Was King David a Historical Figure?

As many of my readers are probably already aware, an article that I published on this website back in March 2018 about the historicity of Jesus recently stirred up quite a bit of controversy and criticism—some of it constructive, some of it not so much. As I noted in one of my comments under that article, the historicity of Jesus seems to be perhaps the one subject in the entire field of ancient history that is the most capable of consistently inciting outrage and controversy. The historicity of King David, on the other hand, is a bit less contentious, since David is not nearly as important a figure in Christianity as Jesus is. I certainly hope that this article does not provoke quite so much outrage as my Jesus article, but I suspect it will probably just lead to more nasty comments telling me how everything I write is rubbish and how I will never be a real scholar. In any case, here we go.

Introduction

Ironically, despite all the outrage that the subject seems to inevitably provoke online, there is very little disagreement among scholars over whether or not Jesus existed; it is nearly universally agreed among scholars that Jesus was a real historical figure. There is, however, some scholarly disagreement over whether King David existed. There are many who support the view that he did, but there are at least a few who support the view that he probably did not.

Ultimately, given the information and evidence that is currently available to us, it is impossible for anyone to know for certain whether or not there was a real King David. Any conclusion on the matter inevitably requires an asterisk next to it stating that no conclusion on this issue is final and that the discovery of new archaeological evidence at any time may drastically change things.

With that disclaimer out of the way, my view is that King David most likely did exist, at least in the nominal sense. That being said, the real King David probably bore little resemblance to the David portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Nonetheless, I think he was probably a real man who ruled over some portion of the land of Judah and who could be called a “king” in some sense.

The account of David in the Deuteronomistic History

The earliest and most famous account of King David’s life and reign comes from two books in the Hebrew Bible: the First Book of Samuel (1 Samuel) and the Second Book of Samuel (2 Samuel). 1 and 2 Samuel are both part of a single work, which modern scholars have dubbed the “Deuteronomistic History.” The Deuteronomistic History comprises the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. These books were all originally one work, but were incrementally divided into smaller sections.

The Deuteronomistic History was written several centuries after the reign of King David. While David is traditionally thought to have ruled sometime in around the late eleventh or early tenth century BC, the Deuteronomistic History is believed by most scholars to have been originally composed during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (ruled c. 640 – 609). It is also thought to have been later substantially revised during the Babylonian Exile (c. 597 – 539 BC) and it may have undergone even later revisions as late as the Hellenistic Period (c. 323 – c. 140 BC).

That means that the Deuteronomistic History was originally written sometime roughly around 350 years after the time when King David is supposed to have ruled. It was substantially revised sometime around a century after that and may have undergone further revisions even later. It is difficult to tell which parts were written when, but, since even the earliest parts are from centuries after the time of David, the whole account of David’s reign given in the Deuteronomistic History must be regarded as historically unreliable.

ABOVE: Illustration dating to c. 1888 by the German painter Osmar Schindler depicting the young David slaying the Philistine giant Goliath with his sling. This particular story is probably both fictional and a later addition to the Deuteronomistic History.

A propagandistic history

Aside from its late date, there are other reasons to regard the Deuteronomistic History as an unreliable source of historical information. For one thing, it is widely recognized by scholars as a work of propaganda intended to represent that age of David and Solomon as a “Golden Age” of Israelite history; in other words, it was probably never intended as a work of accurate history to begin with.

Defenders of the Deuteronomistic History like to point out that it does not portray David as perfect and try to claim that this means that its account of David’s reign is therefore historically accurate, but this is by no means a reasonable inference. The goal of the writers of the Deuteronomistic History seems to have been to portray David as merely a great king—not an infallible God. The fact that David is portrayed as flawed therefore means very little insofar as the historical accuracy of the Deuteronomistic History is concerned.

It is worth noting that heroes in Greek mythology and in Arthurian legend are also portrayed as flawed, but no scholar today at any rate is trying to use this as evidence that Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is an accurate history of the reign of a real, historical English king. Quite simply, flawed heroes are more interesting for people to read about. Just because a particular account portrays a hero as flawed does not necessarily mean that the account is accurate.

ABOVE: Lancelot and Guinevere, painted in c. 1890 by the English Academic painter Herbert James Draper. King Arthur did not know that his wife was cheating on him with the greatest of his knights and, once he found out, his atrocious mishandling of the affair led to his downfall.

There are a lot of claims about King David found in the account from the Deuteronomistic History that are unsupported by the findings of modern archaeology and that modern scholars usually consider highly dubious. For instance, many scholars doubt that there was ever really a united monarchy of both Israel and Judah.

The archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Judah and Israel were always two separate kingdoms and that they were never united under the rule of a single monarch. If King David really existed, he probably only ruled the smaller Kingdom of Judah and not the Kingdom of Israel. Furthermore, the accounts of David’s alleged conquests outside of Israel and Judah have no archaeological evidence to support their historicity.

