Well, lesson one is entitled the general introduction to First and Second Kings. I do this for all the new books of scripture that we study for all the Bible studies. It's really, really useful and helpful to take an hour, take one lesson to dive through the essential introductory points here. A lot of people when they read commentaries, at least in my experience teaching scripture for all these years, a lot of people just skip over things like the title and the authorship and the structure and don't really spend a little bit of time looking at the main themes and type of logical connections.
That stuff is really, really helpful and very interesting. Things like the structure itself, the titles of course, will be very illuminating theologically, but the structure, I always geek out about the structure of books because the way in which it reaches its final form in our hands, over the ages and its final structure is very helpful for understanding what the book is all about, and especially as it's pointing forward to Christ and the fullness of revelation and the New Testament. So we're going to do all that stuff now in this lesson in this general introduction. We're going to go through, if you have your notes in front of you, it's great.
The first thing we'll look at is title, the authorship, dating, the historical context, it's placed in the canon, some of these brass tacks back to basics type of things, so we know what we're talking about. And then the structural spend some time on which, again, I was just sharing about something very helpful. And then we'll look at the main themes in this book that we're going to unpack over the next nine lessons and the typological connections we're going to see with the New Testament because the kingdom that Jesus preaches, the restoration of the kingdom of Jesus preaches, is the Davidic kingdom. So we're going to see a lot of great connections there.
So without any further ado, let's dive straight into this. Roman numeral one, look at the title. Okay, so basic stuff here. There's a bit of a connection with the books of Samuel.
So if you studied Samuel with me in that 10 part Bible study, then great. If not, no big deal, you can check it out later. But like the books of Samuel, the Hebrew manuscript of kings was one continuous book. All right, so Samuel was Samuel, Samuel, that's Samuel's name, his name is God.
But here it's called the Melakem, so literally kings. And just to kind of hang your hat on a little mnemonic device here, you may remember the figure, the king Melchizedek back in Genesis. Talked about him a lot in our Genesis Bible study. Melchizedek means Melakem is king and Zedek is righteousness.
So he is the king of righteousness. He's a priest king of righteousness of Salem, which is Jerusalem. So a lot of great stuff. I'm not going to go over all that again.
But it's important to know his name is Melake, is that a king of righteousness. So Melakem here, the name of kings, Melakem literally is just kings, right? So it's just kind of cool. I hope that's helpful for you with the no Melchizedek's name.
It's just easy to remember these Hebrew words by recalling other words that you probably already know. So the original Hebrew manuscript was known as kings, but the Jewish translators of the Greek Old Testament, known as the Septuagint. We talked about that many times before. lxx, it's called the Septuagint 70 translators back in around 200 to 100 BC.
It was a long period of translation. They started off with a Torah. There's a great tradition there, a great legendary tradition that when they, the 70 translators first got together, they're hanging out in their own little cubicles, they're not talking with each other. And after they've translated the Pentateuch, they come back and their translations were word for word, the exact same with everybody else's.
So that kind of seemed like divine stamp of approval. But when they got together and they started translating this, they split the book, just like they split Samuel to two books, they split kings into two books, naming them one into kingdoms. So Bessalaean, Alpha Bessalaean, Berem, is Samuel, even first second kings become third and fourth kingdoms, so Gama and Delta. So basically, ABCD.
All right, so in the Latin version of the Old Testament, Saint Jerome, when he translated the Vulgate, follow this Septuagint tradition. So he divided them one through four kings. So the Duet Reams, if you're familiar with it, the very classic Catholic translation, the Duet Reams versions, like the Catholic version of a rendition of like the King James version, because it's a good way to think of it that way, beautiful language, beautiful translation, it comes from the Latin Vulgate, it follows that tradition. So it does not have one into Samuel, one into kings, it just has one through four kings.
We're just really confusing because if you're teaching someone and you say, open up to first kings chapter one, they're going to accidentally open up to first Samuel, chapter one, if they're not paying attention. So beware of that little Bible trivia, most translations have one to Samuel, one to kings, but the Duet Reams, great Catholic translation follows the Vulgate. So essentially, that is the background between the title of the title era, the Hebrew, the Greek and the Latin. Let's move on to authorship.
