I can't answer that. Like I said, he undercut his own methodology to put the Josiah shit up in lights.
When Philip R. Davies published In Search of Ancient Israel he suggested that all of this crap was cobbled together by the Persians who sent a bunch back in the guise of returning "exiles" to rule. The bible story is meant to give them a reason to rule over the Judahite peasantry which stayed behind to work the fields under Babylonian overseers. Davies' seems to suggest that this was created then and there but, I think if it were it would not be so poorly written. There are duplications and contradictions and fucking lunacy in the bible which a single author would have avoided. Instead, my guess is that they scraped up whatever local lore there was and wrote themselves into it. They then had plenty of time to edit the story as events unfolded in the ensuing centuries.
Try asking yourself this question. In what time period was there a strong Jewish monarchy which might have benefitted from the David story?
When Philip R. Davies published In Search of Ancient Israel he suggested that all of this crap was cobbled together by the Persians who sent a bunch back in the guise of returning "exiles" to rule. The bible story is meant to give them a reason to rule over the Judahite peasantry which stayed behind to work the fields under Babylonian overseers. Davies' seems to suggest that this was created then and there but, I think if it were it would not be so poorly written. There are duplications and contradictions and fucking lunacy in the bible which a single author would have avoided. Instead, my guess is that they scraped up whatever local lore there was and wrote themselves into it. They then had plenty of time to edit the story as events unfolded in the ensuing centuries.
Try asking yourself this question. In what time period was there a strong Jewish monarchy which might have benefitted from the David story?
