Sennacherib's Campaign against Judah
A Source Analysis of Isaiah 36-37

Contributes to text-critical scholarship of the military campaigns of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, against Babylon and Judah.

Dan'el Kahn (Author)

9781108495943, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2020

379 pages
22.6 x 15 x 3 cm, 0.6 kg

'… this book provides the most extensive and wide-ranging analysis of the topic to date and will serve scholars and students at various levels.' Brad E. Kelle, Religious Studies Review

The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most widely researched in biblical studies and Ancient Near East studies, and one that also poses scholarly challenges. Allusion to the event is found in Isaiah, Kings, and Chronicles, but there is no correlation between the Assyrian and biblical descriptions of the same event. Dan'el Kahn offers a text-critical analysis of these biblical passages that allude to the military events. Detecting repetitions, breaks in the narrative, and contradictions and inconsistencies in the texts, he traces and reconstructs different and discrete sources. Kahn demonstrates that the biblical passages are based on earlier sources that were later edited and revised by a third hand. Based on historical events that are found in non-biblical texts, he also offers new dates for the sources. He claims that the narrative was written for the book of Isaiah, arguing that it predates the version found in Kings.

1. The problems
2. Previous solutions
3. A new historical-critical solution
4. The BII source
5. The political events in the eighth century BCE and the results of the 701 BCE campaign
6. The BII source
7. The historical background of BII source (683–671 BCE)
8. The BIII strand
9. The Babylonian period
10. The question of the priority of Isaiah 36–37 vs. Kings 18:13–19:37
11. Isaiah 36–37 and their location in the literary unit Isaiah 36–39
12. The present location of Isaiah 36–39 in the Book of Isaiah and the formation of the Book
13. 2 Chronicles 32 and its relation to Isaiah 36–37
14. Summary and conclusions
Bibliography
Appendix
Index to authors cited
Index to biblical passages cited
Index of geographic names and peoples
Index of names.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], Religious issues & debates [HRAM]