Stephen C. Russell, Assistant Professor of Ancient History, John Jay College, CUNY

Stephen C. Russell is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at John Jay College, CUNY.

"This volume is packed with many fruitful insights and intriguing interpretations that make this work a must read for anyone interested in the dynamics of power in ancient Israel and in text-critical issues in the Hebrew Bible." - Kyle H. Keimer, Macquarie University

"Readers who are looking for a well-researched, critical study of royal power and space in the biblical world would benefit from reading this book. It is very readable for a general audience, and the extensive notes and bibliography, which make up more than half of the book, are useful to a scholarly audience." - Jaime L. Waters, Biblical Theology Bulletin

"The gains of the book...are considerable for those who read with sufficient patience. They will read more knowingly about royal power in the Bible. And beyond the scope of the book itself, the tension between centralized economic-political leverage and a community-based social realty is immediately pertinent to our interpretive situation in the United States. The book will help us read more knowingly the Bible as an arena in which social power is intensely contested and our own circumstance of public power that faces acute crisis." - Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology