The three Nathan narratives in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings are given detailed consideration in this fascinating study. A persuasive attempt is made to reconstruct the original form of the traditions and to trace the modifications made to them before they were finally accepted into the Succession Narrative.

The Story of King David attempts to provided a fresh perspective on the narrative about David in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings. Commonly known as the "Succession narrative," Gunn attempts to create better appreciation for its nature as a story. The book provides an initial survey of pespectives on the narrative, followed by his own proposed alternative view of the succession narrative as a story. This proposal is the developed through literary and rhetorical analysis. Gunn concludes with his own interpretation of the narrative and two appendixes on literary criticism and style.

The Old Testament tells the story of a particular nation, ancient Israel, from its origins to its collapse in the face of foreign invaders. But what sort of story is this? How does it fit in with the findings of archaeological explorations of ancient Syro-Palestine? Joshua to Kings picks up the aspects of Israel’s story as told in the books from Joshua to 2 Kings, that of an actual historical society and that of a literary presentation of a nation, told from a religious perspective. By exploring the contents of these biblical texts the student is led into the use of basic tools for biblical study, such as historical criticism, narrative criticism and ideological criticism, in order to engage in a structured manner with the task of reading and interpreting biblical texts in a twentieth-century world.

Linville argues that a new approach to the book of Kings is needed because of the failings of the usual historical–critical methods. He adopts a holistic approach which sees the book as a Persian-era text intended to articulate politically and religiously significant symbols within the book’s monarchic history.

Into the Hands of the Living God is Lyle Eslinger's second study of Deuteronomistic literature. This book is devoted to studies of key texts (Joshua 1–9; Judges 1–2; 1 Samuel 12; 1 Kings 8; 2 Kings 17) or concepts (the success/failure of the conquest; the exile and theodicy) in these narratives. Eslinger's readings are unorthodox and challenging, both for readers from the communities of faith and for critical scholarship. The Deuteronomistic narratives are here shown to be far from being a vindication of the ways of God at Israel's expense. Rather, in these narratives God, no less than Israel's leaders, has his hands soiled in the machinations that end in Babylon. What the Deuteronomistic history offers is, rather, dispassionate analysis of the problems, some unavoidable, that predetermined the failure of the covenant relationship. The collection of carefully worked out close readings of the biblical text in this volume provides a new critical vantage point from which one can...