Hezekiah's Reform and the Deuteronomistic Tradition

Abstract

The historical reconstruction of biblical events represents a difficult and often speculative task, which is well demonstrated by the various scholarly attempts to understand the reform of Hezekiah and to establish defensible conclusions concerning its historicity. A wide range of scholarly opinion has grown out of fundamental disagreements concerning the accuracy and intent of the two biblical sources which describe Hezekiah's reform. The Deuteronomistic book of 2 Kings and the priestly-oriented later work of 2 Chronicles diverge mightily in their handling of Hezekiah's whole reign and especially the reform. In the early years of critical inquiry, the historicity of pre-Exilic events exclusively reported by the Chronicler was entirely dismissed in most circles. The description of Hezekiah's reform in the Book of Kings was dubbed “a mixture of the general and specific that does not inspire much confidence.” Consequently, it became fashionable to dismiss Hezekiah's religious changes as anachronisms inserted by later writers to parallel the reform of Josiah.