Ho, Craig Yuet-Shun

2018-05-22T12:42:37Z

2018-05-22T12:42:37Z

1994

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate an almost two-century old view of current Old Testament scholarship on the interrelationship between the books of Samuel-Kings and the books of Chronicles (Chr), which claims that the author of Chronicles (the Chr) based his work on the former corpus in more or less the existing form. The evaluation is preceded by a preliminary investigation into the grounds upon which that view has been accepted to show that it is based mainly on the relative dating of the history of religion as depicted in the two historiographical works and the supposed relative historical values of the two works, neither of which guarantees Chr's dependence on SamuelKings. It is astonishing to find that the received view is not based on detailed textual and literary comparison of the two works in general, the parallel texts in particular. Thus, instead of attacking the historical conclusions which are derived from the text, an investigation is offered of whether or not the prevailing view is also supported by detailed textual and literary study of some three chapters of parallel texts (1 Chr 10-12 and their counterparts in the books of Samuel). In the first chapter the textual and literary connections of the two versions of Saul's final battle (1 Sam 31 and 1 Chr 10) with their narrative contexts are explored to show that whereas the Samuel pluses and variants are mainly connected with accounts in which David's innocence in the demise of Saul and his house is defended, the Chr variants are mainly connected with stories before David's estrangement from Saul. In the second chapter the two versions of David's capture of Jerusalem (2 Sam 5.1-10 and 1 Chr 11.1-9) are submitted to similar scrutiny to show that the enigmatic extra references to "the blind and the lame" in the Samuel version are connected with a tendentious account of the story of the house of Eli ("the blind") and with the narrative of David's showing royal hospitality to Mephibosheth ("the lame"). Then the two versions of the list of David's mighty men (2 Sam 23.8-37 and 1 Chr 11.10-12.40) are studied in the third chapter to show that there are connections between the Succession Narrative and Samuel's list and that the account of David's seeking refuge under Achish in 1 Samuel has been split into two and also that Samuel's account of David's stay with Achish is more apologetic than Chr's account. Since the Samuel pluses and variants have links with stories in which blood guilt of David or his throne is involved, a thematic study of these materials—i.e. most of the History of David's Rise plus the Succession Narrative—is offered in the fourth and the fifth chapters to show that they form a thematically rather unified narrative and that they were probably from the same author. Since it is practically impossible for the Chr to remove very large text blocks from Samuel-Kings together with their subtle cross-references at the same time, the fact that none of these cross-references remains in Chr forces us to draw the inevitable conclusion that all those materials alluded to by these cross-references were originally absent from the Chr's Vorlage

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30272

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2018 Block 19

Already catalogued

Troubles of David and his house: textual and literary studies of the synoptic stories of Saul and David in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles

The troubles of David and his house: textual and literary studies of the synoptic stories of Saul and David in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy