Lucifer of Cagliari and Textual Studies in the Books of Kings

The textual history of all the books in the Hebrew Bible is very complex. The Books of Kings are among the most challenging in this respect. Together with Hebrew and Greek sources, the Latin witnesses are of utmost importance in Kings. A very useful Latin witness is Lucifer of Cagliari (a bishop in Sardinia in the 4th century CE) who makes extensive quotations from Kings in his writings. Responsible use of these quotations in textual studies requires combining text-critical and literary critical methods. By comparing Lucifer’s quotations with all known textual material for Kings, the project aims at establishing Lucifer’s text-historical position as well as clearing out a number of literary-critical problems.