Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day. – Joshua 4:9

Today's Scripture Reading (February 8, 2022): Joshua 4

Scholars have to deal with the question of when the Biblical books were actually compiled and committed to a written form. And it is probably not a big surprise that the debate can be very lively. But part of the problem is that the drive to write something down was quite low, especially in a society with a low literacy rate. The various stories of the Bible probably survived for generations in the vibrant oral tradition of the community before someone finally decided to write them down.

When it comes to the Book of Joshua, it might have been many centuries before the stories of Joshua were committed to a written format. Most scholars seem to like to point to late in the reign of Josiah (640-609 B.C.E.) as the moment when the stories were finally written down. And that means that the book of Joshua existed in oral form only for more than 700 years. But finally, someone wrote the stories that were being passed from generation to generation down.

Of course, the length of time that they existed in oral form also means that there was a period when the text was vulnerable to changes, and some scholars are suspicious that that has happened here. The oldest portion of Joshua appears to be chapters 2 to 11; the rest of the book might describe an era of Israel at least a little later than the time of Joshua, especially when it comes to how the land was divided among the tribes. But no one knows for sure.

The key phrase indicating some time has passed between the events told in the story and the one writing the events down is the simple statement, "And they are there to this day." The phrase is so simple that we are often tempted to gloss over it. In this case, the statement speaks of the stones that Joshua had set up using rocks from the middle of the Jordan River. The phrase, made during the days of Joshua, is really not much of a surprise. After all, Joshua had set up the stones so that their children would ask about them, allowing the adults to tell the story of the miraculous crossing of the River Jordan.

But the more time that passes, the more of a miracle that this pile of stones might be. If the words were written by someone in Josiah's time, with all of the intervening conflicts, the fact that the rocks were still there might be a miracle in and of itself. It seems likely that the phrase "and they are there to this day" was added to the oral record sometime in between the time of the actual events and the writing down of those events during the days of Josiah.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Joshua 5