On the occasion of the publication of Yaakov Shavit's article on the book "Rashit Yisrael", which presents the period of Josiah's reign in Judah as a turning point in the history of the people of Israel, the "Culture and Literature" editorial team turned to several biblical scholars with a request to answer the question: "Who was King Josiah? Was he An important king? Was he a reformer?
Heralds of Christ: Josiah, Jechania and Shelatiel in Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/yoshiahoo2.html
It was not at the time when the Bible was written / Alexander Rufa
Josiah was an important king. He was freed from the yoke of Assyria. He was independent for 18 years until he fell in Megiddo. He was a reformer, but Josiah is not the founder of monotheism. I think monotheism developed over hundreds of years, and in any case Josiah did not write Deuteronomy. The Book of Deuteronomy was probably written shortly before his time.
A dangerous king for his people/ Leah Mazor
Josiah was a dangerous king for his people, he was a political adventurer who entered into a difficult conflict with the largest empire of his time, Egypt, and died in battle with a crippled Pharaoh. He must have been an important king according to the perception of the editors who edited the Book of Kings. He was presented as someone who contributed to the concentration of worship and its unification in one place, but he succeeded in canceling the worship of God on the platforms by the most drastic means. He sacrificed the high priests on the altars and burned human bones on the altars. This is how he defiled the stages forever.
As a round of monotheism, it would be presumptuous to hang such a deeply religious process on a single personality. Cultural processes from the environment contributed to this, historical processes within Judah contributed to this. Until Josiah we hear that the people worshiped the Lord God of Israel in the platforms. Some of the platforms were probably places of worship to the God of Israel and the concentration of worship required the people to stop the historical work that had lasted for many generations on the platforms, and to worship God only in one place. Hezekiah tried and failed. Then Josiah repeated it and succeeded, partly because he took extreme measures.
The development of monotheism cannot be attributed to one figure. The development was long. Josiah did not write the book of Deuteronomy and did not edit the Deuteronomistic history. It is possible that parts of Deuteronomy were written at the time, but there are layers of Deuteronomy in the book that are late to Yeshua and before him.
Hezekiah is bigger than him/ Yaira Amit
Josiah did not invent anything. The biblical tradition itself glorifies Hezekiah more than Josiah. And this, even though Hezekiah was a first-rate historical failure, because in his days the Assyrian siege was placed on Jerusalem, and he could have prevented it if he had paid the taxes and not rebelled against the Assyrian king. His rebellion brought destruction on Judah, from which she was unable to recover for decades. And here, Sennacherib arrived in Jerusalem but due to pressures within his kingdom he lifted the siege and returned to Nineveh. The result was that it was interpreted as a conference, and therefore Hezekiah became a wonderful king. The Book of Kings says that there was a reform in his day, but he only devotes two sentences to it, so a question arises as to its importance. On the other hand, the Book of Chronicles devotes three entire chapters to Hezekiah's reform, the historical basis of which we do not know, but they teach about the desire to glorify Hezekiah at the expense of Josiah, and to say that everything Josiah did was not like what his predecessor did. For this purpose, the Book of Chronicles, written in the fourth century BC, must be read.
Many things happened during Hezekiah's time. For example, northern Israel was destroyed and the classical prophecy appeared in full force. It began in Israel even before Hezekiah, but Isaiah and Micah are prophets of Hezekiah's time and so is the Assyrian conflict and threat and the processing of historical events and the attempt to interpret. I accept the opinion that this is the beginning of monotheism. Monotheism, which began to be rolled out as the idea of the God who controls everything, and sends Assyria as a staff of wrath - this is a concept that says that the king of Assyria is a tool in the hands of the God of Israel. These are ideas that take shape during this period and are a representation of monotheism.
I think that the formation of Israeli monotheism is a process matter of the eighth century, and that figures who were active in it such as Josiah, such as Hezekiah, had an important contribution to this. Monotheism was further boosted by the centralization of Josiah's worship, but Josiah's reform actually took place some 36 years before Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian destruction. It is hard for me to believe that if it were not for the exile in Babylon this reform would have been successful. The Babylonian exile led to the fact that with the resumption of worship in Shiba Zion they already built the model according to the principles of the Book of Deuteronomy. I am not convinced that the reform would have been successful had it not been for the exile, because the strong motive that caused its internalization and its comprehensive adoption was the destruction.
There are parts of the Bible that were written during the Maccabean period - such as Daniel and Esther, which is the Hellenistic book. In my opinion, the Torah was not completed before Ezra, as Spinoza said in his theological-political essay. Only with the return of Zion was the compilation of the Torah possible. But it was compiled at a late stage; it has ancient parts and ancient traditions and there are schools of thought that took shape at the end of the eighth century and onward - a process that continued as well in exile in Babylon.
In the book of Kings it is said of Hezekiah that he broke the copper snake (2 Kings 18:4) that Moses made in the desert. There is here an admission that there was a brazen serpent whom all worshipped; But Hezekiah allows himself to uproot him. I think we have the beginnings of "You shall not make yourself every statue and every picture". There is an attempt here to move away from the iconization of the deity and to fight against it. That's why I think that there was the beginning of a reform in the days of Hezekiah, and in the Book of Kings they attribute to him a reform of the beginning of the concentration of worship, but in fact the main reform of the concentration of worship was made in the days of Josiah.
Refinement and uniqueness/Menachem Haran
Talking about a great or not great king must be done from a point of view that is accompanied by a value position. There is also the possibility of measuring it from a historical point of view, within the framework of the history of the national kibbutz or the country in question. From these two points of view, and especially from the second point of view, it cannot be denied that Josiah was one of the most important kings of the House of David. The decisive fact is that during his time and with his consent, a very big turning point occurred in the history of Israel which was related to the initial stages of shaping Judaism in its historical embodiment. A person can be for or against Judaism, but he cannot deny that Judaism is in itself a great historical phenomenon in the history of religions. My teacher Ezekiel Kaufman used to say that there are two works of genius that the Jewish race gave to the world, and they are the Bible as a corpus of ancient literature and Judaism as a monotheistic religion that set the direction for the religions that came after it. These phenomena belong to the historical dimension that does not depend at all on love or hate.
As for the biblical literature - Josiah did not create it because it preceded him by hundreds of years and in an admirable way, but at the time a certain turn happened in it, this is what is called the Deuteronomic school, which also has admirable literary qualities as well as a certain religious meaning. As for the Jewish religion, Josiah did not create monotheism, nor was this concept created at the time, but at the time a certain movement occurred within the framework of the monotheistic belief that raised this belief to an even higher level of refinement and uniqueness.
To one God in one place/ Tzipora Talshir
Josiah is the first who is told in a detailed way that he is doing a reform, the main thing of which is: the best way is to work for one God in one place. We cannot say that monotheism did not exist before, because that is not what the material gives us. We do not know and will not know what really happened, but according to the story, even before they worshiped the Lord God of Israel and not others, but they worshiped him in different places of worship. The change that Josiah makes is the concentration of worship in one place.
The main assumption in the research is that a certain version of Deuteronomy was written between the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. In Josiah's reign we already find the book and it became the way of the king in the service of God. But it cannot be said that it was connected during the time of Josiah. It is a finished product based on which the reform is done. And in fact there are already the first signs in Hezekiah's reign that altars are being destroyed.
The answer given by Israel Finkelstein to the birth of monotheism is a comprehensive answer. The question is very complicated and you can't put so much on Josiah. After all, in order for an ideology to develop and for it to become a written document, a life theory, it takes time.
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~567172520~~~78&SiteName=hayadan
