Abstract: Throughout 1-2 Kings, the reader encounters references to books in which he or she may find further information about the king just described in the biblical text. This dissertation seeks to discover the character of these sources and how an author used them to shape the final form of 1-2 Kings. Several scholars to date have attempted to study these questions, but not in a form longer than an article. Thus this work assesses the previous attempts and offers a new proposal at greater length. Various methods are utilized in this investigation, including close literary readings of the biblical text and its grammatical components, comparisons of 1-2 Kings with ancient Near Eastern historiographical texts, and reading intertextually with other biblical texts. The yield is a work that affirms suspicions and initial investigations by some scholars and rebuts the conclusions of others, hopefully furthering conversations about the composition of 1-2 Kings and the Deuteronomistic History at large. They Are Written Right There: An Investigation of Royal Chronicles as Sources in 1-2 Kings Drew S. Holland Presented in partial fulfillment for the requirements of the Doctor of Philosophy (Biblical Studies) degree program at Asbury Theological Seminary Word Count: 67,169 (not including bibliography) © 2018 by Drew S. Holland. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Drew S. Holland. i Table of Contents List of Tables ii Acknowledgements iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 The Citations within the Text of 1-2 Kings 5 The Genre of SRC, IRC, and JRC 13 Methodological Assumptions 20 Method, Thesis, and Anticipated Implications 24 Chapter 2: Literature Review 27 Early Critical Approaches in German-Speaking Scholarship 28 Early Critical Approaches in English-Speaking Scholarship 31 Alfred Jepsen and Later Support 35 Martin Noth 38 Sigmund Mowinckel 40 John Van Seters 42 Menachem Haran 44 Lester Grabbe 45 Christof Hardmeier 48 Christoph Levin 50 Nadav Na’aman 52 Skepticism 55 Assessment and New Horizons 60 Chapter 3: The Hebrew Royal Chronicles in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context 63 Historiography 64 Historiography in the Ancient Near East 68 Excursus: Source Citations in the Ancient Near East 88 Further Comparing the Neo-Babylonian Chronicles and Chronographic 93 Material in 1-2 Kings What Can the Neo-Babylonian Chronicles Tell Us about the Original SRC, IRC, 108 and JRC? Chapter 4: The Biblical Text and the Hebrew Chronicles 116 How Does the Biblical Text Delineate Hebrew Royal Chronicles? 116 Identifying Extracts from the Proposed Hebrew Royal Chronicles in 1-2 Kings 126 as a Source Citation Marker 135 ה ְַלֹא :Excursus When Were the Hebrew Royal Chronicles Integrated into 1-2 Kings? 141 Chapter 5: Conclusion 148 A Brief History of the Hypothesized Royal Chronicles 151 The Contribution of This Study to the Study of Redaction-Critical 154 Methodology The Contribution of This Study to the Debate over Israel’s Distinctiveness 161 Bibliography 166 ii List of Tables Comparing Elements of the Neo-Babylonian Chronicles and 1-2 Kings Table # Description Page # 3.1 Death and Burial Notice 85 3.2 Violent Death of a King 87 3.3 Rebellion 94 3.4 Length-of-Reign Notice 95 3.5 Accession Notice 97 3.6 Short Notice of a Battle Account 99 3.7 Parallel Information in a Longer 100 Battle Account 3.8 Alliance with a Foreign Nation 102 3.9 Building Project 103 Identifying Extracts of the Proposed Hebrew Chronicles in 1-2 Kings Table # Page # 4.1 128-130 iii Acknowledgements The following work is the product of several years of learning, debating with colleagues and professors, research, and writing. It has been a labor of love, faith, and cooperation. Although my name appears on the title page, there are several individuals to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for the ultimate completion of this project. I wish to thank my family, for whom this work and my foray into doctoral studies would not have been possible. My wife, Vaughan Shearer Holland, has repeatedly put her own career on hold so that I may pursue my calling. That she allowed our family to move to a faraway city so that I could take a break from full-time church work to pursue a Ph.D. has proven to be her greatest sacrifice yet. I am grateful for my children, Sam and Anne Yates, who constantly reminded me over the last four years that there are more important things in life than critical scholarship of the Bible. My parents, David and Cathy Holland, have supported my education, both financially and emotionally, since birth. These are debts I cannot repay, but I humbly accept them as supererogatory acts of grace. I am especially appreciate of my dissertation committee. Bill Arnold has not only served as a Doktorvater, but also as a father in faith, since our first meeting in 2014. He shares with me