King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (50 page)

24.
Gershom Scholem, “Magen David,” in
Encyclopedia Judaica
, vol. 11, 695.

25.
Gottwald,
Tribes of Yahweh
, 380–381.

26.
Akenson,
Surpassing Wonder
, 521. The quoted phrases appear in the title of a chart; capitalization has been omitted.

27.
Thomas L. Thompson,
The Mythic Past
(Basic Books, 1999), 164.

28.
Thompson,
Mythic Past
, 45.

29.
Magnus Magnusson,
Archaeology of the Bible
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 155–156.

30.
Magnusson,
Archaeology of the Bible
, 134.

31.
“David's Jerusalem, Fiction or Reality?” in
Biblical Archaeology Review
(July/August 1998): 25.

32.
Margaret Steiner, “It's Not There,” in
Biblical Archaeology Review (
July/August 1998): 26.

33.
Albright,
From the Stone Age to Christianity
, 292.

34.
Avraham Biran and Joseph Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan,”
Israel Exploration Journal
43, nos. 2–3 (1993): 84.

35.
Biran and Naveh, “Aramaic Stele,” 87. “Since the preserved letters in each line comprise only a small part of the text, any reconstruction is very tentative.”

36.
Biran and Naveh, “The Tel Dan Inscription,”
Israel Exploration Journal
45, no. 1 (1995): 13 (emphasis added).

37.
David Noel Freedman and Jeffrey C. Geoghegan, “ ‘House of David’ Is There?”,
Biblical Archaeology Review
21, no. 2 (March/April 1995), 79.

38.
Thomas L. Thompson,
Mythic Past
, 203–204.

39.
Akenson,
Surpassing Wonder
, 45–46.

40.
Ginzberg,
Legends of the Jews
, vol. 4, 101, 103, citing, inter alia, Sukkah 26b, Baba Batra 17a.

41.
Cited in Brueggemann, “David and His Theologian,” 156, n. 1.

42.
As rendered into English in
The New Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Mahzor Haddash)
, eds. Sidney Greenberg and Jonathan D. Levine (Bridgeport, Conn.: Prayer Book Press, 1978), 557.

1.
Pfeiffer,
Introduction to the Old Testament
, 357.

2.
Bloom and Rosenberg,
Book of J
, 19.

3.
Joel Rosenberg,
King and Kin
, xiii.

4.
Brueggemann, “David and His Theologian,”
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
30, no. 2 (April 1968): 156.

When quoting from various English translations of the Bible, I have used abbreviations in the text to identify the sources. These abbreviations are given in the list below, along with the full title and bibliographical information for the various Bibles. Following the abbreviations list is a list of the other versions of the Bible that I have consulted. Where no specific source is given in the text or an endnote, the quotation is taken from the 1961 edition of the Jewish Publication Society's
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text
.

Among the many translations I consulted, the most ambitious and illuminating is P. Kyle McCarter, Jr.'s superb translation of the First and Second Books of Samuel in the Anchor Bible series. McCarter brings to bear in his translation both a poet's grasp of language and a scholar's mastery of Bible scholarship—he offers a fresh and sometimes surprising rendering of the familiar biblical text along with extensive notes and commentary, and his
scholarship is unprecedented and unparalleled. Thus, for example, McCarter offers a translation that gives much richer and more provocative meanings to even the most familiar passages, and he is able to provide alternate readings of the sometimes obscure passages by expertly comparing the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint and other ancient translations, the “rewritten Bible” of Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and then summing up the differences in a line or two of deft commentary.

Now and then I have taken the liberty of modifying some aspects of the quoted biblical text without using brackets or ellipses to indicate the changes. As a general rule, I have not indicated minor and inconsequential changes in capitalization or punctuation or the deletion of words and phrases from a quoted passage when the deleted material does not alter the meaning of the text. In many passages I have modernized the archaic language of the King James Version—changing “thou” to “you,” for example—but in other passages I have retained the archaisms in order to suggest the solemnity or formality of the occasion reported in the Bible. Wherever I have changed the biblical text more extensively—or where I have combined words and phrases from more than one Bible translation—I use the phrase “adapted from” and I identify the sources in an endnote.

God is given a great many names, titles, and honorifics in the biblical text, including “Elohim,” which means, literally, “gods” and is conventionally translated as “God,” and the Hebrew consonants corresponding to YHWH, generally understood to be the personal name of God and rendered as “Yahweh” in scholarly translations. By a long and sacred tradition in Judaism, the personal name of God is not to be written outside the scrolls of the Torah and is never to be spoken out loud. For that reason, YHWH is replaced with the euphemism “the Lord” in all Jewish translations and many Christian translations intended for religious rather than scholarly use.

Scholars, however, prefer the more straightforward practice of transliterating the personal name of God as “YHWH” or “Yahweh.” Thus, the Anchor Bible
always
renders the name of God as
“Yahweh” rather than using the traditional substitute, and, by contrast, the Bible translations published by the Jewish Publication Society
never
use the word “Yahweh.” I have generally adopted the usage of the Bible that I am quoting, although I have taken the liberty of using “Yahweh” when the context suggests that the God of Israel is being contrasted to or distinguished from the other gods and goddesses known to the ancient world.

