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 Fari'a 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.