(June 23, 2012 at 12:55 am)Minimalist Wrote: 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?
I don't know,
Interesting story about the horse shit being created by the Babylonians, though I agree that it would have been better written had that been the case. It's a shame it's origins aren't as clear, I really hate not knowing it's origins. At least the golden plate story of Joseph Smith can be easily tracked. The Bible has too many centuries, too many editings, too many cover ups (I still say that older documents were intentionally destroyed), and too little extra biblical evidence.

I have studied the Bible and the theology behind Christianity for many years. I have been to many churches. I have walked the depth and the breadth of the religion and, as a result of this, I have a lot of bullshit to scrape off the bottom of my shoes. ~Ziploc Surprise