Eran Viezel

2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 tell the story of a scroll found by Hilkiah in the Temple. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette suggested that this scroll was in fact either the Book of Deuteronomy or the greater portion thereof. De Wette's thesis has since become one of the acknowledged foundations of modern biblical research, and has even been defined as its Archimedian point and its cornerstone. While de Wette was indeed the first modern scholar to establish precisely the specifics of the connection between the scroll found in the Temple and the Book of Deuteronomy, he was not the first to recognize the link between the two; a few earlier critics, and even some of the Church Fathers, preceded him in this discovery. De Wette also has a heretofore unrecognized predecessor in the rabbinic world: the author of the commentary on Chronicles popularly attributed to Rashi. This article presents this unique view and the arguments offered by the anonymous commentator, comparing them to De Wette's, and investigating their Jewish origins.