The Book of David: A New Story of the Spiritual Warrior and Leader Who Shaped Our Inner Consciousne SS

In this imaginative and provocative work, Rosenberg reimagines the biblical story of David of Bethlehem. What interests Rosenberg most is the question of who authored that story, which is scattered through several biblical books, including I & II Kings and I & II Samuel. Rosenberg, coauthor with Harold Bloom of The Book of J, contends that a single author, ""S,"" wrote David's court history and was closely associated with the ""J"" of his and Bloom's earlier work, in which they argued that ""J,"" the author of one of the primary sources of Genesis, was a woman. Here, Rosenberg speculates that ""S"" was a younger man who was sexually involved with ""J."" Rosenberg's interest is in evoking the characters who inhabit the biblical narratives, and his translations and transformations of the text are powerful and moving. His running polemic with academics, however, is simply distracting, and his speculations about the authorship of the David narratives will not convince scholars, most of whom contend that a group of authors wrote David's story to cast him in a favorable light. Rosenberg's book is best when it tells David's story in a way that reveals the characters of David, Rosenberg and ""S."" (Nov.)