King David and the Future of Academic Bible Scholarship

By the beginning of the 21st century, Bible scholars had become divided into rival interpretive schools, each locked into its own rigid orthodoxies, writes Mark McEntire. Postmodernists, archaeologists, and practitioners of literary or historical-critical analysis grew accustomed to writing solely for their ideological brethren. A new study by Jacob L. Wright, focusing on the story of King David, has attempted to combine the best of these varying approaches, with much success. Wright also draws on comparisons between modern commemorations of war and the Book of Samuel’s desire to tell the story of the civil war between Saul and David. McEntire writes: