A CONCLUSION THAT BECAME AN INTRODUCTION

Judges 1:1-2:10 comprises the introduction to the Book of Judges.1

It is followed by a paradigmatic account, which recounts the pattern that each major judge, to a greater or lesser extent, follows (O’Connell 1996: 19-57). In the later nineteenth century, and for much of the twentieth century, this section of chapters 1-2 was seen as an early tradition concerning the conquest of Israel, which differed from Joshua in several respects. This is reflected, for example, in the works of the great German and British scholars, Julius Wellhausen and S.R. Driver.