Who wrote the Book of Joshua according to the Bible?

Answer 1

A:The Bible does not tell us who wrote the Book of Joshua, so we are left with two other alternatives, neither of which has scriptural support.

Traditionalists attribute the Book of Joshua to Joshua himself. A weakness in this view is that the book reports Joshua's own death, so traditionalists are left with surmising that Joshua wrote the part before his death and someone else completed the book. Another problem with this explanation is that there is no historical proof Joshua existed, and archaeologists say there military conquest of Canaan, as described in Joshua, never really happened.

Scholars studying the style and context of the book say that the Book of Joshua was written during the middle of the first millennium BCE by an anonymous source now known as the Deuteronomist, based on older oral and written sources.

Answer:

Though not explicitly stated, Joshua is the person figured most prominently in this Book - Moses' successor and Israel's leader during the conquest of Canaan. Joshua's name means 'The Lord Saves' or 'May the Lord Save' and is appropriate for this timeline in the events of the Children of Israel.

Even though the Book of Joshua does not name who wrote it, it is surely clear that he did write parts of it. Consider Joshua 24:26

Joshua 24:26New American Standard Bible (NASB)

26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.

The Book itself, was written no earlier than 40 years post the Exodus which some have dated to 1446 BC and 45 years (1441 BC) since Caleb was sent to spy out the land from Kadesh Barnea (Joshua 14:7-10; Numbers 13). Some archaeologists consider the time of the Judges (circa 11th Century BC) as the age of the widespread destruction of Canaanite cities.