The Deuteronomist History
- “The Deuteronomist history”
- Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 King
- Deuteronomist history = history with a theological purpose. Closely connected to the book of Deuteronomy (conditional covenant). God is operating in their history (history is the vehicle of his saving interventions)
- Used following rhetorical techniques:
- Explanatory asides
- Explicit theological judgments
- Theological discourses (from God or prophets)
- Transitional additions to give unity to whole
- Used following rhetorical techniques:
- Dating the Events & the Writing
| 1250 – 1225 | Joshua’s conquest of Canaan (Josh 1-12) |
| 1225 – 1025 | The period of the judges (Judg 3-16; 1 Sam 1-7) |
| 1025 – 1003 | The institution of the monarchy (1 Sam 8-12); reign of King Saul (chs 13 -31) |
| 1003 – 970 | The reign of King David (2 Sam 1 – 1 Kings 2) |
| 932 – 722 | The divided kingdom up to the fall of Samaria and the deportation of the northern kingdom to Assyria (1 Kgs 12 – 2 Kgs 17) |
| 700 – 621 | The composition of Deuteronomy & the finding of the book in the Temple (2 Kgs 22:8) |
| 587 | The fall of the southern kingdom to the Babylonians (2 Kgs 25) |
| 587 – 539 | The Babylonian exile |
- Promised land = covered area of about 10,000 square miles (190 length by 25 ~ 55
“Deuteronomic” = theological perspective in the book of Deuteronomy.
Answers the question – “Why did this happen to us?” –> retell story & locate it within the broader context of their people’s history.
Josianic original – DTR1: Prophets, Kings, and Temples
- Composed during reforms of Josiah (622 – 609 BCE)
- 2 Primary Objectives:
- Illustrate how Josiah’s reign represented the culmination of Israel’s history
- To propose the lessons that the people of Judah needed to learn from the fall of the northern kingdom to the Assyrians in 721 BC.
- Shows how history reached its climax in the reforms authorized by their king.
- Retell history to illustrate how YHWH’s word is the force that governs Israel’s history (the book of the torah shows us at improtant pts)
- IDOLATRY = caused all of Judah & Israel’s problems.
- Warning for Judah so they would not suffer same fate as Israel had a century earlier.
Exilic revision – DTR2: Exile & Hope for Restoration
- 2 Primary Objectives:
- To explain why YHWH had allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem & deport it’s citizens
- To express hope for a restoration of the people to the land of Judah.
- Samuel = the author’s hero – tells Israel to give up idolatry & serve YHWH (1 Sam 7:3-17).
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