But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going to quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they imply a time far more distant from the days of Joshua than is contained between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders.Such is the passage, x.14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to amuse children) [NOTE: This tale of the sun standing still upon Motint Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself.Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known all over the world.One half would have wondered why the sun did not rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition of it would be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows anything about it.But why must the moon stand still? What occasion could there be for moonlight in the daytime, and that too whilst the sun shined? As a poetical figure, the whole is well enough; it is akin to that in the song of Deborah and Barak, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera;but it is inferior to the figurative declaration of Mahomet to the persons who came to expostulate with him on his goings on, Wert thou, said he, to come to me with the sun in thy right hand and the moon in thy left, it should not alter my career.For Joshua to have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the sun and moon, one in each pocket, and carried them as Guy Faux carried his dark lanthorn, and taken them out to shine as he might happen to want them.The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately.One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again; the account, however, abstracted from the poetical fancy, shews the ignorance of Joshua, for he should have commanded the earth to have stood still.-- Author.] the passage says: "And there was no day like that, before it, nor after it, that the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man."The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after that day, being put in comparison with all the time that passed before it, must, in order to give any expressive signification to the passage, mean a great letgth of time: -- for example, it would have been ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or the next month, or the next year;to give therefore meaning to the passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior time it alludes to, it must mean centuries of years;less however than one would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admissible.
A distant, but general time is also expressed in chapter viii.; where, after giving an account of the taking the city of Ai, it is said, ver.
28th, "And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap for ever, a desolation unto this day;" and again, ver.29, where speaking of the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried at the entering of the gate, it is said, "And he raised thereon a great heap of stones, which remaineth unto this day," that is, unto the day or time in which the writer of the book of Joshua lived.And again, in chapter x.where, after speaking of the five kings whom Joshua had hanged on five trees, and then thrown in a cave, it is said, "And he laid great stones on the cave's mouth, which remain unto this very day."In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the tribes, and of the places which they conquered or attempted, it is said, xv.63, "As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah AT JERUSALEM unto this day." The question upon this passage is, At what time did the Jebusites and the children of Judah dwell together at Jerusalem? As this matter occurs again in judges i.I shall reserve my observations till I come to that part.
Having thus shewn from the book of Joshua itself, without any auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author of that book, and that it is anonymous, and consequently without authority, I proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of Judges.
The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it; and, therefore, even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God; it has not so much as a nominal voucher; it is altogether fatherless.
This book begins with the same expression as the book of Joshua.That of Joshua begins, chap i.1, Now after the death of Moses, etc., and this of the Judges begins, Now after the death of Joshua, etc.This, and the similarity of stile between the two books, indicate that they are the work of the same author; but who he was, is altogether unknown; the only point that the book proves is that the author lived long after the time of Joshua;for though it begins as if it followed immediately after his death, the second chapter is an epitome or abstract of the whole book, which, according to the Bible chronology, extends its history through a space of 306 years;that is, from the death of Joshua, B.C.1426 to the death of Samson, B.C.
1120, and only 25 years before Saul went to seek his father's asses, and was made king.But there is good reason to believe, that it was not written till the time of David, at least, and that the book of Joshua was not written before the same time.
