Identity and Identification: An Exegetical and Theological Study of 2Sam 21-24

This work is an exegetical and theological study of 2Sam 21-24. These chapters, usually called the appendix of Samuel have been given relatively little attention in Old Testament scholarship. Nevertheless, the very marginality of this sequence turns out to be of heuristic value and its intrusiveness reveals itself as an interpretative key to the understanding of the whole book they conclude. In this study on the one hand it is discussed how foreigners are visualised, directly or indirectly, and on the other, how David is represented as an Identifikationsfigur. It would seem probable that 2 Sam 21-24 was added partly to create a book and so it also bears on the non-cultic use of the psalms in the post-exilic period. Laszlo T. Simon was born in Gyor (Hungary) in 1963. He joined the Benedictine order in 1982. After earning a licentiate in biblical theology at the Gregorian University he studied literature in Budapest, and then he taught English and literature in one of the high schools run by his order. In 1998 he returned to Rome and with the present dissertation gained the doctorate in biblical theology.