The Deuteronomic Presentation of the House of Omri

Abstract

Modern Old Testament scholarship is gradually recognising that the historical accounts furnished by the biblical documents are not always adequate to explain what, from other sources, we know to have taken place. Nowhere, however, does the biblical account appear so biased and inadequate as in its treatment of the age and dynasty of Omri. This cannot be explained by arguing for the obscurity of our sources which lay behind this particular period. For although as many as eight sources 1) are recognisible in the Books of the Kings we have, nevertheless, only a most inadequate account of the achievements and significance of Omri and his house. Omri himself receives only the most curt attention, being dismissed in some five or six verses (1 Kg. xvi 23-29). Indeed, the writer has done little more than supply us with the standard formula which describes the accession and death of each king. It is true 'his might' is mentioned, but it is a brief evaluation of his merits in comparison with the prominence attributed to him in extra Israelite sources. Yet for Israel