The Kings-Isaiah and Kings-Jeremiah Recensions.

• Author: TALSHIR, ZIPORA
• Position: Review

The Kings-Isaiah and Kings-Jeremiah Recensions. By RAYMOND F. PERSON. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttesta-mentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 252. Berlin: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1997. Pp. viii + 127. DM 98.

This volume comprises a short introduction (pp. 1-7), two self-contained parts dealing with the Kings-Isaiah parallel texts(pp. 8-79) and the Kings-Jeremiah counterparts (pp. 80-113), overall conclusions (pp. 114-16), a list of cited works (pp. 117-25), and an author index (pp. 126-27).

The introduction briefly reviews the state of research on the Deuteronomistic history, viz., the book of Kings, with the conclusion that "the study of the redaction of DtrH and the book of Kings is at a methodological standstill" (p. 4). The present study suggests that "perhaps this standstill can be overcome at least to some extent, with the aid of text criticism" (p. 4). Seeing that little attention was given to text criticism in the study of redactional history, "the purpose of this study is to learn more about the redactional process of the book of Kings with the use of text critical controls" (p. 5).

The texts reviewed are 2 K 18:13-20:19 // Isa. 36:1-39:8 and 2 K 24:18-25:30 // Jer 52:1-34 with their LXX translation and the Qumran text for Isaiah. Person rightly argues that, while it is common opinion that the original context of these texts is in the book of Kings, it does not mean that the latter preserves the original form of the texts. The relationship between the texts is the core of this study, mainly decided by a simple guiding rule, stated without much ado at the end of p. 6: "Preference is generally given to the shorter reading and a change in sequence is generally understood to denote a later addition."

The study offers, as stated on p. 7: (1) a Hebrew synopsis including the retroverted Vorlage of the LXX, (2) a discussion of the relationships between the texts, (3) the retroverted Urtext, (4) the implications of the text critical analysis for the redactional history of the texts.

The main results are declared in advance: The MT of the book of Kings is one of the latest versions of the text. The majority of variants concern one or two words and do not tell us much about the redactors who produced the version preserved in the MT. Since the texts throughout carry a Deuteronomistic mark, it becomes difficult to distinguish between the different layers through literary criticism; text-critical criteria, however, prove that there must have existed at least two Deuteronomistic redactions (p. 7).

Person's study offers lots of texts, notes, data, but quite meager methodological presentations and substantial discussions. A synopsis of the Kings/Isaiah and Kings/Jeremiah texts set in parallel columns takes up a quite substantial part of this volume (pp. 11-37 and pp. 82-90 respectively). The synopsis is followed by notes on the retroversion of the Greek versions (pp. 38-42 and pp. 91-94). The original texts (Urtexts) are then reconstructed (pp. 47-53 and pp. 100-102), followed by notes on the reconstruction (pp. 54-74 and pp. 103-8).

The characterization of the five versions of the Kings/Isaiah text (pp. 43-45) has little value to the reader. It states that the text of Kings-MT is the latest version, but provides only technical data (e.g., Kings-LXX includes six additions, three omissions, one grammatical change, etc.), based on previous studies, especially Catastini's, leaving the reader ignorant regarding the value of these data or the standards according to which they were judged.

Under the title "the relationship between the texts" (pp. 45-46) the reader again encounters a series of numbers (e.g., Kings MT and LXX have in common twenty-three...