Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 46:1 (NA 1995)
Article: Why Barzillai Of Gilead (1 Kings 2:7)? Narrative Art And The Hermeneutics Of Suspicion In 1 Kings 1-2
Author: Iain W. Provan

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TynBul 46:1 (1995) p. 103

Why Barzillai Of Gilead (1 Kings 2:7)?
Narrative Art And The Hermeneutics Of
Suspicion In 1 Kings 1-2

Iain W. Provan

Summary

Even if one remains uneasy about the precise direction in which much recent scholarship on biblical narrative has been moving, it is the case that much can be learned from the kind of approaches which have been developed. This paper argues, for example, that the author of 1 Kings 1-2 invites the reader to employ a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ in relation to his story by the artful way in which he tells it; and that the employment of such a hermeneutic enables a deeper grasp of what the story is about than would otherwise be possible.

I. Introduction

These are interesting times for those who are concerned with the interpretation of biblical texts, particularly Hebrew narrative texts. Old certainties are under attack. New revolutionaries clamber over the barricades, pronouncing those only recently considered (and considering themselves) as radicals to be, in fact, boringly conservative and quite passé.

It seems just a blink of the eye ago, for example, that the average commentator on Kings thought it an important part of his task to tell his readers quite a bit about the sources from which the book might have been constructed and the editors who might successively have worked upon it. Of the existence of such sources and editors there was really no doubt, even if there was much disagreement about the details. It was simply accepted that there was a greater or lesser degree of incoherence in the text—inconsistencies, repetitions, variations in style and language, and so on—features unexpected, it

TynBul 46:1 (1995) p. 104

was said, in the work of a single author. Either the person who put Kings together was not a free agent, able to do just as he wished—he was to a greater or lesser extent constrained by the material available to him, and he was unable or unwilling to impose complete consistency upon it. Or (perhaps and) the original work has been expanded by one or more editors, also constrained by what lay before them, they, too, being able to make the text convey their particular message only to a certain extent. What we had in Kings, then, was a composite work, put together over a longer or shorter period of time by a number of authors or editors, its various parts speaking with more or less conflicting voices. Some voices may be louder than others, on such a view; but they are unable entirely to drown out their fellows.

It is hardly surprising, given this general perception of the nature of Kings within the academic community throughout most of the modern period, that scholarly readi...

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