The Crucial Bridge

The Elijah-Elisha narrative (1 Kgs 16:29–2 Kgs 13) is the most underestimated text in the Bible. Far from being a disparate collection, it is actually a carefully crafted double drama that both mirrors life and synthesizes systematically the entire Primary History (Genesis-Kings). In a bold hermeneutical move it transforms the language of historiography–of patriarchs and kings–into the language of prophetic biography. This prophetic biography, rooted in historiography, later becomes the evangeli