entirely to individual or tribal achievements. This view can be
traced in xiii. 13, xv. 63 (cf. the parallel Judges i. 21 in contrast to
v. 8), xvi. 10 (Judges i. 29), xvii. 11–13 (Judges i. 27 seq.), and in the
references to separate tribal or family exploits: xv. 13–19, xix. 47
(cf. Judges i. 34 seq., xviii.).
Two closing addresses are ascribed to Joshua, one an exhortation similar to the homilies in secondary portions of Deuteronomy (xxiii.; cf. Moses in Deut. xxviii. seq., and Samuel’s last address in 1 Sam. xii.), which virtually excludes the other (xxiv.), where Joshua assembles the tribes at Shechem (Shiloh, in the Septuagint) and passes under review the history of Israel from the days of heathenism (before Abraham was brought into Canaan) down through the oppression in Egypt, the exodus, the conquest in East Jordan and the occupation of Canaan. A few otherwise unknown details are to be found (xxiv. 2, 11 seq. 14). The address (which is extremely important for its representation of the religious conditions) is made the occasion for a solemn covenant whereby the people agree to cleave to Yahweh alone. This is commemorated by the erection of a stone under the oak by the sanctuary of Yahweh (for the tree with its sacred pillar, see Gen. xxxv. 4; Judges ix. 6). The people are then dismissed, and the book closes in ordinary narrative style with the death of Joshua and his burial in his inheritance at Timnath-serah in Mt Ephraim (cf. xix. 49 seq.); the burial of Joseph in Shechem; and the death and burial of Eleazar the son of Aaron in the “hill of Phinehas.”
Chapter xxiv. presupposes the complete subjection of the Canaanites and is of a late prophetic stamp. Some signs of amplification (e.g. vv. 11b, 13, 31) suggest that it was inserted by a Deuteronomic hand, evidently distinct from the author of xxiii. But elsewhere there are traces of secondary Deuteronomic expansion and of internal incongruities in Deuteronomic narratives; contrast xiv. 6–15 with Joshua’s extermination of the “Anakim” in xi. 21 seq.; the use of this name with the “Philistines” of xiii. 2 (see Philistines), or the conquests in xi. 16–22 with the names in x. 36–43. All these passages are now due to D; but not only is Deuteronomy itself composite, a twofold redaction can be traced in Judges, Samuel and Kings, thus involving the deeper literary problems of Joshua with the historical books generally.[1] Both Joshua xxiii. and xxiv. are closely connected with the very complicated introduction to the era of the “judges” in Judges ii. 6 sqq., and ii. 6–9 actually resume Joshua xxiv. 28 sqq., while the Septuagint appends to the close of Joshua the beginning of the story of Ehud (Judges iii. 12 seq.). Both Judges i.–ii. 5 and chap. xvii.–xxi. are of post-Deuteronomic insertion, and they represent conditions analogous to the older notices imbedded in the later work of P (Judges i. 21, xix. 10–12, cf. Joshua xv. 63; see Judges ad fin.). Moreover, P in its turn shows elsewhere definite indications of different periods and standpoints, and the fluid state of the book at a late age is shown by the presence of Deuteronomic elements in Joshua xx., not found in the Septuagint, and by the numerous and often striking readings which the latter recension presents.
