JUDGES (BOOK OP)

regarding the deeds of tribal heroes which originally floated about orally within the circumscribed area of each particular tribe. Moreover, it is also well known that these early traditions were mostly sung — or, to speak more correctly, recited — in a primitive form of poetry. The earliest sources, therefore, of our book must have been something of this character.

(2) It is, however, quite certain that some inter-mediate stages were gone through before the immediate antecedents of our present book became existent. In the first place, there must have taken place at some time or other a collection of these ancient records which belonged originally to different tribes; one may con-fidently assume that a collection of this kind would have been put together from written materials; these materials would naturally have been of varying value, so that the collector would have felt himself perfectly justified in discriminating between what he had before him; some records he would retain, others he would discard; and if he found two accounts of some tradi-tion which he considered important, he would incorporate both. In this way there would have arisen the immediate antecedent to the Book of Judges in its original form. The ' Song of Deborah ' may be taken as an illustration of what has been said. At some early period there was a confederacy among some of the tribes of Israel, formed for the purpose of combating the Canaanites; the confederates are victorious; the different tribes who took part in the battle return home, and (presumably) each tribe preserves its own account of what happened; for generations these different accounts are handed down orally; ultimately some are lost, others are written down; two are finally preserved and incorporated into a collection of tribal traditions, i.e. in their original form they were the immediate antecedents of our present accounts in Jg 4**- and 5'*-.

(3) We may assume, then, as reasonably certain, the existence of a body of traditional matter which had been compiled from different sources; this compilation represents our Book of Judges in its original form; it is aptly termed by many scholars the pre-Deutero-nomic collection of the histories of the Judges. This name is given because the book in its present form shows that an editor or redactor took the collection of narratives and fitted them into a framework, adding introductory and concluding remarks; and the additions of this editor 'exhibit a phraseology and colouring different from that of the rest of the book,' being imbued strongly with the spirit of the Deuteronomist (Driver). It is possible, lastly, that some still later redactional elements are to be discerned (Cornill). Speaking generally, then, the various parts of the book may be assigned as follows: l'-2', though added by a later compiler, contains fragments, probably themselves from different sources, of some early accounts of the first warlike encounters between IsraeUte tribes and Canaanites. In the introduction, 2»-3", to the central part of the book, the hand of the Deuteronomic compiler is observable, but part of it belongs to the pre-Deutero-nomic form of the book. The main portion, 3'-16, is for the most part ancient; where the hand of the Deuter-onomist is most obvious is at the beginning and end of each narrative; the words, 'And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord . . . ,' at the beginning, and "... cried unto the Lord, . . . and the land had rest ' so and so many years, at the end, occur with monotonous regularity. ' It is evident that in this part of the book a series of independent narratives has been taken by the compiler and arranged by him in a framework, designed for the purpose of stating the chronology of the period, and exhibiting a theory of the occasion and nature of the work which the Judges generally were called to undertake' (Driver). The third division of the book, chs. 17-21, is ancient; 'in the narratives themselves there is no trace of a Deuteronomic redaction' (Moore); but they come

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JUDGES (BOOK OF)

from different sources, chs. 17. 18 being the oldest portions.

4. Text. — A glance at the apparatus criticus of any good edition of the Massoretic text, such as Kittel's, shows at once that, generally speaking, the Hebrew text has come down to us in a good state; 'it is better preserved than that of any other of the historical books ' (Moore). A number of errors there certainly are; but these can in a good many cases be rectified by the versions, and above all by the Greek version. The only part of the book which contains serious textual defects is the Song of Deborah, and here there are some passages which defy emendation. In the Greek there are two independent translations, one of which is a faithful reproduction of the Massoretic text, and is therefore not of much use to the textual critic.

6. Historical value. — There are few subjects in the Bible which offer to the student of history a more fascinating field of study than that of the historical value of the Book of Judges. It will be clear, from what has been said in § 3, that to gauge its historical value the component parts of the book must be dealt with separately; it is also necessary to differentiate, wherever necessary, between the historical kernel of a passage and the matter which has been superimposed by later editors; this is not always easy, and nothing would be more unwise than to claim infallibility in a proceeding of this kind. At the same time, it is impossible to go into very much detail here, and only conclusions can be given. l'-25 is, as a whole, a valuable source of information concerning the history of the conquest and settlement of some of the Israelite tribes west of the Jordan; for the period of which it treats it is one of the most valuable records we possess.

2'-3', which forms the introduction to the main body of the book, is, with the exception of isolated notes such as 2' 3*, of very little historical value; when, every time the people are oppressed, the calamity is stated to be due to apostasy from Jahweh, one cannot help feeUng that the statement is altogether out of harmony with the spirit of the book itself; this theory is too characteristic of fhe 'Deuteronomic' spirit to be reckoned as belonging to the period of the Judges.

3'-", the story of Othniel, shows too clearly the hand of the 'Deuteronomic' redactor for it to be regarded as authentic history; whether Othniel is an historical person or not, the mention of the king of Mesopotamia in the passage, as having so far conquered Canaan as to subjugate the IsraeUtl tribes in the south, is suffi-cient justification for questioning the historicity of the section.

On the other hand, the story of Ehud, 3"-3o_ ig a piece of genuine old history; signs of redactional work are, indeed, not wanting at the beginning and end, but the central facts of the story, such as the Moablte oppres-sion and the conquest of Jericho, the realistic descrip-tion of the assassination of Eglon, and the defeat of the Moabites, all bear the stamp of genuineness. In the same way, the brief references to the ' minor ' judges — Shamgar (3«>), Tola (lO'- 2), Jair (10»-6), Ibzan (128-i»), Elon (12U- '2), and Abdon (12"-") — are historical notes of value; their interpretation is another matter; it is possible that these names are the names of clans and not of individuals; some of them certainly occur as the names of clans in later books.

The 'judgeship' of Deborah and Barak is the most important historical section in the book; of the two accounts of the period, chs. i and 6, the latter ranks by far the higher; it is the most important source in existence for the history of Israel; ' by the vividness of every touch, and especially by the elevation and intensity of feeUng which pervades it, it makes the impression of having been written by one who had witnessed the great events which it commemorates' (Moore); whether this was so or not, there can be no doubt of its high historical value; apart from the manifest overworking