the concern for utilizing biblical scholarship as a tool for the church (especially the United Methodist Church). I’m not sure I could have been paired with a more perfect mentor and advisor for my doctoral work. John Oswalt has reviewed several editions of this dissertation and has provided helpful feedback and corrections along the way. In addition, he has expanded my knowledge of the Old Testament and has enhanced my spiritual life through several courses and personal encounters. Steven McKenzie of Rhodes College functioned as my external examiner and did so having never met me before my defense. I am thankful for his service in this capacity for a complete stranger, especially as he helped me think through iv several issues in the draft of my dissertation he read. I am very glad that our paths have now crossed, as I now have another trusted and experienced resource in my continued study of 1-2 Kings. Many thanks also go out to the faculty, staff, and Ph.D. students at Asbury Theological Seminary, who have helped mold me into a better scholar and Christian. I have taken engaging courses and received invaluable advice over the last four years from Lawson Stone, John Cook, Fred Long, Ellen Marmon, Michael Matlock, and Michael Pasquarello. Lalsangkima Pachuau, Patti Walker, and the entire staff of the office of Advanced Research Programs at Asbury have been immensely supportive in facilitating the production of this work, as well as the completion of my degree. My cohort at Asbury has walked with me in the ups and downs of doctoral work since our first gathering. Through the process of learning and working together, I have made lifelong friends, aside from gaining scholarly colleagues and new exemplars in faith. I hope I will be excused for not naming others who have been supportive of my academic endeavors along the way. From teachers, professors, pastors, and members at church I’ve served, there are simply too many to name, but you know who you are. In all of these acknowledgements, the following work is my own. Though others have assisted me along the way, I alone take responsibility for any typographical, methodological, citation, or logical errors. And, for all of these individuals who have graced my life, thanks be first and foremost to God. Grace and peace, Drew S. Holland Eastertide 2018 Drew S. Holland 1 Chapter 1- Introduction The text of 1-2 Kings presents its readers with an array of literary styles. Narratives of rulers and prophets,1 prophetic oracles, lists of supplies and officials, architectural minutiae,2 and straightforward summaries of regnal deeds comprise this epic retelling of Israel’s monarchial history from the end of David’s reign to the Judahite exile. The interpreter of 1-2 Kings is challenged to identify these genres and clarify how they communicate the historian’s (or historians’)3 message, as well as explain how they fit into the larger whole of these books. The responsible interpreter, then, must be able to navigate the historical-literary background of 1-2 Kings in order to come to a greater understanding of 1-2 Kings.4 1 For a detailed study of the narrative genres in 1-2 Kings, see Alexander Rofé, The Prophetical Stories: The Narratives about the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Their Literary Types and History (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988). 2 For an examination of the sources involved with the architecture of Solomon’s Temple, see Clifford Mark McCormick, Palace and Temple: A Study of Architectural and Verbal Icons (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 31-32, 100- 106. 3 Several different terms abound to describe the work of the person or persons who were responsible for creating the final form of 1-2 Kings. Scholars will often characterize this person or these persons as “redactor” or “author.” This distinction is often made to emphasize the amount of creative activity involved in producing the final form of the text. “Redactor” is typically used to describe the “scissors-and-paste” approach of bringing source material together, while “author” stresses the creative writing of material to produce the material found in the final form of the text. To further complicate matters, several adopt Noth’s use of the title “Dtr” to describe an exilic redactor. But given the varying approaches to the composition of the Deuteronomistic History since Noth’s work, other scholars have designated several stages of “Dtr.” I would like to thank Steven McKenzie and John Oswalt for their help in identifying the need to use caution in adopting these titles. In what follows, I will attempt to be cognizant of the distinctions that have been made and will attempt to utilize the description “historian” in order to emphasize that both the use of sources and literary creativity were involved in producing the text as we now have it.