Now, it is anonymous, but there is a Jewish tradition that maintains that Jeremiah was the author. That's the same tradition that said Samuel was the author of First and Second Samuel, actually just up to the moment of his death and first name was 25, and Nathan and Gad probably finished it after he died. Because it's a pretty impressive trip to write a book from the grave. So Samuel wrote the majority of first Samuel, and Nathan and Gad continued afterwards.
It's the same Jewish tradition that maintains that. You can consult your footnote for that where I pulled it from the commentary. But most, well, actually, yeah, so most modern scholars deny this, right? They're going to, most modern scholars deny a lot of things, unfortunately, when there very much is a harmony in theories.
But most modern scholars say, no, it was part of a larger work called the Duteranamis tradition or the Duteranamis school. We're not going to get into the weeds of this. Suffice it to say the Duteranamis tradition or school or authors, they kind of have this unique coherent perspective of how Israel lives out the law of Deuteronomy. So these would be the books from Joshua all the way to 2nd Kings, not counting Ruth.
And it's essentially how does Israel live out the laws of Deuteronomy. That's why they call it the Deuteranamis school. I don't personally see how that would necessarily contradict Jeremiah or, as your footnote says, there is one modern scholar that maintains that it was Jeremiah's scribe Baruch, who might have been the mastermind behind these books. We don't know for sure, obviously.
We don't know for certain. But to my mind, I can kind of see both of them being harmonious where Jeremiah or Baruch is the predominant principle author here. And then there is sort of this Duteranamis perspective in the life of Israel. That's going to be one of the main themes that we're going to see here, how faithful is Israel or not faithful to the law of Deuteronomy and what are the consequences for that obedience and disobedience.
So Hank Tyron talked a lot about that. But suffice it to say, authorship is anonymous. There's different theories out there, but we really don't know. What is really cool to keep in mind as you're reading this, you're going to notice that to the author or authors of First and Second Kings, make reference to some ancient unknown sources to us.
Now, it would be so epic if we discovered these sources in some cave somewhere, kind of like the Qumranq community we found at the Dead Sea Scrolls. It would be awesome to find these ancient unknown sources. It would be great. So what you're going to find, I just got a couple references for you in your notes.
The first thing that you're going to notice, for example, in First Kings chapter 11 verse 41, it says, now the rest of the Acts of Solomon and all that he did and all his wisdom are they not written in the book of the Acts of Solomon. We don't have that book. We don't know what it is, but it clearly is a written source to the author. So I think this is really amazing that it just kind of shows you that these books didn't just fall out of the sky.
There is an organic tradition of oral and written sources that come together in the inspired scriptures that we have today. So I really like that a lot. So the books of the Acts of Solomon, there's not all the rest of his deeds written there. You're like, oh, OK, I guess they are.
So we don't really have it. It would be cool if we did another book that's referenced here in First Kings chapter 14 verse 19 and elsewhere. You're going to see often mentioned the book of the Chronicles, the Kings of Israel in the North. If there's another book of the Chronicles, the Kings of Judah in the South.
So that's pretty cool. So clearly scribes in the court of the king are writing down a bunch of the activities. And that's what scribes would do, right? And you're working for the king.
You're writing down taxes. You're writing down censuses. You're writing down territories. Did your kingdom go out to battle and squash King so-and-so of a neighboring region?
They're going to write that down. So clearly in the royal archives, the court archives, they had these documents and were they destroyed by Babylon or Syria for that matter? As time went on, we don't know. But again, you have these written sources as well as oral sources that came together to give us first and second Kings.
I think that's pretty cool. So as you're reading, you're going to see those are some sources for the author dating. Now, dating of the manuscript is of course difficult. There probably were various iterations or drafts.
I can't wait to get to heaven and try to understand better exactly what happened in the mysterious course of time. How did the drafts of scripture take place and grow and develop and mature in the redactions and endings? That would be super epic to understand. And there probably were various iterations of this book, but the final version, the final manuscript that we have today that exists in time of Christ and the Apostles was how to have been completed certainly after the Babylonian captivity and even a little bit later than that because the last recorded event was the release of King Jehoa Chin from prison in the Babylonian conquest.
