Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

I would like to make the following observations:

1) Josiah was born in a time when the entire nation was engulfed in pagan 
worship,
and magical practices in which the priesthood most likely took the lead.
2) The scroll Josiah came into possession of by the chance finding of the 
high priest 
was the only source Josiah had to conduct the reformation.
3) If we are to believe that the law-scroll was added to after Josiah's day, 
this would
leave no reliable mechanism for a fithful final edition.
4) It is a possibility (non demonstrable) that Josiah's law-scroll was 
protected in the 
foundations since the original building of the temple.
5) As the temple was completely destroyed by the babylonians and then later 
rebuilt, there
is no reliale way of archeologically establishing when the original temple 
was built.
6) In fact, we cannot archeologically establish if there ever was a first 
temple.
7) Chronicles and Kings present the only unbroken attempts to record the 
entire history 
of the kings of Isreal and Judah.
8) Unlike records of neighbouring empires, the records have a large emphasis 
on the failings 
of its kings and thus, from a historical perspective, have the hallmarks of 
reliable sources.
9) Tradition would have us believe that such scrolls were faithfully copied 
by the scribes
(sopherim) that employed strict counting methods to establish the 
authenticity of such copies.
10) Fragments of ancient letters, while they do give us the possibility to 
view things from 
the perspective of other nations, can hardly compete against the completeness 
of records 
such as Kings and Chronicles whose agendas were to faithfully represent the 
history of a nation 
that believed that lying was one of the worst and most punishable of sins.
11) Apart from an inherent desire to criticise a historical work just because 
it resides in 
the hebrew canon, no real reason has been presented to doubt that Solomon 
built his temple
12) It is a well established fact that Solomon had a great and peaceful 
empire and was the only 
king with both the time and the resources to be able to accomplish such a 
work.


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