DrJim

I agree wholeheartedly with Spin about the standard datings, and I have done some thinking on this in particular about Kings.

The 'completion' of the book is usually pinned at ca mid 6th century bce since the writer does not mention anything that happens after that time. I figure this is non-sense. How many histories of Israel written in the modern world do not go much past the Persian period, or early Church? Tons of 'em.

I think Kings leaves the story off with the Judeans in exile since it is "exilic" in theology, not necessary "exilic" in date. This is a really important distinction.

In my opinion, Kings was written to explain the diaspora, and justify the centrality of Jerusalem as a symobolic centre for judeans and displaced Judean communities: this would have been a need even in the later Persian or Hellenistic eras. I think Solomon's dedicatory prayer is crucial in affirming the sacrality of Zion even if no temple exists or access to the temple is possible (Pray towards this house" the king says...

An "exilic" theology sees Judah still in "exile" even if some have returned to Jerusalem. In this way, I think Kings is sort of opposed to Ezra-and Nehemiah, which portrays the exile as over and the real Israelites as those who have been through it and back. To my mind, the writer of Kings might have been working in the shadow of the second temple but not have thought its construction marked as radical a change in his people's religious status vis-a-vis God as other folks might have thought.
We should remember that the exile is a myth (despite the reality of deportations). It is a theological construct of the past in which the land was "emptied" of its rightful possessors.

I think "pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic" is a useless chronological scheme to employ, since it imposes a later theologization of the past onto the literary artifacts which need to be dated. (Shades of PR Davies' In Search of Ancient Isreal... rant). It influences how and what scholars assume could have been writtten when. "Post-exilic" texts typically are more hopeful that immediately "pre-exilic" ones and so forth. I think it would be easy for a Persian or Hellenistic writer to compose a text set in the "pre-exilic" period and employ stereotypical motifs of that setting: prophetic disgust at royal piety, a sense of impending judgment etc.

Anyway, for the well healed, or those with access to an academic library, a good book is L.L. Grabbe (ed.) Leading Captivity Captive: The "exile" as History and Ideology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).

JRL