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THE BIBLE UNEARTHED: THE MAKING OF A RELIGION -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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[Narrator] Writing had just expanded beyond the circle of scribes.
Of course, public readings of The Book [according to THE BIBLE] discovered in the temple do not PROVE the degree of literacy of the population of Judah. But they do show the function that the written word had attained in 7th century society. [?] In the small state of Judah, under the reign of Josiah, a revolution had been launched [according to THE BIBLE].
[William M. Schneidewind, University of California, Los Angeles] The fact that a sacred, written text emerged from a pastoral, agrarian society is A WATERSHED OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION [???] NEVER BEFORE IN HUMAN HISTORY had societies had sacred texts that were AUTHORITATIVE! Most near eastern civilizations had texts only for governments, for writing. Authority, cultural authority, religious authority was passed from family to family, through oral tradition. It wasn't passed by reading texts or appealing to the authority of text. THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY that we have the authority of human texts is with the Josianic [?] religious reforms where they appeal to the authority of a written text, and have that written text as a binding authority for the entire culture, for all people, as opposed to the authority of the family and the tradition. And this is A WATERSHED OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
[Israel Finkelstein] In the 7th century B.C., EVERYTHING MERGES. Everything IS RIPE for something new. When we look at the politics of the time, the economy of the time, the social situation in Judah, even the fact that literacy spreads from the center to the countryside to the villages, to the relatively simple people, what we see is a situation in which JUDAH PUTS EVERYTHING IN THE WRITTEN WORD, IN A BOOK. Judah describes its past -- MYTHICAL OR HISTORICAL. It tells us about the present and it gives us THE DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE in the shape of the written word of a book. And this is something new in the history of the human adventure. [?]
[Narrator] [According to the Bible], based on this legitimacy, founded on a common law and history, Josiah was able to lead the population in his ambitious plan. But THE DREAM OF A GREAT KINGDOM that would UNITE the people of Israel and Judah for the first time ever was not to be. Josiah died before he was able to accomplish it, killed by Pharaoh Necho II.
His end is related IN THE BIBLE in a few lines: "And the worst was yet to come."
In 597 B.C., the Babylonians wreaked havoc in the kingdom [?] of Judah for the first time.
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