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Abraham Kuenen
        There remains, however, one viable critique of the hypothesis of a single Deuteronomist. It has its roots in the work of the nineteenth century critics. Abraham Kuenen was the first to suggest that the book of Kings originated in pre-exilic times and then later underwent an exilic redaction. If this is true, of course, Noth's concept of a single, exilic historian needs to be revised.
        Kuenen was led to this conclusion by his observation of certain literary critical irregularities which to this day form the foundation of the theory of a dual redaction for Kings /11/. He felt that some passages definitely presuppose the exile and must have been written after the release of Jehoiachin from prison in 561 B.C.: 1 Kings 5:4; 9:1-9; 11:9-13 (in its present form); 2 Kings 17:19-20; 20:17-18; 21:11-15; 22:15-20; 23:26-27; 24:2-4, 18-25:30. Other passages, Kuenen asserted, may presuppose the fall of Samaria but cannot be from after the fall of Judah. Finally, a third class of passages are neutral and might [15] to explain this dichotomy in Kings, he felt, was to assume two editors:

Both series of passages find their explanation in the assumption that a Deuteronomistic, but pre-exilic, book of Kings written about 600 B.C. has been continued in the Babylonian exile and reworked and expanded here and there /12/.

Other Forms of the Dual Redaction Hypothesis
        Kuenen's thesis was enthusiastically approved by Wellhausen, who differed from him in attributing less of 2 Kings 17 to the first editor. Wellhausen claimed that v.13 has a different and later view of the law than does the pre-exilic v.37 and so assigned vv.7-17 to the second editor. He was also convinced that the synchronisms had been added to the first editor's information on length of reign by the second editor /14/. Like Kuenen, Wellhausen relied heavily upon the "unto this day" formulae and the mention of exile as sure criteria of what is pre-exilic or exilic.
        From the introductions of Kuenen and Wellhausen, the theory of a double redaction for Kings passed into general favor in the wider scholarly world. Of course many writers had their own individual opinions about some minor points, especially about the date and extent of the first redaction.
        Among the more influential introductions, for example, Driver /15/ felt that this theory was highly probable, but noted that it was really only occasionally possible to point to later, exilic passages. Sellin (1923) believed that this theory was acceptable if the first editor's work is permitted to extend as [17] far as 2 Kings 24:5. Eissfeldt /16/ remained undecided about details because of his emphasis upon the extension of Pentateuchal sources as far as Kings, but he did add his own personal touch by assigning the prophetic legends as a whole to the second editor rather than to the first. Weiser /17/ did not commit himself but leaned toward the theory because of 1 Kings 8:8.
        Even after the publication of Noth's thesis, the two edition theory remained popular with the writers of introductions. Pfeiffer /18/ provided a detailed examination of the problem in support of a double redaction. He was of the peculiar opinion that the first editor wrote immediately after the death of Josiah but omitted any mention of that death because it would have disproved his Deuteronomistic theories. This first editor was motivated to write by the glamor of that king's reform, which had not yet lost its influence. The second editor was also the Deuteronomistic editor of Genesis through Samuel and the one who provided the framework for the book of Judges. Bentzen /19/ also concluded that the first editor was motivated by the Josianic reform but wrote before Josiah's death. Rowley /20/ merely accepted the theory of dual redaction in general, as did Delorme /21 /, who based his opinion in part upon his incorrect assumption that the second editor employed the regnal formulae with less regularity than the first. Fohrer /22/ also opted for the two edition theory and asserted on the basis of 2 Kings 22:20 that the first editor was unaware of Josiah's death.
        A widespread acceptance of the Kuenen hypothesis has characterized not only the introductions, but also the major commentaries on Kings, although these also differ among themselves, especially concerning the date of the first editor.
        Benzinger indicated a pre-exilic R1 who measured the kings by their behavior in regard to high places and worked between 621 and 597 and an exilic (or even post-exilic) R2 who was also a purposeful redactor, and not the compiler of a heterogeneous mixture of additions. This second editor conditionalized the promises to David, altered the Huldah prophecy, and emphasized God's long-suffering and the theme of universalism. In contrast to the first editor, R2 saw the most decisive sin as idolatry. The synchronisms were added by this second editor /23/.
