Samuel, Polizin, and the Pre-Text Pretext

I decided to read Robert Polzin’s Samuel and the Deuteronomist alongside my own reading of 1 Samuel. He argues that contemporary biblical studies concerned with the Deuteronomistic author (Dtr) recognizes the creativity of that author of the text. Contemporary scholarship, however, sees the “real text” (as opposed to hypothetical pre-texts), as fraught with redactions, harmonizations, contradictory themes, etc. that obscure the brilliant work of Dtr. He addresses Noth, Cross, and Van Seter’s work on the Deuteronomistic history. What he says of Van Seters represents what he thinks of the others:

The price he has to pay for calling his pre-text ‘a literary work of superb accomplishment’ is his corresponding contention that the real text, the present form of the Deuteronomistic History in general and the present books of Samuel in particular, is in fundamental ways and strategic places an incoherent mess.

Polzin says that these types of studies may (or may not) be legitimate in reconstructing the texts and histories behind the real text. They do, however, compromise the study of the only real text we have. Instead, he aims his study at the task of adumbrating the artistic genius of the present text despite some of its deficiencies caused to the hands of later redactors. I look forward to his final form reading of 1 Samuel.