When was joshua written

The Exodus would be only years before Solomon began his Temple, or c. Even more serious to the careful interpretation of Scripture, the adherents of the late date view find it necessary to reject the Biblical picture of a unified movement of all twelve tribes from Egypt to Canaan under Moses and Joshua.

They believe they must account for certain extra-Biblical evidence, such as a seeming 14th cent. Some scholars admit that the Habiru mentioned in the Amarna Letters c.

Some tribes supposedly may have infiltrated from the N, some from Kadesh-barnea into the Negeb, and some crossed the Jordan to attack Jericho. Some tribal groups may never have left Canaan to sojourn in Egypt. For an extreme fragmentation of the settlement of Canaan by the various clans or tribes, which later amalgamated under the name of Israel, see N.

Gottwald, A Light to the Nations , This picture of the conquest and settlement differs greatly from that presented in the books of Moses and of Joshua. The Bible indicates that all twelve sons of Jacob were with him in Egypt, all twelve tribes were at Mount Sinai when God gave them the covenant and the laws and were numbered there, all were present at Kadesh-barnea, and all encamped at Abel-shittim where another census was taken.

All twelve tribes crossed the Jordan together with Joshua and erected two monuments of twelve stones each, all assembled at Mount Ebal, and all the tribes received their territorial allotments from either Moses or Joshua before they began to settle. To argue for two or three successive waves of conquest or infiltration is to invalidate the Biblical record. According to the early date view, by the time of the Israelite invasion of Canaan, Pharaoh Amenhotep III was losing interest in his Asiatic territories.

Most of the petty kings of Canaan and Syria soon revolted from Egypt or stopped paying annual tribute. The majority were letters from vassal princes in Palestine and Syria pleading for aid from the Pharaoh against neighboring city-states or against the SA-GAZ or the Habiru.

Apparently most of these pleas went unanswered. The silence in the books of Joshua and Judges concerning Egypt thus may be explained by the fact that Egypt had a weak foreign policy from Amenhotep III until Seti I , the next pharaoh to march into Pal.

Even then the Egyp. The Amarna tablets show that the Book of Joshua accurately portrays the political situation in Canaan—a country divided into numerous small feudal city-states prone to war with one another.

It is perhaps significant that none of the extant Amarna letters come from or mention Jericho, Ai, Bethel, or Gibeon, cities destroyed or controlled by Joshua and the Israelites. Cities not captured or not permanently occupied by Israel are those from which letters were sent to Egypt requesting help—Jerusalem, Gezer, Lachish, Jarmuth, and Eglon. The Amarna correspondence seems to reflect the situation in Pal. See SOTI, pp.

By the period of Joshua and the Judges Canaanite religion had become exceedingly degraded. The chief emphasis was upon fertility and sex. The Ras Shamra Ugaritic tablets reveal the licentious and brutal characteristics of Baal, Anath, Ashtoreth, Asherah, and other deities. The extant relics of fertility cult practices and serpent worship unearthed at Beth-shan, Megiddo, Hazor, Gezer, etc. Since sacred prostitution and other religious practices were spiritually contaminating one can understand why God commanded Israel to exterminate the seven nations in Canaan.

Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity [], pp. Authorship and date. The Book of Joshua in its present form appears to be a literary unit, composed by an anonymous author. Critical scholars have insisted that the book is a composite work of several source documents, later compiled, revised, and supplemented by various deuteronomic editors.

When one recognizes the different types of literary materials found in the Book of Joshua—narrative, topographic description, exhortation—there remain no strong arguments against the internal unity or that would demand explanation by resorting to the fiction of editing and re-editing. They say that the Book of Joshua belongs to the Pentateuch in that it continues the story of those books, but the method of using the various strands or sources is different. In chs. In ch. A major Deuteronomic revision that agreed with the E tradition of the conquest of Canaan took place around the time of King Josiah, perhaps to reflect the northward expansion of the kingdom of Judah during his reign.

