Footnote 5 – The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?

The Book of Joshua contains a highly abbreviated account: first, a short preamble (Joshua 24:2b); second, a wide-ranging historical prologue (24:2c–13); third, stipulations/commands, involving a general call for the obedience of the people (24:14–24); fourth, the deposit of the text, with Joshua writing his work “in the book of the law of God” (24:26); fifth, the setting up of a great stone at the tabernacle sanctuary as a witness (24:26–27); and last, blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, implicit in Joshua 24:20.
Compare the long narrative prologue in the Sinai Covenant and the Book of Joshua to the recently published treaty of Tudkhalia IV and Kurunta, engraved on a splendid bronze tablet (H. Otten Die Bronztafel aus Bogazkoy—Ein Staatsvertrag Tudhalijas IV [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988], pp. 10–19).