the brilliant work of a single individual living in the Neo-Babylonian era, most current scholars think of this composition as developing by stages over a significant period of time. Seen from this perspective, the individuals (or groups) responsible for the writing of Kings reflected a living tradition that repeatedly adapted to new challenges and new settings. At this point, certain questions emerge in the discussion as scholars disagree avidly about a variety of important issues: how many changes took place with the Deuteronomistic tradition, how long a process this entailed, the original length and nature of a literary work, the social contexts of the work (s), the amount of heterogeneity within the work, and how many different writers participated in the development of the writing. Looking at developments within the past several decades, one can say both that the old order is passing away and that the new order is much more complex.

Among biblical books Kings is not often celebrated for its literary qualities. Although it includes some finely constructed stories and story cycles, the book as a whole has mostly elicited commentaries that utilize it to reconstruct Israelite history. Indeed, Kings’ use and citation of sources, selectivity of material, and interpretation of events have won it due acknowledgement as one of the first real works of history writing. [3] Yet Kings’ rhetoric of historicity need not prevent us from recognizing the creative choices and skills of its authors and editors. In fact that rhetoric itself is a literary strategy with which its writers seek to authenticate various traditions and claims by enveloping them in an historical framework.

More than any other biblical book Kings bears explicitly the marks of its author. While the omniscient narrator of much biblical prose stays in the background, the narrator in Kings tips his hand in a number of ways. By making continual reference to his sources (e.g., Annals of Salomon [1 Kgs 11:41]; Annals of the Kings of Judah; Annals of the Kings of Israel), the narrator calls attention to the novum of his information by consulting those sources. Moreover, the narrator arrogates to himself the repeated judgment that events fulfill past prophecies. In addition, he offers a comparative evaluation of each king of Israel and Judah frequently without data to back it up; compared to other biblical narrators he wields a heavy hand.

That hand also appears in the complex method of organization that is the most obvious key to the structure of the book. After Solomon’s kingdom, upon his death, divides into to parts, the text synchronizes their histories by systematically shifting between them. The accession of each king is dated by the regnal year of his order contemporary, the text shifts back to the latter’s kingdom to pick up the reign of his successor. If not, the text proceeds with the former’s successors still dated by the regnal year of the still living, longer reigning, contemporary. This system results in a back and forth alternation between the story of Israel and the story of Judah until Israel’s demise permits a focus on Judah alone.

Yet as thorough-going and consistent as this structuring technique is, it is not the only and not necessarily the most important structural feature of the book. In a manifestly composite work like Kings the quest for a single unambiguous structure is probably futile. Better is the approach of Richard Nelson who finds in Kings “a complicated network of overlapping patterns.”[4] Among these, in addition to the chronological synchronization of reigns, Nelson briefly discusses parataxis, analogy, prophecy and its fulfillment, the editorial perspective on each king, and apostasy and refrain, and thematic links. These various patterns, perhaps having entered the book at different points in the history of is composition, work together and sometimes in tension with each other to create its thick intertextual quality.

Before examining any of these patterns in detail, however, let us look at the book as a whole to see how its content alone offers the most basic view of its structure. Much of the book is comprised of story sequences or cycles that revolve around particular kings, prophets, or movements. In his commentary on 1 Kings, Jerome Walsh divides the book into the stories of Solomon (1-11), Jeroboam (11:26-14:20), Elijah (17-19), and Ahab (20:1-22:40).[5] Although chapters 14:21-16:34 and 22:41-53, which both speed through the reigns of unremarkable kings of Israel and Judah, are omitted from this breakdown, the literary units of each of the major sections show a clear focus on a single figure. So even if David is the first concern of “the Solomon story” and Ahab appears in “the Elijah story” and vice versa, Walsh successfully demonstrates how those appearances are subordinated to the presentation of the careers of the main figures. The organization of the narrative into four major “biographical” complexes provides a first reading of the structure of 1 Kings. The narrative blocs of 2 Kings are somewhat more difficult to parse out; most commentaries simply divide the book by the reigns of the kings. A few kings – Jehu, Hezekiah, and Josiah – are the subjects of short narrative cycles, but these cannot constitute the primary sections of the book given its aim to cover the reigns of all of the kings. The first section is clearly the story of Elisha (1:1-8:6); he is the main character in all but the first episode, and in the last episode the king asks Gehazi to recite an account of Elisha’s great deeds as if his career were ever (8:4). Next come tree blocs distinguished by theme: revolutions and their consequences in Aram, Israel, and Judah (8:7-13:25); turmoil and tragedy for Israel (14-17); renewal and catastrophe for Judah (18-25). [6] The second section is framed by Elisha’s appearances at the beginning and the end, but this Elisha is less a wonder-worker than a maker of revolutions. The third section, though still alternating between North and South, contrasts the stability in Judah with the deterioration and, finally, destruction of Israel. And the last bloc both encompasses the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah and accounts for Judah’s fall.

