I was thinking about the authorship of Joshua 22.
I don't know anything about the scholarly discussion on this issue, but
I was just looking at elements of the chapter and I was asking myself
who could have written it.
In Joshua 22, Israel, led by the priest
Phinehas, confronts the tribes that live in the Transjordan, namely,
Reuben, Simeon, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. The reason is that
these two-and-a-half tribes have constructed a replica of the altar
that's at the central sanctuary, and Phinehas and the rest of Israel
believe that this Transjordanian construction is a competing altar, on
which sacrifices will be offered. But the two-and-a-half tribes
assure Phinehas and company that the Transjordanian altar is not for
sacrifice, but rather is a memorial to the rest of Israel that the
Transjordanian tribes are a part of Israel (even though the Jordan River
separates them) and thus have a right to worship God at the central
sanctuary.
At first, I asked if the Deuteronomist could
have written Joshua 22. The reason is that this chapter strongly
supports limiting worship to one central sanctuary, which is part of the
Deuteronomist ideology. After all, Israel is criticizing the
Transjordanian tribes because it believes that they are constructing an
alternative altar for sacrifices, and the Transjordanian tribes retort
that they are not doing that at all. This controversy makes sense if
there is an assumption at the outset that sacrificial worship must only
be conducted at the central sanctuary, the place God chose to put God's
name.
But there appear to be considerations that militate against
this chapter being Deuteronomistic. For one, the two-and-a-half tribes
in Joshua 22:21 call the LORD the God of gods. That presumes that other
gods exist, but the LORD is superior to them in rank and power. But,
as Moshe Weinfeld documents, the Deuteronomistic school did not just
believe that the LORD was superior to other gods; rather, it denied that
the other gods even existed! Second, in Joshua 22:25, the
two-and-a-half tribes express their fear that Israelites in times to
come would not allow the Israelites from the Transjordan to worship the
LORD. But I don't think that such a restrictive policy on who can
worship God at the central sanctuary would have been on the radar of the
Deuteronomist, for the Deuteronomist envisioned even people from other
nations coming to the temple to worship the LORD (I Kings 8:41-43). I
have a hard time believing that the Deuteronomist would write a story
in which the Transjordanian tribes would have to build a replica of an
altar to convince other Israelites of their right as fellow Israelites to worship God at the
central sanctuary, for my impression is that, as far as the
Deuteronomist is concerned, even Gentiles can worship at God's house. Joshua 22, by contrast, seems to presume that only Israelites can worship at the central sanctuary, and so the two-and-a-half tribes have to build a replicated altar to convince the rest of Israel that they (the two-and-a-half tribes) are indeed Israelites and thus have a right to worship at the central sanctuary.
I
wondered then if P could be the author of Joshua 22. For one, the
phrase "God of gods" could fit P, since the Books of Chronicles, which
supposedly reflect a priestly sort of ideology, use that sort of
language at times. Second, as Julius Wellhausen held, P assumed that
sacrificial worship could only take place in the central sanctuary.
Third, Phinehas is a prominent player in Joshua 22, and Phinehas was the
ancestor of the Zadokite priesthood. The chapters in the Pentateuch
that exalt Phinehas are (if I'm not mistaken) usually attributed to P.
But there is a problem. According to Jo Ann Hackett (see my post here),
P does not recognize the Transjordan as part of Israel. Joshua 22, by
contrast, does regard the Transjordanian tribes as full members of
Israel. Then I thought something: Phinehas is not exactly portrayed
positively in Joshua 22, but rather as one who impulsively rushes to
condemn the Transjordanian tribes, without full knowledge of the facts.
So I have my doubts that P wrote Joshua 22.
Who could have written Joshua 22? It
was probably written in a time when the sole legitimacy of the central
sanctuary was largely accepted, or at least it was written by someone
who may not have been a Deuteronomist himself, but who still agreed with
the Deuteronomist idea that only one sanctuary was legitimate. The one
who wrote Joshua 22 probably disagreed with the priests who held that
the Transjordan was not a part of Israel. The writer of the chapter
seems to be aware only of an exclusivist viewpoint that holds that God
can only be sacrificially worshiped at the central sanctuary by actual
Israelites. The writer uses terminology for God that acknowledges the
existence of other gods, which may reflect an early stage of Israelite
thought, or it could be a remnant----as the Chronicler, a late
(post-exilic) writer, uses that sort of language for God. On how to put
all this together and identify the author, well, that will require more
thought!