The Literature of the Old TestamentMoore, George Foot
Religion
The Literature of the Old Testament
Moore, George Foot
Bible. Old Testament -- Introductions
It seems, therefore, that both J and E related the crossing of the
Jordan, the taking of Jericho and the operations against Ai, and,
further, the wars with the confederate kings. In these narratives
Israel, from its standing camp at Gilgal, invades the country as one
great army under the command of Joshua; the deuteronomist author
represents them as exterminating the native population root and
branch, "they left not a soul alive." There are, however, scattered
here and there through the text, fragments of a very different story
(xiii. 13; xv. 13-19, 63; xvii. 11-13, 14-18; xix. 47), most of which
are also found continuously in Judg. 1. According to this account, the
Israelite tribes invaded the country separately or in small groups;
their success varied in different regions, but everywhere the walled
cities remained in the possession of their old inhabitants; in some
quarters the Israelites became subject to the Canaanites, in others
they in time reduced them to subjection. This account may not embody a
historical tradition--it could perfectly well have arisen by inference
from the actual situation at the beginning of the kingdom--but it is
at least in a broad sense historical. The case illustrates in an
instructive way the fact that the oldest literary sources of the
history which we can recover had themselves diverse and sometimes
contradictory sources in tradition.
In the Pentateuch it is well established that J and E had been
combined by a historian of the prophetic period (JE), though there is
evidence that the separate works continued to circulate. In Joshua,
also, it is probable that the deuteronomist historian used the
composite JE, and that the harmonizing of these sources and some of
the religious improvement which runs along with it is the work of his
predecessor who combined the two sources. It seems that P also had E
independently, and it is certain that later editors of the
deuteronomist school added their contributions.
The allotment of the tribal territories, the designation of asylum
cities, and the setting apart of cities for the levites and priests,
comes chiefly, as was said above, from a priestly source. How much of
it was in the older history of P (Book of Origins) is doubtful. One,
at least, of the earlier narratives told of the division of the land
by lot, and P, who followed this representation, may have connected
with it some sort of domesday book; but it was probably not so
detailed as that which we now read.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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