Josiah and the fall of kingdom Judah

a reply to: Malocchio

Deuteronomy was most certainly written at least around the time of the purge if not later.

a reply to: zardust

Josiah?

a reply to: zardust

The strangest thing about Deuteronomy is that the oldest traditions (non Masoretic) give us the best instance of proof that Yahweh was not the Most High God/El Elyon but a Son of El who received Israel as his inheritance, the God of Israel not the world.

Deuteronomy 32

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance , when he divided the sons of men, he fixed their bounds according to the number of the Sons of God; but Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob his share of inheritance.

The world was divided into 70 territories which coincides with the 70 Sons of El (Elyon) the Most High and Asherah and their 70 sons in Canaanite mythology.

Yahweh was a Son of God who received his share of the inheritance, Israel/Jacob but nobody else.

The passage was so problematic the Masoretic scribes changed Sons of God to sons of Israel, not only replacing the word God with Israel but making it make no sense because Israel didn't have 70 sons for the 70 nations and couldn't have had anything to do with something that happened before they existed.

Some fancy rewording is done to the passage and the one I quoted is according to the Dead Sea Scrolls and agreed with in the Septuagint except they were angels in Greek, but this is the English of the oldest known scroll or fragments of the Tanakh. And this passage was found at Qumran.

Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob his inheritance. So we have an old tradition that was "covered up" by fancy wording but uncovered that Yahweh was not El Elyon.

a reply to: Malocchio

that verse is what spurred me on to this line of thinking. Many years ago.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Texta reply to: Seede If it was the book placed in the ark, they would have known that it was there, so it isn't easy to imagine what would have caused them to re-discover it. Hilkiah just says "I have found it in the house of the Lord". I am very attracted to the more modern idea that this was specifically the book Deuteronomy (which is Greek for "second law"). That is why in modern histories of ancient Israel the reforms made in Josiah's time are usually called the "Deuteronomic" reforms, in the belief that they were inspired by this book. For example, Jeremiah quotes the Deuteronomy divorce law (a divorced woman who has married another man can't return to her first husband). He also complains that they have ignored the law about releasing slaves, which can be found in Deuteronomy.

In the Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia it is written that Yoshiyahu renovated the Beit Hamikadash in the year of 3303 After Creation. That would be 458 BCE. Now I realize that dates are very controversial to many people but I have always kept my dates from one source that I chose many years ago. Therefore this is not about dates but the event that took place.

In this encyclopedia it is recorded that in 677 BCE, which was 155 years after Shlomo had begun building the Beit Hamikdash, Yehoash began to strengthen the structure and then 218 years later [in 458+ BCE] it was Yoshiyahu who actually began his renovation of the same Biet Hamikdash and found Torah Scroll along with other artifacts had been hidden in the Holy Ark.

This led me to ask you what you thought of what the Book of the Law was that they found. Your answer of Greek literature does not make sense to me at all. The reason is that this scroll of Torah that they found was that same scroll which was hidden from King Achaz in 578 BCE. Greek was not introduced as primarily active in that era and most certainly a Greek scroll would not have been honored in the Ark before 578 BCE.

