RT Article
T1 ‘...And Not a Drop to Drink’: The Story of David’s Thirst in the Jewish Scriptures, Josephus, and 4 Maccabees
JF Journal for the study of the pseudepigrapha
VO 16
IS 1
SP 15
OP 40
A1 DeSilva, David A. 1967-
LA English
PB Sage
YR 2006
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1777018625
AB This article examines the story of David’s wish for water as it is narrated and framed in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, and expanded and reconfigured in Josephus’s Judean Antiquities and 4 Maccabees. Josephus is found to interpret the story in a manner fairly consistent with the aims of the authors/editors of the canonical versions of the narrative, except that he locates the story more clearly within the main story line of David’s dealings with the Philistines and uses the story as an example of the valor of all of David’s mighty men, and not as an exploit that distinguishes ‘the Three’ above the rest. The author of 4 Maccabees, however, much more freely adapts the story in line with his rhetorical goals. A fictive setting is invented and embellished to establish the conditions of David’s experience of thirst (which is no longer merely a wish as in the biblical version), and the focus is taken off the exploits of the soldiers (who are here anonymous) and placed more fully on David’s inner struggle to act in line with the demands of justice as opposed to the drive of his cravings, exemplifying pious reason’s mastery of the passions, in keeping with the author’s thesis.
K1 David’s thirst
K1 4 Macca-bees
K1 Josephus
K1 1 Chronicles
K1 2 Samuel
K1 Rewritten Bible
K1 Intertextuality
DO 10.1177/0951820706069183