Prophecy plays the most central role in the center of Kings, the period of the Omride dynasty. Here the stories of Elijah and Elisha dominate and overshadow the careers of the kings who are their contemporaries. The primacy of the prophetic word in directing the action in Kings is given special structural representation in the story of Elisha’s inheriting, both literally and figuratively, the prophetic mantle of Elijah (2 Kgs 2). This tale comes not only at the very center of the book of Kings but also outside the reigns of any kings. The summary of the reign of Ahaziah has concluded (2 Kgs 1:17-18) and that of Jehoram has not yet begun (2 Kgs 3:1-3). In the time outside of royal time, the only prophetic succession in the Bible takes place. This placement signals the independence of the prophetic word and mission from the royal rhythm.

The fundamental structural dynamics of Kings, then, is a product of the intersection or, better, collision of two very different views of the order of history. On the one hand, the regnal summary pattern and alternation between North and South represents an evenhanded, workmanlike effort at more or less simultaneous coverage of the course of events in two kingdoms viewed still as one people. The rise and fall of kings and dynasties is explicable; royal faithfulness or non-faithfulness to Yhwh is the key to the explanation. On the other hand, by means of the prophecy-fulfillment pattern the unpredictable and unanticipated word of Yhwh intrudes into history. Without warning Ahijah of Shiloh and Elijah of Gilead burst on the scene, challenging kings and overturning dynasties. In Hezekiiah’s moment of despair, Isaiah offers comfort; In Josiah’s time of mourning, Huldah confirms his worst fears. In its appearance, sudden or sought, the prophetic word exposes Yhwh as the real force behind human history. The human rhythm of the death and accession of kings must march to the beat of the divine rhythm of prophecy.

The other overlapping structural patterns in the book of Kings may all be classified as forms of repetition: verbal, scenic, and thematic. In more-or-less subtle ways these repetitions help to unify the book by creating analogies between separated and distinct elements. [7] They invite comparison and contrast that mutually illuminate those elements. And since repetition is rarely exact, variation demands explanation. Take the most prevalent example of verbal repetition, the formulaic openings and closings of king’s reigns. The narrator castigates nearly every king of Israel fir following in the footsteps of Jeroboam or not departing form the sins of Jeroboam. In the case of Ahaziah, son of Ahab, however, the narrator adds the charge that he “followed in the footsteps of his father and his mother” (1Kgs 22:53), referring to Ahab and Jezebel.

Much of the verbal repetition is language usually identified as Deuteronomistic, though that identification does not necessarily speak to its structural function. The indictment against Israel explaining its exile (2 Kgs 17:7-18) echoes language from the account of the origins of Israel in the era of Jeroboam. Interestingly, though, except for the reference of Jeroboam’s golden calves (v.16; cf.1Kings 12:28-29), is Judah’s offenses under Rehoboam that are repeated in the charge against Israel. That Israel “followed the customs of the nations which the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites” (1Kgs 17:8) and “set up pillars and sacred posts for themselves on every lofty hill and under every leafy tree” (v.10) recalls the exact acts attributed to Rehoboam (1Kgs 14:23-24). The repetition ties the beginning of the divided monarchy to its end and links Judah to the fate now befalling Israel.

A second level of repetition is scenic. Quite a number of episodes are echoed in subsequent analogous episodes. There are two stories, for example, of two mothers and their sons (1Kgs 3:16-28; 2Kgs 6:26-31). Jehoram king of Israel is implicitly contrasted to the wisdom of Salomon. Closer in subject and consequence are the murder of the second Baalist queen, Athalish (2Kgs 11:13-16) that follows seven years but only two chapters after the murder of the first, Jezebel (2Kgs 9:30-37). Another alnalogy comparison between Jehoash and Josiah, both child-kings who initiate repair of the Jerusalem temple and see to it that the workers are prophecy compensated (2Kgs 12:5-16; 22:3-7). And tightly network of analogies links to Elijah and Elisha.

