There is also no reason for it all to have been written at once.
The Septuagint is only the Torah - the first five "books." The rest of the bullshit could have been written later.
Dismissing the Davidic Empire for the fairy tale that it is, we need to start looking for periods in the first millenium when there was an independent Judean kingdom. Hezekiah c 715- c 686 BC seems to have been the man who built the city of Jerusalem up in the aftermath of the Assyrian attack on the northern kingdom. But Hezekiah was a vassal of the Assyrians until he got too big for his britches and tried to rebel. Bible horseshit aside, he failed and Judah was crushed. His son, Manesseh remained a loyal vassal and gradually restored the finances of the kingdom within the Assyrian economic sphere. There is no independent attestation for Amon or Josiah and Josiah in particular seems like a Solomonic figure or perfection...IOW, a mythological creation.
Clearly though when the Assyrians began to withdraw Judah became a vassal state of Egypt's 26th dynasty. When the Egyptians and Assyrians were crushed by Babylon, the Babylonians shortly after crushed Jerusalem. From 686 until the Maccabaean revolt petered out around 158 BC Judah was a subject land of one power or another. Certainly it would not be in the interest of the Persian, Ptolemaic or Seleucid rulers to allow a mythology of Judahite imperial power to be put forward. So, we are down to the later 2d century BC before it really makes sense for Jews to start writing a national history based on some great Davidic Empire. For that matter, c 100 BC John Hyrcanus managed to finally conquer the area which had, more or less, been claimed as the Davidic Empire. It seems that THIS is the period of time when a lot of this bullshit was written. It was the time when they had a need for it.
The Septuagint is only the Torah - the first five "books." The rest of the bullshit could have been written later.
Dismissing the Davidic Empire for the fairy tale that it is, we need to start looking for periods in the first millenium when there was an independent Judean kingdom. Hezekiah c 715- c 686 BC seems to have been the man who built the city of Jerusalem up in the aftermath of the Assyrian attack on the northern kingdom. But Hezekiah was a vassal of the Assyrians until he got too big for his britches and tried to rebel. Bible horseshit aside, he failed and Judah was crushed. His son, Manesseh remained a loyal vassal and gradually restored the finances of the kingdom within the Assyrian economic sphere. There is no independent attestation for Amon or Josiah and Josiah in particular seems like a Solomonic figure or perfection...IOW, a mythological creation.
Clearly though when the Assyrians began to withdraw Judah became a vassal state of Egypt's 26th dynasty. When the Egyptians and Assyrians were crushed by Babylon, the Babylonians shortly after crushed Jerusalem. From 686 until the Maccabaean revolt petered out around 158 BC Judah was a subject land of one power or another. Certainly it would not be in the interest of the Persian, Ptolemaic or Seleucid rulers to allow a mythology of Judahite imperial power to be put forward. So, we are down to the later 2d century BC before it really makes sense for Jews to start writing a national history based on some great Davidic Empire. For that matter, c 100 BC John Hyrcanus managed to finally conquer the area which had, more or less, been claimed as the Davidic Empire. It seems that THIS is the period of time when a lot of this bullshit was written. It was the time when they had a need for it.
