Beginning of the Monarchy

I Samuel 13-31

      The two books of Samuel are actually one book, but when they were first circulated in Greek the book of Samuel was too big to fit on one scroll and so was broken into two books. This explains why in II Samuel the person for whom the book is named has nothing to do with the story. As we see Samuel doesn't make it very far in the I Samuel, either.
       The books of Samuel are a little trickier to sort through because there are supposedly so many other source materials that were arranged into this one narrative. This is further complicated by the fact that the period of history that the text is dealing with is not well understood. The dates are so far back and the archeology limited and very time consuming, but there are little glimmers of knowledge that we can sift through.
     Again this is a book that is thought to have been constructed by the Deuteronomist(s) during the years of the mid 600s-500s B.C. However, the period that the books of Samuel portray is around the 1200s-1000s B.C. It is supposedly a combination of records of the House of David and accounts of the kings of Israel. Since it would be a combination of material related to the kings from the two sides of the cival war some of the source material came from either a pro monarchy perspective or an anti monarchy perspective. The books are also attirbuted to a prophet Samuel who could not have written the books since he dies not even halfway through the story. However, one of the sources for the material is thought to have been the story of this famous seer of the time.
      Other sources include the Ark Narrative dealing with the capture of the Ark by the Phillistines, the Jerusalem Source dealing with the conquering the city of Jebus by David and declaring it Jerusalem, the Republican Source (anti-monarch), Monarchical Source (pro-monarch), the Court History of David. All these are supposed to have been put together into one book by one or more authors during the years of captivity or exile.
      There is very little archeological evidence for this period of time to confirm or deny the events in the Bible. However, there have been some important discoveries that lend credibility to the events that are in the Bible. The name of Israel first appears on a stone tablet used by ancient Egyptians to keep records. From the records on this stone in 1209 B.C. the Pharoh Merneptah mentions in a battle that, "Israel is laid waste and is no more" a phrase that was used by rulers of that time to describe a battle whether winning or losing.
       However, the first real archeological evidence of the Kingdom of Israel doesn't come until the 9th century B.C. and earliest mention of the Kingdom of Judah isn't from until the 8th century B.C. There has been much archelogical investigation into the City of David and its remains. However, there has been no indication that the city existed during the 10th century B.C. which is the era that the books of Samuel are supposed to take place. In fact archeolgy suggests that at that time in history the country of Judah was a small tribal kingdom.