Moses Receiving the Law on Mount Sinai, Benjamin West, 1784. In the Parliamentary Art Collection and now hangs above the west door in St Stephen’s Entrance near Westminster Hall.

I’ve argued a number of times that the authorship of several biblical books reflects the competing vested interests of various groups of priests and/or scribes in Israel’s history. The purpose of this post is to provide a brief overview of the key points of this argument and to propose a timeline for the composition of these books.

Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic literature. Biblical scholars have long recognised that there are several differences between Deuteronomy (the fifth book of the Pentateuch or Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses) and the other books of the Pentateuch. The differences are both in content and in style. The name “Deuteronomy” is an Anglicised/Latinised form of the Greek Δευτερονόμιον which means “second law” and was thus named because it consists of three speeches by Moses to the people of Israel as they are about to enter the Promised Land, and shortly before Moses’ death, in which he lays out for a second time the law which was given to him by God on Mt Sinai. However, there are several differences between this second account of the law and the first accounts in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, including some new laws and some significant differences or contradictions in others. Many scholars think that Deuteronomy was actually written in stages, with the first stage being written by priests or Levites in the northern kingdom of Israel who fled south after the destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians and brought with them their traditions, liturgy and scriptures. These priests and their traditions were incorporated into the worship of the southern kingdom of Judah and the Temple in Jerusalem. It is thought that their account of Moses receiving the law – a precursor to the book of Deuteronomy – was edited and expanded during the reign of Josiah, again during the Babylonian captivity, and arrived at its final form (what we know as Deuteronomy) after the return from exile.

Several books are called “Deuteronomistic” or “Deuteronomic” because their theological emphasis is very much in line with Deuteronomy. These include the books collectively known as “the Deuteronomistic history” (DH) – Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. These books are attributed to “the Deuteronomistic historian” (DtrH) who many argue may have been the prophet Jeremiah or his scribe Baruch, as Jeremiah shares the same theological perspectives and even the terminology and ‘style’ of the DH. The book of Jeremiah begins with the introduction of the prophet as one “of the priests who were in Anathoth” and as the deposed priest Abiathar was exiled to Anathoth it is very possible, even likely, that Jeremiah was one of the priests descended from him. I’ll come back to this. Most scholars think the books of the DH also came to their final form in stages, with major editing and additions being made during the Babylonian exile. One of the main theological themes of these books, based on the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy, is that while ever Israel adheres to the law given to Moses they will prosper, while disobedience will result in exile.

There is good internal evidence within Samuel and Kings that these books (although it’s probably better to think of them as one book as the Septuagint does with the book of “Kingdoms” in four parts) drew on other sources (such as “the Books of the Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah”) which were selectively chosen and edited to present the history of Israel and Judah from a particular theological perspective. Later editors added new material, and re-arranged the existing work to reflect their own perspectives. There are a number of scholarly theories about who added and edited this material, and when, but the consensus seems to be that Samuel-Kings/Kingdoms came to its final form during the exile or soon after as its concluding words are set in the 37th year of King Jeconiah/Jehoiachin when he was released from prison in exile in Babylon, and that could well be the year when the last addition or change was made.

The DtrH firmly believed that if Israel and Judah kept the law (in Deuteronomy) then all would be well and these two kingdoms would prosper and succeed. If they disobeyed the law then they would go into exile. However, once in exile it seems that the exiled people questioned this theodicy and what they could have possibly done that deserved such punishment, especially in light of the fact that the Assyrians and Babylonians were so much worse. Some of the literature produced during the exile reflect these concerns.

Chronicles. While it’s likely that the DH was associated with the Anathoth priests related to Abiathar, the book of Chronicles is closely associated with their rival group, the priests related to Zadok, the Zadokites (later known as the Sadducees). I’ve written about the origins of this rivalry in my article on Abiathar and Zadok and the priestly contest for power and influence, but I’ll summarise the key points below. This means that the books of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles offer two different perspectives on Israel and Judah’s history, writing from different theological positions, and by groups with conflicting vested interests.

