will enable us to do this in the case of authors whose works we know, and who "\\Tote in a language we are daily using, how shall such a method be infallible when applied to records written thousands of years ago, in a dead language, and when a million help!! to tho right understanding of the history have irrecoyerably perished? It must be confessed that these "scientific " theories, if not sound, are extremely ingenious. It is Yery difficult to reply conclusively to a critiq who has a theory ready made to meet every emergency. Thus, if the author of the Book of Joshua displays an accurate and minute acquaintance with his subject, he is quoting an early and authentic document. If he states any, thing which is not at first sight easily reconcileable :itl1 what he has stated elsewhere, he has taken it out of another less early and less authentic one. If he quotes the Book of Deuteronomy, which according to all the laws of literary criticism proves it to ha'l'e been in existence when he wrote, he was himself the author of it, and was engaged in the task of mingling its con- tents yith real and 'l'eracious history. If a 'Book of the Wars of Jahveh' is quoted, as in Num. xx.i. 14, 15, it is an older document. If a 'Book of the Law of Jah'l'eh,' he wrote it himself. This is not to inquire, it is to make inquiry impossible. It is to substitute dogma, the dogma of the destructi'l'e school, in the place of the dogma they have so persistently decried, which assumes that the books of Scripturn, as a rule, were written by the persons whose names they bore, Is the one dogma one whit more scientific than the other? The authenticity of the Book of Deuteronomy is a question on which we are of course precluded from entering. But the question of the hand the Deuteronomist had in the compilation of the Book of Joshua is one which falls within our limits. There is not the slightest evidence in the book itself to lead to the conclusion that it was a production of the time of Manasseh, a conclusion which the opponents of the genuineness of Deu- teronomy have based upon the very slender foundation of the prophecy in eh. xxviii. 68. If, as is assumed, the Deuteronomist embodied the references to his own work into the Book of Joshua, in order to facilitate the reception of his pretended laws of Moses, the question forces itself irresistibly upon us, Why did he not introduce more of them ? Why did be con£ne his extract~ from the 'Book of the Laws of Jahveh' to the passage at tLe end of cL. viii., and a few exhortations to "be strong and of good courage," and the like, wLich is all we find elsewhere? These extracts are not enough for his purpose, were he introducing them for the purpose of gaining acceptance for the precepts he was desirous of enforcing. We proceed briefly to notice some objections to the narrative of Joshua which meet us in the pages of Ewald, Dr. Davidson, and others. Ewald supposes Joshua to be the " ideal king " of the times of the Deutefonomisil TO THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. vii
(' History of Israel,' i. 116). Now there is not one single trace of the kingly idea throughout the Book of Joshua. The severe simplicity of his life, the remarkable absence of anything like kingly claims (see especially eh. xix. 49, 50), is one of the moat striking features of the book. As well could we suppose the characters of Brutus or Cincinnatus to have been ideals of civic virtue called up to animate dying Roman patriotism in the days of Elagabalus, as to suppose that the writer of the Book of Joshua had the Oriental type of Iring before his eyes, such as existed in J udrea and the neighbourhood in the reign of Manasseh. Next, Ewald remarks on the archaic character of Josh. xvii.14-18, which he describes as "rough and hard as a stone." Yet Knobel, who was no mean Hebraist, assigns the passage to the" first Jehovist." And if Ew.ald's view be right, the passage may easily be explained on the hypothesis that we have here the ipsissima verba of Joshua himself. In the pages of Dr. Davidson's well-known work other object10ns will be found. They are open to the same reproach that we have already brought against the other productions of his school, namely, their unduly dogmatic tone. And this is adopted, not merely towards those of an opposite school, but to his own allies. Thus (i. 424) he complains that Knobel "has un- warrantably robbed the Deuteronomist of his due,'' a statement which we are apparently to take on Dr. Davidson's authority, since he vouchsafes no proof of it. But to proceed with his objections to the authenticity of the Book of Joshua as it stands, he tells us that the narrative at the end of eh. viii. has got into the wrong place, and triumphantly asks, How, then, can the genuineness of the book be maintained ? as if such a supposition as an error of the copyist were quite out of the question. A similar use is made of the discrepancy in numbers between eh. viii. 8 and eh. viii. 12, as though here again (see notes on the passage) a slip of the pen in very early times might not have caused all the confusion. Then we are told that the Le,ites in the historical portion of the book are called "the priests, the Levites," while in the geographical they are called "sons of Aaron," and that the former is a Deuteronomistic, the latter an Elohistic expression, as though the expression " sons of Aaron " in eh. xx:ii. were not clearly opposed to "sons of Kohath, Gershom, and Merari." Ch. vi. 26 contains, on the sup- position of the early date of Joshua, the record of a prophecy fulfilled long afterwards. It is assumed that the prophecy was invented after its sup- posed fulfilment. Yet, unless the writer of the book were a deliberate im- postor, endeavouring to palm off his work as one of an earlier date-a rather strong supposition-is it conceivable that he would have avoided all mention of the fulfilment of the prophecy in this place ? Again, we are told that the twelve atones could never have been placed in the middle of the Jordan. Ordinary attention to the words of the passage (see notes on eh. iv. 9) ll viii INTRODUOTION