Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Oktober/2021 |
Spalte: | 916–918 |
Kategorie: | Altes Testament |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Weingart, Kristin |
Titel/Untertitel: | Gezählte Geschichte. Systematik, Quellen und Entwicklung der synchronistischen Chronologie in den Königebüchern. |
Verlag: | Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2020. XIV, 246 S. = Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 142. Lw. EUR 124,00. ISBN 9783161582950. |
Rezensent: | Bob Becking |
This Habilitationsschrift from Tübingen is a daring book, for three reasons. Firstly, Weingart discusses a topic that at first sight seems to be neither glamorous nor fashionable: the mysterious numbers of the Hebrew Kings. The numerals for the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel have always puzzled scholars since they do not present an coherent system on which the backbone of the history of Ancient Israel could be written. Within the Books of Kings there are constant references to synchronisms between the reigns of rulers from both kingdoms. These synchronisms are sometimes helpful and sometimes rather confusing. The same holds for the synchro nisms with extra Biblical, mainly cuneiform evidence. W. dis-cusses the underlying problems: sometimes the Thronbesteigungsjahr was counted as the first year of a king but sometimes as the last year of the preceding ruler – antedating versus postdating, some parts seem to apply a spring-spring year, but others an autumnal cycle, co-regencies are – in most cases – presented as full regnal years, the textual history in various cases offer deviating numbers. W.’s aim is not to solve all these problems and construct a new chronological framework for the monarchic period in Israel and Judah. Her search concentrates on the fabric of the chronological data in the Book of Kings and their literary formulations.
In a very learned chapter she offers the data form the Book of Kings and shows how the various parameters when set differently would lead to different chronological solutions in particular cases but not for the Book as a whole. She then turns to the text-historical evidence. In Hebrew manuscripts as well as in the translation into the various classical languages a bewildering multitude of numerical variants is attested. W. offers two possible causes for these discrepancies. On the one hand, copyists and translators might have felt the need to smooth the chronological problems, but on the other hand mistakes especially with the dozens cannot be excluded. Special attention is paid to the Greek minuscule manuscript 127 (c2) which represents the Antiochene textual traditions, but different from its peer-texts presents a coherent and unproblematic chronological system, probably based on calcula-tions of the copyist, but not on tradition.
Thereafter, she moves to an overview of ancient Near Eastern chronography describing the way in which Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, and Phoenician scribes ordered the bygone era. This leads to the assumption of an underlying ancient Near Eastern literary Gattung chronography in which the grate of the regnal years of the various kings is at times filled with additional remarks. These remarks concentrate on a few topics: irregular changeover of power, catastrophic events, mayor building activities, and synchronisms.
Her next daring step is the application of the Gattung to the formulations in the Book of Kings. She observes that in the Hebrew Bible a total of eleven elements can be detected in these notes: from the age at coronation up to the locality of the burial. No single report on a king contains all eleven elements. Weingart detects three different arrangements:
Schema A 7 elements Judaean kings only
Schema B 5 elements 5 Israelite kings
Schema C 5 elements 12 Israelite kings
This observation is the starting point for an intriguing discourse. W. postulates two original documents that functioned as sources for the synchronic chronology in the Book of Kings.
1) An chronology from the Northern Kingdom in which the reigns of the kings were described according to schema B. This text also contained notes on (a) irregular changeovers of power, (b) military operations and the reports on acquiring and loss of areas, and (c) royal building activities.
2) A Judaean chronographic source in which schema A was applied. Like its Israelite companion, this text too contained notes, but of a different character: (a) narratives on times of threat (for instance in the period of Hezekiah), (b) short notes on political coalitions, (c) short notes on coups d’état, and (d) short narratives on the temple in Jerusalem and its treasures. Therefore, she sees the Judaean chronography as temple related.
Both documents supposedly contained synchronisms. In a later – but still pre-exilic – period both chronologies were merged. This leads to a re-writing of the reports on twelve Israelite kings applying Schema C, which is a combination of the other two arrangements. All these observations bring her to the conclusion that the number of the Hebrew kings are not to be construed merely as a literary construct form a later age.
W.’s next step is the most daring one and hence open to chal-lenge. She notes that the description of the reign of king Menachem (2 Kings 15:16–22) is a tipping point. After this description, schema B had been revised into in schema C and next to that up and until the reign of Menachem the reigns of the rulers of Israel are ante-dated and after him we find descriptions based on postdating. This drives her to the view that the Northern Chronography might go back to a document written in the reign of Menachem (around 740 BCE). In the present scholarly tendency in which greater parts of the Hebrew Bible are seen as documents from the Persian and Hellenistic ages without trustworthy roots into pre-exilic times. W.’s view is a welcome dissonant in the present choir of scholars. Her references to the West Semitic inscriptions from the eighth century BCE and earlier (Deir Allah; Tel Dan; Mesha Inscription; Khirbeth Qeiyafa ostracon, etc.) support the view that scribal activity in Judah and Israel started early in pre-exilic times.
Although I have questions on various minor points – for instance: I am not convinced that Jotam and Ahaz were the same person and I disagree on the character of the references to the source(s) ›the Book of the chronicles of the kings‹, I do appreciate this schol-arly and well-argued endeavor very much.