In the last issue of Vetus Testamentum, Timothy Law has published a very interesting article about the research on 1 Kings/3 Reigns:
“How Not to Use 3 Reigns: A Plea to Scholars of the Books of Kings”, VT 61 (2011) 280-297.
Law vigorously criticizes scholars who do not sufficiently take into account the Septuagint when working on the books of Kings. Indeed, some recent studies neglect of deny the fact that the differences between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint most probably were already present in the Hebrew Vorlage of the latter. I was especially interested to read his remarks on the history of the commentaries on Kings (p. 294-95). Indeed, when studying at the great library of the Ecole biblique in Jerusalem in 2008/2009, I was astonished to notice that commentators from the end of the 19th century (Klostermann, Benzinger…) took seriously into account the Septuagint, while most of the commentators during the 20th century lost sight of the textual criticism aspects and devoted their energy to study 1-2 Kings from a compositional criticism perspective (which is of course also a fascinating task). Law has very well pointed out this change. It is fair to say that most of modern exegetical commentaries on 1-2 Kings are far from being up-to-date with regard to textual criticism. Even if one thinks that the Masoretic Text is a better witness than the LXX, this should be a result of scientific investigation and not an a priori or arbitrary choice. Even scholars who disagree with Law or find his remarks too vigorous should admit that there is still a lot of work to make commentaries on 1-2 Kings in line with recent research in textual criticism.
