In the Second Section, on the Division of the Land, the bulk is from 1' (all, in fact, except the Dt pas- sages already cited, and a few from J L which will be cited inimciliately ). This u clear from the presence of the characteristic marks of P's style, and the agreementof the injunctions with those laid down in the Priestly Legislation in the Pentateuch. Desides the bulk of the contents, the opening and closing formulas of the various paragraphs of this section
are from P. In short, in this section, as in the Pentateuch, P furnishes the framework. In the Appendix, ch. OiJ"-** (which emphasizes the central- ization of the worship bv the account of the altar that was ' by Jordan ') displays many of the char- acteristic marks of P's style. There are, however, other features which suggest an independent author.
(c) The Jahwist-Elohtst Documents in Josliun. — As in the Pentateuch, the bulk of the narrative in Joshua belongs to the double document, know-n to critics as JE. To the trained eye the style is easily distinguished from that of Dt or P. When, however, we seek to di.scrimiiiate its two con- stituents, which in the Pentateuch are so often discernible from each other, we receive little or no assistance from the style oi the language. It exiiibits, however, ano'.uer »uu far more decisive dill'erence. Again and again in the J E portions of Joshua it becomes evident that two accounts of the same event have been welded together, for the statements not only icneat each other with a redundancy utterly foreign to the crisp style of either of the two documents J and E, but in details often conflict with each other. In ch 1 there are only fragments of JE. Ch 2 is all JE, except w.'"- ". So, too, chs. 3. 4, the Crossing of Jordan, except the Dt fragments noted above. But when the.se have been put aside, the remainder reveals the presence of two narratives (as Wellhausen was the hrst to point out) ; according to one of which a monument to commemorate the Passage was built at GUgal with stones taken from the river's bed by the people, but according to the other was set up in the river's bed, and consisted of 12 stones carried by 12 representatives of the tribes. This diilerence (in addition to the 3rd story of the Deuteronomist referred to above) is apparent not only from the statements in 4*- ', but from the fact that while 3" describes the people as having all passed over, 4J. 8. loii trgat, them as still about to cross. Again, 3'^ and 4' cannot belong to the same narrative, for they are simply ' doublets ' ; yet 3'- is presupposed by 4*. The two narratives may be thus dis- tinguished—(1) 3'- »•'»•"• "-" 4'-'- 8; and (2) 3" 44-7. »-n. Of these two accounts it is not easy to say which is J and which E.
Ch. 5 (events between Jordan and Jericho) is one of the most complicated parts of the text of Joshua. V.', as we have seen, is Dt. Vv.'-'-*' (tlie record of the circumcision of the people by Joshua), are from JE. But into v.' words have been inserted — they are not found in the LXX — imi)Iying that Joshua did this a second time ; and vv.*-' (the LXX here oilers a widely different reading) interpolate an account of the reasons of the operation, which is not consistent with JE's statement in v.", that it was undertaken for the pur[)Ose of ' rolling away the reproach of Egypt.' These words are in themselves an obviously wrc ng interpretation of the term GUgal, i.e. 'stone-cirile, and can only mean that in the opinion of the writer Israel had been uncircumcised in Egypt, and that this neglect, which had excited the re-
firoach of the circumcised Eg^-ptians, was now at ast repaired. In contradiction to this, vv.*"' de- clare that the Israelites while in Egj-pt were circumcised, but that generation had all died, and those who were born aft«r the Exodus had not been circumcised, which neglect Joshua now made
food. The phraseologj- of those four verses is partly "b, but most critics take them, along witn the words interpolated in v.-, to be the addition of a later writer, who was anxious to harmonize JE's account with previous reports of P about circumcision The end of ch. 5 (vv.'*-") also presents a difliculty It is generally assigned to JE j but some critics on the allegea ground that the phrases ■n'l' »z% and tr as applied to an angel are found only in lat«
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JOSHUA
writings, take the passage to be one of the very latest auditions to tlie Bk. of Joshua. So Kuenen. Thii reason is not conclusive. It was an early belief that Jehovah had a heavenly host (cf. 1 K S'.""), the belief in individual angels with special functions was also early, and we need not take "is" in the special sense in which it is intended when applied to angels in the Bk. of Daniel, but simply in its early signilication of a military ollicer. Vv."-'» may therefore very well be left to JE.
The whole of eh. 6 (the Fall of Jericho), except yv_a md a7^ belongs to JE, but we meet in it the same phenomenon as in clis. 3 and 4, the presence (again lirsl detected by AVellliauscn) of two diii'er- iug accounts — one (vv.'- '*• '"• " partly "• "* ' and it came to pass. . . manner,' '»'■■*' 'and the people shouted ') which relates that Israel marched round Jericho on 7 successive days, the first 6 silently, but on the 7th they shouted at the wurd of Joshua, and the walls fell; and the other (vv.* partly, »•"'•'*•», parts of w. '»■'», \-v."«^ -■<»■) which relates that a portion of the armed men marched round the city 7 times on one day, having in their midst the ark and priests with trumpets, and that at the 7th round the people shouted at the signal of the trum/jet.i, and the walls fell. Cf. especially vv." anil -M . JQ (|,g latter the people shout both before and after the trumpets, though v.'* enjoins them not to shout till the truni])et3 give the signal. As in chs. 3. 4 it is not easy to assign these double accounts, present in ch. 6, respectively to J and E.