A growing number of scholars regard the Hellenistic period as central to the formation of the Old Testament historical traditions. As a piece of historiography recounting the history of a whole people or nation corporately and explaining the causes of the final state of things, the so-called Deuteronomistic History stands unique compared to extra-biblical, Near Eastern literature prior to the Hellenistic Age. Among Hittite, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Syro-Palestinian and Persian historiographic texts, there seems to be nothing comparable. Instead, a close extra-biblical literary parallel to the Deuteronomistic History is furnished by the Greek historiographer Herodotus.
