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In both In Search of History and Life of Moses, John Van Seters notes parallels between stories in the Book of Joshua and ancient Near Eastern campaign tales. In Search of History has a comprehensive statement on this topic, on pages 330-331:
"[T]he Dtr narrative has a basic similarity to the accounts of such military campaigns in the Near Eastern inscriptions, particularly those of the Assyrian annals and the 'letters to the god.' The latter often give special attention to a few major battles or conquests of important cities while summarizing the overthrow of many others in a stereotyped series. They may also highlight at the outset of a campaign the overcoming of a special physical barrier, such as a river in flood or a mountain range. Before an important battle the king often receives an 'oracle of salvation' from a deity who promises to deliver the enemy into his hand. Sometimes envoys come from a great distance to sue for peace and submit to terms of servitude in order to avoid destruction...General descriptions of sieges or military stratagems; summary treatments of attack and flight of the enemy and the burning of cities; enumerations of participants of coalitions, kings defeated, or cities taken; lists of casualties and the amount of booty; declarations of booty and of spoils to the god---all occur with great regularity. In the royal inscriptions of the Assyrians and Babylonians the native people of Syria-Palestine are all lumped together under the rubric of 'Amorites' or 'Hittites.' Also, the borders given for these inscriptions for the 'land of the Amorites/Hittites' correspond closely to those in Josh. 1:4. Once we isolate the basic Dtr account of the conquest, without the stories of Rahab (chapter 2) or the sin of Achan (chapter 7) and the other additions of J and P (especially chapter 5), then it is remarkable how closely Dtr's work has been made to correspond with the literary pattern of military campaigns in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. Even the 'installation' of Joshua as the leader who succeeds Moses suggests that the conquest is the first victorious campaign of the new regime."
This quote has interesting elements. First off is the parallels between the Book of Joshua and Assyrian inscriptions. To what extent is the Hebrew Bible a rip-off of other cultures? I was studying Psalm 18 recently, and two evangelical sources---The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary and Peter Craigie's commentary on Psalms 1-50---noted similarities between Psalm 18 and the storm god of ancient Near Eastern literature. In my reading of The Psalms in Israel's Worship, Sigmund Mowinkel refers to similarities between the biblical Psalms and those elsewhere in the ancient Near East. I can't say that any of this really challenges my faith, for my faith isn't based on biblical inerrancy (which can't be proven one way or the other), as much as a belief in a benevolent higher power, whose foundation is the testimonies of people, past and present. But I do wonder how to account for these parallels from a theological perspective---one which considers the Bible to be revelation. I suppose that one can go the route of saying that the Bible is incarnational---it reflects its cultural surroundings because God is approaching people on their own level. But I can understand why someone could come along and dismiss that as theological "explaining away" of the evidence, asking why we should even consider the Bible to be special within the ancient Near East. Why not see it as just another ancient Near Eastern writing, which reflected other ancient Near Eastern writings? I know that I find inspiration from the Bible, however, and so that is why I'll continue to read and to study it.
Second, I found Van Seters' discussion of the Assyrian and Babylonian referenes to the natives of Syria-Palestine as Hittites and Amorites to be interesting, in light of my reading of Niels Peter Lemche's The Canaanites and Their Land. I no longer have that book with me, for I sent it back to the Hebrew Union College library, so that I can receive other books to read. I remember that Lemche argued that the term "Canaanite" does not appear much in the ancient Near East in the first millennium B.C.E., but I don't recall whether or not he addressed Assyrian and Babylonian references to the Amorites and the Hittites. His argument was that one of the authors of the biblical conquest narratives tossed in a bunch of nations that he knew from somewhere, even though those nations did not live in Palestine---and that is why he called some of the inhabitants "Hittites." But, if that biblical author was following Assyria and Babylon in characterizing the people of Palestine as Hittites and Amorites, then he was not being arbitrary: he was following a pattern that he knew. And yet, I forget where Lemche placed the Amorites and the Hittites. Were any Hittites in Syria? I know that Thomas Thompson acknowledged that there were Amorites in Syria---though he did not regard them as a homogeneous people. Does Van Seters know if the Assyrians and Babylonians only called people in Syria "Amorites" and "Hittites," or if they called the inhabitants of Palestine that as well?
But Van Seters statement about the Assyrian references to the Hittites and the Amorites did overlap with Lemche's thesis, in my opinion. Lemche argued that "Canaanite" was a term that foreigners loosely applied to inhabitants of Syria and Palestine---without a regard to the diversity of the people. That appears to be what the Assyrians and the Babylonians did when they referred to the inhabitants of Syria-Palestine as "Hittites" and "Amorites."