Also
(2) the publication and authorization of the "Book of the Torah" (see *Deuteronomy) discovered in the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, i.e., 622 B.C.E., which ultimately turned the book into the main vehicle of the Jewish religion (see below).
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The Reform and Its Historical Antecedents
Josiah's reform activities are given in two parallel accounts: II Kings 22–23 and II Chronicles 34–35. According to the account of Kings, the reform was motivated by the discovery of "Book of the Torah" in 622 B.C.E.; before that no reformative action had been reported. Chronicles, in contrast, tells about three stages of the reform:
(1) in the eighth year of his reign (632 B.C.E.) he started "to seek the God of David" (II Chron. 34:3);
(2) in the 12th year (628 B.C.E.) he began to extirpate objectionable cults in Judah and Jerusalem (34:3b–5), as well as in other parts of the land of Israel (34:6–7);
(3) finally, in the 18th year (622 B.C.E.), when the "Book of the Torah" was discovered, he concluded the Covenant before the Lord (34:29–33) and celebrated the Passover (35:1–18).
Each account has its problems. Scholars have observed that the story of the temple repairs in II Kings 23 is modeled on the repairs ordered by *Joash, an earlier king of Judah described in II Kings 12. In addition, the account in Kings telescopes all of Josiah's activity into one year.
According to Chronicles, it was only after the completion of the reform that the book was found (II Chron. 34:8), so that its role is limited to bringing the people into a covenant to purge the land of the idolatrous practices in the former northern kingdom (II Chron. 34:33) and the celebration of the Passover.
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(4) The book was discovered in the midst of an action taken in connection with the repairs of the Temple which apparently followed the removal of the cultic objects installed by Manasseh (II Kings 23:4ff.). II Chronicles, in fact, informs us that the repairs were connected with the restoration of the Temple, or rather with its "undergirding," which had been demolished by the previous kings of Judah (II Chron. 34:11).
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Because of his righteousness, his father, Amon, was permitted to enjoy the world to come (Sanh. 104a). When he opened the Torah which had been found, the first verse to meet his eyes was, "The Lord shall bring thee and thy king unto exile, unto a nation which thou hast not known" (Deut. 28:36; Yoma 52b). He sought to enlist the intercession of the prophets in his behalf. He addressed his request to the prophetess *Huldah rather than to Jeremiah since he felt that a woman would be more compassionate (Meg. 14b). When informed of the impending destruction of the Temple, Josiah hid the Holy Ark and all its appurtenances, in order to guard them against desecration at the hands of the enemy (Yoma 52b).
Source - www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...

In light of this would you still determine that it could be (Greek - Second Law) ?

originally posted by: Seede
Your answer of Greek literature does not make sense to me at all.

You misunderstand me. I was not saying that the book itself was a piece of Greek literature. I was only talking about the word "Deuteronomy".
In our modern Bibles, that book has acquired a name which happens to be a Greek word meaning "second law". That is all.

(2) the publication and authorization of the "Book of the Torah" (see *Deuteronomy) discovered in the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, i.e., 622 B.C.E., which ultimately turned the book into the main vehicle of the Jewish religion (see below).
.... When he opened the Torah which had been found, the first verse to meet his eyes was, "The Lord shall bring thee and thy king unto exile, unto a nation which thou hast not known" (Deut. 28:36; Yoma 52b). He sought to enlist the intercession of the prophets in his behalf. He addressed his request to the prophetess *Huldah rather than to Jeremiah since he felt that a woman would be more compassionate (Meg. 14b). When informed of the impending destruction of the Temple, Josiah hid the Holy Ark and all its appurtenances, in order to guard them against desecration at the hands of the enemy (Yoma 52b).

All this actually agrees with what I was saying- that the book found was likely to have been the book Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy works as a codification which supplements the laws of Exodus, and that may explain how it got the nickname "second law", which has entered our usage.

As for the reason why Josiah did not consult Jeremiah, my own theory is that Huldah was well-known as a prophet and Jeremiah wasn't, at this early stage in his mission. Though he began to prophesy in Josiah's time, all his dated prophecies come from the next two reigns.

I actually find this to be a fascinating discussion.

Thanks to the OP for creating it and for all of the posters for bringing their views to the table.

This is the type of stuff I'd like to see more often. Just try to avoid allowing the debate to become too personal and it should progress just fine. There is a lot to learn and ponder here.

a reply to: muzzleflash
I'm glad you appreciate it.
My recent threads have been on the politics of the two kingdoms, and are continuing into Jeremiah, so you may be able to find more of the same.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: muzzleflash
I'm glad you appreciate it.
My recent threads have been on the politics of the two kingdoms, and are continuing into Jeremiah, so you may be able to find more of the same.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

I've been in a study group the last few months and we've been focused on I and II Kings and I find all of it very interesting. I will take all of the subjects and do external research on them, like the Mesha Stele / Moabite Stone was really cool to learn about.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Oh my-- My face is red. Thank you once again -- I now see through the dark
God Bless --Seede

It's amazing that in King Solomon's time the Israelites prospered AND under a polytheistic religion that didn't discriminate against the worship of different gods.

But when Israel was at its most devoted to Yahweh, the first centuries AD and BC, the Hasmoneans, Judah Maccabeus and the Zaddikim zealots, they are delivered to Rome.

Yahweh sure is fickle, we know that Monotheism was strict then and national and religious pride at a fervor, yet the many sects of Jews could not get along and fell after fighting for a hundred years on and off, maybe longer, against the Romans.

I doubt Jesus had anything to do with the fall of Jerusalem in reality, and killing the Messiah was probably Roman propaganda to villainize the Jews.