David and Solomon are Israel's most celebrated kings. They are and were venerated as wise and

righteous. They were also known for their wealth and, well, their sins. What are we to learn from

them in all of their complexity? We'll explore their lives and what we can take from their

stories in this episode of Abide, a Maxwell Institute podcast.

My name is Joseph Stewart. I'm the public communications specialist at the Neely Maxwell Institute

for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Christian Hill is a research fellow

at the Institute. In each week, we discuss the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus

Christ's, Vladimir Saints, Come Follow Me curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson,

or rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block, so as to help fulfill the

Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the

restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Today we are once again

joined by Truman Callans, one of our research assistant and an ancient Near Eastern

Studies major here at BYU from Seattle, Washington. After he graduates, plans to attend graduate

school to study theology and ancient texts. Welcome back, Truman.

Always good to be here. Thank you.

It is our pleasure to have you here. Now, Christian, as usual, Come Follow Me doesn't bring in all of the sections that we

may cover, but the section for Come Follow Me is Second Samuel 5 through 7 and 11 through 12, as well

as First Kings 3, 8, and 11. What's going on in this block that canvises two different books

of Scripture? So this larger block of Second Samuel 5 through 1 Kings 11 described the reign of David

and his son Solomon. This glorious period of the United Monarchy is the zenith of the life of ancient

Israel and a period that the rest of Jewish history looked back to with love and longing. Behind this golden age lay the fraught lives of Israel's two greatest kings.

David is an important figure in Jewish and Christian tradition,

...