Finally, thematic repetition connects various narratives in Kings. Rather than appearing only at crucial junctures of the book these themes are sounded now and then, more or less, and are expressed in various literary forms. Though they may not be consistent throughout the book, they do contribute to an impression of unity. The major two themes frequently emphasized in the scholarship of Kings actually oppose each other: Yhwh’s faithfulness to his promise to David of an eternal dynasty; and the faithfulness of kings and people bringing on the fall of Samaria and Jerusalem. [8] Related to the theme of the dire consequences of faithfulness are the twin notion that the only legitimate form of worship is of Yhwh in Jerusalem and those treaties with foreign nations and marriages with their princesses lead to apostasy.[9] Though Jeroboam’s break with the house of David was divinely mandate, it becomes his original sin in the last analysis (2 Kgs 17:21) and his erection of the golden calves only compound the apostasy. Foreign women and their gods corrupt Solomon, Ahab of Israel, Joram of Judah (2Kgs 8:18) and Ahaziah of Judah (2Kgs 8:27), while foreign alliances and worship at high places gound negative evaluations of many kings of Judah (e.g., 1Kgs 22:44; 2Kgs 12:4; 14:4; 15:4; 16:4, 7-17). None of these related themes alone makes a great impression, but together they implicate many of narratives of Kings in a loose pattern of apostasy, reform, repentance, and judgment.
 

The writers if the Books of Kings expected their work to be read and their readers to be aware of other books, perhaps, even to be able to gain access to them. One book has a role in the history which Kings relates, the book found in the Temple in the reign of king Josiah, ‘the book of the law,’ (2 Kgs 22:8,11) which, identified as ‘the book of the covenant,’ was read to the people (2Kgs 23:2). The identity of the book is irrelevant here; its presence is the notable fact. The only other documents which appear in Kings are the letters exchanged by Solomon and Hiram of Tyre (1Kgs 5: 1-9), those sent by Jehu to Israelite officials (2Kgs 10:1, 2, 6), by the king of Damascus to the king of Israel (2 Kgs 5:5), by Sennacherib and by Moredach-baladan to Hezekiah (2Kgs 19:14, with the contents in 10-13; 20:12) and the letter Jezebel sent to elders of Jezreel concerning Naboth (1Kgs 21:8-10).

Scribes figured among the high officers of the Jerusalem court: Elihoreph and Ahijah in Solomon’s reign (sons of David’s scribe, Shisha) – 1Kgs 4:3 (cf. 2 Sam 20:25); an unnamed man in Jehoash’s court – 2Kgs 12:10; Shebna in Hezekiah’s court – 2Kgs 18:18, 37; 19:2; Shaphan in Josiah’s court – 2 Kgs 22:3, 8, 9, 10, 12; an unnamed Judaean military officer at the fall of Jerusalem – 2Kgs 25:19. Their presence implies that they were integral to the administration. That only official scribes at the central court are mentioned is a natural consequence of the contents of Kings; little is said about life in the towns and villages or the functions of local officials and craftsmen. These books and letters and scribes occur within the course of the narrative without any suggestion that they are unusual. As for most of the Bible, the knowledge and use of writing are assumed as normal in the levels of society where the references place them. None of the texts named in Kings is extant today, so the question arises, ‘Did those books and documents really exist, or are they fictions of the writers of Kings?’[10]

There is a trend in scholarship to treat them as imaginary. Among the reasons advanced is the argument that Judah did not become a state until late in the 8th c. BCE and so literary compositions would not have existed earlier there. The definition of a state, however, is a theoretical one, rather than one derived from known situations of the ancient Near East. It relies upon the fulfillment of certain predetermined criteria by the material remains, as stated in the work cited as basic. [11] Regrettably, the selection of material remains made there, which, it is argued, shows that Judah only achieved ‘statehood’ sometime after 750 BCE, is very incomplete an its analysis is severely flawed. The Hebrew epigraphic remains from Judah alleged to support that conclusion are presented in a partial way, very incomplete even at the time the study was written, leading to a skewed result. The conclusions of the work do not deserve the respect they have been accorded; they do not deserve to be treated seriously. [12] In fact, the idea of ‘state’ is not known in the ancient Near East. The ‘State’ of Israel is a modern concept; ‘kingdom’ was the term applied to ancient political entity cannot determine whether or not writing and literature were current there. Only thorough examination of all the epigraphic remains and the circumstantial evidence can permit a well-based conclusion to be drawn.

