22

Problems
of

in

the

Literary Analysis of

the

Court

History

David
Van

Seters University of Toronto

John

articles D. M. Gunn has set the Court History which he reposition evidence of &dquo;oral traditional composias giving gards tion&dquo; /1/, and consequently it is not to be regarded as a literary composition in the way that L. Rost has described it, the view that has since dominated the field /2/. I have already written a response to the first of these articles /3/ but since then two others have appeared which call for additional comment and discussion on important issues of methodology.
In
a

number of

recent
on

forth

new

In

his

latest

article Gunn

groups

together

dis-

parate series of items from the so-called &dquo;Succession

Narrative&dquo; under

the rubric &dquo;traditional composition&dquo; But this term is so vague that it is meaningless. It can include a discussion of traditional forms or genres of every kind and thus allow him to discuss a On the other hand, particular form such as a parable. &dquo;traditional composition&dquo; can refer to content in either

/4/.

Under these specific or a quite general way. it is hard to think of any body of literature, ancient or modern, which does not exhibit some tradiA great deal of literary crititional composition. cism involves a careful analysis and classification of such traditional elements and the way a particular author might make use of them. However, the rather haphazard way in which different kinds of supposedly traditional elements are set down side by side does not constitute such an analytic study.
a

very

terms

Gunns reason for pointing out elements of &dquo;traditional composition&dquo; is quite otherwise. He argues that these elements are evidence that the work as a whole has its basis in oral tradition, or at least can be That the patterns of composistyled as &dquo;traditional&dquo;. tion to which Gunn points are necessarily, or even probably oral in origin and use may be strongly disAnd to call the Court History itself &dquo;tradiputed. tional&dquo; is even more questionable. One cannot show any long tradition of such a story form either in the Old

23

Testament itself or in general. It may

ancient Near Eastern literature few traditional forms or a patterns within the story (although somewhat less than Gunn believes) but this does not make the whole story form traditional. It may also be seriously disputed that the content is traditional. Apart from the fact that the story is about David and his family and makes use of names which are otherwise known from other sources there are no independent variants by which to the episodes in it belong to a body of whether judge On the contrary I think there is reafolk tradition. son to suspect that they do not but are all created by skilful author. The theme of the work is also antia It s fundamental purpose as I understand traditional. it is to call into question the traditional royal ideology of the Davidic covenant and the picture of good king David which is basic to that ideology /5/.

in

employ

These general criticisms may be tested by the In Gunns latest examination of specific details. article the first example of traditional composition he gives is the antagonistic relationship betwer David end the &dquo;sons of Zeruiah&dquo;, Joab and Abishai, which This is viewed occurs throughout the Court History. as a traditional stereotype, &dquo;part of the stock in trade of a story-teller dealing with the stories of In order to even suggest the posDavid and his men&dquo;. one would have to find evidence for this fricsibility tion outside of the Court History and Gunn attempts to do so but the passages referred to give little support for this /6/. The first episode we have to consider is in 1 Sam. 26:6ff where David asks for a volunteer to go down with The him into Sauls camp and Abishai comes forward. two men enter the camp and find Saul sleeping, whereBut David rejects upon Abishai proposes to kill him. that no one can lay hands upon &dquo;Yahwehs this, stating Instead they anointed&dquo;I without divine consequences. Now this rebuke water and the remove jar. spear merely of as a case here be David can regarded hardly by The whole scene is a variant of the personal tension. version in 1 Sam 24:5ff where David rejects the same In both cases Davids men suggestion made by his men. or Abishai react to the circumstances naturally and

24
thereby provide foil
show that he has for Davids

piety and humility

seize the

to

done

nothing

to

throne.

The contrast with 2 Sam 19:21ff is very pronounced. Abishai who invokes the death penalty for one who anointed&dquo; - a statement which would curses &dquo;Yahwehs But here seem to hark back ironically to 1 Sam 26:6ff. David puts down Abishai quite directly and personally It but with a motivation which is clearly political. was hardly a case of forgiveness as is clear from The relationship between the Court History 1 Kgs 2:8f. and the earlier story of Davids Rise is not that they use common stereotypes regarding Abishai but that the Court History builds on the earlier material, yet giving to it an ironic twist.
It

is

also makes reference to the statement in 2 in which Abishai rescues David from one of giants of the Philistines and in which Davids men tell him he should not go to battle with them again In order to &dquo;lest you put out the lamp of Israel&dquo;. this as another example of tension between David use and the sons of Zeruiah Gunn must interpret the reference to the &dquo;men of David&dquo; as a surrogate for Abishai but this is hardly legitimate. And after all it is an expression of affection and concern for David and not tension. It may also be noted that an instance of ironically David, in the Court History, never goes down This contrasts with all the to battle with his men. traditions outside of the Court History.
Gunn S~m the

21:17

The only other episode of significance for Gunns point outside of the Court History is the story of the Here David sends Joab and the census in 2 Sam 24. commanders of the army to number the people. Joab, as spokesman for the commanders, raises an objection but David insists and Joab acquiesces and the order is carried out. There is no suggestion in this account of any personal animosity between David and Joab. There is no subsequent rebuke of David by Joab after the plague came and the story has no direct literary connection with any other episode which fortify such a tension.

