The independent main stock of the Priestly Code, the Book of the
Four Covenants, or the Book of Origins (Q), more and more gives way
to later additions, and ceases altogether, it appears, at the
death of Moses. It is at least nowhere to be traced in the first
half of the Book of Joshua, and so we cannot reckon as part of it
those extensive sections of the second half, belonging to the
Priestly Code, which treat of the division of the land. Without a
preceding history of the conquest these sections are quite in the
air; they cannot be taken as telling a continuous story of
their own, but presuppose the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic work. In
spite of distaste to war and to records of war (1Chronicles xxii.
8, xxviii. 3), an independent work like the Book of the Four Covenants
could not possibly have passed over the wars of Joshua in silence.
A comparison of the different accounts of the entry of the
Israelite tribes into the occupation of the conquered land may
close this discussion. The Priestly Code, agreeing in this with
the Deuteronomistic revision, represents the whole of Canaan as
having been made a _tabula rasa_, and then, masterless and denuded
of population, submitted to the lot.
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