I & II Samuel. The Old Testament Library. By A. Graeme Auld. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. 2011. ISBN-13: 978-0-664-22105-8. xxii and 686 pages. Cloth. $75.
Most Old Testament introductions state that the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles used as his principal source the books of Samuel-Kings in their present shape even if the Chronicler’s copy of Samuel-Kings had numerous readings that were different from the Masoretic Text. For some years Auld has turned that theory on its head and argued that the authors of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles drew on a common source. That source was much shorter, containing only those passages that are now in both Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. So the source began with the death of Saul (1 Sam 31:1-13//1 Chr 10:1-12) and lacked all of 1 Samuel 1-30 (the stories of Samuel, Saul’s kingship, and his rivalry with David). It also lacked almost all of 2 Samuel (2 Samuel 1-4; 9; 11:2-12:25; 13-20; 21:1-17; 22; 23:1-7). Auld calls this purported source “The Book of the Two Houses” (namely the house of Yahweh [the temple] and the house of David [David’s royal descendants in Judah). This hypothetical source contained almost nothing about the Northern Kingdom.
Auld has defended this hypothesis in a number of previous publications and now works out how this affects the composition and meaning of the books of Samuel. The original draft of Samuel was supplemented in his view in two stages: First, in what roughly corresponds to 1 Samuel 9-30, the rise and demise of Saul and the rise of David, and in almost all of 2 Samuel, the tales of David’s reign (e.g. the incident with Mephibosheth, David and Bathsheba, Absalom, etc.); Second, in what roughly corresponds to 1 Samuel 1-8, the story of Samuel, and also additional materials about the Saul-David rivalry in 1 Samuel 15; 19:20-24; 20; 25-30; and in 2 Samuel 1-4 (the rival kingship of Ishbosheth), 20.
Auld’s starting point and style make for difficult reading, and his commentary will be of more interest to those dedicated to reconstructing how biblical books came together or to historians of Israel than to parish pastors. Auld pays close attention to the Hebrew and Greek texts of Samuel and the Dead Sea Scrolls in his literal translation and tries to represent the variant readings through the use of regular and italic typefaces and brackets, and this results in translations like the following: Cast [Attach] me [please] to one of your [the] priesthoods, to eat [a piece of] food. 1 Sam 2:36.
While I disagree strongly with Auld’s approach (see my commentary on 1 Samuel in the Word series and my commentaries on 1 and 2 Chronicles in the Hermeneia series), Auld is a major contemporary scholar, and this commentary breaks new ground on many passages, but will also evoke many scholarly debates. Perhaps the most surprising assertion in this commentary is his treatment of 2 Sam 24:1 where Yahweh’s anger continued to burn against Israel and enticed David to number the people. The parallel verse in 1 Chr 21:1 states that Satan incited David to number Israel. The reading in Chronicles is usually understood as an attempt to exonerate Yahweh from leading David into sin. Auld proposes, however, that Satan is the original reading.
Ralph W. Klein
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago