Sunday Sermonette: Sam the Sham

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming, i.e. the so-called Deuteronomic History. In the Tanakh, as I have already noted, it is not interrupted by the Book of Ruth. Most scholars now believe that Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings have a unified origin. The most commonly held theory is that they were first commissioned by King Josiah in the 7th Century BCE, and probably revised and amended during the ensuing Babylonian exile, taking more or less their final form in the 5th Century BCE. Although it is called a " history, " if there are grains of historical truth in it they are only grains. There are many anachronisms, such as weapons that did not exist in the 11th and 10th Centuries BCE when all this supposedly happened, peoples in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so on. Most notably, if Saul, David and Solomon are based on real people, they weren ' t anything like the mighty kings portrayed. The Israelites at that time were farmers living in small, scattered villages, without any unified authority. King David at most would have been the chieftan over a few villages. Jerusalem was not a great city but at most a small town. In other words this represents aggrandizement of the past. The first chapter of Samuel is an overly long account of the prophet ' s birth, with many details that are there for unclear reasons. The story of a woman who cannot conceive until God intercedes is a repeated motif in the Bible. The book is named for Samuel becau...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs