So much at
least is certain that, if the alleged fact at present under
discussion amounts to anything at all /1/
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1. Little importance is to be attached to 2Kings xviii.22.
The narrative of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem is not a contemporary
one, as appears generally from the entirely indefinite character of
the statements about the sudden withdrawal of the Assyrians and its causes,
and particularly from xix.7, 36, 37. For in this passage the meaning
certainly is that Sennacherib was assassinated soon after the unsuccessful
expedition of 701, but in point of fact he actually reigned until
684 or 681 (Smith, Assyrian Eponym Canon, pp. 90, 170). Thus the
narrator writes not twenty years merely after the event, but so
long after it as to make possible the elision of those twenty
years: probably he is already under the influence of
Deuteronomy. 2Kings xviii.4 is certainly of greater weight than
2Kings xviii.22. But although highly authentic statements have
been preserved to us in the epitome of the Book of Kings, they
have all, nevertheless, been subjected not merely to the
selection, but also to the revision of the Deuteronomic redactor,
and it may very well be that the author thought himself
justified in giving his subject a generalised treatment, according
to which the cleansing (of the temple at Jerusalem in the first
instance) from idols, urged by Isaiah and carried out by
Hezekiah, was changed into an abolition of the Bamoth with their
Macceboth and Asherim.
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