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In my reading today of Rolf Rendtorff’s The Old Testament: An Introduction, the following passage stood out to me:
In their present form, the books from Joshua to Kings have a largely Deuteronomistic stamp. In 1943 Noth argued that what we have here is not a Deuteronomistic redaction but rather a systematically planned history.
A while back, I wrote a post that discussed (among other things) Martin Noth’s view on the Deuteronomistic History: see God Uses (Not Causes) Tragedies; Rich (Bummer!); Long Impression; Rabbinic Cessationism; Blowing Off Steam; Noth on DtrH; Good LOST Articles. I pointed out that, according to Noth, the Deuteronomistic History does not offer the exiled Jews any hope of restoration.
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague today. He attended Liberty University, and he was talking about a question that he answered at Liberty for one of his Bible comps. He was asked why I-II Kings is so negative, whereas I-II Chronicles is much more positive. The expected answer was that parts of I-II Kings were written close to the time that they narrate, when the prophets were quite negative about Israel and her sins. That’s why I-II Kings is negative. I-II Chronicles, however, was written in exile, when the Jews needed hope, and so it is upbeat and positive.
Martin Noth would date I-II Kings to the exile, although many scholars since then have claimed that the work contains pre-exilic layers. Moreover, many scholars view I-II Chronicles as a post-exilic document, which is positive and upbeat because Israel is getting a fresh start and has a lot of optimism.
But I’ve often wondered why Martin Noth believed that an exilic author would compose a negative Deuteronomistic History. To kick Israel when she is down? I vaguely recall a professor of mine telling me that Noth was allowing his Lutheran bias to shine through his scholarship. Noth sought to portray the days of the Old Testament as a time of God’s law and wrath, in marked contrast to the grace and mercy that would come through Jesus Christ.
My professor believed that Noth’s reading of the Deuteronomistic History was too pessimistic, for DtrH contained numerous examples of the Israelites repenting before God, and receiving forgiveness and restoration. For my professor, DtrH’s message to the exiles was that they too can repent, and be restored to her land as a nation through God’s grace.
I Kings 8 somewhat intrigues me. In vv 33-34, Solomon prays that God might forgive Israel and restore her to her land, if she repents and makes supplication to God in his house. This passage interests me because it does not seem to describe a full-fledged exile. After all, the passage presumes the existence of a temple in which Jewish people can pray, implying (1.) that, in this scenario, there are Jewish people in the land, and (2.) that the temple was not destroyed in the situation that Solomon is describing. Solomon does not seem to be describing the events of 587 B.C.E., in which the Babylonians exiled the Jews and destroyed their temple. Can we point to this text to argue that the Deuteronomist believes that Israel in exile can be restored to her land? I’m not fully convinced that we can, for it’s describing a scenario that is unlike Israel’s exile.
Then we have vv 44-53, which actually does describe an exile. But what’s interesting is that Solomon does not explicitly pray that God might restore Israel to her land if such a situation were to occur. What’s up with that? Maybe the Deuteronomist didn’t want to be too dogmatic about the restoration of Israel, for he was uncertain that it would occur; rather, he preferred to leave the ball in God’s court. In the meantime, he would encourage Israel to get serious about her repentance and to focus on that, rather than her restoration to her land.
