Joshua Retold: Synoptic Perspectives

Abstract

Joshua Retold: Synoptic Perspectives, by A. Graeme Auld. Old Testament Studies. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998. Pp. X + 179. $44.95. Auld, who is writing a commentary on Joshua for the International Critical Commentary, here publishes thirteen essays, written over a period of two decades, all but one previously published. An introductory chapter (Orientation) attempts to relate the subsequent text-critical and vocabulary studies to one another, and concluding observations (Reorientation) respond to critics and competing hypotheses. Many of Auld's opinions flow from his conviction that the Septuagint of Joshua was based on a somewhat shorter and earlier text than the MT. The following illustrates the kind of evidence he is working with: Josh 8:30-35 in the MT is found after 9:2 in the LXX, and Auld notes that it appears in a third position, after 5:1, in one of the Qumran scrolls. He holds that this paragraph, with its close ties to Dent 27, was not an original part of the work. While complimentary toward the work of Max Margolis and his editing of the Greek Mss of Joshua, Auld believes that Margolis was mistaken in consistently favoring the MT over the LAX. Such inattention to the superior features of Joshua in the LXX is also found in Martin Noth, Volkmar Fritz, and other scholars. Auld believes, with Rudolph Smend and Fritz, and contrary to Noth, that the division of the land in Joshua was a part of the first draft of the book, but he agrees with Noth, partly again on the basis of the LXX, that there was no priestly contribution to the book of Joshua. Turning the Deuteronomistic History hypothesis on its head, Auld asks whether many of the principles now enshrined in Deuteronomy were deduced from portions of the story of the nation in Joshua-Kings. 1 Chronicles 6, in his view, preserves an earlier form of the list of Levitical cities in josh 21, and the Greek text of Josh 21 is earlier than Josh 21 in the MT. The nine priestly cities in Judah (and Simeon) were the kernel of this material, with the present fortyeight-city list being late and schematic. Chapters 20-21 of Joshua harmonize two approaches: Dent 4:41-43 and 19:1-3 propose that there were three such cities of refuge on both sides of the Jordan; 1 Chron 6 implies that all forty-eight of the Levitical cities were also cities of refuge. Many of his literary critical stances are in tension with the majority scholarly opinion. Judges 1, he concludes, was composed on the basis of several notes scattered throughout Joshua and is not an early document. The secondary character of Judg 1:1-2:5 is supported by the duplication of Josh 24:28-31 in Judg 2:6-9. Part of Judg 1 suggests that the troubled history of the northern tribes was due to their failures during the time of their settlement in Canaan; another part compensates for the scanty mention of Judah in the rest of the book of Judges. …