An Introduction to the Old Testament - Samuel

Dillard, Raymond B. & Longman, Tremper III. "Samuel."  An Introduction to the Old Testament.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 1994.  135-147.

Samuel (1 & 2 Samuel in English versions) describes the time period from Samuel through David.  Due to its great length, the text was divided in the Septuagint.  Scholars tend to date the book in its current version to sometime in the Exile, however it may have been in existence at least in some form at an earlier time.  As with most of our historical books in the Bible, Samuel is quite anonymous.

Scholarship has attempted to account for the composition through source-critical approaches, though these have been fairly inconclusive, as have source-critical approaches in general.  Tradition-historical approaches see the text as an accumulation from numerous historical sources throughout the history.  There are clearly references to other documents.  Redaction-critical approaches try to identify the theological and scholarly setting for various editors.  Again, these approaches bear little fruit.  

A good quote from the chapter is on p. 140.  "It has often seemed in scholarly debate that the purposes and ideology of these conjectured sources and layers have taken precedence over the ideology of the book as a whole."    Samuel has, in fact, been the target of a great deal of literary analysis.  It is primarily prose, with a few poetic sections interspersed.  Themes  such as longing for faithful leadership, repentance, and the nature of kingship and power politics come into prominence in Samuel.

The Masoretic Text and Septuagint have significant divergences in their reading of Samuel.  The mystery of these readings was largely settled when the Qumran manuscripts were found to contain some manuscripts which are like the Masoretic Text and some like the Septuagint.  So apparently the text existed in two different editions for some time early in its history.

Samuel points out the difficulties of a kingship.  We particularly see David, who early in life protects the flock from harm, later exploiting the flock he has been entrusted with.  Power tends to corrupt and to take our eyes off our Lord and Savior.  This is the solemn warning of Samuel.
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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com and http://alex-kirk.blogspot.com