Prophetic stories as sources for the histories of Jehoshaphat and the Omrides

Abstract

Tracing the sources available to the Dtr historian and the way he integrated them into his composition is the point of departure for this study. The detailed analysis of the value-judgments, and the concluding statements on Jehoshaphat, Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram, indicate that they were written on the basis of the prophetic stories and battle reports of 1Kgs 17-19; 21-22; 2Kgs 1; 3 and 9-10. These narratives were the main sources available to the Dtr for describing the histories of Jehoshaphat and the Omrides. The pre-Dtr story in 1Kgs 22 included w.1-18.29-37, whereas w. 19-28 were written by the Dtr when he integrated the story of Ahab's death in battle into his historical composition. The lack of agreement between prophetic narratives and passages composed by the Dtr suggests that such contradictions were tolerated by the historian and his readers and that we must be careful not to attribute modern historical standards to biblical historians. A detailed analysis of the Dtr history shows that the historian exhausted all his sources and left very little that is not mentioned either explicitly or implicitly in his work.