King David's rise from Obscurity to Greatness

• published: 23 Jan 2014
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This show follows the story of the Jewish King David's rise from obscurity to greatness. "Giant Slayer" is not only a reference to Goliath, but also to the great odds David faced throughout his life. It uses The Bible as a main source of material. David (/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Hebrew: דָּוִד, דָּוִיד, Modern David Tiberian Dāwîḏ; ISO 259-3 Dawid; Arabic: داود‎ Dāwūd) according to the Hebrew Bible, was the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel, and according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus. His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040--970 BC, his reign over Judah c. 1010--1002 BC, and his reign over the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1002--970 BC. The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan Stele (dated c. 850--835 BC) contains the phrase בית דוד (Beit David), read as "House of David", which most scholars take as confirmation of the existence in the mid-9th century BC of a Judean royal dynasty called the House of David. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without faults, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician, and poet, traditionally credited for composing many of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms. David is central to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic doctrine and culture. Biblical tradition maintains that a direct descendant of David will be the Messiah. In Islam, he is considered a prophet. The biblical account about David comes from the Books of Samuel and the Books of Chronicles. Chronicles merely retells Samuel from a different theological vantage point, and contains little (if any) information not available there, and the biblical evidence for David is therefore dependent almost exclusively on the material contained in the chapters from 1 Samuel 16 to 1 Kings 2. Since Martin Noth put forward his analysis of the Deuteronomistic history, biblical scholars have accepted that these two books form part of a continuous history of Israel, compiled no earlier than the late 7th century BCE, but incorporating earlier works and fragments. Samuel's account of David "seems to have undergone two separate acts of editorial slanting". The original writers show a strong bias against Saul, and in favour of David and Solomon. Many years later the Deuteronomists edited the material in a manner that conveyed their religious message, inserting reports and anecdotes that strengthened their monotheistic doctrine. Some of the materials in Samuel I and II—notably the boundary, allotment and administrative lists—are believed to be very early, since they correspond closely to what we know of the territorial conditions of the late Davidic-early Solomonic period. Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. The late John Bright, in his History of Israel (which went through four editions from 1959 to 2000), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, thinks all reconstructions from Biblical sources for the United Monarchy period are examples of "academic wishful thinking". Thomas L. Thompson rejects the historicity of the biblical narrative, "The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings." Amihai Mazar however, concludes that based on recent archeological findings, like those in City of David, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Dan, Tel Rehov, Khirbet en-Nahas and others "the deconstruction of United Monarchy and the devaluation of Judah as a state in 9th century is unacceptable interpretation of available historic data". According to Mazar, based on archeological evidences, United Monarchy can be described as a "state in development" Some studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath; Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital. Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, states the belief that David actually came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.