 So to compensate for its absence, the Israelites counted the territory elsewhere attributed to Joseph as two territories, each with its own ancestor figure.And thus the tribal list in could omit the Simeonites and, by replacing Joseph with Ephraim and Manasseh, still include the names of 12 tribes.Kugel saw a conflict over eligibility for the priesthood between the Priestly Source (abbreviated P) in and the Deuteronomist (abbreviated D) in Kugel reported that scholars note that P spoke about "the priests, Aaron's sons," because, as far as P was concerned, the only legitimate priests descended from Aaron.