Bibliography


Title: King David, King Herod and Nicolaus of Damascus
Secondary Title: JSQ
Author: Ilan, Tal
Volume: 5
Pages: 195-240
Type: Journal Article
Year: 1998
Abstract: Kugler, Robert A. in: OTA 22.2 (1999), 322: "I. investigates the similarities shared between the story of David in 1 Samuel 16 and 1 Kings 2 and the official record of Herod's reign by Nicolaus of Damascus, as this is preserved in Josephus (War 1-2; Ant. 13-17). She observes that the similarities between the two bodies of material include their attempts to discredit the previous dynasty; initial depictions of the king in a royal setting as an attractive and charismatic individual; notion that the would-be king was exiled to the desert and allied with the enemy; accounts of the elimination of the former ruling house; troubles with sons; a special relationship of the king to Jerusalem and the Temple; and the king's peaceful death, plagued only by the failing health in old age. I. suggests that Nicolaus of Damascus recorded Herod's history on Herod's behalf along the lines laid out in the biblical David story in an effort to win popular support for the king. Appendixes deal with Nicolaus' knowledge of 1 Maccabees; Herod's descent; the Nicolean origin of the story of Menahem the Essene; the absence of God in War 1; Herod's trial; the death of Aristobulus III; Josephus' and Nicolaus' accounts of the death of Mariamme's sons; and a Samaritan reworking of the Book of Samuel as a model for the study of Josephus and Nicolaus".