One Editor Rewrote Israel's History

You've seen the multi-season television drama where every single episode follows the exact same formula. The main characters abandon their core values, face a massive crisis, get invaded by a foreign power, cry out for mercy, and get rescued by a heroic judge or king, only to repeat the whole cycle over again. No, sorry, I'm thinking of the books of Joshua through Kings! But this repetitive loop isn't lazy writing. It's a carefully crafted ideological framework built by a desperate group of thinkers trying to make sense of national catastrophe. Today, we're diving into the Deuteronomistic History to uncover the editorial engine driving the historical books of the Bible, and why its authors rewrote Israel's history to save their future.