        Kittel suggested that one Deuteronomistic redactor was common to Judges, Samuel, and Kings: Rd. To Rd's concept of the decisive sin as non-central Yahwism, a later editor (Rd2 or just R) added the sin of following Canaanite gods. Since 2 Kings 24:5 is the last citation of his source, Rd must have written under Jehoiakim. R, who used Rd's style and added the [18]synchronisms, was definitely exilic rather than post-exilic, for he failed to mention a return from Babylon /24/.
        Burney had a unique opinion. The first editor (RD) wrote "before the glamour of Josiah's reformation had wholly faded," not later than 600 B.C. Burney suggested as suitable endings for this first edition: 2 Kings 23:29, 30, or 28, in descending order of probability. As 2 Kings 17:34b-40 indicates, RD2 was actually post-exilic. 2 Kings 23:31-24:9 and 24:10-25:30 are really appendices and not part of any coherent redaction /25/.
        Skinner, like Kittel, found the conclusion of the first editor in the treatment of Jehoiakim on the very eve of the final disasters "when all hope of a favourable turn in the fortunes of the nation must have passed away." Although this writer's unconditional citation of the promises to David thus raises a problem, "it is difficult to say for certain whether the writer was living under the shadow of institutions whose ruin might yet be averted, or whether he was looking back on great hopes irretrievably shattered." /26/
        Stade and Schwally in The Sacred Books of the Old Testament asserted that the "epitomist" first editor wrote under Jehoiachin or Zedekiah. This work contained none of the prophet legends. In post-exilic times this epitome was continued by a second Deuteronomist who made extensive additions /27/.
        Sanda called the main editor of Kings R. Since 2 Kings 24:5 is the last annals citation, R's terminus a quo is the death of Jehoiakim (598 B.C.). The lack of information about Zedekiah's death or the fate of Jehoiachin, the last paragraph of Kings being an addition, points to a date for the first editor just after the fall of Jerusalem in 587. The choice of the perfect tense in 1 Kings 8:8 confirms this: the ark has just recently disappeared, but the covenant document is still present. panda differed from his predecessors in assigning most of the "unto this day" formulae to the sources, not to the hand of the first editor himself. After this first author, who wrote just after the fall, Rj who was really only a glossator carrying out R's ideas more rigorously, clarified, explained, and harmonized the earlier book. Rj's usage was much like Jeremiah's /28/.
        Eissfeldt had been more definite about double redaction in his commentary on Kings than in his later Introduction. He divided Kings among Dt, writing up to 2 Kings 23:25a between 621 and 607, Dt2, who continued the basic book, writing after 561, and R, a catchall for various Deuteronomistic and non-Deuteronomistic supplements /29/.
        De Vaux traced two editions, one from Josiah's day and one exilic, but he considered the information on Gedaliah, the [19] release of Jehoiachin, and the prayer of Solomon, as postredactional appendices /30/.
        Montgomery never really grappled with this issue. He saw the basic compilation of Kings as contemporary to Jeremiah and called 2 Kings 25:22-30 a post-script, leaving no room for a coherent second editor /31 /.
        Snaith attributed the first edition to a time shortly before Josiah's death because that death would have destroyed the author's thesis. Later, the release of Jehoiachin made this discredited thesis tenable again, giving occasion to the work of a second editor who laid greater emphasis upon idolatry than the first author had and who was more positive about the Northern Kingdom /32/.
        The commentaries of John Gray extended the theory of a double redaction to the Deuteronomistic history as a whole, involving a "Deuteronomic compiler" and a "Deuteronomic redactor:" Gray believed that the historical break between these two came between the outbreak of Jehoiakim's revolt in 598 and the accession of his successor. First, Kings says very little about this revolt, and the circumstances of Jehoiakim's death are obscure. Second, according to Gray's chronology, there was a hiatus of several months between Jehoiakim's death and Jehoiachin's accession, but this hypothetical gap is not mentioned in Kings. Finally, the first dating by a foreign chronology comes in 2 Kings 24:12. Gray also suggested that the 480-year structural chronology (1 Kings 6:1) really belongs to neither editor, but is post-redactional /33/.
