impossible, a postulate which many will be indisposed to grant. But hil3 method is, as he states, "scientific," which seems to mean that he takes everything for granted which is necessary to establish his theory. The many indications of earlier origin and authorship he quietly disposes of by assuming that they were portions of some earlier work, imbedded pre-· cisely as they stood in the mass of fiction which the writer of later times has evolved from his own moral consciousness. Not only so, but scientific criticism, he believes, can disintegrate these fragments with un• failing accuracy, and assign them to their proper owner. There are thus, he holds, (1) a few fragments of contemporary works inserted verbatim il'l the midst of the mass of later history or tradition. These consist (a) of a book quoted by name in Num. xxi. 14, "The Book of the Wars of Jahveh," or J eho,ah ; (b) the Biography of Moses ; and (c) the Book of Covenants, from which all the legal or quasi-legal matter is derived; written, as he says, in an age of confusion, when men tried to secure themselves by covenants with their neighbours. Then (2) about the time of David comes the great Book of Origins (Tol'doth-the use of this word frequently marking the extracts from the book). Lastly (3) we have the prophetic narratives, written by the prophets subsequently to David's time. Among these we have a third, fourth, and fifth narrator, and finally, the Deuteronomist of a time later than the reign of Manasseh, who reduced the whole into shape,* not by re-writing the whole from the ma.terials before him, but by inserting bodily into his compilation passages from older authors, and adding his own gene- rally fictitious narrative, composed with a view of imposing the author's own view of the law of Moses upon a corrupt and decaying people. 4. Ewald has found various imitators, among whom the principal is Knobel. Adopting De Wette's view of the discrepancies in the text o( the Pentateuch and Joshua, and Ewald's general method of explaining it, Knobel nevertheless proposes a different arrangement of the original materials from which the supposed mosaic of the Pentateuch and Joshua is made up. Knobel, like Ewald, also finds it possible to assign each of the various extracts of which the Pentateuch and Joshua are made up to their respective authors. But he has not only discovered by his analysis different authors to Ewald, but he assigns different portions to them. Ewald's system he pronounces " so complicated and obscure a fabric," so devoid of all tenable hypotheses, that it fails to convince (p. 496); while he complains that critics like Hengstenberg and Hii.verbick and Keil, because they do not accept his methods, "convert a scientific inquiry into a theo- 0 Or rather, out of shape; for the whole narrative in its present condition, we are told,
teems with the most obvious blunders and inaccuracies, while its style would resemble o.n English history made up of extracts from Robert of Gloucester, Mandeville, Wiclif, Lord Herbert, Hume, e.nd Macaule.y. TO THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, iii
logical controversy." Therefore he plays the part of Tycho Brahe to Ewald's Ptolemy, and invents a theory which renders a few of the latter's epicycles unnecessary. Thus there is (1) an Elohistic document, clear, orderly, and historical, free from the marvellous occurrences in which the later works abotmd, which constitutes the groundwork of the whole narrative. Then follows (2) a Book of Laws or first Jehovistic source. Then (3) the Book of Wars, or second Jehovistic source. Then we have (4) the Jehovist himself. Lastly (5) the Deuteronomist appears, to whom all Deuteronomy, with the exception of certain specified portions, and all the parts of Joshua which refer to Deuteronomy belong. 5. Noldeke subjects Knobel to a similar simplifying process to that which Knobel subjects Ewald. According to Noldeke, there are two sources; (1) an outline history (Elohistic ), and (2) a history filling up that outline ; composed (a) by the second Elohist, and (b) by the Jehovist. Lastly, we have two editors. The first combined these into a consistent whole. The second added Deuteronomy and remodelled Joshua, bringing it into accord- ance with his fictitious additions to the Mosaic narrative. 6. Bleek feels himself compelled to still further reduce the number of histories, and thereby approaches nearer to a consistent and rational expla- nation of the facts. Documents existed, he believes, at an earlier period. But the :first author, whom he calls the first Elohist, appeared at the time of Saul, and his history contains the greater part of Joshua. In the time of David appeared the Jehovist, who revised and re-wrote, with the aid of earlier documents then existing, the greater portion of the Elohist. Lastly, at the time of Manasseh, or thereabouts, arose the Deuteronomist, who reduced the book into its present shape. Such is an abstract of some of the chief theories which have been put forward regarding the authorship of Joshua. It is needless to say that the opponents of the authenticity and single authorship claim for their methods the exclusive title of scientific investigation. Ewald, with lofty infallibility, places Hengstenberg, Keil, Delitzsch, Kurz " outside of all science." But those who adopt his method, and venture only to question its application, fare scarcely more favourably at his hands. Thus, when he commences his researches, he examines what has been before written in the direction in which his predilections lead him. He finds that Ilgen takes a step on the right road, but always loses it again. " There was," he complains, "much perversity of attempt and aim mingled with" the otherwise praiseworthy attempts of these early investigators. They "were too easily satisfied with hunting out mere contradictions in the books and resolving everything into fragments," and were "unable to distinguish a real incongruity from a. merely apparent discrepancy" (p. 61). Nor do his successors in the inves- tigation please him any more than tlle pioneers who preceded him, Hup, i-v INTRODUCTIO"N'