The end of the book of Kings depicts how first the northern tribes of Israel and then the southern tribes were eventually captured and taken to Assyria and Babylon. Here are just a few observations I have about the reading this week.
Josiah? Good or not so good?
The writers of the Book of Kings depict Josiah as one of the greatest kings Jerusalem ever had. He is famous for finding the "Book of the Law" and then devoting the rest of his life in bringing the Jews back into conformity with it. He tore down sites of idol worship and rebuilt the temple. But was he really that great? Some of the podcasters I listened to took the text at face value and said, yes, Josiah was one of the good guys. Other podcasts, notably Talking Scripture and Book of Mormon Central, claim that Josiah took his reforms too far. He focused too much on the Temple, denying the right to worship locally. He also focused on the Temple as the place of the "name of the Lord" instead of his actual presence. They claimed that Lehi was probably preaching against the reforms of Josiah. I think they made a good point. In support of this idea, there is no account of how the lord or prophets helped Josiah out of difficulty. There is really no miracle associated with them. Also, his "reforms" did not prevent Judah from being brought into captivity just two generations later. My thought is that a group is waxed great in iniquity when even the reformers don't get it right.
Musings on the Scattering of Israel
I don't think I internalized that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the dominate tribes in the current church, were part of the 10 tribes that were "lost". When I was little there were a bunch of folk tales about what happened to the 10 tribes. They were hidden under polar ice caps, they were in a vast cave systems under the Andes mountains, and that they would emerge, intact, at the second coming. That is not what is taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints today. Now it is understood that they were lost only in that they lost their cultural identity and intermixed with other populations. So, why are almost all Latter-Day Saints identified as being from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh? One reason, is undoubtedly, that those tribes are mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Also, Joseph, the father of both Ephraim and Manasseh, was given a special blessing from Jacob, and I think early church leaders wanted the new church to be associated with that.
My grandfather, in his patriarchal blessing, was told he was the literal descendant of Ephraim. I always thought of the statement as symbolic, meaning he was faithful as the Ephraimites are supposed to be. But this week I began to wonder, is it possible the descendants of the tribes of Ephraim migrated to Northern Europe where my ancestors are from, and intermixed with local tribes people?
I did a google search about early people of Great Britain. At the time of the diaspora, the people in Great Britain were still pretty primitive. They were building the stone monolith sites of worship and living in small towns as farmers and hunter/gatherers. Only a short time later, they discovered the way to create bronze, and the Druids arose, who worshiped in "groves" just like the pagans at the time of the diaspora. It seemed unlikely to me, at first, that members of the tribe of Ephraim might have wandered that far north, but then I looked at how far it was from Jerusalem to Paris. It is just over 3000 miles. That seems like a long way, but not when you consider that the distance from New York to San Francisco is about 2900 miles. Pioneers were able to make that trek in only a year or two, so it is totally possible that some of the tribe of Ephraim ended up in Northern Europe, the home of my ancestors. It is an interesting thought.
The Real Miracle
The real miracle is that there still exists a group of people who identify themselves as the descendants of the ancient tribe of Judah. What other group has maintained a cultural integrity for that long? Do I have any idea what primitive tribe my ancestors were a part of 2600 years ago? Does anyone put the historical religious observances of my ancestral tribes on their calendar each year along with Christmas and the 4th of July.? Does any other group of people still associate with the socio-political group their ancestors were in that many generations back? It is miraculous that, even though the Babylonian captivity, the Jews maintained a cultural identity. The reason they did, of course, is because they had a written record and a tradition of teaching their priesthood how to read it, even when they no longer spoke its ancient language. The passage in this week's reading about how Josiah found the "book of the law" has more import, I think, than one might suspect on the outset. The fact that Judah even had a physical "Book of the Law" to find is partially why they still exist today.
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