Lecture 8: Jan 26

Todays topic was on Josiah's Jerusalem: centralization of Religion in Jerusalem.
We started with talking about the last kings of old Jerusalem. The last kings were Hezekia, Manasseh and Josiah. The destructions of Jerusalem happened in 586 BCE by nebuchadnezzar.
We then loked at hte growth of Jerusalem. After the invasion we can see extra0mural suburbs on the outside of the city of david. The population increased as well as the land area it went from 130 acres to 150 acres. They impacted Jerusalem in many ways. One being Urbanization. There was Political and Religious Unrest.Hezekiah created religious reforms which are showin in 2 kings 18:4
We then looked at Josiah's reform. Josiah's book orthodoxy: the blueprint for Judasim. This reform was refered to as the Deuteromonic Reform.We were shown some evidency for literacy. There were a variety and number of inscriptions like ostraca, graffiti, seals and seal impressions and econoiimc text. We finished by looking at The Letter of a literate soldier. It was a lachish letter written in 587.We started lecuture by looking at a picture of Yavneh Yam Letter. It is a complaint letter. The question is. who ever wrote this letter, did he know exodus? or was it not yet written or that tradition was already a rule and he knew he could appeal to it.is he sighting exodus or a law? It shows that there is some literacy in poor people as well therefore the Bible might not be made up.
We then takled about the Torah Amulet. He compaired them to a lucky charm that we have.  They were 2 silver amulets that they found. It was worn, like piece of jewlery. On it, it has a prayer that blesses the people. Basically have the LORD watch over you. One of hte oldest blessing in the Bible. Then we question, did he write this after the Bible? or was it part of oral tradition before the Bible? Professor then asked the question, why a book? When oral traditions become written down, we can interpret things in different ways, instead of strictly one way. For example, look at the way we text and twitter, we type things differently (shorthand) and its creating a new language. you are no longer stuck with one version of the story, we now have multipule ways and can compair them to see what one is more truthful. So from here on out, the fate of Jerusalem will closely follow the interpretation of texts.
we finished the section by asking what happens to faith when experience contradicts it???