Other liberal scholars, esp. It is true that the author of the Book of Joshua did make use of sources. He specifically refers to the book of Jashar and indicates that Joshua ordered a description of the land to be written Joshua himself wrote the words of the covenant renewal and various statutes and ordinance for the people in the book of the law of God at Shechem , Joshua cannot have been the final author of the book bearing his name.

It records his death , While the Talmud attributes the book to Joshua, it explains that this death notice was written by Eleazar the priest, and that his son Phinehas appended the last v.

Judg , , and the migration of the Danites to Leshem Josh ; cf. The author employs the name Hormah ; ; for the town of Zephath, which was not changed until the days of the Judges Judg , The phrase is not in Deuteronomy On the other hand, the author was an eyewitness of some of the events he described.

Rahab was still living at the time of writing Consider also his detailed narratives ; ; ; and the repeated use of preconquest place names , 49 , The book must be pre-Solomonic, since Canaanites still held Gezer Josh ; cf. The people of that region are called Sidonians , whereas Tyre gained the ascendancy over Sidon c. It would seem that the book was written prior to the 12th cent.

Not until after b. For corroborating archeological evidence see K. Joshua 7—12 Israel loses a battle against the people of Ai because of disobedience. After repenting of their disobedience, the Israelites prosper in battle as the Lord fights for them. They gain control of the promised land. Joshua 13—21 The promised land is divided among the tribes of Israel. However, not all of the wicked inhabitants are driven out of the land. Still, many critical scholars have rightly argued that Noth failed to identify the unique theological outlooks of the individual books of this portion of the Old Testament.

And they've argued that Noth overlooked the positive, hopeful outlooks that also appear in these books. Having looked at traditional and critical outlooks on the authorship and date of our book, let's consider some modern evangelical outlooks — perspectives held by scholars who affirm the full authority of Scripture. These perspectives will guide our approach to the book of Joshua throughout these lessons.

As we've already noted, the book of Joshua is anonymous. And as a result, evangelicals have held to a number of different outlooks on its authorship and date. Still, it will be helpful to make two observations. First, we'll look at what we may call the compositional development of the book.

And second, we'll explore the range of possible dates for its completion. Consider first the compositional development of Joshua. When we speak of our book's development, we have in mind that, like many other Old Testament authors, the author of Joshua didn't write his history de novo , or entirely from scratch. Rather, he compiled a variety of written sources as he formed his book. As we just saw, both the Talmud and critical interpreters maintain that our book reflects some kind of compositional development.

And, by and large, evangelicals also acknowledge our author's use of sources. We know for certain that this is true to some degree because, in , our author quoted directly from what he called, the Book — or scroll — of Jashar. We don't know much about this book, but clearly the author and his original audience did. Beyond this, as we'll see throughout this series, time and again our author incorporated portions of the Pentateuch as well as extra-biblical texts of various sorts.

We can't reconstruct these unidentified sources without straying into a lot of speculation. But knowing that our author used earlier sources, like the Book of Jashar , helps us understand why his book feels repetitious and disjointed at times.

This use of earlier sources also helps us avoid a common mistake when identifying the date of our book's final form. On fifteen occasions, the book of Joshua says that this or that circumstance was true "to this day. But, as is clearly the case in passages like 1 Kings , sometimes the phrase "to this day" may actually refer to the days of earlier sources.

Although evangelicals generally agree that there was some kind of compositional development of the book of Joshua, we're still left asking, when did this book reach its completion? When was it brought together as we have it now in the Bible? As with many Old Testament books, we can't identify precisely when our author brought the book of Joshua to its final form.

The evidence only allows us to identify a range of possibilities for the earliest and latest likely dates. But, as we'll see in these lessons, when we keep this full range of possibilities in mind, we gain numerous insights into how our author shaped his book to impact his original audience. We'll look at this range of time for the completion of the book of Joshua in two steps. First, we'll consider the latest possible date of completion. And second, we'll examine the earliest possible date.

