Re-examining anti-Shaulian tendencies in Chronicles
Ask just about any bible academic, and they'll tell you that whoever authored Chronicles was basically writing pro-Davidic propaganda.
Okay, pro-Davidic-- as opposed to what?
Pro-Shaulian, of course. That's right, Am Yisrael's first official king (setting aside whatever halachic status Moshe may have held, and also, l'havdil, setting aside Avimelech, son of Gidon), King Shaul, while mentioned in Chronicles, doesn't get that much limelight, certainly nowhere close to that of David (David's kingdom covers almost all of Chronicles 1, and most of Chronicles 2 is dedicated to his descendants' stories). Bible critics are quick to notice this, and generally deduce that this means that the author of Chronicles was anti-Shaul and pro-Davidic, and did everything in his power to reduce Shaul's role in the history of Am Yisrael.
Now me, I believe in our sages' tradition that Chronicles was written by Ezra and completed by Nechemiah. Both were great men. I don't go by the politics, usually. Not that there aren't politics in Tanach. But not in the low-life manner presented by Bible critics.
However, I did have a thought earlier today. After all, when Ezra wrote Chronicles, the king of the Persian Empire, which also controlled Judea, was none other than King Darius, son of Queen Esther. And both were descendants of Shaul (several midrashim and Targum Sheni on Esther attest to the full lineage of Mordechai all the way to Binyamin, passing through Shaul and his son Yehonatan (for example, see here, pg. 62-63, here, verse 5 and here)).
It seems to me that it might, just might, not be totally ridiculous for old pro-Shaulian sentiments to wake up in the nation, upon seeing that the new numero-uno, the big cheese, the main man of the whole empire happens to be a descendant of Shaul (sure, not an official heir halacha-wise, but close enough). Comes Ezra and says: "Guys, Shaul was a great king, no doubt about it (the sections dedicated to him in Chronicles paint a vastly different picture than Shmuel. No mention of his later psychosis, or the story of Amalek; rather, part of his lineage and mention of some wars he fought), but his time was up. The Davidic line is the important one now, and that's that."
I don't find that too crazy.
Some thoughts and comments:
ReplyDelete* It's been said that you shouldn't say "lehavdil" between one Jew and another. For all of Avimelech's faults, he was a Jew, after all. (Radak to Shoftim 10:1 even says that he fought wars against enemies of the Jewish people and thereby saved them.)
* To add to your point about Chronicles not being anti-Shaul: first of all, the amount of space given to describing his ancestry and descendants (indeed twice, in I 8-9) is noteworthy, and surely not the kind of thing they'd do if they were trying to write him out of history. Second, only in Chronicles are we told about the war with the Hagarites in his times (I 5:10) - and considering that most of his reign overlapped with Shmuel's leadership, then if they wanted to minimize his significance, it would have been easy enough to date the event using Shmuel's name instead - and, perhaps even more significant, about his donations to the Mishkan (I 26:24).
(Incidentally, as far as that family tree of Shaul: I have a theory that the kings of Yehudah may have aimed to give high positions to Shaul's descendants, in token of their ancestor's greatness, and perhaps also to symbolically fulfill Yehonasan's pledge that "you will be the king, and I will be the viceroy" (I Shmuel 23:17). In that case, the Azrikam mentioned in I 8:38 and I 9:44 may be identical with the Azrikam נגיד הבית who is killed in battle in II 28:7; I think the generations match up reasonably well.)
I was a little unsure while writing l'havdil for Avimelech, but never say l'havdil? Even for, say, Jesus or Paul? I would have gone with the three major sins as drawing the line, and Avimelech did kill almost all of his siblings...
DeleteAs for your theory, I love it! And you're right, Azrikam did live in the exact same generation. I'm stealing this for my family tree project :). Every chiddush there is credited, of course.
Maybe J would be an exception - he's also almost the only Jew on whom we say ימח שמו too. (As for Paul, that might get into the whole question of whether he can be identified with the "double agent" supposedly sent by the Chachamim to deliberately make Christianity less Jewish, so that more Jews wouldn't be enticed into it.)
DeleteThere is in fact an old question on Mi Yodeya (I discovered this blog from your user page there) on the issue of saying "lehavdil" between Jews. Gershon Gold linked to an excerpt of a talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on this (https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=40514&st=&pgnum=20); make of it what you will.