The word of the lord?: re-reading the story of the man of god from Judah

Abstract

This work centres on the close reading of a biblical text. The underlying proposal is that there is value for such a reading in combining both a standard historical ; approach, and a narrative or literary' critical approach (as propounded by Robert Alter and others).After an introductory consideration of the nature of the reading task, the work begins in Chapter One with a survey of critical approaches to the Deuteronomistic History, as a necessary preliminary to (in Chapter Two) the application of those approaches to the story of Jeroboam's cultic 'innovations' and the intervention of the. man of God from Judah recounted in : 1 Kings 12 and 13. A critical assessment is; essayed for this approach to the text, and some preliminary conclusions are drawn as to the role of the story in the Deuteronomistic History. The narrative reading of the text is undertaken in Chapters Three and Four. Chapter Three briefly explains the method, and it is then applied to the opening of the story. This reading is continued in Chapter Four, and concludes with a focus on specific areas of interest (e.g., the word and the phrase ). In Chapter Five the results of the two readings are compared, and their implications for each other explored. Various interpretations of the text are . considered, and a summary offered of the main themes and direction of the text.