It seems probable that the older written authorities underlying this Primitive or Prophetic narrative were drawn up not later than 750 B.C., and perhaps even a century earlier; they themselves in their turn being founded on writings like ‘the book of the Wars of the Lord,’ and ‘the book of Jasher,’ as well as on traditions handed down from generation to generation in the tribes of Israel. The early prophets make frequent and confident appeals to events of past history and to promises of God to the