[9] The story of Joseph has distinctive internal features of its own, and appears to be from an independent cycle, which has been used to form a connecting link between the Settlement and the Exodus; see also Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme (1906), pp. 228, 433; B. Luther, ibid. pp. 108 seq., 142 sqq. Neither of the poems in Deut. xxxii. seq. alludes to an escape from Egypt; Israel is merely a desert tribe inspired to settle in Palestine. Apparently even the older accounts of the exodus are not of very great antiquity; according to Jeremiah ii. 2, 7 (cf. Hos. ii. 15) some traditions of the wilderness must have represented Israel in a very favourable light; for the “canonical” view, see Ezekiel xvi., xx., xxiii.
[10] The capture of central Palestine itself is not recorded; according to its own traditions the district had been seized by Jacob (Gen. xlviii. 22; cf. the late form of the tradition in Jubilees xxxiv.). This conception of a conquering hero is entirely distinct from the narratives of the descent of Jacob into Egypt, &c. (see Meyer and Luther, op. cit. pp. 110, 227 seq., 415, 433).
[11] This is especially true of the various ingenious attempts to combine the invasion of the Israelites with the movements of the Ḥabiru in the Amarna period (§ 3).
[12] Cf. Winckler, Keil. u. das Alte Test. p. 212 seq.; also his “Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung” in Mitteilungen der Vorderasiat. Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1906) and Religionsgeschichtlicher u. gesch. Orient (Leipzig, 1906); A. Jeremias, Alte Test. (p. 464 seq.); B. Baentsch, Altorient. u. Israel. Monotheismus (pp. 53, 79, 105, &c.); also Theolog. Lit. Blatt (1907) No. 19. On the reconstructions of the tribal history, see especially T. K. Cheyne, Ency. Bib. art. “Tribes.” The most suggestive study of the pre-monarchical narratives is that of E. Meyer and B. Luther (above; see the former’s criticisms on the reconstructions, pp. 50, 251 sqq., 422, n. 1 and passim).
[13] 2 Chron. xii. 8, which is independent of the chronicler’s artificial treatment of his material, apparently points to some tradition of Egyptian suzerainty.
[14] See for chronology, [Babylonia and Assyria], §§ v. and viii.
[15] See Jew. Quart. Rev. (1908), pp. 597-630. The independent Israelite traditions which here become more numerous have points of contact with those of Saul in 1 Samuel, and the relation is highly suggestive for the study of their growth, as also for the perspective of the various writers.
[16] See W. R. Smith (after Kuenen), Ency. Bib., col. 2670; also W. E. Addis, ib., 1276, the commentaries of Benzinger (p. 130) and Kittel (pp. 153 seq.) on Kings; J. S. Strachan, Hastings’s Dict. Bible, i. 694; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. of Holy Land, p. 582; König and Hirsch, Jew. Ency. v. 137 seq. (“legend ... as indifferent to accuracy in dates as it is to definiteness of places and names”); W. R. Harper, Amos and Hosea, p. xli. seq. (“the lack of chronological order ... the result is to create a wrong impression of Elisha’s career”). The bearing of this displacement upon the literary and historical criticism of the narratives has never been worked out.
[17] Careful examination shows that no a priori distinction can be drawn between “trustworthy” books of Kings and “untrustworthy books” of Chronicles. Although the latter have special late and unreliable features, they agree with the former in presenting the same general trend of past history. The “canonical” history in Kings is further embellished in Chronicles, but the gulf between them is not so profound as that between the former and the underlying and half-suppressed historical traditions which can still be recognized. (See also [Palestine]: History.)
[18] For the former (2 Kings xii. 17 seq.) cf. Hezekiah and Sennacherib (xviii. 13-15), and for the latter, cf. Asa and Baasha (1 Kings xv. 18-20; above).