Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles.

Thank you. Episode 1.30, Eli and Samuel, last of the judges.

In the last episode, I discussed the geopolitics of the world into which the United Kingdom the Hebrews was born,

and the biblical sources we have for the period, the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.

If you ever get confused about dates and geography, I have some great maps and charts on my website,

www.History website, www.w.w.

history in the Bible.com.

In the next episodes, I'll present a critical history of the century of the United Kingdom from Saul to Solomon,

as told by the only source we have, the Bible.

With that done, I'll discuss what modern archaeology has to say about

that history. The Bible's story of the monarchy opens in the book of Samuel. No book apart from

Genesis has such a panoply of characters, portrayed with such a depth of characterisation.

Here we find the doddering priest Eli, symbol of all that is wrong with the Israelites before the monarchy.

Here we find Hannah, the barren woman who gives birth to a great man of God, Samuel.

Here we find Saul, the tragically flawed first king.

His successor, David, who begins as a romantic hero and ends as a morally compromised dupe.

The book is a tale of wars and mutinies, of family discord, rebellious sons, duplicitous generals and conniving servants, of murder and mayhem.

Decapitation is the preferred method of death. King Saul, Saul's son Ishosheth, David's son Absalom, the rebel Shiba, the king of the Amalekites.

Samuel is the first book in the Bible, where our two great sources, the subduitant and the

Masoretic text text really diverge.

The Septuagint is shorter and more coherent than the Masoretic text.

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