The Politics of Dead Kings.

• Author: Spronk, Klaas
• Position: Book review

The Politics of Dead Kings. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe, vol. 48. By MATTHEW J. SURIANO. Tuibingen: MOHR SIEBECK, 2010. pp. xvi 203. [euro]54.

This is a revised version of a dissertation supervised by W. M. Schniedewind at the University of California, Los Angeles. It takes up the old discussion about the precise meaning and background of the customary epilogue in the books of Kings at the end of a Judahite or Israelite king's life with the reference to his death ("and he lay with his fathers"), a notice of burial in the royal tombs, and the introduction of his successor. Suriano suggests that it is possible to shed new light on its interpretation by placing it in the sociopolitical context of death in the ancient Near East during the Iron Age. This would show that the primary function of the funerary rituals and royal tombs mentioned in these epilogues was to deal with the political problems which could be posed by a king's death and to ensure the dynastic succession. In this respect there would have been no basic difference between Israel and other cultures in the ancient Near East in this period. Within the narrative in the book of Kings the formulaic epilogues also serve the literary purpose of expressing the uninterrupted succession of the Davidic dynasty in contrast to the many usually short-lived dynasties in Israel.

In the first chapter Suriano makes a number of methodological observations explaining the need for a socio-political approach, in which he combines an anthropological approach with a syntactic, an archaeological, and a religio-historical approach. In his study this leads to positive results. One could question, however, whether all the evidence really points in the same direction. The assumption of a political role for venerated royal ancestors may have been too dominant in this research, leading to circular reasoning. The author wants to avoid academic speculation, but in regard to some well-known difficult issues like the discussions about deuteronomistic redactions or the cult of the dead he may have exchanged speculation for harmonization.

All the same, this study offers a good survey and evaluation of the relevant primary and secondary sources. In the second and fourth chapters Suriano offers a detailed discussion of the phrase "to lie with the fathers" and related expressions. He convincingly argues that it should be read within the framework of the secured inheritance. But he seems to overstate his...