Josiah
Josiah or
Yoshiyahu (
יֹאשִׁיָּ"וּ "supported of
the LORD",
Standard Hebrew Yošiyyáhu,
Tiberian Hebrew Yôšiyyāhû) was king of
Judah, and son of
Amon and
Jedidah, the daughter of
Adaiah of
Bozkath. His grandfather was King
Manasseh, who had turned from the Jewish religion, even adapting the Temple for worship that was considered idolatrous by faithful Jews. Josiah is credited by some historians with having established Jewish scripture in written form as a part of the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.
William F. Albright has dated his reign to
640 BC-
609 BC, while
E. R. Thiele offers the dates
641 BC-
609 BC. The chief sources of his reign are
2 Kings 22-23, and
2 Chronicles 34-35;
1 Esdras 1 clearly a copy of the relevant portion of
2 Chronicles. Archaeologists have recovered a number of "scroll-style" stamps dating to his reign.
When Josiah was placed on the throne of Judah at the age of eight by the "People of the Land", the international situation was in flux: to the east, the
Assyrian Empire was in the beginning stages of its eventual disintegration, the
Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it, and
Egypt to the west was still recovering from Assyrian rule. This favored the resurgence of the prowess of
Jerusalem, which Josiah expressed in the 8th year of rule by his sincere championing the exclusive worshiping of Jahweh. He had the foreign cultic objects of
Baal,
Ashterah or
Asherah), "and all the hosts of the heavens" in
Solomon's Temple destroyed, the living pagan priests were slaughterd and the bones of the priests exhumed from their graves and burned on their altars -- an extreme act of desecration against these pagan deities. (2 Kings 23:4, et seq.) The authors of
Kings and
Chronicles add to these acts in Jerusalem Josiah's similar destruction of altars and images belonging to pagan deities in the cities of the tribes of
Manasseh,
Ephraim, "and
Simeon, as far as
Naphtali" (2 Kings 23:8f);(2 Chr. 34:6f).
In his 18th
regnal year, Josiah again worked on behalf of
Yahweh by having the High Priest
Hilkiah take the tax monies that had been collected over the years and use them to repair the neglect and damage the Temple had suffered during the reigns of
Amon and
Manasseh.
While Hilkiah was clearing the treasure room of the Temple (2 Chr. 34:14), he is said to have found a scroll described as "the book, book of the
Torah"/""ספר ספר "תור"" (Second Kings 22:8) or as "the book of the Torah of
YHVH by the hand of
Moses" (2 Chr. 34:14). Following
De Wette's suggestion in
1805, many scholars believe this was either a copy of the
Book of Deuteronomy, or a text that became Deuteronomy as we have it. Hilkiah brought this scroll to Josiah's attention, and the king had it read to a crowd in Jerusalem. He was praised for this piety by the
prophetess Huldah, who made the prophecy that all involved would die peacefully (
2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chr. 34:22-28). As the fate of King Josiah shows, this prophecy was not fulfilled. The claim that the scroll was "found" has been met with increasing scepticism among modern textual critics: the view of the English deists of the 16th century (Hertz 1936) that the book was a forgery created to help centralize power under Josiah still persists today among some Biblical scholars. However, scholars such as W.R. Smith,
Rudolf Kittel, Dillman and Driver disagree, pointing out that priestly forgery of the Deuteronomic text was all the more likely as the text placed restrictions on the privileges of the priestly class who were a thorn in the side of King Josiah.
In the ancient near east it was commonplace for religious scrolls to be deposited in temple walls when they were constructed (Hertz 1936), and according to the Swiss Egyptologist Naville, this was the custom amongst the Jews at the time of Solomon. It would have been more unusual if such scrolls were
not found in during the renovation of a temple building, and Naville recounts a similar find recounted in the
Egyptian Book of the Dead which is generally accepted as the ultimate source of the Ten Commandments. It is interesting to note in this respect that specific text cited by Naville is one of many which are attributed to famous figures of the past, typically sons of a Pharaoh, and which are all known to have be written at a much later date. The linguistic evidence and all of the anachronisms contained in the Book of
Deuteronomy suggest that the scroll was likely to have been written during the reign of King Josiah. This subject is covered in depth in the Wikipedia article on the Book of
Deuteronomy.
In that same 18th year, he celebrated a
Passover that had not been done in such a manner "since the days of
the Judges" (lit.: "For it had not been done, like this Pesach, from the days of the Judges who judged Israel . . .") (
2 Kings 23:22). 2 Chr. 35:1-19 provides the most complete description of the celebration.
On the assumption that Deuteronomy was forged by Josiah's priests, these scholars go on to propose that the core narrative from Genesis to 2 Kings up to Josiah's reign comprise a "Deuteronomistic History" (DtrH) written during that reign. This history compiled the hypothesised "J", "E", and "D" narratives, all already textual at this point, of which the J narrative at this time would have extended into the history of
David's court; the DtrH further attempted to historicise narratives of the times of Joshua and the Judges. The hypothetical DtrH is distinguished from the surviving Biblical books in that it omits the priestly "P" narrative. The DtrH portrayed King Josiah as the ideal ruler as Deuteronomy had defined it, and thus as the rightful ruler of Judah. (This interpretation is often confused with the position of "Biblical Minimalism", which denies that David and Solomon ruled a united kingdom; but
Baruch Halpern has noted that however tendentious, DtrH must still be treated as a history, and as largely accurate at least for the reign of Josiah.) See
Dating the Bible and
The Bible and history. Such claims are detailed in
Who Were the Early Israelites? by
William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another such book is
The Bible Unearthed by
Neil A. Silberman and
Israel Finkelstein (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001).
At some point between this year and his death, Josiah reasserted
Judean control in the former territories of the
kingdom of Israel, which is recorded in
2 Kings as systematically destroying the cultic objects in various cities, as well as executing the priests of the pagan gods. The only exception he made was for the grave of an unnamed prophet he found in
Bethel, who had foretold that these religious sites
Jeroboam erected would one day be destroyed (23:15-19).
There are two versions of Josiah's violent death. The Book of
Kings tersely remarks that
Necho II met Josiah at
Megiddo, and killed him the moment the Egyptian king laid eyes on him (
2 Kings 23:29). See
Battle of Megiddo (609 BC); proponents of DtrH ascribe this portion of the book to a post-Josiahwic redaction. The author of
Chronicles describes Josiah meeting Necho in battle at Megiddo, where Josiah was fatally wounded by Egyptian archers, and was brought back to Jerusalem to die. Some scholars favor the account in
Chronicles, because it better fits with what is known of international events. Necho had left Egypt around
609 BC for two reasons: one was to relieve the Babylonian siege of
Harran, and the other was to help the king of
Assyria, who was defeated by the Babylonians at the
Battle of Carchemish. Josiah's actions suggest that he was aiding the Babylonians by engaging the Egyptian army.
In either case, the death of this king was a serious blow to the Jahweh-only faction in Judea. 2 Chronicles 35:25 implies that
Jeremiah wrote a lament for Josiah's passing. A Jewish tradition claims that this lament is preserved in Lamentations chapter 4.
*
The Bible Unearthed : Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts for the possible role of Josiah in creation of the
Bible.
* Hertz J.H. (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
*
Jewish Encyclopedia: Josiah*
Catholic Encyclopedia: Josias
