Summary Of Chapter 5 Of Richard Friedman's In The Court Of King Josiah

Josiah, the next king to rule the kingdom of Judah, ascended to the throne in 640 BC. He is best remembered for his return to the laws of God, in contrast to his immediate predecessors. In 622 BC, while reconstruction was under way on the temple, a priest by the name of Hilkiah, found a book on which Josiah was to found his system. This book was the last book written by Moses, the fifth Book of Moses, the Deuternonomy. Richard Friedman discusses the auspices of finding this book in chapter 5 of his book, Who Wrote the Bible?, entitled In the Court of King Josiah. Friedman presents the arguments of the German scholar W.M.L. De Wette. De Wette believes that, due to the fact that the book was so well tailored towards the needs of Josiah, the book might have been engineered in order to solidify the king's claims who wanted a centralized form

Thus it can be argued that the OT is to some extent a historical book, that captures the main events in the history of the Israelites. Also, all throughout the OT we see countless references to God, and the coventant that binds the Israelites to the entity that they chose to worship. In that the text itself is held sacred by a certain people, and the fact that they believe it to be divinely inspired, coupled with the fact that the rules contained within are followed without question make this text a religious text. Jacob L. Wright argues that there was no difference between the religious and the secular at the time the Bible was written since these aspects of their lives were too well-knit (Wright). What further clues can we find within the Bible that show us that the Bible is not simply a history book but a way to communicate holy thoughts? All throughout the Book of Ezkiel for example, we find references to God. It is this deity that instructs the prophet, it is the fundamental source of the contents of the