  1. The two priests Zadok and Abiathar are often mentioned together in the Samuel account of David’s life with the recurring phrase “the priests Zadok and Abiathar”. For example, when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem 2 Samuel 15:29 links them together – “Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem.”
  2. We don’t get any indication of a conflict between them until late in David’s life when his son Adonijah prepared to take over the role of king. Adonijah conferred with Joab, David’s military commander and right-hand man, and with the priest Abiathar, and they both supported Adonijah. “But the priest Zadok … and the prophet Nathan … and David’s own warriors did not side with Adonijah” (1 Kings 1:7-8). Thereafter we get a longish account of how Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, convinced David that Solomon should be named as his successor instead of Adonijah. To cut a long story short, David then sent Nathan and Zadok to anoint Solomon as king over Israel. We don’t get any clue in the story that Adonijah was unsuitable – in fact, he seems to have been a very popular choice – or why Solomon was a better choice.
  3. After being anointed as king Solomon turned his attention to eradicating all opposition. He had his brother Adonijah murdered, as well as Joab who was both his cousin, commander of David’s army, and David’s right-hand man, because he supported Adonijah’s claim to the throne. He would have had the priest Abiathar murdered as well were it not for the fact that he played a principal role in bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. “The king said to the priest Abiathar, “Go to Anathoth, to your estate; for you deserve death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David, and because you shared in all the hardships my father endured.” So Solomon banished Abiathar from being priest to the LORD” (1 Kings 2:26-27).
  4. We don’t hear much about Abiathar after that, or what happened when he got to Anathoth, except we read that centuries later Jeremiah the prophet was “of the priests who were in Anathoth” (Jeremiah 1:1). The most likely explanation for this connection to Anathoth was that Abiathar continued to minister there as a priest, perhaps at a local shrine, and this priestly order continued to the time of Jeremiah.
  5. The scholarly consensus is that the book of Chronicles was written by Zadokite priests. There is less consensus about the authorship of Samuel-Kings, largely because there is internal evidence of a process of editing and redaction. It seems to me that most biblical scholars accept that Samuel-Kings contains some very old material, possibly including official court records (“the Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah” for example), but that a later composer or editor organised and added to this material (the so-called “Deuteronomistic historian”, who may have been the prophet Jeremiah), and there may have been even later editors who added new material.
  6. If Jeremiah was a priest in the Priestly Order of Abiathar, and if he was the DtrH, or connected with the DtrH, then Samuel-Kings would be the account of Israel and Judah’s history from the Abiathar-party perspective, while Chronicles is from the Zadok-party perspective. It’s unlikely that they were ever actually known as “the Abiathar party” or “Zadok party” but I use those terms for want of a better biblical alternative. The term “Zadokite” (or Zadoki in Hebrew) survived in the Hellenised form Sadducee, but we don’t have a corresponding term for the Abiatharites. Scholars do, however, use the terms “Deuteronomistic” or “Deuteronomists” for the writers of several books, and if my suspicions are right then this is the name which modern scholarship uses for the Abiatharites.

Does the Bible contain political propaganda? If you accept this argument then the unavoidable conclusion is that the Bible contains two accounts of Israel and Judah’s history from two different theological and/or political perspectives. Call them political propaganda if you like. I personally don’t have a problem with that term, because whatever you make of these two different accounts of history the reality is that they reflect different views, vested interests, and contradictory recollections of historical events. While the Zadokites ultimately became the politically dominant group, and are well known to us in the New Testament as the Sadducees – the powerful group which controlled the Priesthood and the Temple and represented the wealthy elite – the Abiathar-party seems to have disappeared from history. It’s possible that they survived and re-branded as a grass-roots group known as the Pharisees, a group about whose origins we know precious little, and ultimately as Rabbinic Judaism. But whatever happened to them, it is quite certain that the Bible as we know it contains material written by different groups, with opposing views and conflicting agendas, and that somehow all this material was preserved and eventually came to be bound into a single volume.