David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King.

• Author: Seters, John Van
• Position: Book Review

David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King. By BARUCH HALPERN. Grand Rapids, Mich.: WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING Co., 2001. Pp. xx + 492. $30.

The title of this book hardly suggests sober historiography. Indeed, it reads more like a tabloid headline. Yet the dust-jacket assures us that it is an exceptional work of biblical scholarship, "a century more advanced than any other book about David," and "sets a new standard by which all future writing of biblical history must be carried out." The author himself claims that the book is "a prelude to a history of Israel for the Anchor Bible Reference Library," so in spite of first appearances we must treat it as a serious history of the period under review. In fact, the novelty of the author's method is to extract truth from mendacity, treating the lies of the biblical record in such a way as to get at the real history behind them. This "revisionist" history of David and Solomon (the book is as much about the latter as the former) is a curious mix of erudite discussion about archaeological problems and comparative Near Eastern historiography, on the one hand, and a narration of historical events in vivid j ournalistic detail with little concern for documentation or scholarly discussion of texts and their complex literary history, on the other. This combination is evidenced throughout the book by the fact that the author constantly tells the general reader to skip the technical discussion, intended for scholars, and get to the historical narrative of "real" events. The most important archaeological debate, on which much of the argument depends, is relegated to a final appendix, considered as unnecessary for most readers. In fact, many of the scholarly pieces scattered throughout the book are derived from previously published scholarly articles and poorly integrated into the whole. Although the book contains subject and author indexes, it has no scripture reference index and no bibliography. This makes it a difficult book to read and to review.

The basic thesis of this book is that the biblical accounts of the reigns of David and Solomon (1 Sam 16-1 Kgs 10) are the work of nearly contemporary court apologists with access to written documents and inscriptions, whose writing must be read "against the grain" to extract the real history of the period. Thus, contrary to the biblical version, David was directly involved in the deaths of Saul and his sons, the murders of Ishbaal and Abner, Amnon and Absalom, and many others. He did not gain full control over Israel until after the Absalom revolt. The one murder that is traditionally attributed to him, that of Uriah, he did not commit. That account was the work of the apologist to cover up the fact that Solomon was not really David's but Uriah's son, who therefore had no claim to the throne. Solomon continued the killing of his enemies as David had done, with rather thinly veiled pretexts created by the apologist. In this way Halpern exposes the "secret demons" of David and the not so secret ones of Solomo n. Is this historical reconstruction in the least bit credible?

To answer this question one must consider this book on three...