Hezekiah waited twenty years for a chance to revolt against Assyria: first he purged the idols, shattering the bronze snake that stood in the Temple, and summoned his people to celebrate an early version of Passover in a Jerusalem which was expanding for the first time on to the western hill.18 The city filled with refugees from the fallen northern kingdom, and they probably brought with them some of their ancient scrolls of early Israelite history and legend. Jerusalem’s scholars started to fuse together the Judaean traditions with those of the northern tribes: ultimately these scrolls,
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