Josiah’s Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement: Israelite Rites of Violence and the Making of a Biblical Text by Lauren A. S. Monroe (review)

Overall Lauren A. S. Monroe has produced a superb book concerning the account of Josiah’s reform narrated in 2 Kings 22–23. She comes up with novel and challenging ideas, which not everybody may agree with but which all should seriously take into consideration. Monroe’s main thesis is that there are two major strata in 2 Kings 22–23, namely a pre-exilic stratum stemming from priestly circles in Jerusalem which contains strong parallels to ideas and terms present in the Holiness Code, and a post-exilic deuteronomistic stratum which recasts the “H” source. Monroe reaches these conclusions on the basis of solid scholarly analyses. Indeed, her book is to be recommended not only for the contribution she makes to the main thesis just outlined, but also, and perhaps primarily so, for the rigorous scholarship which she demonstrates when it comes to biblical criticism in the widest possible sense of this term.

The first thing to highlight is that Monroe certainly makes a close reading of the multiple texts she examines tackling problems from various viewpoints whilst integrating the different aspects she deals with. Not only does she dwell on various aspects of Hebrew syntax (such as, for example, her comments on the use of the “anticipatory subordination” in Hebrew [pp. 91–92]), but also on different “methods” used in biblical studies, such as redaction criticism and source criticism. Indeed, quite often she makes very fine and cogent arguments in the field of textual criticism, and she also applies the text-critical criterion of lectio difficilior to “questions of compositional history” (p. 83). Indeed, she proposes that by analogy to textual criticism we should consider terms which are more difficult, and therefore less commonly found, as probably being more original and not due to later additions to a text (pp. 83–84).

Monroe also keeps in mind the importance of adducing the relevant ancient near eastern data pertinent to her thesis; thus, for example, she refers to the Hittite Anitta Inscription, which portrays the “complete eradication and consecration of a town and its inhabitants in terms akin to the Israelite, Moabite, and Sabaean war-ḥerem texts” (p. 54). Indeed, the ḥerem constitutes an essential theme in Monroe’s book, since she succeeds to link its ideology to early state formation, showing that when a society lacks the necessary infrastructure to oversee the “subject populations” then the memory of conquest as issuing in a land devoid of people comes into play (p. 55). The extant account we have of Josiah’s reform is the only place where we can see the combination of both “apotropaic ritual” and of the ḥerem, and that is why Monroe sees this king as the “embodiment of both a military and priestly ideal” (p. 11). In her considerations on the ḥerem, Monroe also convincingly shows that in a text like that of Deut 13:16 the ḥerem is hauled in to underline the importance of wiping out Israelite idolatry, whereas the deuteronomistic strata of the Hebrew Bible make use of the ḥerem ideology to exhort the Israelites to eradicate “non-Israelite cults and cultures” (p. 48). Hence, in 2 Kings 23, the deuteronomist uses ḥerem language parallel to that found in Deut 12:3, and he links Josiah to the everlasting bond between Yahweh, Israel, and the promised land, something which can endure even when there is no monarchy any more. In fact, Monroe shows that the deuteronomisitic redrafting of 2 Kings 23 was not done to present Josiah as the one who pushed for Deuteronomy’s “centralization law,” but “rather with a primary interest in the nature of his governance” (p. 113). And lo and behold, this deuteronomistic account presents Josiah primarily as one who promotes priestly authority; this, together with this king’s adherence to...