* Tlic att«oipt by Buddu, p. &0, to ifet rid of the differences by •moDding the t«st, baa not convince*! critics.
same epi.'iodes, the cro.ssing of Jordan and the tak- ing of Jericho ami of .•\i, have obviously been com- bined ;* and in chs. 13-21, later iKis.sages (IS^""""'' and perhaps others) have been added to it, whether by the hand that combined its constituents it is impo.ssible to .say. Alongside these \vritten tradi- tions in JE of the Conquest and Division of the Land, there appears to have existed, either in whole or part, at least one other written tradition, and perhaps two. The passages in chs. 1-12, which on linguistic evidence are assignable to P, seem to have been taken from a Priestly narrative of the Conquest, and there was certainly a Priestly account of the Division of the Territory from which the bulk of chs. 13-21 is taken. But there are also accounts of some events of the Conquest, notaldy that of the monument at Gilg.al (4'-**- ", cf. vv."""j, and the summary of tbe Cou.-iuest of the South (9^""), which seem to imply that there was, in addition to the two other accounts just noted above, one independent Deuteronomic account of the Conquest.
But if the existence of an original Dt narrative of the f.-icts of the Conquest be uncertain, there was another hand at work of the same spirit and style of language. In chs. 1-12 the great majority of the Dt passages do not give evidence of belong- ing to an independent account of the same events as are described in JE, but consist of introductions to the various sections, the bulk of the narrative in which is JE, and of connexions and transi- tions ; or they point out how the events related in JE illustrate the favourite doctrines of the Deuter- onomic ^vriters and enforce the Deuteronomic legis- lation. All these passages are easily separable from the narratives to which they have been added, and sometimes (as in ch. 7"" ") it is clear that their insertion has not been accomplished without the modification of the original text. And, besides, single phrases characteristic of the Dt style have been scattered over most of the chapters. All this points to one conclusion. A Deuteronomic writer has 'edited,' not only chs. 1-12, but the whole book. His is the framework of the whole, his its connexion with the Bk. of Deuteronomy, the modification of the JE narra- tives, and the lessons deduced from them. Who he was, whether he can be identified with the author of the original Dt law-book (which is improbable), or the author of the historical supple- ments to the latter, or was another writer ot the same spirit and style, are questions that divide critics, and depend on the still unsettled problems as to the composition of the Bk. of Deuteronomy itself.t It would be misleading, however, to take for granted that this Deuteronomic redaction was completed by one hand at one time. The reasons for supposing that various strata (though all in the Deuteronomic spirit and style) are represented in it will appear from the next paragraph.
The question of the relation of tnis Deuter- onomic redaction (or redactions) to the elements of P which appear in Joshua is a very difficult one. Was the Dt redaction (or redactions) completed upon JE and the independent Dt traditions (described above), and was the whole only then
* We have also seen that it is not possible to assign these, on linpiislio evidence, res^ioctively to J and E.
f See the diftcusaiona in the worlcs, cited below, of Hollenberjr, Kueiien, l>illiuann, and Kittel. Hollenberv's conclusion is that not the orijfinal Deutcronomist, but the Deuteronomic editor who conihlned Deuteronomy with the rest of the Pentateuch and added to It chs. 1-4. 27. 2!>-Sl, is the writer of these pussAKes in Joshua. Dillniann assigns them in the cVkin to the author of the lilt, of Deut<'ronoiny ; Kuenen, either to a writer or wrilers akin in spirit and style to the author of Dt 1-4, etc. ; so virtually Kittel, to a D'^ whom (not certainly but on the whole) he takes to have been different from D'. There is n curious dilTerenco between the lit mssoko Jos 1*^ and I>i 11'^ 'i&* ; but it is not very great, and does not carry us fas -• the discussion of the question.
r84
JOSUUA
JOSUUA
combined with the passages from P? Or did t!io Dt redaction take place sulisequentlj' to P? Tlie former of these alternatives i» accepted by Driver {Introd.' p. 104). But there is important evidence in favour of the latter. In the l5k. of Joshua, P does not occupy tlie regulative jiosition, nor supply the framework, as it does in the I'lmla- teuch. And in the Mussoretic te.xt of Joshua portions of P have apparently been subjected to the Dt revision ; in A\. 20, for instance, the sub- stance is from P, the additional matter is Deuter- onoraic (see vv.*'). Again, while most of the T)t passages ap|)ear in the LXX translation, and are therefore lo be regardeii as prior to it, a number are not found in it. For example, in ch. 7"' ^ we saw that the LXX reproduces only some of the Dt modifications of the JE account of Achan's punishment, and the verses ch. 20''"' (just cited), in which Deuteronomic additions are manifest, are not found in the LXX (B). It is also probable that ch. •>T'^ was written subsequently to the Priestly Code (cf. W. K. Smith, OTJC^ 413, and Bennett, Primer, 90). Throughout the book, too, we find some words from a very late stage of the language (Dillmann, p. 442). All this implies that what Bennett {Bk. Jos. p. 22) calls ' very probable ' is a certainty : the Deuteronomic redaction of the Bk. of Joshua is from more than one hand. Some of it, according to the e^dence of the LXX, must be very late. Accordingly we understand why no author's name has been assigned to the Bk. of Joshua : * it takes its title from its subject and is an anonymous work. The points upon which an early author, or even one contem- porary with the events described, has been assumed, are either illusory (e.g. the readin" of 5' in3V should be oiav), or can only prove the date of one or other of the constituent documents. The final redaction attbrds no historical allusion by which its date might be fi.\ed.