        Robinson's contribution to the Cambridge Bible Commentary finds a first edition of Kings which had the purpose of extolling Josiah and showing God's verdict on the northern kingdom. This was composed 621-609 and was revised after 560 /34/.

Three Approaches: Jepsen, Smend, Cross
        Thus, the hypothesis of a double redaction of Kings has a long, respectable history, and even the popularity of Noth's thesis of a single, exilic historian has not completely eliminated it. Three approaches to the redactional history of this literature require special attention, those of Jepsen, Smend and his students, and Cross /35/.
        Alfred Jepsen, working before the publication of Noth's contribution /36/, traced two large-scale redactions in Kings, differing in theology and slightly in style. Jepsen believed he had found an early exilic compilation of a cultic history of Israel and Judah by a priest (R1). About a generation later, this was supposedly reworked by someone with prophetic [20] leanings (RII). Although Jepsen claimed that he had discovered Noth's Dtr independently but felt a need to postulate an earlier work with a different theology, his theories have not been widely accepted. The differences he traced between R1 and RII in language are really created by a difference in content rather than style: cultic reports over against prophetic material. Jepsen himself had to admit the language was so similar that RII must have copied R1's style: /37/ In addition, the differences in theology between R1 and RII listed by Jepsen are not mutually exclusive nor particularly far apart and would not be incompatible in a single author /38/. Jepsen seems to have confounded tension within the outlook of the historian himself (non-central Yahwism versus idolatry), differences between the historian and his sources (dependence upon versus independence from Deuteronomy), and concepts which would not necessarily be impossible for one author to hold together (the Temple as a place of prayer and of divine presence). In fact one wonders if Jepsen has not been led into postulating his "nebiistic" and priestly redactions by the common and erroneous opinion that the prophetic and cultic sides of Israel's life were in constant, irreconcilable conflict. Jepsen's approach has been carried forward in a series of articles by Gustavo Baena in regard to 2 Kings 17 /39/, but beyond this it has not found much following.
        A recent essay by Rudolph Smend attempts to trace the hand of a law-oriented Deuteronomist (DtrN) overlaying the work of the historian (DtrG) in Joshua and Judges, not as a mere glossation, but a complete reworking of the material. Smend isolates Josh. 1:7-9; 13:1b-6; 23; Judg. 1:1-2:5, 17, 20-21, 23 from the main redaction of the Deuteronomistic history and assigns them to DtrN because of their common interest in the law and their concept of nations remaining in the land after the conquest. While Smend is perhaps correct in seeing Josh. 1:7-9 and Judg. 2:17, 20-21, 23 as secondary to the Deuteronomistic history and associated with Judg. 1:1-2:5 as the work of a second editor, I cannot agree that Josh. 23 is also secondary to the history and that Josh. 24 should be substituted in its place as the historian's work. Smend assigns Josh. 24 to the historian because he considers Judg. 2:6-10 dependent upon Josh. 24:28-31 and because Josh. 23:4, 7, 12 speak of the peoples remaining in the land in contradiction to the historian's own view (Josh. 11:23). By considering Josh. 23 as secondary, Smend can go on to assign Josh. 13-22 to the historian, for then Josh. 23:1 is imitating Josh. 13:1 and not vice versa. This in turn permits Smend to consider Josh. 13:lbb-6 (the list of the nations remaining) as [21] DtrN /40/.
