@inbook{e031d04f936446ca8159000b6e366001,
title = "God Appeased by Homicide?: 2 Samuel 21:1–14 in View of Some Hittite and Assyrian Parallels",
abstract = "Present-day readers, including Jews and Christians, tend to be shocked by the account of the purposeful execution of seven descendants of Saul in 2 Samuel 21:1–14. Traditionally, the narrative was presumed to justify David{\textquoteright}s decision to have them killed. Nowadays, the story is often read with suspicion. Does the homicide really serve a purpose, and is the way in which it is justified convincing? The elimination of Saul{\textquoteright}s relatives may have served David well. A new analysis of three non-biblical texts from the ancient Near East demonstrates that the plot of the biblical episode largely fits a known conceptual pattern. This pattern indicates what a responsible king must do in times of misery. The comparison shows that some critical readings of 2 Samuel 21:1–14 lack a solid basis, while others have a point. Despite the elements that do not make sense to twenty-first-century readers, both the biblical and the non-biblical texts appear to exhibit positive aspects of ancient religious thinking.",
author = "P. Sanders",
year = "2020",
month = dec,
day = "1",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-90-04-43467-7",
series = "Old Testament Studies",
publisher = "Brill Academic Publishers",
pages = "229--268",
editor = "{van Ruiten}, Jacques and {van Bekkum}, Koert",
booktitle = "Violence in the Hebrew Bible",
address = "Netherlands",
}