It is certainly true hat far more writing is attested in Judah from the days of Ahaz to the fall of Jerusalem than for earlier reigns. For the 7th c. BCE the recovery of ostraca from a considerable number of small sites, military garrisons and settlements well away from Jerusalem, is evidence for the presence of someone who could read, at least, in those places.[13] The use of the seals in that period, engraved only with names and patronyms of their owners, also suggests a wide range of functionaries who could distinguish their names on the seals from those of others. In assessing the smaller of examples of Hebrew writing form the earlier period, weight should be given to the role of archaeological accident before any assertion may be made that writing was very much less current then, restricted to the royal and temple circles. [14] The number of earlier levels of archaeological sites excavated is fewer and, in several cases, the amount of material of any sort recovered from the ninth and tenth centuries is much less than that from the eighth and seventh centuries. It is worth nothing the analogy which may be drawn with the situation in Late Bronze Age Canaan. There the work of scribes writing in cuneiform on clay tablets at several towns is evident from the El-Amarna letters, yet no tablets have been found in Late Bronze Age levels at several of those places, and where texts have been found they are few. Those that have been recovered include pedagogic compilations and one literary text, as well as administrative documents, legal deeds and letters. [15] Yet those scribes were working with a more durable writing material than the papyrus or leather of their Iron Age counterparts. Beside those trained in Babylonian tradition, there were Egyptian scribes at work in Canaan, both creating compositions to be carved on pharaonic monuments on stone and working in administrative roles, usually writing on papyrus, occasionally on sherds, as a small number of hieratic ostraca testify. Plainly, very much more writing was being done, and at many more places, than is now visible, and that was a practice continuing from the Middle Bronze Age, from which far fewer texts survive. [16] There are sufficient specimens of writing in the Holy Land to demonstrate that it was practiced without interruption, using the alphabet bequeathed by the Canaanites, from the Late Bronze Age into the Iron Age. [17]

Almost any document of more than passing worth will have been written on sheets or rolls of papyrus or leather or on wooden boards coated with wax, and so will not survive, unless the circumstances are exceptional. Ironically, it is ostraca and graffiti which do survive, although they are the ephemeral texts which were not intended to be kept, a situation well illustrated by comparing the 5th c. BCE papyri from Elephantine with the related ostraca (see CoS 3.116-32, 141-98, 207-18). While they do not in themselves give evidence for the writing of more elaborate, literary texts, those ephemeral writings are unlikely to have been penned by clerks entirely ignorant of wider uses of writing. It is noteworthy that wherever and whenever scribal activity is adequately attested in the ancient Near East, administrative and clerical documents are almost always accompanied by literary texts of some sort.
 
If, in the 9th c. BCE, a scribe in Judah’s neighboring kingdom of Moab could compose the text of the Moabite Stone, in two styles, one for the military narrative and one for the building works, another scribe in an Aramean kingdom, perhaps Damascus, could compose the narrative of the Tel Dan Stele, and yet another could put into writing the account of visions received by Baalam son of Beor and then someone have it copied on the wall of a building at Tell Deir ‘Alla in the Jordan Valley, it is hard to suppose nothing of the sort was possible in Judah. Moreover, none of those texts exhibits signs of experimentation that might show they were the first or only attempts at narrative writing in their areas. The absence of actual examples does not support the assumption that books did not exist in Judah prior to the late 8th c. BCE, nor that people could not compose narrative accounts of their times. [18]

Careful surveys of the cross-references between Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian sources and the Books of Kings demonstrate how harmonious they are. The evidence can be seen in the essays on ‘External Sources’ in this volume. [19] It is remarkable that there is so close a correlation between the documents form opposing sides with different cultures and different languages. Had the writers of Kings relied wholly upon ‘traditions sometimes haphazardly gathered from the past’, [20]or the orally transmitted memories from various informants and read a few brief chronicles, as some suppose, the fact that they arranged their information so correctly long after the events would be extraordinary. Hey not only have the names of the kings of Assyria and Babylonia accurately rendered and rightly synchronized with those of the kings of Israel and Judah, but also with certain pharaohs, rulers of Damascus and Mesha of Moab.

On two of the occasions when the compilers of Kings note information contained in the ‘sources’ to which they refer their readers, the information can be expanded as a result of archaeological discoveries. In Kgs 22:39, the deeds of Ahab recorded in ‘the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel’ include the ‘ivory house’ which he built. Although its location is not given, the recovery of ivory carvings form the site of the Israelite palace at Samaria discloses the meaning of the expression and gives substance to it. There is debate over the dating of the ivories: they may be later than the time of Ahab, but they show that the fashion reported in Kings was followed in the place where he had lived. [21] The report of Hezekiah’s reign notes that the rest of his deeds contained in ‘the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah’ told how ‘he made the pool and the conduit and brought water to the city’ (2Kgs 20:20). This work has long been identified with the ‘Pool of Siloam’ and the tunnel that leads water to it from the Gihon Spring. The paleography of the ‘Siloam Tunnel inscription’, which describes the work, fits well with the end of the 8th c. BCE and recent geophysical testing of plaster lining the tunnel appears to confirm that date for the boring. [22] In both instances, therefore, ‘the chronicles’ the writers of Kings adduce can be seen to have preserved well-founded information, thus strengthening the case for the reality of those sources as written compilations.

