David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel. By Joseph Blenkinsopp
Joseph Blenkinsopp’s monograph on the David tradition arrived with several endorsements already on the cover. That these were offered by the likes of J. L. Kugel, J. D. Levenson, J. Barton, L. L. Grabbe, and S. L. McKenzie was evidence, even before reading a page, that it would be yet another insigh...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 71, Issue: 2, Pages: 820-823 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Joseph Blenkinsopp’s monograph on the David tradition arrived with several endorsements already on the cover. That these were offered by the likes of J. L. Kugel, J. D. Levenson, J. Barton, L. L. Grabbe, and S. L. McKenzie was evidence, even before reading a page, that it would be yet another insightful and important work from the pen of Blenkinsopp. I was not disappointed.Before I get into Blenkinsopp’s treatment of the David theme, I would like first to point out the prescience of his comments in the introduction. Here he reminds the reader that a study of ancient politics and society, even of royal institutions, is perhaps more apropos of our modern setting than it may first appear. He writes: ‘The defects of our democratic institutions are, moreover, obvious enough, and the institutions themselves vulnerable enough, to justify us standing back and taking in the broader range of possibilities which a knowledge of the past affords’ (p. 4). With these and related comments, Blenkinsopp suggests that those familiar only with democratic values are ultimately naive and thus susceptible to unsavoury or even dangerous social and political outcomes. Looking at these words now, which were penned by Blenkinsopp in or before the year 2013, I can only see him as some sort of prophet. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flaa094 |