Value of the Book.—The value of the book of Joshua is primarily religious; its fervency, its conviction of the destiny of Israel and its inculcation of the unity and greatness of the God of Israel give expression to the philosophy of Israelite historians. As an historical record its value must depend upon a careful criticism of its contents in the light of biblical history and external information. Its description of the conquest of Canaan comes from an age when the event was a shadow of the past. It is an ideal view of the manner in which a divinely appointed leader guided a united people into the promised land of their ancestors, and, after a few brief wars of extermination (x.–xii.), died leaving the people in quiet possession of their new inheritance (xi. 23; xxi. 44 seq.; xxiii. 1).[2] On the other hand, the earlier inhabitants were not finally subjugated until Solomon’s reign (1 Kings ix. 20); Jerusalem was taken by David from the Jebusites (2 Sam. v.); and several sites in its neighbourhood, together with important fortresses like Gezer, Megiddo and Taanach, were not held by Israel at the first. There are traces of other conflicting traditions representing independent tribal efforts which were not successful, and the Israelites are even said to live in the midst of Canaanites, intermarrying with them and adopting their cult (Judges i.–iii. 6). From a careful consideration of all the evidence, both internal and external, biblical scholars are now almost unanimous that the more finished picture of the Israelite invasion and settlement cannot be accepted as a historical record for the age. It accords with this that the elaborate tribal-lists and boundaries prove to be of greater value for the geography than for the history of Palestine, and the attempts to use them as evidence for the early history of Israel have involved numerous additional difficulties and confusion.[3]
The book of Joshua has ascribed to one man conquests which are not confirmed by subsequent history. The capture of Bethel, implied rather than described in Joshua viii., is elsewhere the work of the Joseph tribes (Judges i. 22 sqq., cf. features in the conquest of Jericho, Joshua vi. 25). Joshua’s victory in north Palestine has its parallel in Judges iv. at another period (see Deborah), and Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem (Joshua x.) can scarcely be severed from the Adoni-bezek taken by the tribes of Judah and Simeon (Judges i. 5–7). The prominence of Joshua as military and religious leader, and especially his connexion with Shechem and Shiloh, have suggested that he was a hero of the Joseph tribes of central Palestine (viz. Ephraim and Manasseh). Moreover, the traditions in Joshua viii. 30–ix. 2, and Deut. xxvii. 1–8 seem to place the arrival at Mt Ebal immediately after the crossing of the Jordan. This implies that Israel (like Jacob in Gen. xxxii.) crossed by the Jabbok, and in fact the Wadi Fariʽā provides an easy road to Shechem, to the south-east of which lies Juleijil; and while this is the Gilgal of Deut. xi. 30, the battles at Jericho and Ai (Joshua ii. seq.) occur naturally after the encampment at the southern Gilgal (near Jericho). The alternative view (see especially Stade, Gesch. Isr. 1. 133 sqq.) connects itself partly with the ancestor of all the tribes (Jacob, i.e. Israel), and partly with the eponym of the Joseph tribes whose early days were spent around Shechem, the removal of whose bones from Egypt must have found a prominent place in the traditions of the tribes concerned (Gen. l. 25; Exod. xiii. 19; Joshua xxiv. 32). According to one view (Stade, Wellhausen, Guthe, &c.) only the Joseph tribes were in Egypt, and separate tribal movements (see Judah) have been incorporated in the growth of the tradition; the probability that the specific traditions of the Joseph tribes have been excised or subordinated finds support in the manner in which the Judaean P has abridged and confused the tribal lists of Ephraim and Manasseh.
The serious character of the problems of early Israelite history can be perceived from the renewed endeavours to present an adequate outline of the course of events; for a criticism of the most prominent hypotheses see Cheyne, Ency. Bib. art. “Tribes” (col. 5209 seq.); a new theory has been more recently advanced by E. Meyer (Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme, 1906). But Joshua as a tribal hero does not belong to the earliest phase in the surviving traditions. He has no place in the oldest surviving narratives of the exodus (Wellhausen, Steuernagel); and only later sources add him to Caleb (Num. xiv. 30; the reference in Deut. i. 38 is part of an insertion), or regard him as the leader of all the tribes (Deut. iii. 21, 28). As an attendant of Moses at the tent of meeting he appears in quite secondary passages (Exod. xxxiii. 7–11; Num. xi. 28). His defeat of the Amalekites is in a narrative (Exod. xvii. 8–16) which belongs more
- ↑ The close relation between what may be called the Deuteronomic history (Joshua-Kings) and its introduction (the legal book of Deuteronomy) independently show the difficulty of supporting the traditional date ascribed to the latter.
- ↑ G. F. Moore (Ency. Bib., col. 2608, note 2) draws attention to the instructive parallel furnished by the Greek legends of the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus (the “return” of the Heracleidae, the partition of the land by lot, &c.).
- ↑ The historical problems are noticed in all biblical histories, and in the commentaries on Joshua and Judges. Against the ordinary critical view, see J. Orr, Problem of the O.T. (1905) pp. 240 seq. This writer (on whom see A. S. Peake, The Interpreter, 1908, pp. 252 seq.) takes the book as a whole, allowance being made for “the generalizing tendency peculiar to all summaries.” His argument that “the circumstantiality, local knowledge and evidently full recollection of the narratives (in Joshua) give confidence in the truth of their statements” is one which historical criticism in no field would regard as conclusive, and his contention that a redactor would hardly incorporate conflicting traditions in his narrative “if he believed they contradicted it” begs the question and ignores Oriental literature.