        However, several factors weigh against Smend's hypothesis. The language of the second editor of the Deuteronomistic history actually shows more in common with Josh. 24 than the language of the historian himself does (pp. 94-98 below). The arguments advanced to determine the direction of the dependence between Josh. 24:28-31 and Judg. 2:6-9 are tenuous (p.95 below). Viewed objectively, this dependence could run in either direction. In Josh. 23:4, 7, 12, the mention of the nations remaining is really an addition to the context /41/ and cannot be used to deny Josh. 23 as a whole to the historian. In fact, Smend's inversion of what is usually considered to be the situation in Joshua-Judges creates more problems than it solves. How are we to explain the dislocation of the historian's narrative about Caleb in Josh. 14:6-15 from between Josh. 11 and 12 to its present position /42/ unless Josh. 13:22 is not the historian? How can interest in the law function as a distinguishing characteristic aiding us in separating the historian from the second editor if the historian himself shows this interest: Deut. 31:9-13, 24-25; 32:45-47?
        Smend's failure convincingly to demonstrate the existence of a second editor may be due, in part, to his starting with a section of the history which is in a highly disturbed literary critical state and suggests that the center of gravity for any such attempt should be in the book of Kings, where there has been extensive agreement in distinguishing between two redactors and where the literary problems are of manageable proportions.
        Walter Dietrich extended this approach into the rest of the Deuteronomistic history. His thesis is that into the substratum of the work (DtrG), written just after the fall of Judah, a second redactor (DtrP) inserted his own prophetic speeches and notices of fulfillment, along with other prophetic material. After the release of Jehoiachin, a pro-Davidic, nomistic DtrN added further material /43/.
        Although he sheds valuable light on certain form and literary critical matters, the tripartate redactional schema is not convincing. DtrP's linguistic usage is heavily dependent on DtrG /44/, and the differences in usages between the two actually seem to be a function of the different subject matter of the respective passages. The existence of the shadowy DtrN remains unsubstantiated throughout.
        The Smend and Dietrich approach has been followed by a series of studies tracing these three Deuteronomists in 2 Kings 22, analyzing their attitudes towards the Davidic dynasty and monarchy in general, and discussing their respective salvation [22] theologies /45/. The methodological problem remains the same. Various matters such as law, prophecy, rest, kingship, all of which could be of interest to a single theological thinker, are (almost automatically) assigned to different redactional levels. Tensions within the Deuteronomistic history on the place of the Davidic dynasty, on forgiveness and punishment, on present and future salvation, which could have been held in balance by a single author, are consistently dissolved into evidence for multiple authorship. Alleged differences in language usage among the three redactors seem to be mostly the result of the differences in subject matter which caused them to be separated in the first place.
        A more fruitful line of study would start from genuinely contradictory themes or tendencies and try to relate them to the historical situation of a pre-exilic or exilic author. This is what F. M. Cross has done.
        Building upon the foundations laid by Kuenen and his successors, Cross takes the position that the first edition of the Deuteronomistic history was issued in the time of Josiah as propaganda for that king's policies and that this was later brought up to date around 560 B.C. by means of several additions which changed the theological thrust of the original.
        Cross points out that the historian never repudiates the unconditional promise made to David's house. This theme reaches its climax in Josiah, the perfect Davidic king, and in his attempted reunion of North and South. A second central theme is the sin of Jeroboam, one which also comes to resolution in Josiah's reform and profanation of Bethel /46/. Cross's thesis is analogous to the classical division of Kings into pre-exilic and exilic redactions, but it is also a definite advance over this earlier view. The motivation for and the date of the pre-exilic edition is clearly set forth. Also, less reliance is placed upon the dubious critical position that everything that hints at destruction and deportation must be exilic or that any statement reflecting pre-exilic conditions must come from a pre-exilic editor rather than from pre-exilic source material left intact by a later editor.

Arguments with Little Value
        Mention of an exile. The first of these is that certain portions of the book of Kings or the history presuppose the Babylonian exile simply because they mention a final disaster in one form or another: Deut. 4:25-28; Josh. 23:16; I Kings 8:33-34, 46-51; 9:6-9; 2 Kings 17:19-20; 20:17-18; 21:10-15; 22:16-17, 20; 23:26-27; 24:2-4. Certainly those passages that speak of the fall of Judah as inevitable in spite of repentance (2 Kings 21:10-15; 22:16-17; 23:26-27; 24:2-4) must be exilic, for such an attitude on the part of a pre-exilic historian would eliminate any possible motivation for writing. Although Jeremiah considered this disaster inevitable as well, it was to take place because there was no repentance (Jer. 8:4-7; 13:23), not in spite of it.
