Josiah's Reforms: The Archaeological Evidence

[maklelan]

This is a short essay I recently submitted for a class on the archaeology of Ancient Israel here at Oxford. The essay was limited to 2500 words, so I had to be brief and couldn't talk about everything I wanted for as long as I wanted. Let me know what you think.

Josiah's Reforms: The Archaeological Evidence

According to the Bible, the Judahite king Josiah instituted sweeping cultic reforms after learning of a number of religious prohibitions that had been neglected for centuries because of the loss of the

[e=mc2]

Excellent. I enjoy reading everything you write. THANKS for sharing this with us all.

[Kevin Christensen]

Nice work. Very interesting, and a tantalyzing array of sources. By the way, have you read Barrick's The King and the Cemetaries? He makes a case that the 2 Kings account recounts some events that actually happened in the South to the North, so as to suggest a bigger reform than actually happened.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[maklelan]

Nice work. Very interesting, and a tantalyzing array of sources. By the way, have you read Barrick's The King and the Cemetaries? He makes a case that the 2 Kings account recounts some events that actually happened in the South to the North, so as to suggest a bigger reform than actually happened.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

It came to my attention a little to late, and I was annoyed about that. It's a great book. We get the essay topics during the last week of term and they're due the week before the first week of the next term, so our research is limited. I agree with the conclusion, though. If you look at all the locations named in the text, the furthest north the reforms go is Shomron. The vast majority of the reforms are represented as taking place in Jerusalem and her immediate environs.