BR 12:01, Feb 1996
Deuteronomys Theological Revolution
King Josiah of Judah instituted a religious reform in 622 B.C.E. that scholars refer to simply as Josiahs Reform. It might well be called the Deuteronomic Reform. Israelite religion would never be the same.
As the Bible tells it, in the course of repairing the Temple, which had apparently been considerably neglected, the high priest at this time, one Hilkiah, found an important scroll. The biblical text calls it the Book of the Law (Sepher ha-Torah) (2 Kings 22:8). In a later retelling of this event, in Chronicles 34:14, it is called the Book of the Law of the Lord given by the hand of Moses (Sepher Torat Yahweh b-yad Moshe).a Virtually all scholars agree that this book (or, more precisely, this scroll) was a form, probably an early version,b of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Pentateuch.