According to the controversial biblical historian and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, the archaeological evidence seems to indicate that, during King David’s lifetime, David’s alleged capital of Jerusalem was little more than a cow town. Although Finkelstein accepts King David himself as a historical figure, he argues that David was probably nothing more than a local warlord—not at all the great conqueror that the Hebrew Bible makes him out to be.

ABOVE: Map from Wikimedia Commons illustrating the extent of the kingdom of David according to the Deuteronomistic History. Most modern scholars think that the Biblical account of the size of David’s kingdom is massively exaggerated and that David, if he existed, probably only ruled the small kingdom of Judah.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Deuteronomistic History contains exaggerations and inaccuracies does not mean that the Deuteronomistic History does not incorporate any accurate historical information whatsoever, since even sources that are unreliable may contain information that is correct. Indeed, some of the information in the Deuteronomistic History is certainly correct.

For instance, we know from surviving inscriptions and other archaeological evidence that the later kings of Israel and Judah described in the Deuteronomistic History were definitely real rulers. There is no doubt, for instance, that the Omrides really existed and that they really ruled the small, Iron Age kingdom of Israel. When we try to examine the historicity of earlier kings of Judah, however—kings like Saul, David, and Solomon—the evidence is a lot less clear.

The Book of Chronicles and its sources

There is a second, shorter account of King David’s life and reign given in the First Book of Chronicles (1 Chronicles) and the Second Book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles), which are both included in the Hebrew Bible. 1 and 2 Chronicles were originally one book, which I shall refer to here as the “Book of Chronicles,” even though this was not its actual name. The Book of Chronicles was split into two separate books by the translators of the Septuagint, the pre-Christian Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was produced in around the second century BC.

The Book of Chronicles was probably originally written during the Achaemenid Period (c. 539 – c. 332 BC), but it was probably significantly edited during later periods as well. The author of the Book of Chronicles used the Deuteronomistic History as a source, so the Book of Chronicles is not an independent account of David’s reign. It does, however, claim to have used other sources aside from just the Deuteronomist History. 1 Chronicles 29:29–30 states, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

“Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the records of the seer Samuel, and in the records of the prophet Nathan, and in the records of the seer Gad, with accounts of all his rule and his might and of the events that befell him and Israel and all the kingdoms of the earth.”

These other accounts of David’s reign, however, have not survived to the present day and are unlikely to significantly predate the Deuteronomistic History. It is also possible that at least one of these accounts mentioned in 1 Chronicles 29:29–30 may, in fact, be the Deuteronomistic History itself under a different name.

ABOVE: Map borrowed from Wikimedia Commons showing the territorial expansion of the Achaemenid Empire. The Book of Chronicles was probably originally written during the period when Judah was under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire.

The Tel Dan Stele

The strongest piece of evidence in favor of King David’s historical existence is the Tel Dan Stele, a fragment of an inscribed stone slab (known as a stele) that was discovered at the site of Tel Dan in what is now northern Israel. Fragment A of the stele was discovered in July 1993 and Fragments B1 and B2 were discovered just under a year later in June 1994.

The stele is believed to have been inscribed sometime between roughly 870 BC and 750 BC. It is written in an early form of Aramaic. Although the surviving portion of the stele itself does not mention its author, modern scholars usually agree that it was most likely written by Hazael of Damascus (ruled c. 842 – c. 796 BC), a king of Syria who, according to the Hebrew Bible, campaigned against King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah. Other kings have occasionally been proposed as potential alternative authors, but the consensus favors Hazael as the most likely author.

The stele is of relevance to the historicity of King David because lines eight and nine of the inscription mention the author’s victory over “[Ahaz]iahu, son of [Jehoram, kin]g of the ביתדוד (bytdwd).” The phrase bytdwd is generally agreed to mean “the House of David,” since byt (בית) means “house” and dwd (דוד) is the usual spelling of the name David in both Hebrew and Aramaic. Other, less likely interpretations of the phrase have been proposed. For instance, some have tried to argue that it could instead mean various of the following:

• “House of the Beloved” (bytdōd)
• “House of the Uncle” (bytdōd)
• “House of the Kettle” (bytdūd)

None of these alternative explanations really make sense in context, though, and the simplest explanation by far is simply that bytdwd means what it would normally be expected to mean: “the House of David.”

ABOVE: Photograph of the surviving portion of the Tel Dan stele, with the phrase ביתדוד, meaning “House of David” chalked in

Contrary to what many apologists have claimed, however, the Tel Dan Stele most emphatically does not “prove” that there was a real King David. Although the Tel Dan Stele dates much earlier than the Deuteronomistic History, it still dates to between one and two centuries after the time when David is supposed to have ruled.

That is late enough that we cannot by any measure consider the Tel Dan Stele a “contemporary” reference to King David. What the Tel Dan Stele does show, however, is that, at some point sometime between roughly one and two centuries after the time when David is supposed to have lived, the kings of Judah were already claiming to be descended from someone named “David.”

