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Josiah

16 Episodes

Josiah is the Judean king remembered for a sweeping program of religious reform centered on the Jerusalem temple and the suppression of other cultic practices. In critical scholarship, he often stands less as a simple model of piety than as a flashpoint for questions about propaganda, cult centralization, the growth of Deuteronomy, and the remaking of Israelite religion.

Why this topic matters

Josiah sits near the center of the show’s discussions about how biblical history gets written, revised, and weaponized. His reforms are important not only because of what 2 Kings says he did, but because the story becomes a lens for asking who benefited from cult centralization, why other forms of worship were delegitimized, and how later writers turned a contested political program into sacred memory.

That makes Josiah more than a character study. He is a hinge point for conversations about the Deuteronomistic project, the suppression of Asherah and ancestral practices, the concentration of ritual authority in Jerusalem, and the possibility that texts presented as ancient law were shaped to serve much later institutional interests.

Where to start

Start here for the best in-depth listening on Josiah: featured segments, featured episodes, and the episode with the most mentions.

Quotes from the Data

“When we look at the facts on the ground, they tell a much different story. And what we get in the Bible is kind of a sanitized, idealized set of propagandistic stories.”

Dan McClellan Episode 88

“At the end of the day, when the dust settles and Josiah comes back home, he now reigns over a country where everyone who wants to worship a deity has to come to his temple, controlled by his priesthood in his city, to worship the one God of whom he is the only representative.”

Dan McClellan Episode 88

“Most scholars think that this story is a pretense for the introduction of the book of Deuteronomy, at least a very early stage of the book of Deuteronomy.”

Dan McClellan Episode 88

“I think that lends credence to the theory that Josiah was like, I'm gonna put a stop to all this nonsense, to the theory that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history were an attempt to centralize and consolidate worship and control over it.”

Dan McClellan Episode 102

Top episodes

Ranked by mentions of Josiah across the transcript. Start with the top mention above, then keep going here.

All episodes

Every episode currently tagged with Josiah.