{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "historical", "name": "Historical Books", "stream": "egyptian-hebrew", "epoch_reflected": "egypto-chaldean", "epoch_written": "greco-latin", "form": "historical narrative", "tradition": "Jewish / Christian", "author": null, "year_approx": -900, "note": "Twelve books tracing Israel from the conquest of Canaan through the United and Divided Kingdoms to the Babylonian exile and Persian-period restoration. Joshua through Esther. ASV (1901).", "books_slug": null, "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [] }, "parents": [ { "slug": "old-testament", "name": "Old Testament", "url": "/sources/old-testament/" } ], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "joshua", "title": "Joshua", "words": 20080, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/joshua/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/joshua.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Joshua — the conquest of Canaan", "blurb": "The crossing of the Jordan; the fall of Jericho; the campaigns in the south and the north; the division of the land among the twelve tribes; the covenant renewal at Shechem (ch 24): *Choose this day whom you will serve.* The transition from wilderness wandering to settled possession." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "judges", "title": "Judges", "words": 20137, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/judges/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/judges.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Judges — the cyclic apostasy of the tribes", "blurb": "The cycle that gives the book its structure: Israel falls into idolatry, is oppressed, cries out, a *shophet* (judge / deliverer) is raised up, the land has peace until the judge dies. Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson. Closes with the dark coda: *In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.*" }, { "num": 3, "slug": "ruth", "title": "Ruth", "words": 2712, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/ruth/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/ruth.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Ruth — the Moabite ancestress of David", "blurb": "Set 'in the days when the judges judged.' Naomi widowed; her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite refusing to leave her — *whither thou goest, I will go*. The gleaning in Boaz's field; the kinsman-redeemer; the genealogy that closes the book — Ruth as the great-grandmother of David." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "1-samuel", "title": "1 Samuel", "words": 26581, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/1-samuel/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/1-samuel.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "1 Samuel — Samuel; Saul; the rise of David", "blurb": "The birth and call of Samuel; the demand for a king; the anointing of Saul; Saul's rejection; the anointing of the boy David; the killing of Goliath; the friendship of David and Jonathan; David fleeing from Saul; the witch of Endor; the death of Saul on Mount Gilboa." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "2-samuel", "title": "2 Samuel", "words": 22048, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/2-samuel/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/2-samuel.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "2 Samuel — David's reign — its glory and its fall", "blurb": "David anointed king over Judah, then over all Israel. Jerusalem captured; the ark brought up. The great Davidic covenant (ch 7): God will establish a house for David. Then Bathsheba and Uriah (chs 11-12), Nathan's *thou art the man*; the rebellion of Absalom; David's lament *O my son Absalom!*" }, { "num": 6, "slug": "1-kings", "title": "1 Kings", "words": 26014, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/1-kings/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/1-kings.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "1 Kings — Solomon's glory; the divided kingdom; Elijah", "blurb": "The accession of Solomon; the building of the Temple; the visit of the Queen of Sheba; Solomon's apostasy in old age; the division of the kingdom after his death (Rehoboam and Jeroboam); the long chronicle of the kings of Israel and Judah; the ministry of Elijah — the Carmel contest, the still small voice, the chariots of fire." }, { "num": 7, "slug": "2-kings", "title": "2 Kings", "words": 24867, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/2-kings/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/2-kings.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "2 Kings — Elisha; the fall of Israel; the fall of Judah", "blurb": "Elisha's ministry continuing Elijah's. The kings of both kingdoms, mostly idolatrous. The Assyrian conquest of Israel (722 BC, ch 17) and the deportation of the ten tribes. Hezekiah's reform; Manasseh's apostasy; Josiah's reform after the finding of the law-book. The Babylonian conquest of Judah and the destruction of the Temple (586 BC)." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "1-chronicles", "title": "1 Chronicles", "words": 22148, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/1-chronicles/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/1-chronicles.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "1 Chronicles — the genealogies; David's reign retold", "blurb": "The post-exilic priestly retelling. The first nine chapters of genealogies from Adam through to the post-exilic restoration. Then David's reign — emphasising his preparations for the Temple (without the Bathsheba episode preserved in 2 Samuel). David's organisation of the Levitical orders for Temple service." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "2-chronicles", "title": "2 Chronicles", "words": 27602, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/2-chronicles/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/2-chronicles.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "2 Chronicles — Solomon's Temple; the kings of Judah", "blurb": "Solomon and the building of the Temple; then the kings of Judah only (without the kings of Israel). The priestly perspective: faithful kings prosper, unfaithful ones do not. Closes with the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar and the Persian-edict release that opens Ezra-Nehemiah." }, { "num": 10, "slug": "ezra", "title": "Ezra", "words": 7974, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/ezra/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/ezra.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Ezra — the return from exile; the rebuilding of the Temple", "blurb": "The first wave under Zerubbabel returning to rebuild the Temple after the Persian edict of Cyrus; the laying of the foundation; the opposition from the *people of the land*; the completion of the Temple. The second wave under Ezra; his reform separating the foreign wives. The post-exilic restoration." }, { "num": 11, "slug": "nehemiah", "title": "Nehemiah", "words": 11327, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/nehemiah/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/nehemiah.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Nehemiah — rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem", "blurb": "Nehemiah the Persian cup-bearer requesting leave to rebuild Jerusalem's walls. The fifty-two-day reconstruction under threat of attack; the great Torah-reading by Ezra (ch 8); the dedication of the walls; the second governorship and the reforms against Sabbath-breaking, intermarriage, and Levitical neglect." }, { "num": 12, "slug": "esther", "title": "Esther", "words": 6078, "url": "/sources/old-testament/historical/esther/", "api": "/api/sources/old-testament/historical/esther.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Esther — the saving of the Jews in Persia", "blurb": "The Persian-court novella. Vashti deposed; the orphan Esther raised by her cousin Mordecai becomes queen of Ahasuerus (Xerxes). Haman's plot to destroy the Jews; Esther's intervention — *and if I perish, I perish*; Haman hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai. The origin of the festival of Purim." } ] }