        However, the mere mention of exile or disaster is not an automatic sign of exilic composition. The prophets had suggested this as a possibility at least since the time of Micah (Jer. 26:18; Micah 3:12). After the conquest and deportation of Israel, thoughtful Judeans would certainly have realized that a similar fate could await them. In fact, Sennacherib's inscriptions speak of a deportation of Judeans from provincial cities after 701 B.C. (ANET, 288). Finally, threats of military disaster and exile were part of the language of contemporary treaty curses. A treaty violation leads to the divine witnesses of the agreement rising up to expel the offenders from their land (ANET, 205-6). Siege conditions and the details of invasion are described. Passers-by are astonished by the resultant desolation, and the disobedient vassals go into exile /47/.
        Therefore, one cannot assign passages like Deut. 4:25-28; Josh. 23:16; 1 Kings 8:33-34; 9:6-9; 2 Kings 20:17-18 to an exilic hand solely because they speak of exile and destruction. Such language would be possible from at least the time of Hezekiah.
        "Unto this day." A second classic argument points to the use of the formula "unto this day" in Kings for situations that would not be true for an exilic author. If these formulae could be assigned definitely to the hand of the Deuteronomistic historian himself and not to the wording of the historian's sources, we could then establish a sure core of pre-exilic redactional material over against the exilic material presupposing an inevitable disaster.
        Brevard Childs, in attempting to delineate what role etiology played in the genesis of Israel's traditions, has established that this formula was, in the great majority of cases, a redactional, [24] literary commentary added to a traction in order to witness that the situation in question continued up to the time of the redactor /48/. Since the historian used sources in written form, however, Childs' insight does not automatically determine whether this commentary was added by the historian or by his literary predecessors.
        In fact, in most cases, the phrase belongs without question to the historian's narrative sources: the Sammler of Joshua (Josh. 4.9; 59; 7:26; 8:28-29; 10:27), the judges narratives (Judge. 6:24; 10:4; 15:19), the Ark Story (1 Sam. 5:5; 6:18; 2 Sam. 6:8), the Rise of David (1 Sam. 27:6; 30:25; 2 Sam. 4:3), the Succession History (2 Sam. 18:18), and the Elisha cycle (2 Kings 2:22) /49/. In fact, Burke Long has demonstrated that the historian himself actually had very little interest in the etiological significance of the etiological etymologies he reproduces, with or without the formula "unto this day" /50/.
        In one case the formula clearly belongs to the historian's annalistic source, the "Book of the Acts of Solomon": 1 Kings 9:13. However, because of the brief, terse nature of these annalistic source quotations, certain attribution of the formula is not usually possible. Passages in which the formula could belong to either the source or to the historian are:
Josh. 14:14 - Caleb's claim on Hebron
1 Kings 12:19 - Separation of Israel from the house of David
2 Kings 8:22 - Edom separates from Judah
2 Kings 10:27 - Baal sanctuary a latrine
2 Kings 14:7 - The name of a rock
2 Kings 16:6 - Edom's hold on Elath
2 Kings 17:23 - Exile of Israel
2 Kings 17:34, 41 - Religious conditions in Samaria
        In spite of what earlier critics asserted, however, none of these examples could actually prove pre-exilic redaction even if the formulae could be shown to be from the historian's hand. Scholars who claim that the historian was a single, exilic redactor tend to believe that he live in Palestine, not Babylon /51/. For a Palestinian exilic author every one of these situations [25] could easily still have been true and even would have been of some interest to him: the claim on Hebron, Edomite independence and expansion, the condition of a famous Baal sanctuary, and local geographic names. Two further passages using this formula, however, cannot so easily be eliminated as evidence for a pre-exilic historian.
