PANA Institute for Leadership Development

Uriah Kim, Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT:  ukim@hartsem.edu

King David depicted in 1-2 Samuel and 1 Kings 1-2 invokes awe and adoration on the one hand and profound sympathy on the other and has captured the imagination and the heart of countless numbers of people over the years.  Even though the David of history may have been an ambitious man who used realpolitik and the sword to establish and sustain his kingdom and kingship, it is the David of the narrative who is a hero of faith many a believer embrace and has trumped a more realistic view of David.  This article does not focus on deconstructing a David portrayed by the narrative and theology or refuting a David reconstituted by extrabiblical evidence and skepticism, instead, it tries to reconstructs a David based on the narrative, history and postcolonial imagination.   It argues that David was a Machiavellian man of “loyalty and kindness” who put together an eclectic coalition of ethnic, tribal, and religious groups based on the transgressive power of hybridization.  David was radically inclusive and an egalitarian who was open to making connections with people across various boundaries and differences.  The hybridization of David's kingdom, however, underwent the process of purification in which the later writers turned him into a nativist and an exclusivist and separated “real” Israelites from the Others in his kingdom.  The author, rather than viewing the narrative and later redactions of the David story as a positive spin on the David of history, sees it as a suppression of postcolonial features in David that ought to be envisioned and practiced by individuals and communities embroiled in the politics of identity and loyalty today.