ABSTRACT
Unlike the ruins of Amarna, Ugarit, or Nineveh, the remains of Iron Age Jerusalem have produced no temple archive or administrative record that might illuminate the events that once occurred there. For written accounts pertaining to the affairs of David’s capital, the historian is thus compelled to look beyond the location itself to those stories preserved about it in the biblical corpus. The most antiquated textual references to David’s Jerusalem are contained in the story of David’s reign found in 2 Sam 5-1 Kgs 2.2 Since the scribes who produced this work wrote anonymously and left behind few intimations of their sources,3 a historical investigation into that Jerusalem portrayed within these chapters on David’s kingship must proceed cautiously, being sensitive to the literary techniques employed by these ancient scribes and attentive to the social milieu in which their narratives were composed.
