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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Josiah's book of the Law

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  • From: Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • To: Dora Smith <villandra AT austin.rr.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Josiah's book of the Law
  • Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 08:06:50 -0400


On Wednesday, August 3, 2005, at 07:32 AM, Dora Smith wrote:

I don't accept the idea that Josiah found the book in the temple.

And yet you use that account as the springboard for your idea that Josiah's priests manufactured a document.


However, it is very unlikely that a pogrom of the level of viciousness that
is described is in the text, and never happened. Why would someone say
they did such a thing if it in fact never happened?

Vicious is the word you choose to describe Josiah's reforms? Are you saying that "bad" things are more likely to be accurately recorded than "good" things in the Bible? You do realize that the biblical writer considered the reforms of Josiah to be a good thing. There's no hiding of an allegedly "vicious" pogrom here.


It makes the most sense to think that a document was actually produced to
legitimize the pogrom. Such a document is consistent wtih the stated
purpose of the pogrom to return Israel to its allegedly ancient ways. I
think it was manufactured by the priests.

Manufactured as in completely falsified? How would they have gotten away with such a deception? And why do you pick Josiah's reforms and not Joash's cleansing and repairs (II Kings 12: 1-18)?


Alternately the entire story could have been built up somehow to support the
later, equally cruel, pogrom by the returnees from Babylonia.

Cruel? I fail to see the cruelty here.

Best Salaams,

R. Brian Roberts
Amateur Researcher in Biblical Archaeology




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