So that's the very last words of the book. This King Jehoa Chin, I always think of him as like Jay Leno with his big old chin. Just because as we go through these books, it's going to be very hard to remember who's who. They're very similar names to each other in the north and the south.
Some of the names are repeated. And so I always like to find funny and demonic devices to remember these guys. So Jehoa Chin, I think of Jay Leno with his big old chin. He was exiled in captivity, but then he was shown kindness and released from prison.
And that's actually going to be thematically very important as we go along. So the final version of the book had to happen after that event. That's very simple, logical, deducing there. Deduction.
Now, as far as the canonical placement is concerned, we very clearly know that first and second Kings follows first and second Samuel. These are the final books of what in Jewish Bibles are called the Nevi Eam. Those are the prophets, which include the prophets, the prophets that we think of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah, the minor prophets. Right.
But the Jews, you may know, considered these books from Joshua, all the way to second Kings, the former prophets because they had prophets in them. Right. So Joshua, you could consider a prophet, Samuel for sure is a prophet, and you got Elijah and Alicia and these other minor prophets that kind of pop up. Nathan and Gad, for example, and there's some other, even more minor ones than that.
So they're known as the former prophets and that's in the category of the Nevi Eam in Jewish Bibles and first and second Kings in Christian Bibles are just part of the larger collection of what we call the historical books. Right. So Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Sandals and Kings, Chronicles, Ezeronimiah, Toby, Jude, Esther, right. These are all historical books.
All right. So that's pretty straightforward as far as that goes. Now, starting, I should point this out actually because really confusing and I'll have charts for you in your notes as we go along. But once the kingdom divides in chapter 12 of the first Kings, it's very difficult to keep in mind the, especially if you've had a glass of wine and you're reading scripture, you know, it's very difficult to keep in mind, keep clearing your mind the Northern Kings and the Southern Kings because it goes back and forth and back and forth and you really can't blink because they're basically looking at the Kings chronologically and sequentially as parallel kingdoms, which is what they are.
So one way I've read it as being described is as if you're looking at a split screen, right? So if you have a split screen narrative, that's what it's doing. So side by side, North and South, just be aware of that as you're reading. If you haven't read it before or maybe read it a long time ago.
Now, historical context, it covers about 400 years versus second Kings goes from Solomon's reign, which is about 960 BC. David's going to die here in the first couple chapters. And then it goes all the way to the Babylonian captivity in 586. That's a good stretch of time there 400 years.
First Kings covers about 100 years and second Kings covers about 300 years. That's a long time of history and Israel's history is magnificent. It's so incredible. It's salvation history.
The ancestors of the David Kingdom of the Church, it's a really cool to see all of this take place and really to understand the theology and God's patience behind it all. And 400 years of God being patient with Israel, that seems like really close to infinite patience to me and that will make sense to go through the story. So those are the basic brass packs of authorship dating the canon historical context to keep in mind as we jump in. Now, the structure is awesome.
Now, as I share the structure with you, I've referenced your Catholic introduction to the Old Testament, which does some work, but I'm going to make some connections here that your commentaries don't. That will make sense because whenever you see a structure, you have to ask why, why is it structured like it is the majority of the time in the Bible, you've got the structure is very clear. It's very easy to understand every now and then you've got kind of a haphazard structure book of Proverbs. What's the structure behind that?
But in these historical books, the structure is telling us something and you have to ask the question why. So if you look at this structure, basically the book has a broad three part structure that focuses on the theme of the David Kingdom, naturally, right? It's all about David and David's Kingdom at this point in the Bible study on 1st and 2nd Samuel, we look at the David at Covenant, the characteristics of the David at Covenant. Now it's coming to fruition, especially with the construction of the temple, right?
So of course, you're going to focus on the kingdom. So there's a three part structure that focuses on the kingdom. And if you look at your notes right here, it's kind of a chiastic structure. So in fact, it is a chiastic structure, very simple one here, A, B, then A prime.
So if you remember, literary devices are used all the time. If you don't understand the literary device being employed when you're reading the scripture, you're going to misunderstand things. So it's not your eyes should not glaze over when you read it in your commentary. If it's a good commentary with literary devices, which one is being employed?
