Deuteronomy was written by King Josiah…not Moses

An excerpt from Dr. Steven DiMattei

 

The Deuteronomist and Josiah’s religious reforms of the 7^th century BC

 

Since de Wette’s study on Deuteronomy, subsequent biblical scholars have independently confirmed the thesis that the core of Deuteronomy was written under the reign of Josiah (640-609 BC) and used to legitimate the king’s religious reform. Indeed, the core covenantal law code of Deuteronomy (Deut 12-26), the “scroll of the covenant” allegedly found during renovations on the temple during Josiah’s reign, may actually be a literary creation under Josiah. Regardless of the date one assigns to the Deuteronomic law code, the larger literary work called the Deuteronomistic History (the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) was most certainly written during Josiah’s reign and was an expression of the sheer optimism which permeated under his rule, most likely a result of Assyria’s retreat from the region and the reassertion of the southern kingdom’s independence. Deuteronomy was thus composed as propaganda to legitimate Josiah’s religious reforms, re-conquest of the former territory of the northern kingdom, and centralization of the cult—events that could have only happened with the withdrawal of Assyrian forces from the region in the mid 7^th century BC. This power vacuum was the catalyst behind Josiah’s assertion of religious and political independence.

 

The core text, Deuteronomy 12-26, reflects the religious and political policies endorsed by Josiah in the 7^th century BC. Josiah’s reign was unique in the period of the monarchy because other than the hyperbolic presentation of the glorious and independent kingdom of Israel under Solomon, it was the only period in time when Israel and/or Judah were not vassals to their larger and more politically powerful neighbors, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Both biblical and extra-biblical sources confirm that the kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Moab, Aram, etc. were all vassal states to the mighty Assyrian empire variously between the 9^th and early 7^th centuries BC. In other words they were vassal states paying tribute to their Assyrian overlords. But in the 7^th century BC, with the rise of Babylon, the Assyrians were forced to withdraw their presence from Palestine. This in and of itself ushered in a new optimism and claimants of independence, which ultimately found their expression in the literary production of this time period, and notably by the Josianic Deuteronomists. Furthermore, the literature produced in the southern kingdom of Judah in the 7^th century BC and the message it proclaimed were a direct result of the destruction, and for the most part disappearance, of Israel in 722 BC and the withdrawal of Assyrian political power and sovereignty from the whole region in the mid 7^th century BC. With Assyrian lordship gone, and Israel no more, the Judahite scribes of the south were able to produce a powerful literary masterpiece of political and religious propaganda.⁸

 

To unify his political reach Josiah also advocated a new innovative religious practice— centralization of the cult of Yahweh in Jerusalem. No longer were people allowed to worship Yahweh at local altars, of which the archaeological record attests there were many. No longer could judicial hearings be practiced at these local altars as well; now they must be brought before Yahweh in Jerusalem. No longer could Passover be celebrated at home or at local shrines; now a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was required. No longer could alternative forms of worship to Yahweh be practiced as was common in the north. Now all sacrifices and festivals were to be carried out at Jerusalem —the new political and religious capital of a reunified Israel. In addition to these Deuteronomic laws, the Deuteronomist’s stern claim, placed on the lips of Yahweh himself, that all Canaanite and Israelite cultic shrines and altars were to be utterly destroyed and burned (Deut 7 & 12) is no where paralleled in any of the accounts of the kings of Judah except for Josiah, and Josiah alone.