Shaphan Ben Azaliah, Author of the Biblical Historical SagaI missed this particular entry in the recent media exchange about Shaphan Ben Azaliah. I noted others here (with earlier links), here, and here.This study argues that the Judean scribe Shaphan ben Azaliah orchestrated a palace coup following the assassination of King Amon, enthroned the child Josiah, and engineered a sweeping political and cultic reform through the composition of the “Book of Instructions,” later known as Deuteronomy. Although this monoyahwist, Jerusalem-centered reform ultimately failed politically after Josiah’s death, the texts produced by Shaphan and his circle survived, reshaping biblical historiography and laying the foundations of the Deuteronomistic History. The study reinterprets the biblical canon as the enduring literary legacy of a failed but transformative reformist movement.
Previously published in The Times of Israel.
By Yigal Bin-Nun
Historian and Researcher
Tel Aviv University, Cohen Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas
December 2025
This hypothesis has connections with Frank Moore Cross's reconstruction of the development of the priesthood in ancient Israel.
Briefly, there were two competing priestly lines, one descending from Aaron and the other from Moses. During the United Monarchy the (inferred) Moses ("Mushite") line, represented by the priest Abiathar, was demoted and retreated to Anathoth. David and Solomon established the Aaronid line in Jerusalem and then in the Temple, but further limited it to the line of the Aaronid priest Zadok. Hence, the Zadokites ran the priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple. The other Aaronids were excluded and perhaps led worship at the "high places." Jeroboam II arguably established a non-Zadokite Aaronid priesthood at Bethel.
In this context, Shaphan is inferred to have connections to the historical Mushite center at Shiloh and to the Mushite priests still at Anathoth (the latter perhaps including the prophet Jeremiah). Shaphan produced a proto-Deuteronomy that accepted a Levitical priesthood without specifying further (thus leaving open the option of reintegrating the deposed Mushites [and Aaronids??] back into the official priesthood).
All of this is possible, perhaps even plausible, but it depends on a chain of inferences that we really can't test. And some of the links are speculative. It is a fascinating reconstruction, though.
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