Where Kings can be tested against ancient records contemporary, or nearly contemporary, with the events both sources describe, the biblical information proves to be reliable. When Kings is the unique record of affairs, it should not be doubted without very strong evidence. There can be little doubt that the Books of Kings are drawn from earlier books, perhaps even running chronicles, containing extensive narratives of the history of Israel and Judah.
 

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[1] The lXX includes the book of Ruth in the historical books after Judges and before 1 Samuel, probably because the story of Ruth is situated within the era of Judges (Ruth 1:1).

[2] H. Weippert, “Geschichten and Geschichte: Verheissung and Erfullung im deoteronomistischen Geschichtswerk,” in J. A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume: Leuven, 1989 (1991) 116-31 [translated in G. N. Knoppers and J. G. Mc Conville (eds.), reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deoteronomistic History (SBTS8; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2000)].

[3] See, for instance, b. Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988) 207-235.

[4] R. Nelson, First and Second Kings (Louisville: John Knox, 1987) 8.

[5] J. T. Walsh, 1 Kings (Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996).

[6] R. L. Cohn, 2 Kings (Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000).

[7] On the levels of repetition in Biblical narrative see M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) 365-66.

[8] A brief discussion of themes is found in R. R. Wilson, “Unity and Diversity in the Book of Kings,” in S. M. Olyan and R. C. Culley (eds.), “A Wise and Discerning Mind”: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long (Brown Judaic Studies, 325; Providence: Brown University, 2000) 306-310.

[9] Wilson, “Unity and Diversity in the Book of Kings,” 308-309.

[10] Andre Lemaire and Baruch Helpen, The Books of Kings – Sources, composition, Historiography and Reception (Leiden, Boston 2010), p.155-156

[11] D. W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archaeo-logical Approach (Sheffield: Almond Press & Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).

[12] See A. Lemaire’s review, JAOS 112 (1992) 707-08 and the notice in the Book List if the Society for Old Testament Study (1992) 34-35.

[13] For list of sites and there locations, see G. I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, Corpus and Concordance, I, II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 2004) Xxiii-XXVi, Xvii-XiX; J. Renz and W. Rollig. Handhuch der althebraischen Epigraphik I (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgeselechaft, 1995) 13-17.

[14] As N. Na’aman concluded, ‘’Sources and Composition in the History of Solomon,’ in L. K. Handy (ed.), The Age of Solomon. Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium (SHANE, XI; Leiden; Brill, 1997) 56-80, see 58-61. Contrast A. R. Millard, “The knowledge of Writing in Iron Age Palestine,” Tyndale Bulletin 46.2 (1995) 207-17.

[15] See W. Horowitz, T. Oshima, S. Sanders, Cuneiform in Canaan. Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006).

[16] See A. R. Millard, “The Knowledge of Writing in Late Bronze Age Palestine” in K. van Lerberghe, G. Voet (eds.), Languages and Cultures in Contact. At the Cross roads of Cilvilizations in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm. Proceedings of the 42th RAI (Leuven: Peeters, 1999) 317-26, with maps.

[17] Note the bronze arrowheads bearing their owner’s names dated to the 11th and early 10th centuries BCE, F. M. Cross, “The Arrow of Suwar, Retainer of ‘Abday’” Eretz Israel 25 (1996) 9*-7* [= F. M. Cross, “The Arrow of Suwar, Retainer of ‘Abday,’” in Leaves from an Epigraphic’s Notebook (Winina Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns,  2003) 195-202]. For two 10th c. BCE Hebrew inscriptions, see J. Renz & W. Rollig, Handbuch der althebraischen Epigraphik, I, 30-36; for 9th century examples, see 40-47, 47-64, 65-66.

[18] A. R. Millard, “Books in Ancient Israel,” in C. Roche (ed), D’Ougarit a Jerusalem. Receuil and etudes epigraphiques et archeologiques offert a Pierre Bordreuil (Paris: DeBoccard, 2008) 255-64.

[19] See also V.P. Long, “how Reliable are the Biblical Reports? Repeating Lester Grabbe’s Comparative Experiment,” VT 52 (2002) 367-84.

[20] T.L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1992) 383.

[21] See I. J. Winter, “Is there a South Syrian Style of Ivory Carving in the Early First Millennium BCE?” Iraq 43 (1981) 101-30, especially 109-15 and 123-27.

[22] A. Frumkin, A. Shimron and J. Rosenbaum, “Radiometric dating of the Siloam Tunnel, Jelusalem,” Nature 425 (11 Sept. 2003) 169-71.