King David if one of the most central figures in all of the major monotheistic traditions. He generally connotes the heroic past of the (more imagined than real) ancient Israelite empire and is associated with messianic hopes for the future. Nevertheless, his richly ambivalent and fascinating literary portrayal in the Hebrew Bible is one of the most complex of all biblical characters.
This volume aims at taking a new, critical look at the process of biblical creation and subsequent exegetical transformation of the character of David and his attributed literary composition (the Psalms), with particular emphasis put on the multilateral fertilization and cross-cultural interchanges among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

• Table of contents 
  Contents — Illustrations — Abbreviations — Transliteration
  Notes on Contributors
  
  The Variety of Davids in Monotheistic Traditions
  An Introduction
  Chapter 1 David in History and in the Hebrew Bible
  Part 1 The Images of David in Medieval Jewish, Muslim and Christian Sources
  Chapter 2 David the Pious Musician in Midrashic Literature and Medieval Muslim Sources
  Chapter 3 The Weeping King of Muslim Pietistic Tradition David
  

  in the Kitāb al-waraʿ of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb (d. 238/853) and in Earlier Islamic Sources

  Chapter 4 David and the Temple of Solomon in Medieval Karaite Sources
  

  The Arabic Commentaries of Yefet ben ʿEli on the Books of Kings and Chronicles

  Chapter 5 David as Warrior, Leader, and Poet in Medieval Hebrew Poetry of al-Andalus
  

  Shmuel ha-Nagid’s Self-Portrait as “The David of His Age”

  Chapter 6 David in Medieval Jewish Thought Judah Halevi’s Book of the Kuzari
  

  as a Reconciliation Project

  Chapter 7 Saint Louis as a New David and Paris as a New Jerusalem
  

  in Medieval French Hagiographic Literature

  Chapter 8 David and Jonathan as a Paradigm of Male Friendship in Medieval Latin Literature
  Part 2 The Psalter of David in Monotheistic Traditions
  Chapter 9 David the Prophet in Saʿadya Gaon’s Commentary on Psalms
  

   and Its Syriac and Karaite Contexts

  Chapter 10 Psalms to Reason, Psalms to Heal The Scriptures in Early Rūm Orthodox Treatises
  Chapter 11 Images of David in Several Muslim Rewritings of the Psalms
  Chapter 12 David’s Psalter in Christian Arabic Dress
  

  Abd Allāh ibn al-Faḍl’s Translation and Commentary

  Chapter 13 King David and the Psalter in Ethiopian Cultural Setting
  Chapter 14 David’s Psalms in Eastern European Karaite Literature
  Part 3 David and His Women:
  

  The Cross-Religious Reception Exegesis of the Bathsheba Narrative

  Chapter 15 The Four Wives of David and the Four Women of Odysseus
  

  A Comparative Approach

  Chapter 16 Josephus’ Retelling of the David and Bathsheba Narrative
  Chapter 17 Our Mother, Our Queen Bathsheba
  

  through Early Jewish, Christian and Muslim Eyes

  Chapter 18 God’s Master Plan The Story of David and Bathsheb
  

  a in Some Early Syriac Commentaries

  Chapter 19 Ibn Kaṯīr’s (d. 774/1373) Treatment of the David and Uriah Narrative
  

  The Issue of Isrāʾīliyyāt and the Syrian School of Exegesis

  Part 4 Reinventing David in Early Modern and Modern Religious Thought and Literature
  Chapter 20 “David Was Secretly a Woman” King David as a Messianic Topos
  

  in the Teaching of Jacob Frank

  Chapter 21 Davidic Narratives in the Contemporary Roman Catholic Liturgical Readings
  Chapter 22 The Reception of David and Michal in Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Literature
  Index of Sources — Index of Sacred Scriptures — Index of Ancient and Medieval Literatures
  Index of Authors
  General Index