rlogan

So somewhere in the 1.5 century BCE range.

It seems this period was one of a bona-fide independent and powerful kingdom...


Honestly, this stuff makes me feel so stupid sometimes.

The point of placing the dramatic "find" of The Law in Kings is to give whatever it refers to a pedigree.

The "find" is a manner of introducing a change in basic tenets. Monotheism is at the core of Josiah's rampaging against pluralism.

Either case is still possible - Josiah fakes a find, or Kings makes up the find for a retroactive blessing of Josiah's actions.

Maxmixer3000

I have never read any Friedman, however I did go over "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein, and although he is not a literary scholar, he looks at the Bible from an archaeological perspective- or that is at least what he claims.
In the introduction alone he makes numerous references to King Josiah "finding" the Deuteronomic scrolls.
Also, I don't think that belief in Moses having written the first 4 books has any bearing on whether or not you believe that Josiah found it.
Finkelstein (and I am paraphrasing here) seems to be saying that the final product of the first 4 books were written/ redacted anywhere from the time of Solomon to the 6th or 5th Centuries BCE.


1) The Josiah theory has nothing to do with Moses writing anything.
2) Yes, it would have, how else would you have a rough grouping of people with a similar faith, IE all have allegiance to one king/god. Without some sort of religious connection- it really would not have been much of a monarchy.
3) Why not- whether or not Deuteronomy was found by Josiah or not is irrelevant, we can assume that the final redactors (whomever that may be, and whenever) would have drawn threads from all across the literature, to give it some coherence.
4) How is this relevant? If they wrote it then they would, of course, have access to the previous writings- and why should they not draw from them.
5) I do not yet see why King Josiah did not write it.

Spin, I'm very confused about your names and dates...
Daniel (according to what I could find) lived approximately 620 BCE to at least 536.
The dates for the Persian Empire are 538- 333 BCE
How does that correspond at all, for what you are saying?

The Hasmoneans Revolt was in the 2nd century BCE.

Now, if in the 2nd Century you already have a priestly ruling class, and a fairly vibrant religion (considering they revolted and all), would you not think that people would notice the Priests tacking on this extra book?
As they already had most of the institutions in place (according to the book of the Maccabees) that are outlined in Deuteronomy, it would have had to have been written earlier.
[ I am thinking of the story with the sacrifice of the pig in the temple, when I say that the institutions were already in place.]

As far as I can tell, scholars might be arguing over who wrote what and when, but there seems to be overwhelming consent over who wrote Deuteronomy.

Still just curious!!!!
Maxine

rlogan

OK, Maxmixer3000 and I both want some wisdom laid down on us here.

The HB is historically unreliable in major respects. No Exodus. No Moses. No Abraham. The Israelites are home-grown. They were not conquerers. Lived there all along. David is a punk regional chief at best.

I'm not going to even try stepping into the alphabet soup of authorship. There are multiple sources for the HB, and this has been kicked around at least since Wellhausen in the 1870's.


When the HB books could possibly have been "written" at all seems to be in question here - I've seen 6th century thrown out as a limiting figure for origin of the Hebrew language. My own pathetic look into this subject seems to indicate that the earliest distinctive Hebrew dates to the 10th Century BCE with the Gezer Calendar. As a Canaanite derivative, it is quite old and it seems to me that we have to allow for proto-books developing many centuries before the 6th BCE. What the hell- I'll say 10th cent BCE and Spin can crush me like a bug.

Whereas maybe by 12 cent. BCE we have a gelling of Israelite culture, it is not until the 9th cent. BCE that a powerful regional entity is formed: Israel, in the north. Maybe two kingdoms from the start and throughout - Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah), and maybe there is a unified kingdom under Solomon. Maybe the unified kingdom is bullshit.

The northern kingdom tolerated polytheism. Consequently God smote them with the Assyrian conquest in the 700's BCE. In line with Assyrian practice, they were dispersed, some fleeing south. Others to the winds.

In the southern kingdom we find Josiah. 600's BCE. Intolerant of polytheism, he rampages throughout Judah, smashing up anything not Yaweh. Centralizes religious practice. Gaudy temple.

In consequence, God rewards Josiah's good behavior with his own death at the hands of his enemy and the subsequent Babylonian conquest of Judah. This is under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. In the 597 and 589 BCE years the residents of Judah are dispersed. Some to Babylon. Some return in 538.


It seems to me that Josiah is an important turning point wherein all the extremist monotheistic elements of the HB would have been developed. See how the north got their due for tolerating polytheism? I'm betting it was a much more wholesale HB writing or revamping right here. Josiah "finds" more than Deuteronomy. Maybe he finds Moses, even.

If we forward to the Hasmoneans, we have a regionally powerful entity again along with the written language we find in the DSS. I would suspect redactions to occur here as is ubiquitous in religious history. The canon is not yet settled for that matter.

But along with maxmixer, I am really interested in what the "find" was by King Josiah. More than Deuteronomy, I think.

Celsus

The question that you should be asking, rlogan, is why presume the historicity of the Josiah account?

Joel

rlogan

Hi Celsus. Well, frankly I don't know at all what I should presume, and this is just the messiest subject for which I am grateful to have someone steer me to extrabiblical knowledge.

The Josephus account, for what its worth, in Antiquities Book X has the basic story line of the wicked North falling to the Assyrians and Josiah mopping up the non-Yaweh worshippers in the South. Josephus refers to "Books" of Moses being found, and I confess that in part that did influence my thinking on the subject. (Finding more than Deuteronomy.) Someone will undoubtedly embarrass me for my wont of knowledge in some key aspect of this. But a person has to try, so I am trying.

As I understand it, the North falling, the South undergoing this "cleansing" by Josiah - that much is not under question historically. Am I wrong about that? As such, the paradigm shift is not under question, but the "finding" of the books may be - that could be a retroactive discovery, as it were.

heh. But again, I think this is a pretty good story - finding the "books of God" in the basement and using these as the pretense to centralize power.