<P> Since the mid-20th century, scholars have imagined the Deuteronomists as country Levites (a junior order of priests), or as prophets in the tradition of the northern Kingdom of Israel, or as sages and scribes at the royal court . Recent scholarship has interpreted the book as involving all these groups, and the origin and growth of Deuteronomism is usually described in the following terms: </P> <Ul> <Li> Following the destruction of Israel (the northern kingdom) by Assyria in 721 BCE, refugees came south to Judah, bringing with them traditions, notably the concept of Yahweh as the only god who should be served, which had not previously been known . Among those influenced by these new ideas were the landowning aristocrats (called "people of the land" in the Bible) who provided the administrative elite in Jerusalem . </Li> <Li> In 640 BCE there was a crisis in Judah when king Amon was murdered . The aristocrats suppressed the attempted coup, putting the ringleaders to death and placing Amon's eight - year - old son, Josiah, on the throne . </Li> <Li> Judah at this time was a vassal of Assyria, but Assyria now began a rapid and unexpected decline in power, leading to a resurgence of nationalism in Jerusalem . In 622 BCE Josiah launched his reform program, based on an early form of Deuteronomy 5--26, framed as a covenant (treaty) between Judah and Yahweh in which Yahweh replaced the Assyrian king . </Li> <Li> By the end of the 7th century BCE Assyria had been replaced by a new imperial power, Babylon . The trauma of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the exile which followed, led to much theological reflection on the meaning of the tragedy, and the Deuteronomistic history was written as an explanation: Israel had been unfaithful to Yahweh, and the exile was God's punishment . </Li> <Li> By about 540 BCE Babylon was also in rapid decline as the next rising power, the Achaemenid Empire, steadily ate away at it . With the end of the Babylonian oppression becoming ever more probable, Deuteronomy was given a new introduction and attached to the history books as an overall theological introduction . </Li> <Li> The final stage was the addition of a few extra laws following the Fall of Babylon to the Persians in 539 BCE and the return of some (in practice only a small fraction) of the exiles to Jerusalem . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Following the destruction of Israel (the northern kingdom) by Assyria in 721 BCE, refugees came south to Judah, bringing with them traditions, notably the concept of Yahweh as the only god who should be served, which had not previously been known . Among those influenced by these new ideas were the landowning aristocrats (called "people of the land" in the Bible) who provided the administrative elite in Jerusalem . </Li> <Li> In 640 BCE there was a crisis in Judah when king Amon was murdered . The aristocrats suppressed the attempted coup, putting the ringleaders to death and placing Amon's eight - year - old son, Josiah, on the throne . </Li>

What king do critical scholars closely connect with the writing of deuteronomy