BIBLES CITED IN THE TEXT OR ENDNOTES, WITH ABBREVIATIONS

AB

Cogan Mordechai Hayim Tadmor trans., intro., and commentary.
II Kings
Anchor Bible vol. 11 New York Doubleday 1988

Dahood Mitchell trans., intro., and notes.
Psalms I, 1–50.
Anchor Bible vol 16 Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1966

Ford J. Massyngberde trans., intro., and commentary.
Revelation
Anchor Bible vol. 38 Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1975

McCarter P. Kyle Jr., trans., intro., and commentary.
I Samuel
Anchor Bible vol. 8 Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1980

McCarter P. Kyle Jr., trans., intro., and commentary.
II Samuel.
Anchor Bible vol. 9 Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1984

Myers Jacob M. trans., intro., and commentary.
I Chronicles
Anchor Bible vol. 12 New York Doubleday 1965

Speiser E. A. trans., intro., and notes.
Genesis
Anchor Bible vol. 1(orig. pub. 1962).Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1987

JPS

The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text
Philadelphia Jewish Publication Society 1917; 1961

KJV

Scofield C. I., ed.
The Scofield Reference Bible
(Authorized King James Version). New York Oxford University Press 1917; 1945

The New English Bible with the Apocrypha
2d ed. New York Oxford University Press 1970

New JPS
Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text
Philadelphia Jewish Publication Society 1985

The Complete Parallel Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books
New York Oxford University Press 1993

Hertz J. H., ed.
The Pentateuch and Haftorahs
2d ed. London Soncino Press 1981

The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments in the King James Version
Nashville Thomas Nelson 1985

May Herbert G. Bruce M. Metzger, eds.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: Revised Standard Version.
New York Oxford University Press 1993

Metzger Bruce M. Roland E. Murphy, eds.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
New York Oxford University Press 1994

The New American Bible
Catholic Bible Association of America. Chicago Catholic Press 1971

Botterweck G. Johannes HelmerRinggren, eds.
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
vol. 3Translated by John T. Willis, Geoffrey W. Bromley, and David E. Green. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1978.

Browning W. R. F., ed.
A Dictionary of the Bible.
Oxford and New York Oxford University Press 1996

Encyclopedia Judaica
17 volscorrected ed. Jerusalem Keter Publishing House, n. d.

Freedman David Noel, gen. ed.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
6 volsNew York Double-day 1992

Akenson Donald Harman.
Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds
New York Harcourt Brace 1998

Albright William Foxwell.
From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process
2d ed. Baltimore Johns Hopkins Press 1957; 1967

Albright William Foxwell. “Samuel and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement,” In intro. by Harry M. Orlinsky, 149–176.
Interpreting the Prophetic Tradition: The Goldenson Lectures, 1955–1966
, Cincinnati Hebrew Union College Press New York Ktav Publishing House 1969

Alt Albrecht.
Essays on Old Testament History and Religion
Translated by R. A. Wilson. Oxford Basil Blackwell 1966

Alter Robert.
The Art of Biblical Narrative
New York Basic Books 1981

Alter Robert.
The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel
New York W. W. Norton 1999

Armstrong Karen.
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
New York Alfred A. Knopf 1993

Armstrong Karen.
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
New York Alfred A. Knopf 1996

Auerbach Elias.
Moses
Translated by J. S. Bowden. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia Westminster Press 1968

Bal Mieke, ed.
Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women's Lives in the Hebrew Bible
Sheffield, England Almond Press 1989

Biale David.
Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History
New York Schocken Books 1986

Blenkinsopp J. “Theme and Motif in the Succession History (2 Sam. XI 2 ff.) and the Yahwist Corpus.” In
Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
(volume du Congres, Geneve, 1965), 44–57. Leiden E. J. Brill 1966

Bloom Harold.
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
New York Riverhead Books 1998

Bloom Harold.
The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages
New York Harcourt Brace 1994

Bloom Harold DavidRosenberg.
The Book of J
New York Grove Weidenfeld 1990

Boardman John JasperGriffin Oswyn Murray, eds.
The Oxford History of the Classical World
Oxford Oxford University Press 1986

Bright John.
A History of Israel.
2d ed. Philadelphia Westminster Press 1972

Buber Martin.
Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant
New York Harper & Row 1958

Carlson R. A.
David, the Chosen King: A Traditio-historical Approach to the Second Book of Samuel
Translated by Eric J. Sharpe and Stanley Rudman. Stockholm Almqvist & Wiksell 1964

Clements R. E.
Abraham and David: Genesis XV and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition
Studies in Biblical Theology, 2d series, 5. London S.C.M. Press 1967

Cross Frank Moore.
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel
Cambridge Harvard University Press 1973

Davis John J.
The Birth of a Kingdom: Studies in I–II Samuel and I Kings 1–11
Grand Rapids, Mich. Baker Book House 1970