25
conclude that outside of the Court is no basis for any pattern or stereotype in which the &dquo;sons of Zeruiah&dquo; are in opposition This tension is the creation of the to David /7/. His treatment of author of the Court History alone. the &dquo;sons of Zeruiah&dquo;, Abishai and Joab, as powerful military men who cannot be controlled is part of the Outside of the whole picture of David in this work. Court History Abishai and Asahel are included in the list of Davids warriors as members of the thirty while Joab is given the status of commander-in-chief. Abishai and Joab are also given the patronymic, &dquo;son of Zeruiah&dquo;. However the author of the Court History made Zeruiah the name of the mother of the three brothers (2 Sam 17:25) but this is clearly against all convenThe reason the author does tion of citing ones name. this is to make Joab and Amasa cousins and both of them grandsons of Nahash, the former king of Ammon. On the other hand there is no justification for Gunns suggestion that the author of the Court History thought of This is a David and the &dquo;sons of Zeruiah&dquo; as related. correction made by the Chronicler in 1 Chron 2:13-17 The who found the reference to Nahash objectionable. whole genealogical notation in 2 Sam 17:25 is the invention of the author of the Court History who has made an anomalous matronymic out of the patronymic &dquo;sons of Zeruiah&dquo; for his own literary purposes.
So
one

must

History there

Gunns second example of traditional composition is The trawhat he calls a &dquo;judgment-eliciting parable&dquo;. ditional element here is that of form not content as in the previous case so the issue here is a form-critical I do not wish to debate here the issue of parable one. What is at issue is the Sitz im Leben which genres. Gunn suggests is evidenced by the use of this genre. Drawing on a more modern example, he cites from a collection of popular folk-tales, he concludes that the genre derives from such an oral story-telling backBut Gunn overlooks an important distinction. ground. The folk-tale makes the parable the whole story with the reason for the parable given only in a brief introThe whole episode is a self-contained unit. duction. But the biblical examples, particularly in the Court History i. e. , Nathans parable and the story by the of a much woman of Tekoa, are only minor elements

26

larger complex with consequences extending far beyond One must speak here the telling of the parable itself.
The genre itself of the genres Sitz im der Literatur. may be folkloristic in character and origin as far as its form is concerned but its use in the Court History To follow Gunns line of reasonis strictly literary. ing one would have to say that every piece of literature

be

that contained even a popular saying would have to the product of oral story-telling, which is absurd.

Under this same heading of &dquo;judgment-eliciting Gunn turns to an entirely different type of comparison, that of the petition by the woman of Tekoa in 2 Sam 14 and the intercession of David by Abigail In this case it is not the &dquo;motif&dquo; of a in 1 Sam 25. parable that is similar for there is none in 1 Sam 25, but rather the phraseology used in describing the approach of the two women before David (see 1 Sam 25: This verbal simi23-4, 35 and 2 Sam 14:4,8,9,12). larity raises an entirely different kind of question about the relationships of these two stories to each It is curious that there are not other examples ether. if this is such a fixed stereotype. In the popular story about the two prostitutes before Solomon, 1 Kgs 3: On the other 16-28 the form is altogether different. hand the same kind of verbal similarity between the Court History and the episode with Abigail can be seen between 1 Sam 25:18 and 2 Sam 16:1. Gunn suggests that in both cases it is a matter of using traditional patterning or stereotypes /8/ but I would explain the similarity as evidence of direct literary dependence by the author of the Court History upon the story of Davids Rise. Now this is an important issue of methodHow much verbal similarity is necessary to prove ology. If similar phraseology is found in literary dependence? only these two sources and there is evidence on other grounds of literary dependence by one source on the other then I think it is highly likely that the similarity is a matter of direct borrowing and not just a use of stereotype expression.

parable&dquo;

Another

gathering together

example of Gunns motif-criticism is his of a number of episodes under the

rubric &dquo;the woman who brings death&dquo;. These would include such women in the Court History as Rizpah (2 Sam 3:6ff), Bathsheba, Tamar, and Abishag. These are then

27

compared with such stories as Judahs marriage to Shua (whose first two children die) and the story of Such a rubric is Eve, the woman who brings death. very far-fetched when applied to the last two cases and the stories are altogether different from those in the Court History. In the latter case a much more apt would be &dquo;death through the love of a description woman&dquo;. Now this is such a common theme which pervades literature of all kinds, times and places that to treat it as a special indicator of traditional composition hardly seems warranted and the observation is trivial. What might be more to the point is why it occurs so frequently in the Court History but with perhaps only one other example in the rest of the OT narrative, Gunn also speaks of a pattern of two that of Gen 34.
deaths

connected with forced in the case of does not apply to Gen city were killed.

