YMMV / Books of Kings

• Common Knowledge: These days, the word "Jezebel" is often used to describe promiscuous women, prostitutes, or just generally 'immoral' women. However, the biblical Jezebel never engaged in prostitution nor was she ever described as promiscuous. She was faithful to her husband Ahab. What made her the villain is that she served as Lady Macbeth to Ahab and encouraged him to be a tyrant. The misconception that she was a prostitute probably comes from the word "Jezebel" being applied to any woman deemed immoral (whether as a queen or sexually immoral).
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Josiah, king of Judah. His destruction of idols and sanctuaries of other gods in Judah is epic, he even destroys altars and statues that previous reformers had left in place, and which had been standing since the time of Solomon. He also recovers the Mosaic law and celebrates the first Passover in centuries. The chapters discussing his reign are like the muster of Patroclus in The Iliad, where he succeeds so well that he verges on changing fate; but God has already made up His mind. God informs him that He's very impressed with what he accomplished, but Israel will still be destroyed; but God will wait until after Josiah is dead for it to happen.
  • Princess Jehosheba, who saves her brother King Ahaziah's son, Prince Joash, when her mother Queen Athaliah has the other royal children killed, and then hides him from her until La Résistance is strong enough to restore him to the throne. This sounds like such a cool and heroic story that later authors have written whole novels about Jehosheba—though the telegraphic entry in II Kings only affords Jehosheba herself a couple of sentences, preferring to detail Jehoiada's conspiracy against Athaliah instead.
• Never Live It Down: Be honest; how many of you heard of Elisha before you heard about the whole "sending-bears-to-eat-youths" thing? If you have, you must be a devout Jew, Christian, or Muslim who doesn't spend a lot of time online. It only takes up three verses in the whole passage, yet it's the main thing he's remembered for nowadays.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Elisha summoning two bears to eat up 42 boys for mocking him is easily seen as Disproportionate Retribution to modern readers. Granted this was a Dub-Induced Plot Hole, but still.
    • Most scholars agree that the part about the "boys" is Lost in Translation and the original text refers to males in their late teens or early 20s, and they were a legitimate threat to his life.
  • In an age where religious pluralism is seen as a good thing, the "good" kings persecuting paganism may come across as an act of violent intolerance of other people's beliefs. While the Canaanite pagans are depicted as following a Religion of Evil with child sacrifice, the author seems just as offput by people building cow statues as he is by people sacrificing infants.

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