Question: How accurate is the information on this graphic?

[Minimalist]

Well that kind of tosses Finklestiens and silbermans (I forgot how to spell their names) motive for writing the Bible out the window doesn't it

No. The political situation at the end of the 7th century remains the same. The Assyrians were losing the civil war with the Babylonians and were allied with the 26th Dynasty in Egypt ( the Saite Dynasty.) What Finkelstein envisions is a Judah which had grown larger and wealthier as an Assyrian vassal state and may have gotten delusions of grandeur about expanding into the areas which the Assyrians were forced to abandon as the war went against them. The idea that Judah wanted to expand is not reliant on the name of any particular king. However, Egypt had dominated Canaan for 4 centuries and also sought to re-establish hegemony there. The story as told in "Kings" is that Necho summoned Josiah to a meeting and had him whacked. "Chronicles" ( written later) decided that this was not a sufficiently heroic death for ole Josiah so they invented a battle for him to lose instead.

Judah, like any small state caught between larger powers, would have had various factions favoring one side or the other. Necho's actions are understandable as a more powerful king looking at the ruling faction of Judah and deciding to put in someone more to his ( Egypt's) liking. Later called "Regime Change" by that noted political thinker Dubya the Moron. When the Egyptian-Assyrian alliance was defeated by the Babylonians that group wasted little time in seeking to replace what they considered the pro-Egyptian rulers of Judah.

Politics never changes.


Besides, recall that Egyptologist Don Redford has come to the same conclusion about the writing of the OT during the Saite period by using Egyptian sources.

Next add in William Dever's take that Yahweh at this time was part of a henotheistic tradition in Judah. He may have recently been promoted as Jerusalem actually grew into a city in the 7th century but we have nothing to suggest that the resident of Judah at this time were particularly "Jewish." They were Canaanites worshiping the Canaanite pantheon with their own special patron god. The issue about all the Jewish stuff dates to when this bullshit was last edited, not when it was originally written.