Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Thomas L. Thompson" <tlt AT teol.ku.dk>]

Peter Kirk writes:
> I wonder if you could explain what you mean by this phrase? For I find 
> one of the major difficulties I have with views such as yours and 
> Prof. Lemche's is that of explaining how the books of Kings come to 
> include a significant amount of data which is confirmed in various 
> quite different sources, mainly Assyrian and Babylonian.
        [Thomas L. Thompson]  I had written: 
>           But II Kings here is drawing on a literary trope, and must be so
> understood, before we can talk about its historical uses.
> 
        Here I am paraphrasing a rather complex argument that I have
developed in my Early History of 1992, p. 334-365 and especially in my
contribution to the essays collected by L. Grabbe (The Exile in History and
Tradition, sheffield 1998--sorry I don't have the page numbers here).

        As for your other question about what you speak of as 'confirmed'
parts of Kings, I am somewhat puzzled. What do you think my views are?
Obviously the past was not a tabula rasa for our authors and obviously they
used sources. I have always maintained that: and quite vigorously. 

        Thomas