In this book Joseph Blenkinsopp traces the development of traditions about David in the collective memory of the people of Israel and the first Christians, from the extinction of the Davidic dynasty in the sixth century B.C.E. to the early common era. Neither a biography of David nor an exegetical study of the biblical narrative about David, it focuses on the memory of David as a powerful factor in the formation of social identity, in political activity (especially in reaction to imperial rule), and in projections of the future viewed as the restoration of a never-forgotten past.