PERIOD OF THE JUDGES
(5) If documents are not taken as they stand but are analyzed into J E D P etc., they point, if less simply yet perhaps even more surely, to both political and religious libraries. In brief, it is said, that no one of J E D P is before 825 B.C., but that each one contains older material, often contemporary with the events themselves, transmitted orally or in writing. It is generally agreed among the critics that this transmitted material included various collections of songs (Kautzech pp. 2-3; Moore. Judges XXVIII) in the Book of the wars of Jehovah and the Book of Joshua, collections of laws and also collections of stories. Most of the stories found in the first eight books of the Old Testament originated before or during the age of song and story (c. 1250-1050), (Kenit. Beginnings p. 17). In short, under this hypothesis, instead of one or a very few books and one library, there were many books and many collections
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