So a chiastic structure could be very long to take up a whole book or a particular section. And in this, in that structure, you can go A, B, C, D and then the back, the same path, C, B, A, the A's parallel A and A prime, the B's parallel B, B prime, C, C prime, and so on and so forth. It's very simple here with the structure. So section A, you're focusing on one kingdom under the son of David, which is Solomon, right?
And A prime, that's going to be 1st Kings 1 through 11. If an A prime is one kingdom under the son of David, which is the kingdom of, or I should say the tribe of Judah alone or the southern kingdom alone, right? Once on a David, in this case, it's kind of expanding the theme to the whole tribe or the whole kingdom. But in the middle of it is two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, parallel kingdoms side by side from 1st Kings 12, all the way to 2nd Kings chapter 17.
All right, so it's real simple. One kingdom under the son of David, Solomon, that's part one, then the central ass of the central part of this whole narrative is the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And then it backs up again to look at the one kingdom of Judah alone, very simple. However, what makes this really, really, really cool is that that central narrative of the two kingdoms is further divided into a deeper chiastic structure that focuses on the ministry of God's prophets because the kingdoms are corrupt, the rebelling against God and God in his patience sends prophets to warn the people of impending disaster and could call them to repentance.
All right, so check this out in your notes here. So under the central narrative of the two kingdoms, you have the one which is the divided monarchy before the great prophets, B two divided monarchy under Elijah and B three is the center of it all. This is the center of the entire narrative is the transition from Elijah to Alicia, one little simple chapter. And then I got B two prime divided monarchy under Alicia, even B one prime divided monarchy after the great prophets.
So B one and B one prime parallel, right? Is the divided monarchy before the great prophets and then after them, B two and B two prime is the monarchy under Elijah and under Alicia at the center of it all, the transition from Elijah to Alicia. If you have your notes in front of you, that's going to make perfect sense. I've laid it all out for you, right?
So now you got to ask the question why, why is the transition from Elijah to Alicia, the center of it all? And your commentaries don't really unpack this at all. And I'm going to give you a little cliffhanger, which my personal opinion on this is when we get to the typology of Elijah and Alicia for the New Testament, who fulfills these characters and why then the transition from the ones of the other is going to make sense. So hang tight when we get to the end of this lesson, the theology, the typology, I hope is going to jump off the page and we'll really click for you because it definitely clicks for the students in the live class, right?
So it's pretty exciting. So hang tight. We're going to talk about why the transition is so crucial. So one more little point here before we move on.
When you understand that deeper, chiastic structure of the ministry of God's great prophets. So this quote here says ironically for a composition, so focus on royal reigns, it is the ministries of the prophets, Elijah and Alicia that provide hope during the otherwise dismal account of the decline of the kingdom of Israel and Judah, in quote, and that's really, really true here. So it's all about the divided kingdom. It's all about the promises that God gives to the divided king.
The covenant, you know, that is being lived out, not just with the divided kingdom, but also with the mosaic covenant as well. But the kings don't do so well. They're very, very few and far between in the north. They're all bad.
And in the south, there's just a handful of good ones. And so you've got this constant focus of the obedience or disobedience of the kingdom of northern the south against God, but deeper than that, it is these ministry of the prophets. So why was because the kings are subjected to God's law. The kings, while monarchs, there are in some cases, they can't do whatever they want to do.
They have to follow God's law. They have to enact justice and peace and holiness in God's people. So they are not the final word in the story. It's God's word is the final word and the prophets are trying to bring the people beginning with the kings and all the rest of them back to obedience to God's law.
All right. So that's what's going on here. So it's really cool to see the deeper meaning of obedience behind all of this. In fact, that's a perfect segue now to Roman numeral four here in your notes, which is what is the main theme or various, you know, sub themes, but what is the main theme?
What's the biggest takeaway point for first and second kings and it's going to basically be the status of Israel's relationship with God and that relationship with God depends on obedience to his law. That's what this is all about. Obedience to the covenant that God has made with them. Hey, this is Dr.
Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S and T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep studying your final.