Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Allen, Paul James

Titel

The Josianic Reform in Comparative Perspective

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The reform of Josiah as recorded in 2 Kings 22-23 has attracted controversy due in part to its importance for numerous aspects of biblical scholarship. This dissertation expands our ability to examine the claims of 2 Kings 22-23 by investigating the comparable reform promoted by Nabonidus of Babylon. The political and religious reforms of Nabonidus reveal that the Babylonian monarch 1) sought to implement a religious reform that replaced the patron deity of the capital with his own deity, 2) implemented an economic and political reform that demoted local elites in favor of royal control, 3) implemented a geo-political reform that weakened the imperial centers of power for peripheral loci, and 4) portrayed his reforms as a return to the more distant past through the recovery of ancient objects, 5) of which he made himself the chief interpreter. These observations prove useful in the study of Josiah in so far as they call into question and/or confirm various scholarly constructs that have sought to explain elements of the Josianic reform. In particular. the combination of antiquarianism and reform on the one hand, and the implementation of religio-political centralization on the other, both stand out as leading aspects of the reforms of Josiah and Nabonidus alike.