Let's start with the latest possible time when Joshua could have been written. One of the best ways to determine the latest possible date of Joshua's final composition is to look outside of the book itself. There's good evidence that our author consciously contributed to what many scholars today call Israel's Primary History — the history that stretches from Genesis through Kings, excluding Ruth. This perspective is important because these books create a timeline, one after the other, like interlocking links.

Think about it this way: The Pentateuch comes from the days of Moses and comprises the first set of five links in this historical "chain. Exodus assumes the existence of Genesis because it picks up the chronology with the death of Joseph and ends with Moses and Israel at Mount Sinai.

Leviticus takes us further by reporting events that took place at Mount Sinai. Numbers adds a record of the travels of the Israelites from Mount Sinai to the plains of Moab. And Deuteronomy completes the Pentateuch with Moses' speeches on the plains of Moab and with Moses' death. In a similar way, the book of Joshua is the first link of the subsequent Deuteronomistic portion of the Primary History — the portion that depended heavily on the theological outlooks of the book of Deuteronomy.

The author of Joshua began with the death of Moses and continued through Joshua's death. Judges picks up the history of Israel where the book of Joshua ends. Samuel begins with the rise of Samuel as the last judge of Israel and ends with David's reign. And Kings forms the last stage of the Primary History by beginning with the death of David and ending with the Babylonian exile.

In this sense, the book of Kings flows out of all the earlier books of the Deuteronomistic history. And this fact tells us something crucial about the latest likely date for the completion of Joshua: It had to have been completed before the book of Kings was written. This observation is helpful because we know a lot about when the book of Kings was written. The last event reported in Kings appears in 2 Kings Here we learn that David's royal descendent, Jehoiachin, was released from prison in Babylon in the year B.

For this reason, we can be certain that Kings was not completed before this date. And more than this, the book of Kings stops short of reporting Israel's all-important release from exile in B.

It's unimaginable that the writer of Kings wouldn't have mentioned Israel's deliverance from exile if it had occurred by the time he wrote Kings. So, in keeping with the order of Israel's Primary History, the very latest the book of Joshua could have been completed was during the period of the Babylonian exile. With this latest possible date in mind, we should look in the other direction. What was the earliest possible date for Joshua's completion?

It isn't difficult to see that the earliest the book of Joshua could have reached its final form was during the period of the judges, a generation or so after the death of Joshua.

Consider what our author wrote near the end of his book in Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel Joshua Notice that this passage refers to "the elders who outlived Joshua. He must have been aware that the next generation after Joshua's death did not continue to serve God faithfully — a fact highlighted in the book of Judges.

So, this verse indicates that the earliest possible date for the completion of our book was the period of Israel's judges. Other passages in Joshua also reference events that took place during the period of the judges. For example, Joshua mentions the migration of the Danites to a new territory in the North. This event took place in the period of the judges, according to Judges So, it's fair to say that this is the earliest possible date for the book's completion.

Now, we also should mention that many interpreters have argued for a date during the period of the monarchy. For a number of reasons, they've concluded that this is actually the earliest possible date of final composition.

And we cannot rule out this possibility. The primary evidence for this outlook appears in Joshua , where we read these words:. Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim … from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel Joshua As we see here, this verse distinguishes "the hill country of Judah," or the southern kingdom, from "the hill country of Israel," or the northern kingdom.

This distinction between Judah and Israel has suggested to some that our book could not have been written before the kingdom of Israel was divided in approximately B. But having said this, it's important to note that at least one version of the Septuagint — the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament — does not make this distinction.

And scholars disagree over whether the Hebrew or Greek version represents the better reading. So, while it's possible that Joshua acknowledges the division of the kingdom, it isn't certain.

If we bring all of this evidence together, the very earliest possible date for Joshua's completion was sometime during the period of the judges. But a later date during the period of the monarchy is also possible. And even a date as late as the period of Babylonian exile isn't out of the question. As we'll see in a moment, recognizing this full range of possibilities helps us grasp more fully the kinds of challenges the book of Joshua was designed to address.

