In all the sources of the Pentateuch the possession of Canaan is the goal toward which the whole history moves, from the call of Abraham to the last exhortations of Moses in the plains of Moab, and they must all have narrated, however briefly, the occupation of the country. The history of the conquest and division of Canaan is the subject of the Book of Joshua. The author has evidently derived his material from diverse sources, and it is reasonable to expect to find among them the continuation of the chief sources of the Pentateuch. This expectation is verified; it is not difficult to recognize in some places the sequel of the preceding narratives, and other passages which on internal grounds may confidently be ascribed to one or the other of them. But the attempt to analyze the book discovers at once the fact that the problem is different from that in Genesis to Numbers. The author of the Pentateuch had two chief narrative sources, a history compiled probably in the first half of the seventh century and in any case pre-Deuteronomic, which from its two principal strands is commonly designated by the symbol JE, and the history of the religious institutions (P), probably of the fifth century. The author of Joshua had for his sources, besides the continuation of P, a history of the conquest by a writer belonging to what is not inaptly called the deuteronomist school of historians, whose thought and style are moulded by those of Deuteronomy. In cc. 1-12 the author of Joshua follows this source almost exclusively, only here and there introducing a passage from the post-exilic narrative (e.g. Jos. v. 10-12); in cc. 13-24, on the other hand, the allotment of the tribal territories and the assignment of cities in these territories to the levites and the priests, are chiefly from the later work. Inasmuch as the style of the deuteronomist and of the priestly writers is characteristically different, the rough analysis is here comparatively easy, nor is it ordinarily difficult to recognize the brief passages which are incorporated from the older sources; but, as in the Pentateuch, the discrimination of the original contents of the priestly source from subsequent expansions and from the hand of the author of Joshua himself is frequently very uncertain. Here also additions were made by editors at a still later time, some of which are not found in the Greek version.