In Deuteronomy and the Judaean Diaspora Ernest Nicholson demanding situations the commonly permitted view that Deuteronomy was once the 'book of the legislations' defined in 2 Kings 22-3 because the foundation of king Josiah's cultic reformation in 621 BCE. He argues that the attention during this narrative that Josiah abolished the agricultural, neighborhood altars all through Judah and supposedly relocated their clergymen to Jerusalem relies upon a misreading. quite, he contends, Deuteronomy derived from
thinkers and writers who lived one of the Judaean exiles in Babylonia within the 6th century, and in major methods represents a holiday with pre-exilic Israelite faith occasioned by way of the pressing have to confront the demanding situations to nationwide identification and cultural survival of the Judaean Diaspora neighborhood. Leading
features of the ebook equivalent to its zealous monolatry, its self-presentation as 'scripture', its inspiration of the connection with God as covenanted selection, its pervasive worry of non secular encroachment, its personality as 'oppositional' literature—these and different subject matters of the booklet recommend any such provenance. matters bobbing up comprise, for instance, info from Babylonian resources, a few of it new, in regards to the Judaean exiles, how Israel is characterized within the ebook, kingship, facts of the emergence
of a physique of prophetic 'scripture'. ultimate chapters study the 'Deuteronomistic historical past' (Joshua-2 Kings) and exhibit that (contrary to a couple interpretations) it's not 'historiography' resembling is represented through, for instance, Herodotus' Histories, and that theodicy instead of an curiosity within the past
as a box of severe learn top describes its genre.