Deuteronomy and the Judaean diaspora

209 Pages·2014·0.82 MB·English

by  Nicholson

DEUTERONOMY AND THE JUDAEAN DIASPORA
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Deuteronomy and the
Judaean Diaspora
ERNEST NICHOLSON
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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© Ernest Nicholson 2014
Several articles are reproduced here in revised form by permission of their
original publishers. For copyright information please consult the
Publisher’s Acknowledgements in the prelims.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First published 2014
Impression: 1
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013943246
ISBN 978–0–19–870273–3
As printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
In memory of Peter
Filius Carissimus
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Preface
This book has gone through several stages in the making. With the
exception of the Introduction, the chapters in Part I began as articles
published in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft and
in other collections of learned essays, which I list in the bibliography.
Observations and constructive comments from colleagues, including
notice of recent publications, have all called for an ongoing rethink-
ing, revision, and in varying degrees expansion of some of these
earlier essays, whilst at the same time signalling a need to fill out and
shore up others in the interest of greater clarity. Part II, which focuses
upon the nature of the so-called Deuteronomistic History, contains a
reprint of my contribution to the Festschrift honouring Professor
James Barr on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1994. I
have included here it for convenient reference for readers, since it is
immediately followed by a response to a lengthy critique of it by John
Van Seters.
I am indebted to all those colleagues, both here in the UK and
abroad, who have taken the time to respond so helpfully to my
enquiries about some technical issues, and for their generous interest
in the progress of this book. I should add that its conclusions, and
with this any shortcomings, are attributable solely to myself. I am
grateful also to Tom Perridge at Oxford University Press for his
advice and help on various matters in the course of the publication
of the book, and to Elizabeth Robottom for her very helpful
assistance in the final stages of preparation for publication. I owe
a special debt of gratitude to John Barton, my colleague here in
Oxford, and to Andrew Mayes at Trinity College Dublin, who have
read with great patience various drafts of the chapters of the book,
and for their encouragement throughout. I owe them more than
I can express.
Ernest Nicholson
Oriel College
Oxford
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Contents
Abbreviations x
Publisher’s Acknowledgements xii
Part I
1. Introduction 3
2. Josiah and the Priests of the High Places (2 Kings 23: 8a, 9) 16
3. Deuteronomy and the Babylonian Diaspora 41
4. Deuteronomy, the Prophets, and Scripture 74
5. The ‘Law’ of the King in Deuteronomy 17: 14–20 101
6. ‘Do not dare to set a foreigner over you’: The King in
Deuteronomy and ‘The Great King’ 117
Part II
7. Story and History in the Old Testament 137
8. The Deuteronomistic Corpus: History or Story?
AResponse to John Van Seters 152
Bibliography 178
Index of Authors 189
Index of Sources 191