        Even Noth admitted that the phrase "unto this day" in 1 Kings 8:8b cannot belong to the historian's source; /52/ yet the literary critical situation of 1 Kings 8:1-9 is so confused that we cannot confidently affirm that it belongs to the historian either. Some remove v.8b as a very late gloss because of its omission by the Old Greek and Lucian /53/. Others transpose 8b after 9, where it certainly fits more comfortably /54/. However, its present irregular position suggests that the phrase is most likely a marginal gloss directed at v.9 but misplaced after v.8 /55/. In short, while 1 Kings 8:8b might be from a pre-exilic Deuteronomist, this conclusion is too uncertain to permit the erection of a double redaction hypothesis upon it.
        Much the same thing can be said of 1 Kings 9:21. 1 Kings 9:15-23 seems to be basically the historian's source, the Book of the Acts of Solomon /56/, but the list of the nations in v.20 shows that this has been worked over by a Deuteronomistic hand. Therefore, the literary assignment of the "unto this day" formula is v.21 is in doubt. The concepts of the inability of Israel to enforce the ban and of the peoples who remained in the land are motifs alien to the historian (Josh. 11:23) and more suited to certain secondary Deuteronomistic additions to his work (Josh. 23:4, 7, 12; Judg. l:1-2:5, 20-23, etc.). Since the "unto this day" formula here would certainly be untrue for this secondary Deuteronomist, Childs and Noth are probably correct in assigning the phrase in 1 Kings 9:21 to the source /57/. In any case it cannot be the wording of the Deuteronomistic historian.
        Consequently, those scholars for whom the "unto this day" formula is a basic element in their theories of dual redaction /58/ have put their confidence in a shaky argument, for this expression can provide no sure criterion to divide the two hypothetical redactors. In some cases the phrase must belong to the historian's sources; in others it is incapable of providing a distinction between a pre-exilic or exilic Palestinian editor. Finally, in 1 Kings 8:8 and 8:21, the literary origin of the formula is in serious doubt.
        The historical situation. Other common arguments are based upon the historical situation of the exile and the period immediately preceding it. One is that the annalistic sources used in the history would be unavailable to an exilic author /59/. [26] Several factors speak against this line of reasoning.
        First, sources of a similar nature did survive the deportation. The exilic editor who added Jer. 52 (= 2 Kings 24:18-25:21) to that book had available a list of deportees using the Babylonian non-accession year dating system. The Chronicler preserved valuable information about military construction and the like from some unknown source from the pre-exilic period. Second, it has not been proven that the historian directly used the official annals of Israel and Judah at all. It is possible that these "books of the daily affairs of the kings" were not the royal annals themselves, but literary works in which these were collected and edited and which could have had a wide enough circulation to prevent their loss in the final disaster /60/. Third, the source for Israel, in whatever form, managed to survive-the events of 722 B.C. Is it so hard to believe that Judean sources could survive as well? Finally, this argument implicitly assumes that an exilic historian must have lived in Babylon, far from the remnants of the old national life, but if the author were a Palestinian, he would have had access to whatever sources continued to be transmitted through the ongoing religious and social institutions of Judah /61/.
        A second argument of the same nature carries more weight. The composition of such a history would be more likely in the period of archaizing tendencies in the seventh and early sixth centuries, just before the exile /62/. Nevertheless, an exilic editor would have had an equally good motive to systematize past traditions, just as the P writer did at a somewhat later time.
        Arguments from the historical situation of the exilic or immediately pre-exilic periods are therefore not particularly convincing.
        Literary style. A fourth argument is that the Deuteronomistic rhetorical style has much in common with the general literary style of the period immediately preceding the exile. Albright points out that the historian exhibits the same complex style as the Lachish letters, later than the more complicated tense structure of the historian's sources, but earlier than the Aramaisms and neologisms of Nehemiah and the Chronicler /63/.
