Soundings in Kings: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship

The reigning assumptions in 1970s and 1980s scholarship on 1 and 2 Kings, and indeed on all of the Deuteronomistic history, have come under serious question. How can differing views of that history be reconciled? What sources were available to the authors? Should we call them "authors"? How well do the Books of Kings fit into the larger history of which they are a part; just who composed that history, toward what end, and in what context? How do the assumptions of contemporary interpreters influence the answers we give to those questions? In Soundings in Kings, international scholars pursue these and related questions by examining 1 and 2 Kings as an independent work, identifying new methods and models for envisioning the social location of the authors (or redactors) of Kings, the nature of the intended audience or audiences, and the political and rhetorical implications of its construction. Soundings in Kings demonstrates the role of Kings as a cornerstone work within the Hebrew Bible, a crossroads between prophecy, poetry, wisdom, ancestral and national narrative, and ritual instruction.

Soundings: Charting the Currents of Contemporary ScholarshipThe Soundings series gathers current perspectives on the state of biblical scholarship on selected questions.

Klaus-Peter Adam is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Mark Leuchter is Director of Jewish Studies at Temple University.