The two Books of Samuel are part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that constitute a theological history of the Israelites which explains God's law for Israel under the guidance of the prophets. According to Jewish tradition the book was written by Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan; modern scholarly thinking is that the entire history (called the Deuteronomistic history) was composed in the period c.630–540 BCE by combining a number of independent texts of various ages.