each woman. Such a pattern is the Court History and certainly 34 where all the males of the

Gunn also points to a number of other minor folkloristic motifs in the Court History, such as the the spies in their escape (2 Sam 17: woman who assists the two 17-20), messengers who bear the news to David (2 Sam 18:19ff), and the letter which Uriah carries to his commander containing his own death warrant (2 Sam These motifs may well have been traditional 11:14ff). in a vague way but that fact tells us nothing about the form in which the author of the Court History knew In this regard the motif of the spies these stories. Gunn points to the high degree of may be instructive. 2 He states: between Sam 17:17-21 and Jos 2. similarity The king There are two spies in or at a city. of the city learns of their presence and sends men to find them. They are hidden in a house The kings men (under something) by a woman. come to the house and demand the spies be given But the woman gives false directions, the up. pursuers go their way, fail to find the spies, The spies escape. and return to the city.

28

Now

ments,
then that

particular combination of similar eleespecially that of both hiding the spies and giving false directions has suggested to Gunn

the

the stories derive from a &dquo;common stereotype&dquo; What Gunn means by common stereotype is not clear for it seems to be different from &dquo;traditional motif&dquo;, something much more fixed in its various elements. On the other hand it may be that the high degree of similarity points to direct literary dependence and that the whole spy motif in 2 Sam 17 is directly derived from Jos. 2 which has been used as a This would account for a &dquo;blind motive&dquo; in the model. later story /10/. As Gunn points out, the pursuers come to a specific house where the spies were hiding (2 Sam 17:20) even though there is no explanation given of how the they were known to have been there. The reference to the lad seeing them, V.18, has to do with their stay at En-rogel but not the house at Bahurim. On the other hand in Jos.2 the spies were seen enterThis would appear to me ing the house of the harlot. evidence that the author of the Court History has as borrowed the motif from Jos 2 in a shortened and incomplete form.

/9/.

even though a theme or motif is trafolkloristic in character the author of the Court History could still have taken it from a literary exemplar. And none of these motifs would have had to be part of a David tradition prior to their use by the The constant reapplicaauthor of the Court History. tion of folklore motifs by story-tellers and literary artists to new persons, times and situations is so The well known that it scarcely needs to be debated. in the Court of &dquo;traditional composition&dquo; degree History is very much less than Gunn has suggested and what there is does not point in any way to a body of While it is oral tradition about David specifically. the true that author of the Court History probably also drew upon the story-telling techniques and motifs of his contemporaries, whether oral or written, this It is is simply a truism of literature in all ages. the degree to which this is the case that cannot be Yet if controlled by the limited materials at hand. we compare his work with the other narratives of the Old Testament he still stands out, to my mind, as a very creative and quite untraditional writer.

Consequently,
or

ditional

29

1.

"Narrative Patterns and Oral Tradition in Judges and Samuel", VT 24 (1974), 286-317; "David and
the Gift of the Kingdom" (2 Sam 2-4, 9-20, 1 Kgs 1-2), Semeia 3 (1975), 14-45; "Traditional Composition in the Succession Narrative", VT 26 (1976), 214-229. See also idem, "The Battle Report: Oral or Scribal Convention?". JBL 93 (1974), 513-518.

Die von der Thronnachfolge BWANT III/6 (1926), reprinted in Das Kleine Credo und andere Studien zum Alten Testament (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1965) pp.119253 ; G. von Rad, "The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel", in The Problems of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965) pp. 166-204. 3. "Oral Patterns or Literary Conventions in Biblical Narrative", Semeia 5 (1976). 4. VT 26:214-229. 5. See my treatment of this theme in my chapter on Israelite Historiography in Histories and Historians of the Ancient Near East ed. by J.W.Wevers, Toronto: University of Toronto Press (in press). 6. If, however, the Court History is directly dependent upon earlier literary sources in Samuel then On this this criterion is defective. even literary question see my article above. 7. Note that Gunn takes 2 Sam 2:8 - 4:12 as part of the Court History and in this I entirely agree. See also VT 24:301-303. 8. 9. Gunn further suggests that in both stories the pursuers immediately accept the directions of the woman without a search, but this is only clearly stated in the case of Jos. 2:5-7.In 2 Sam 17:20, the statement about searching is ambiguous and could as easily refer to the house as well as the route and more likely the former. 10. For a discussion of "blind motive" as a criterion for literary dependence see J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975), p. 163. See the index for its application to the Abraham stories.

2.

L.Rost, , Davids

Überlieferung