Early Higher Critics

In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan suggests that the modern notion that Josiah and his priests wrote “the book of the law” they claimed to discover in the temple was likely shared by people of Josiah’s time: “The image-users of the high places had always resented the official, God-given worship at the temple, and they doubtless saw the ‘discovery’ of this book as just another ‘protestant ploy’ to destroy their ‘holy traditions.’ The callous rich, while happy with the ornate cathedral-worship style of the Jerusalem Temple, no doubt regarded the laws in the Book of the Covenant as having been fabricated to despoil them of their wealth. These two groups would accuse Josiah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah of trying to centralize religious power in the Remnant.”