Keeping in mind what we've learned about the authorship and date of the book of Joshua, we should now turn to a second introductory consideration: the book's design and purpose. How did our author design his record of the days of Joshua? And why did he design it in this way?

Whenever we study a book of biblical history like Joshua, it's always important to remember that the same historical events can be told in many ways without introducing errors. Every biblical book that reports historical events organizes the history it reports in order to accomplish particular purposes and to emphasize certain perspectives for its original audience.

We'll look into these matters in much more detail in later lessons, but at this point we'll sketch the design and purpose of Joshua in two steps. First, we'll introduce its overarching content and structure, the large-scale arrangement of the book. And second, we'll comment on its original meaning, the impact our author hoped to have on his original audience. Consider first the content and structure of Joshua. The book of Joshua consists of twenty-four chapters that contain many different types of literature.

We find narratives, reports, speeches, as well as lists of people and places that probably came from a variety of sources. Because of this, interpreters have analyzed the structural details of Joshua in different ways.

But it's not difficult to see how its structure and content work together on a large scale. Old Testament scholars have different ways of designating or identifying genre within various books in the Bible, but in general terms, the book of Joshua has three main types of literature within it. It has what we would call narratives or stories, those sorts of things that we would normally understand like the story of the battle of Jericho, those kinds of things. It also has long lists, geographical lists, of places that various tribes inherited that were given to them by God and would list one place after another, after another, after another.

And then it also has sections where there is speech, or speeches that are given by a particular person to another group of people. And you can see if you just think about it in those three big categories that those correlate roughly to the first major division and the second major division and a third major division of the book. The first is primarily narrative, the second is primarily geographical lists, and the third is primarily speeches.

But the problem comes up in this way, and that is that within those major or umbrella genre designations you also have the other two always sort of seeping in… And so, as we deal with these various sections and these various genres in the book of Joshua, it's very important to keep them in mind and to be able to spot them as you go along.

One of the greatest points of confusion that interpreters have, especially new interpreters or new students of the Old Testament, is that they will not recognize these various genres and won't treat them in ways that they need to be treated. And as we approach the book of Joshua, as anyone approaches the book of Joshua, if you don't focus on those various genres and how they're mixed together in different parts of the book, then it will lead to a great deal of confusion.

Richard L. Pratt, Jr. In brief, Joshua has three main divisions. Each division begins with a statement indicating a significant shift in time. The first division, in chapters 1—12, focuses on Israel's victorious conquest of Canaan — how Joshua led Israel to a decisive victory over the Canaanites. This division begins in with the temporal notice that God commissioned Joshua, "After the death of Moses.

These twelve chapters report a number of events that took place during Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan. They begin with Israel's crossing of the Jordan and initial victories at Jericho and Ai. And these victories are followed by a covenant renewal ceremony in the vicinity of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

The narrative then moves to Joshua's major campaign against an alliance in the southern regions of the Promised Land. And this record is followed by Joshua's campaign against an alliance in the northern regions. The second division of our book, in chapters 13—22, deals with Israel's tribal inheritances — how the national unity of Israel was maintained as particular inheritances were allotted to the tribes of Israel.

This division begins in with the temporal statement, "Now Joshua was old and advanced in years. This second major division of Joshua first established the extent of territories that God granted to Israel, both in Transjordan — the lands to the east of the Jordan River — and in Cisjordan — the lands to the west of the Jordan River. It goes on to explain in some detail the specific allotments of lands to the tribes who received permission to settle in Transjordan.

And it also spells out how God granted large territories west of the Jordan to Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as lesser territories to the other tribes of Israel. And when conflict arose between the tribes of Cisjordan and Transjordan, we learn how they maintained their national unity as the people of God.

The third major division, in chapters 23, 24, closes our book by giving attention to Israel's covenant loyalty — how Israel's loyalty and disloyalty to the terms of God's covenant would shape their future. It begins in with another statement that alerts us to the passage of time.

The book ends with Joshua encouraging the people to remain faithful to the Lord. Sign In. Introduction to Joshua Timeline.