        Unfortunately, this line of reasoning runs immediately into a blank wall. While the Lachish letters (to say nothing of the book of Deuteronomy itself) show us that this style is not exclusively late, they do not and cannot demonstrate that it is exclusively pre-exilic. What John Bright once wrote about the style of the Jeremiah prose sermons holds true for Deuteronomistic language [27] in general: "the writer believes that either he or the reader could imitate it." /64/ Albright's argument is pointless because we do have Deuteronomistic literature of a definitely exilic date: those sections of Kings that view the fall of Jerusalem as inevitable and the traces of a "second hand" detected by Wolff in Deuteronomy (Deut. 4:29-31; 30:1-10) /65/. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that military disaster and foreign occupation could be so destructive to Judean intellectual life that such a highly influential style could not be written by an exilic historian twenty-five years later.

Valuable Arguments
        Over against these four unconvincing arguments for two editions of the Deuteronomistic history, other arguments carry more weight.
        Structure. First of all, Frank Cross has suggested that the structure of the history changes perceptibly in the last chapters of Kings. For one thing, there is no sermon or "end of era" speech commenting upon the fall of Judah to parallel that on the fall of Samaria. 2 Kings 21:10-15 and 24:2 (the prediction of inevitable punishment for Manasseh's sins) is of a different, more generalized nature than the prophecy-fulfillment structure of the earlier parts of the history. In contrast to the historian's practice, the prophets are not mentioned by name nor are any specifics given; thus a second editor seems to be at work /67/. I have carried these structural arguments even further by demonstrating that the regnal formulae for the last four kings of Judah also show a change of style, becoming more stereotyped and rigid than the historian's own formulae (Chapter 2).
        Literary criticism. The work of the traditional literary critics in Kings produced evidence that certain portions of that book were secondary to the main Deuteronomistic redaction. Among these secondary passages, about which there was general, but not universal, agreement, were 1 Kings 8:44-51; 9:6-9; portions of 2 Kings 17; 21:10-15; portions of the Huldah oracle in 22:15-20, and so forth. In part, these opinions were based upon an over-simple acceptance of the first two classical arguments discussed above, but in part they were based upon genuine literary critical irregularities. I have reexamined these passages and produced a revised literary critical analysis. In addition, some stylistic variations have been isolated that enable us to discriminate between the work of the Deuteronomistic historian and the second editor (Chapter 3).
        Dynastic promise. The present Deuteronomistic history displays [28] an ambiguous attitude about the Davidic dynasty. The unconditional promises to the Davidic house (2 Sam. 7:13b-16; 1 Kings 11:36; 15:4; 2 Kings 8:19) and the use of David as a prototype for the perfect king (1 Kings 3:3, 14; 8:17-18; 9:4; 11:4, 6, 33, 38; 14:8; 153, 5, 11; 2 Kings 143; 16:2; 18:3; 21:7; 22:2) are in jarring contrast to the final pessimism of the work /68/. This pro-Davidic attitude would be more appropriate to a pre-exilic author writing during the reign of Josiah, the "new David" (2 Kings 23:25), than to Noth's exilic historian. Proper recognition of the unconditional nature of the historian's attitude towards the Davidic dynasty, however, has been prevented by a misunderstanding of certain conditional promises to Solomon as a conditionalization of the Nathan Oracle (1 Kings 2:2-4; 8:25; 9:4-5) /69/. I have investigated these conditional and unconditional promises and have presented what I believe is the correct explanation of this apparent tension (Chapter 4).
        Theological movement. According to Cross's analysis of the theological movement of the history, the cycles of judgment and grace in Judges and the attitude towards David in Kings indicate an author of Josiah's time, not an exilic historian. The two central themes of the history, the sin of Jeroboam and the promise to David, both climax in the Josianic reformation. Nothing in the history before Manasseh gives any real hint of inevitable disaster. However, appended to these main themes is the contradictory sub-theme of an inevitable punishment for Manasseh's sins, a theological motif out of tune with the rest of the history /70/. The present writer has supported these observations with other examples of how the theologies of the historian and of the second editor differ from each other and how they are harmonious with their respective historical situations (Chapter 5).