OK, I have a non-Jesus one now. I've been reading Friedman's 'Who Wrote the Bible' and run across the issue of northern vs. southern kingdom in several stories of the tanakh. Here's one that bothers me......
The priest who promotes Jeroboam after the kingdom splits following Solomon's death is Ahijah, who seems to be in Shiloh -- the original location of Samuel. In the Saul story, the name of Ahijah shows up as a priest who is supposed to be the brother of Ichabod (who was Phinehas's son -- Phinehas was one of Eli's sons and Eli and his line are denigrated in the book of Samuel since Samuel takes over from Eli). One of the problems is that Ichabod is born prematurely as word returns that Phinehas has died and his mother cries that there is no hope (more or less the meaning of the name Ichabod -- and, yes, that is why Washington Irving chose that name, I think). There is no prior mention of a brother and the whole point of the earlier story is that no one will carry one the line of Eli.
But, in the middle of the Saul story, we see Ahijah being invoked as the brother of Ichabod, which would have been literally unlikely if not impossible. So, what's it doing there?
There is one other bit that I hadn't known -- according to Friedman, the E source, who would have been the most likely to write a story about Ahijah, never mentions the ark of the covenant. But the Ark suddenly appears in this story too -- even though there is no mention of it leaving Kiriath Jearim (after it moves from Shiloh -- it is stolen by the Philistines and the whole Dagon falling to the ground thing happens, etc. and it ends up for some reason at Kiriath Jearim).
This is in the middle of a whole long scenario that doesn't exactly reflect well on Saul -- not that much does. In fact, Saul is sort of cast like Jephthah because he makes a rash vow that even his son Jonathan, if he has done wrong, will be killed. Of course Jonathan is the one responsible -- he has eaten some honey (in the land of milk and honey) when Saul had rashly told the warriors that they should not eat anything during this particular battle (sacred space and time and all). Jonathan, meanwhile, has virtually single-handedly defeated the Philistines (because he believes).
So, my question is this: do you think it likely that the J source might have written this story to denigrate the Northern Kingdom? Saul was a Benjaminite -- Benjamin being on the border of the Southern and Northern Kingdoms, though more properly in the Northern Kingdom. Or, does this reflect some issue between Jonathan and Saul? Or would it be more likely that the J author might have concocted this sort of story -- making Saul's son Jonathan into a David-like hero to denounce the Northern Kingdom kings (Saul being one of them)?
Or something completely different?
