Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah

by Wilson, Ian D.

• ISBN13: 9780190499907
• ISBN10: 0190499907
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-01-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah addresses the question of how a postmonarchic society would remember and imagine its monarchy, and kingship in general, as part of its past, present, and future. How did Judeans of the early Second Temple period conceive of the monarchy? By way of a thorough analysis of Judean discourse in this era, Ian D. Wilson argues that ancient Judeans had no single way of remembering and imagining kingship. In fact, their memory and imaginary was thoroughly multivocal, and necessarily so. Judean historiographical literature evinces a mindset that was unsure of the monarchic past and how to understand it-multiple viewpoints were embraced and brought into conversation with one another. Similarly, prophetic literature, which drew on the discursive themes of the remembered past, envisions a variety of outcomes for kingship's future. Historiographical and prophetic literature thus existed in a kind of feedback loop, enabling, informing, and balancing each other's various understandings of kingship as part of Judean society and life. Through his investigation of kingship in Judean discourse, Wilson contributes to our knowledge of literature and literary culture in ancient Judah and also makes a significant contribution to questions of history and historiographical method in biblical studies.

Author Biography

Ian D. Wilson teaches religious studies at the University of Alberta's Augustana Campus, where he is also Associate Director of the Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life. His work has appeared in publications such as Harvard Theological Review, Vetus Testamentum, and Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, and recently he co-edited the volume History, Memory, Hebrew Scriptures: A Festschrift for Ehud Ben Zvi.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

1. Ancient Judah and Its Literature: Remembering and Imagining Kingship
Judean Literature and Its Sociocultural Setting
Judean Literati of the Early Second Temple Era
Kingship Discourse among the Literati
Memory, Remembering, Imagining: Past, Present, and Future in Society and Culture
Social Memory and Narrativity: A Good Working Relationship
Moving Forward

2. Torah and Its Guardians
The Law of the King's Deuteronomic Setting
The Law of the King and Its Interlocutors
Moses and Joshua, Kings and Conquerors: Revising Monarchy in a Postmonarchic Milieu
The Law of the King as a Mnemonic Frame

3. Cruxes of Leadership: The Transition(s) to Monarchy
Setting Up Samuel
The Trouble with Transitions
Gideon and Abimelech: Serious Family Issues
The Aporia of Samuel, Dynasty, and Divine Promises
Yahweh, Samuel, Saul: Rivalries of Political Identification in 1 Samuel 8-12
Outcomes of Rivalry and Aporia: Kingship's Beginnings in Israel
To the Heart of the Issue

4. Remembering/Forgetting David and Davidic Kingship
David as Character, Plot, Narrative in Samuel-Kings and Judah's Social Memory
Chronicles and Samuel-Kings: Both among the Literati
And the Rest of the Story? The Potentials and Outcomes of Davidic Kingship in Solomon's Narrative
On Book Endings, Davidic Kingship, and Judean Metanarratives
5. The Remembered Future in Prophetic Literature
From Prophets and Prophecy to the Prophetic Book
King Yahweh
The Hedging of David
King Israel
Historical Consciousness, Metahistory, and the Prophetic Book
6. To Conclude: The Emplotments of Kingship and "Metahistoriography" in Ancient Judah
The Rhyming of Kingship: An Outline
Future Prospects

Notes
References
Index