This does not prove that David was real, since kings in the ancient world often claimed to be descended from legendary figures. For instance, the kings of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta claimed to be descendants of the Greek mythological hero Herakles and Julius Caesar claimed to be a descendant of the goddess Venus through her son Aeneas. I do not see anyone arguing that these claims somehow “prove” that Herakles or Venus were real, though.

Nonetheless, the fact that the kings of Judah were claiming Davidic descent at such an early date—within less than two hundreds years of David’s supposed reign—does substantially increase the likelihood that David was a real king. Without the Tel Dan Stele, I would say that the probability of David’s historical existence would be similar to the probability of the existence of Odysseus or Herakles, but, with the Tel Dan Stele, the probability of David’s existence instead seems similar to the probability of the existence of the Spartan lawgiver Lykourgos. In other words, David no longer seems like a figure of pure legend, but a figure on the edge of history.

ABOVE: Second-century AD Roman gilded bronze sculpture of a nude Herakles holding his club. The kings of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta claimed to be descendants of Herakles, but I do not see anyone arguing that this “proves” Herakles was a real person.

The Mesha Stele

While the Tel Dan Stele is the earliest surviving text that scholars generally agree refers to King David, it is not the earliest surviving text that possibly contains a reference to King David. A fragmentary stele that was erected in around 840 BC or thereabouts by a Moabite king named Mesha is known as the “Mesha Stele” or the “Moabite Stele” and possibly contains a slightly earlier reference to King David than the one found in the Tel Dan Stele.

Line thirty-one of the Mesha Stele is badly damaged, but it contains the phrase בת*וד, which the scholar André Lemaire has interpreted as bt[d]wd, which could mean “the House of David.” This interpretation, however, is far from universally accepted and many scholars have questioned it.

In any case, even if the Mesha Stele does refer to the “House of David,” we would still have the same problem as we encountered with the Tel Dan Stele; the Mesha Stele dates to over a century after the time when King David is supposed to have lived and is not contemporary to his reign. All it would prove then, if it did mention the “House of David,” would be the same thing as the Tel Dan Stele, which is that, over a century after David’s supposed death, the kings of Judah were already claiming to be descendants of someone named “David.”

ABOVE: Photograph of the Mesha Stele, which contains a disputed phrase, which some scholars have attempted to argue might mean “the House of David”

Conclusion

The version of King David that we are all familiar with is certainly more fictional than historical, but, as the Tel Dan Stele clearly shows, sometime between one and two centuries after the time when King David is supposed to have reigned, the kings of Judah were already claiming to be descendants of someone named “David.” It is possible that this “David” may have been nothing more than a legend; after all, as I mentioned earlier, the kings of the Greek city-state of Sparta claimed to be descendants of the legendary hero Herakles and no scholar today worth taking seriously thinks that this was really the case.

Nonetheless, the kings of Judah’s claim to be descended from “David” is far more plausible in terms of modern scholarship than the kings of Sparta’s claims that they were descendants of Herakles. For one thing, we have reliable attestation from the Tel Dan Stele that they were claiming to be descended from David at some point between one hundred and two hundred years after David is supposed to have ruled; whereas the earliest record of the Spartan kings claiming descent from Herakles comes from over half a millennium after Herakles supposedly lived.

It seems unlikely that belief that the kings of Judah were descended from an entirely fictional king without any historical basis could arise within the short timeframe of less than two hundred years. My supposition, therefore, is that there probably was some kind of king named “David” who founded the royal house of the Kingdom of Judah. I would side with Finkelstein and others, however, who conclude that David was probably little more than a “cow king” who only ruled the tiny Kingdom of Judah, since we lack archaeological evidence to support the Biblical portrayal of him as a mighty conqueror ruling over vast dominions.

Ultimately, though, the legendary David of the Deuteronomistic History is the one who has had the most influence. The real King David—if there was a real King David—was probably ruler of a small kingdom in what is now southern Israel during the early Iron Age that occupied a territory of less than 4,000 square miles. (Even if the Biblical portrayal of King David were completely accurate, David’s kingdom would still have only been around 13,000 square miles—less than half the area of my home state of Indiana.) The legendary David, on the other hand, has lived for thousands of years in the imaginations of kings, poets, artists, and storytellers.

It is easy to see why the story has been so appealing. The story of the legendary King David is the ultimate underdog story: the story of a boy who was the youngest of eight sons of a poor shepherd from Bethlehem who would have ordinarily never amounted to anything, but, then, he was anointed by a prophet of God; he fought a seemingly unbeatable giant and won; and he went on to become a great warrior, a great king, and a great poet.

ABOVE: King David Playing the Harp, painted in 1622 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard van Honthorst. It is easy to see why the image of the legendary David as the youngest son of a poor shepherd who became a great king, a great warrior, and a great poet has held such appeal throughout history.