Two recent collections of articles have introduced new horizons to the study of prophetic literature: Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy (2000) and Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism (2006). (1) These volumes have given the formal stamp to a trend that has already gained some influence in recent research. This new agenda centers on the relation between the mantic arts, prophecy, and the scribal culture. Based on the commonly accepted view that the lion's share of the production of prophetic books was carried out by scribes rather than prophets, scholarly effort is increasingly focusing on the relationships among prophets, diviners, and scribes in order to ascertain the precise role each of these parties played in the "publishing" process of a prophetic book. (2) In addition, more attention is being paid to the relevance of extrabiblical prophetic texts, the study of which has introduced new data to the already weighty discourse on biblical prophetic literature. (3) Finally, acknowledgment of early Judaism's textual orientation has augmented the consideration being given to the gradual textualization of prophecy. (4) Given the increased importance of writing and books, on the one hand, and the enormous scholarly interest in the book-find of King Josiah, on the other hand, it is a natural step to relate the two issues. The narrative of 2 Kings 22-23 stands at the intersection of various streams of tradition in ancient Israel regarding the value of written documents. A diachronic analysis of the story's composition and the book's implied contents reveals a burgeoning appreciation for the "Book" in Israelite religion, constituting the foundation stone for what in due course would emerge as the "religion of the Book." It will be suggested below that a pre-Deuteronomistic (pre-Dtr) narrative--embedded in 2 Kings 22-23--conceived of the book not as a document of law but as a sign from heaven, part of the routine oracular procedure in ancient Near Eastern royal courts.
