Introduction to the Deuteronomy Movement
The book was called the second (deutero) giving of the Law (nomas) and became known as Deuteronomy. Although it was said to be discovered in the Temple, it becomes obvious that the basis of the document which was later to become the Book of Deuteronomy arose in the Northern Kingdom. When discovered, the book was taken immediately to King Josiah, who had the reputation for doing what the prophets desired. The young king read the book then tore his clothes in an act of ceremonial repentance, gathered the people and publicly read them the words of this text, he also called the people into a renewed covenant and for a religious reform movement that was the most rigorous in Biblical history.
The Yahwist-Elohim Combination
Over the next twenty-five years, the book of Deuteronomy was added to the Yahwist-Elohist combination and the newly merged text was edited anew in the light of Deuteronomic insights. Before the Deuteronomic revision of the Hebrew sacred story was completed, it becomes clear that more than one single writer was involved, but they all worked from one single perspective The authors of Deuteronomy was eager to purify worship, to purge from Judah all foreign rites, to centralise worship in all the land under the supervision of the Jerusalem priesthood, and to bring the people into a realisation of the love Yahweh had for them. These where writers of considerable ability and capable of beautiful prose.
The Deuteronomic writers reflected a high spiritual monotheism. To Yahweh belonged the heavens, the earth, and all within them. God was both sublime and awesome. It was the Deuteronomic writers who insisted that no image of God could be used in worship. At Horeb "you heard the sounds of words, but saw no form, there was only a voice." Deuteronomy 4:12. Yet Yahweh was still a nationalistic deity in Deuteronomy, and here are found the seeds of divine pettiness in the service of a national deity that became so destructive latter. Finally the authors of this strand of Biblical material closed down all religious shrines save for the Jerusalem temple and decreed that the Passover itself could be celebrated only in Jerusalem, a practice that plays such a large part in the latter life of Jesus of Nazareth. By the time the Deuteronomic writers had finished their work, they had coloured the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. They had supplied their nations with a philosophy of history and they touched up the books of the prophets. They had taught the Jewish nation to see the past through their eyes.