to itself. Its integrity must not be compromised by seeking to relate it to anything outside itself. Text and history must be kept apart. In all of this we see a strong reaction against the kind of historical reading of the biblical texts which, so far as many recent writers are concerned, has succeeded only in rendering books like Kings unreadable, as scholars have battled over the bits and pieces while obscuring the whole. The response of these writers to what they view as literary Philistinism