Samuel's book

Initially, a single book, in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, it was divided into two books, called the I and II (of the four) books of the Kings . In the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible, the text was considered as a single book, and only with the advent of the printed Bible in the XV century. division into book I and book II of Samuel became a part of Jewish tradition .

The title of the book in the Jewish canon does not imply authorship of Samuel , but it is obviously given because Samuel is the first significant person appearing in the narrative.

Samuel's book is a historical document of paramount importance for understanding the events that led to the establishment of the monarchy .

Samuel’s book does not belong to one author, although it is certain that the text was subsequently edited. It includes a variety of elements from both the genre and the content point of view. Most of the text is composed of narratives that are related meaningfully (the unity of place and time) and stylistically (dialogs, repetition of formulas, framework construction, etc.). The book contains poetic fragments representing the speech of the characters ^[1] . Some of these poetic fragments are found in other books of the Bible ^[2] , so the question arises whether the poetic texts belong to the same era as the main narrative of the book. In the book of Samuel, prophecies and divine instructions are often found ^[3] . In most cases, such passages form part of the narrative, but sometimes they are independent literary compositions ^[4] . The book contains material, the source of which was the royal archives, for example, lists of dignitaries of David ^[5] , the names of his wives and sons ^[6] , lists of his wars and conquests ^[7] . Usually this material is stylistically subordinated to narrative parts or itself includes narrative details ^[8] . Less commonly, archival material forms an independent text ^[9] .

In the book of Samuel there are also other genre elements - prayer ^[10] , parable motifs ^[11] , proverbs and sayings ^[12] . The main method of the compiler, obviously, was the layout of the material in a more or less chronological order, which often required the division of the sources used and the rearrangement of their parts in accordance with logic and chronology. Most researchers are of the opinion that the sources used in compiling Samuel’s book included the tales of Samuel’s childhood, the story of the Ark of the Covenant, the formation of the monarchy - the events in Mitzpah, Ram and Gilgal, stories about David, the history of events at his court, and also palace archives, prophecies, poetic compositions ^[13] .

The book of Samuel is a historical document of paramount importance for understanding the events that led to the establishment of the monarchy. It reflects the different religious and ethical assessments of this institution and the attempts to interpret it with a religious worldview .

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