vi. Separation from the Pentateuch, and Date. — Anotlier set of problems is raised by the relation of Joshua to the Pentateuch. Most critics have held that the Bk. of Joshua was separated from the rest of the Pentateuch after JE, D, and P had been combined, bnt Bennett (A Primer of the Bible, 1897, p. 90) thinks that the JE, D, and P portions of Jos were combined hj another and later editor than the editor who combined the same docu- ments in the Pentateuch. This is certainly borne out by the dilFerent rank, alluded to above, which is assigned to P in the Pentateuch and in Joshua. But, wliatever be the answer to these questions, the reason of the separation of the Book of Joshua from the Pentateuch when the latter became canonical in Israel in Ezra's time is very Intel- ligible. The legislation really closes with Deuter- onomy and the account of Moses' death, and it was legislation which Ezra and Nehemiah were an.xious to enforce. That the Bk. of Joshua was not regarded in Israel as what we call canonical till long after the Torah or Five Books of Moses liad reached that rank, is clear from the dilTerence between it and them in the LXX translation. While it is evident, from the comparatively few discrepancies between the Massoretic text ana that of the LXX, that the text of the Torah had long been guarded with care before the LXX translation was made, the many discrepancies in the Bk. of Joshua, the freedom with which the Greek trans- lator or translators allowed themselves to omit and to modify, prove that when the LXX translation of It was made Joshua was not regarded as of canoni- cal rank. The admission to the Canon of the
* That Joshua is the author is asserted in the Talmud, ' Baba oathra.' 11'-. It has been maintained by a few Rom. Cath. and Protestant scholars, and even in this century by, e.a., J. L. Konig, AT Stud. L 1836. But see Calvin s sane words in his Argt.
Prophetical Books, to which it belongs, is geniralljr Iielu to have been about 200 li.C.
\-ii. Relation to the Book of Judges.— But the problems of the analysis of the Bk. of Joshua cannot be fully stated without some comparison of its data of the Conquest with those furnished in the opening chapters of the Bk. of Judges. We have seen that in the Bk. of Joshua there are two dillerent conceptions of how tlie Conquest was achieved. One is that shared by both D and P : (hat the Conquest of the Land was completed and the inhabitants exterminated by Joshua, and thereupon the various territories were occupied by the tribes to which he allotted them. The other, very evident from the fragments of J, in the second half of the book, takes the Conquest to have been gradual and partial. This, the older conception, is that which is supported by the lik. of Judges. In Jg 1-2' we have fragments of an account of tlie Conquest, which an editor has found irreconcilable with the conception that doiiiinates the Bk. of Joshua, and has therefore, by an introductory clause, Jg 1'*, transferred to the days after Joshua's death. This, however, ii impossible : we cannot conceive that Israel having gained full possession of Western Palestine and exterminated the Canaanites, was after Josliua's death driven back upon Jericho and began a second series of campaigns which gradually re- stored the country to them. In itself this is im- possible ; and that the campaigns in Jg 1 hajipened in Joshua's lifetime is implied not only by the account of his death which tollows them in Jg 2 If., but proved by the fact that the same episodes {e.g. Hebron and Caleb, Debir and Othniel) \\ hich are related in Jg 1 as happening after Joshua's death are in the Bk. of Joslma itself related as happen- ing while he still directed the allotment of the territories. Omit Jg 1" and several other verses in the same chapter which are obvious insertions by an editor and some of which flatly contradict verses that stand next them, and what is left affords an account of the Conquest which is in harmony (as already said) with the older of the two conceptions, contained in the Bk. of Joshua.*
The relation to each other of these parallel passages in the Bk. of Joshua and in Jg 1 has been differently estimated by critics. Yet the facts appear to shut out all the alternatives but one. Not only do the parallels agree (as has just been said) in their general conception of the con- quest— that it took place through the efforts of separate tribes, and with incomplete results rather than (as the view of P and D which prevails in the Bk. of Joshua conceives it) by all Israel acting together and with a complete extermination of the ' inhabitants of the laud ' ; but in parts the parallels agree word for word, and they ooth contain the same characteristic terms and phrases.
The following table represents ftie agreements and differences : —
Jg 1^- (except the first clause)*- *■*■*•': The beginning of Judah's and Simeon's campaign, and their defeat of Adoni-beze^ Jos 10^^-: After Joshua's capture of Ai and treaty with Gibeon, Adoni-zedek (LXX Adoni-beze^f ; the reading Adoni-zedelf has perhaps arisen as some eciio of another ancient king of Jerusalem, Melchi-zedek), king of Jerusalem, with the kings of Jarmuth, Lachisti, and Eglon, having attacked Gibeon, is defeated by Joshua and all Israel in the battle of Beth-boron, and afterwards slain.