Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORICAL BOOKS
The sources available for the period between Israel's settlement in Palestine and the division of the kingdom ‘all Israel’ into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, are principally the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and the first twelve chapters of I Kings. Of these, the book of Joshua certainly presents a combination of narrative elements that are parallel to one another, in exactly the same way as the Pentateuch does. Indeed, exactly the same ‘sources’ can be found in this book as are found in the Pentateuch, that is L or J, J or J, E and P. In addition to these, there is a series of isolated passages in Joshua which belong to the ‘Deuteronomist’ school.
Possibly the books of Judges, Samuel and Kings ought to be analysed in the same way, that is as a combination of several narrative elements that are parallel to one another. But P disappears, for that source certainly ended with the book of Joshua. In the book of Kings the material to be attributed to one or more of the ‘Deuteronomist’ schools is much more considerable than in the preceding books. Still, it is not possible to be nearly as certain in attributing material to the various parallel lines of narrative in the books of Judges to I Kings as it is in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, and other analyses accordingly remain equally possible. Such a one is Martin Noth's theory of a Deuteronomistic historical work by an author of the sixth century B.C., composed under the influence of the Deuteronomium.
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