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Nathan MacDonald, The Nathan–David Confrontation (2 Sam 12:1–15a): A Slap in the Face of the Deuteronomistic Hero? By James Donkor Afoakwah., The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 68, Issue 1, April 2017, Pages 248–250, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flx035
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Extract
What are readers of David’s life to make of his surprising lapse with Uriah’s wife and the murderous attempt to cover his tracks? How are we to harmonize the narrative’s adulation of David, reaching its crescendo in the almost messianic oracle of Nathan, with the devastating exposure of sin and announcement of judgement by the same prophet just five chapters later? Not a few biblical critics have argued that they are simply not reconcilable and that the only reasonable approach to the problem is by recourse to literary-critical excision. The story of David and Bathsheba with its prophetic condemnation is the work of a later editor wanting to puncture the pretensions of the Davidic dynasty or those in the post-exilic period who would wish to reinstate it.
Afoakwah’s book sets out to re-examine this ‘slap in the face of the Deuteronomistic hero’. It originated as a doctoral thesis at the University of Tübingen supervised by Walter Groß and bears the usual hallmarks of the genre: the extensive footnotes, detailed status questionis, and comprehensive discussion of the biblical text. The structure of the book is clear. Afoakwah provides a text and translation of 2 Sam. 12:1–15a before examining its immediate context. Like many interpreters before him he recognizes how straightforward it would be to excise Nathan’s appearance and even the entire Bathsheba incident. Having identified the problem, his second chapter outlines some of the principal scholarship. Unfortunately, at one point he fails to recognize that Leonhard Rost’s Succession to the Throne of David is a translation of Die Überlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids, and imagines them as distinct works authored by Rost over an improbable sixty-year period (p. 27). The third chapter discusses the theory of the Deuteronomistic History and seeks to show that Nathan’s confrontation of David is consistent with other prophetic interventions in the Deuteronomistic History. The sinful and penitent king provides a good model for the exiled people that the Historian is addressing. The fourth chapter offers a detailed exegesis of 2 Sam. 12:1–15a. Afoakwah provides a discussion of text-critical issues as well as some insightful observations about the literary artistry and issues of composition and interpretation. The fifth chapter contextualizes Nathan’s parable in the life of David. This chapter sometimes became little more than a narrative rehearsal of the text of Samuel. At its best, though, it articulates some of the sophisticated narrative linkages across the life of David. The sixth chapter focuses on Nathan instead. It sets the parable alongside the oracle to David in 2 Samuel 7 and Nathan’s role in the succession in 1 Kings 1–2.
