David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory

Dr Jacob L. Wright teaches Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies at Emory University, where he is a member of the faculty of distinction. His first book, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and its Earliest Readers, was awarded The John Templeton Award for one of the best first books in religion and theology. For his research on war commemoration, he received a prestigious faculty fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

• 1. Slings and arrows - remembering King David; 2. Flesh and stone - from war monuments to the David story; 3. King of Judah - the earliest account of David's life; 4. Tales of loyalty and betrayal - the cases of Keilah and Ziph; 5. The bones of Saul - the loyalty of the Gileadites; 6. Uriah the Hittite - a tale of royal modesty; 7. Ittai the Gittite - mercenary allegiance versus national solidarity; 8. David in exile - priests, statehood, and the Benjaminites; 9. Territorial transitions - the Transjordan, Israel, and Judah; 10. Chronicles - David as a catalyst of national unity; 11. Caleb and the conquest - inventing a new hero; 12. Caleb the warrior - the evolution of legends; 13. Caleb the Judahite - an iconic figure; 14. War-torn David - conclusions.

'In engaging, limpid prose occasionally seasoned with humor, Wright argues that the stories of David and Caleb in the Tanakh were efforts in nation building. At the heart of Wright's argument is 'war commemoration'. Depicting characters as either helping or hindering David in one of his many military endeavors is, according to Wright, a key means by which individuals and communities were deemed to be part of, or outside, the people of Israel by the postexilic redactors of Samuel 1 and 2 and Kings 1 and 2. In narratives featuring Caleb, Wright explores how redactors transformed this Kenizzite, or outsider, into an exemplary Judahite, or insider. Wright bases his readings on a 'supplementation' model of textual development rather than the traditional documentary hypothesis. The result is a fresh and fruitful perspective on ways David and Caleb were used to construct Israelite peoplehood after Judah and the Temple were destroyed by the Babylonians. Wright succeeds in making painstaking textual inquiry into a stimulating book for general readers and experts alike.' Choice