Jeffrey Tigay, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, called the requirement that sacrifices be offered only in a single sanctuary "the most singular" of all the laws in Deuteronomy. Tigay reported eight major approaches to why Deuteronomy called for this reformation: (1) To minimize the role of sacrifice in worship, in preference to prayer. (See Maimonides in "In medieval Jewish interpretation" above.) (2) To preserve the Temple's ability to inspire people by keeping it unique. (3) Hezekiah's political goals to concentrate national enthusiasm on the preservation of the capital from the invading Assyrians. (4) Josiah's economic goal to wrest control of the peasantry's agricultural surplus from the rural Levites to use for royal purposes such as defense. (5) Monotheism, connecting the requirement for a single sanctuary to the belief that there is only one God. (See Josephus in "In early nonrabbinic interpretation" above.) (6) Monolatry, forcing the people to bring to God the sacrifices that they had been making out in the field to goat-demons (satyrs) or other gods. (7) Monoyahwism, to avoid the suggestion that there were several deities named YHVH. (8) Multiple worship sites were inherently pagan. Tigay concluded that the view that sacrificing at multiple sites was considered inherently pagan is the only explanation with explicit textual support from the passage that forbids the practice.