Abstract
Historical critical scholarship has long embraced the Book of Samuel as the place where we hit “pay dirt,” so to speak, in terms of source materials for the “History of Israel.” For example Martin Noth felt that there was no real history that could be traced for Israel until we get to the period of the monarchy. He subscribes to the idea of some sort of amphictyonic grouping prior to this time, but contends that it is with the monarchy, especially the reigns of David and Solomon in the 10th century BCE, that we get to the “true historically reliable” materials in the Hebrew Canon.