{d) a used as the relative is read only in 5' 6" 7" 8-", and in the last tliree passages cannot be regarded as interpolated (Giesebrecht, ZATIV, Bd. i. 280 ; see all the instances of this t> in KiJnig's Lehrgebaude, ii. 322).
(c) The same author would not have written both the introductions to the narrative of the inva.sion of the Ammonites, contained in lO"'- and 11"-.
(/) In ch. 14 a p-eat many very important points are passed over in silence of the most unnatural kind, if all the elements of the text that have come down to us are in their original form. F'or instance, after v."'- the statement would be wanting that this journey of Samson did not lead to the marriage intended (aTnpS, v."), and that the father of Samson had got over his initial repugnance to a Philistine daughter-in-law. Probably, then, it is a later addition that the parents of Samson were present at his maiTiage. Jo.sephus also relates* that Samson presented the honey to the Philistine maid, and not that he shared it with his parents (U-").
(g) Like a so-called red thread there runs through chs. 2-16 a series of passages in which the constant interchange is described between Israel's religious and moral lapses and her jmnishment, between Israel's repentance and God's help ; cf. especially
OU-IS 37. 12» 41-3 Ql JJ33-36 1()8-16 \^\
(h) Also tlie two episodes which close the book (clis. 17-21) have their peculiar character (e.jr. the formula ' in those days tliere was no king in Israel,' etc., 17° IS' 19' 21'-'°), and these two narratives also are wanting in a complete inward unity. For if 17""- IS'"'- 21'-- " proceeded from one and the same author, they would contain unnatural repetitions.
5. Kklation to the Pentateuch ' Sources.' — The question of the unity of the book as well as that of its date, depends upon the relation of Jg to the different strata embodied in the Pentateuch. Hence it will be of advantage for the following investigation, if we first of all make an attempt to fix this relation. Now it is well known that in the Pentateuch there are four main strata to be distinguished: the Jabwistic (J ; Gn 2'"'-3-'' etc. ), the Elohistic (E ; Gn 20, etc.), tlie Deuteronomic D), and the Esoteric-Priestly (P; Gn l'-2^ etc.;) cf. Kbnig, Einleitung, p. 188 ir.) ; and there is the possibility in abstracto that these four works con- tinued the post-Mosaic history of Israel. But that as a matter of fact these four sources of the Pentateuch continue to How also into the extant Bk. of Jg, can be e.stablished onlj* by positive proofs. This i)roof is all the more necessarj" in view of the impossibility of making true progress in critical science if a number of results are assumed as already proved, and one makes it his main object always to pile up higher storeys on the building of the literary criticism of the Old Testa- ment. Besides, the relation of the Bk. of Jg to the 'sources' of the Pentateuch is one of those questions which are ditlerently answered even by uecided friends of criticism.
(«) Is the Jdhiristir stratum (J) of the Pent- con- tinued in Jg? To l>egin with, the first chapter of Jg lia-s points of contact in several pa-ssagcs with expressions contained in the preceding hook of th« O'f. For instance, Jos 15"" is sub.simiiially idon
* Ant. V. vttt. fl : K«4 «(lA«^>«i rf.m uiAjfM av**. 'v* i*|
S12
JUDGES, BOOK OF
JUDGES, BOOK OF
tical with Jg l'"-" ; Jos 15" resembles Jg l" ; Jos 15<^ is sulistiintially tlio same as Jg l^' ; Jos 17"-'» (cf. Nu Si-™'"'-) resembles Jg I-'"- ; and Jos 16" is substantially the same as .Ig 1^. The opinion of the present writer is that tliese postscripts in both books are drawn from a common source of earlier origin, and this jmlgiuent is baaed upon the follow- ing observations : (a) The two series of passages in Jos and Jg are in only a very few instances actually identical. ((3) In particular the tradition (Jg 1-') that Jerusalem belonged to the ideal sphere of the tribe of Benjamin, is to be considered the older, in opjiosition to the note (Jos IS", Jg 1") that Jerus. was the object of an attack by Judah. See above, 4a ; and or. the miit (' land ' or 'district') or niAttit of Urusnlim in the Tel el- Anmrna letters (Keilinsch. BM-r>th.:k, Rd. v. 18U==- «» ISl" 183'< 185"-). (y) The anciint source from which the identic^! sentences in li.e two series of passages named are drawn, was not the Jahwistic. Vov these sentences contain a somewhat artlessly connected series of facts, and do not possess the life and the variety of colouring which mark the Jahwistic style (cf. Gn 18 f., 24, etc.). (5) Precisely in the passage, Jos 15"''" (substantially = Jg 1'°""), which in some measure shows the lifelike style of the Jahwist, there is a deviation from Gn '24**. In the latter the rapid descent from the beast ridden is expressed by wdttippol (AV 'she lighted od'), but in Jos 15'* and .jg 1" by vrittiznrih {AV 'she lighted [from] oil "), and this verb zdnah occurs nowhere else but in Jg 4-'. If one takes all this into account, it will be found what degree of certainty attaches to the position of IJudde, who in the Kurzer Hdcomm., 1898, p. xxii, without positive argu- ment, assigns to the .Jahwistic work the following : J.r jii^i'. 2r»-7. i». 21 (W. 20|. 11-16. 36. 17. 2::-a(. so-s4_ Airain