Book of Joshua

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The Book of Joshua (Hebrew: Sefer Y'hoshua ספר יהושע‎) is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible. This book stands as the first in the Former (or First) Prophets covering the history of Israel from the possession of the Promised Land to the Babylonian Captivity. The book of Joshua contains a history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to that of Joshua, and a description of the conquest of the land. Recent archaeological findings have raised questions over the historicity of the account.

Contents

Authorship

The Book of Joshua has been traditionally ascribed to Joshua himself by Talmudic tradition (Bava Batra 15a), medieval Jewish writers and by the Early Church Fathers. Modern scholars believe that Joshua is the work of writers from the 8th and 7th centuries BC, with retouchings from the exilic period. In terms of composition, Gerhard von Rad proposed that it continues the JE version of the torah to form a six-book compilation called the hexateuch. Thus two of the main spliced-together narrative sources within it - Jahwist (J), and Elohist (E) - or at least deriving from sources from the same schools of thought as these. An alternative view was promoted by Martin Noth who suggested that Joshua forms more of a thematic continuity with the books Deuteronomy to Kings to form a Deuteronomic history [1]. In this view, Deuteronomists detached the Joshua section of this at some later point and embedded it within the Deuteronomic history, making a number of minor edits and framing additions (mainly Joshua 1, 21:43, 22:6, and 23).[2]

Structure

The book essentially consists of three parts:

  1. The history of the conquest of the land (1-12).
  2. The allotment of the land to the different tribes, with the appointment of cities of refuge, the provision for the Levites (13-22), and the dismissal of the eastern tribes to their homes. This section has been compared to the Domesday Book of the Norman Conquest (though significantly shorter and not the work of one man).
  3. The farewell addresses of Joshua, with an account of his death (23, 24).

Summary of contents

Moses sends out twelve spies from Shittim to explore the city of Jericho. when they return only Caleb and Joshua give good reports, the other ten say the opposite. The Israelites disobeyed God and choose to listen to the ten other spies. They all took rocks and began to stone Caleb and Joshua. For Israel's punishment God made the whole generation who were born in Egypt wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Those born after the Exodus from Egypt could live and go into the Promised Land. The unfaithful Israelites who had come from Egypt would die before entering the Promised Land.

After Moses' death, Joshua, by virtue of his previous appointment as Moses' successor, received from God the command to cross the Jordan River. In execution of this order Joshua issues the requisite instructions to the stewards of the people for the crossing of the Jordan; and he reminds the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half of Manasseh of their pledge given to Moses to help their brethren.

Having re-iterated the duty to follow the mitzvah, Joshua orders the Israelites to set forth, and they leave Shittim. When they reach the Jordan River, Joshua states that the Ark will miraculously cross the Jordan. As soon as the Ark reaches the river, a miracle duly occurs, and the river stops flowing and rapidly dries up, so the priests carrying it halt, allowing the rest of the Israelites to cross as well. In commemoration of the event, Joshua orders two monuments to be erected: one in the river-bed; the other on the western bank, where the Israelites encamp.

Joshua and the Israelites crossing the Jordan

The Israelites are circumcised at Gibeath-Haaraloth (translating as hill of foreskins). Those who had been born in the desert had not been circumcised. The people are therefore circumcised, and the area is named Gilgal in memory (Gilgal sounds like Gallothi - I have removed, but is more likely to translate as circle of standing stones).

The Israelites then commence with the Battle of Jericho. Placing Jericho under siege, the Israelites circle it once a day for six days, and on the seventh make seven circuits, each time loudly blowing horns and shouting. On the final circuit, the walls cave in, and the inhabitants, except Rahab and her family, are slaughtered. A curse is pronounced against rebuilding the city.

Ai is surveyed and pronounced weak, so the Israelite army sends only a small group to attack them. However they are defeated, causing Joshua and the people to despair. But God announces that the people have sinned: someone has stolen some of the spoils from Jericho which are meant to be for the temple. Consequently the Israelites set out to discover the sinner by casting lots, whittling them down first by tribe (Judah), then clan (Zarhites), then sept (Zabdi), then finally detecting it as Achan. Achan admits having taken a costly Babylonian garment, besides silver and gold, and his confession is verified by the finding of the treasure buried in his tent, so Achan is taken into the valley of Achor, where he and his household are stoned and burned to death.

Afterwards, 30,000 Israelites set an ambush of Ai overnight, and in the morning another Israelite force attack and then feign retreat, drawing the forces of Ai far away from the city. When Joshua raises his lance, the 30,000 men preparing the ambush strike, while Joshua starts attacking again, thus surrounding Ai's forces. The entire city is burned and its inhabitants slaughtered. The king of Ai, however, is taken alive and delivered to Joshua. He is then impaled on a stake for public display before being buried outside the city gates, following Hebrew guidelines for the guilty. (see Deuteronomy 21.23).

Joshua erects an altar on Mount Ebal and makes offerings upon it and carves into it the law of Moses. The people are arranged into two sections, with one facing Ebal and the other facing Gerizim. They each read the blessings and curses specified in Deuteronomy as appropriate.

The Hivites fool the Israelites into thinking them foreigners and gain a non-aggression treaty from the Israelites. Even after its detection, the fraud is not abrogated, though the Hivites are punished by being treated as the lowest social class (referred to via the Hebrew idiom "hewers of wood and drawers of water for the altar of Yhwh").

An 1883 depiction of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still in the sky.

Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, brings about an alliance of the "five kings of the Amorites" (the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, and himself), and they besiege the Hivites in Gibeon, whom they perceive as traitors. The Hivites implore Joshua's help, and so he launches a surprise attack following a night march, causing the Amorites to panic and flee as far as Beth-horon. A poem is quoted from the Book of Jasher, which states that the sun stood still at Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, in order that Joshua could complete the battle. Despite the five kings' cowardly attempt at avoiding retribution by hiding inside a cave, they are discovered and trapped there until their army has been completely obliterated. Afterwards, the kings are brought to Joshua, who first humiliates them, then orders their death and has them impaled for public display. At sunset, the bodies are thrown back into the cave from which they hid, and the entrance sealed.

Jabin, king of Hazor, his army, and his vassals, rendezvous at Merom. Joshua, however, executes a swift attack and is able to defeat them. Pursuing them to a great distance, he hamstrings their horses, burns their chariots, captures Hazor, slaughters its inhabitants, and burns it to the ground. Lesser royal residences are also captured and their inhabitants slaughtered, although the cities on the hill remain.

Historicity

Archaeological evidence has largely disproved the historical nature of the Israelite's complete and total conquest of Canaan.[3][4][5][6][7] Archaeologists have found that the timing of the overthrow of the two cities Lachish and Hazor does not support the biblical account of a single general(Joshua) leading campaigns against both cities(Josh. 10:31-32; 11:10-11). Hazor was razed around 1250 BCE, a full century before the destruction of Lachish.[8][9] Other cities that play key roles in the conquest narratives, Jericho, Ai, Hormah, Arad, Jarmuth, Heshbon and Gibeon were not occupied during the early Iron Age(thirteenth century BCE), roughly the period when the Israelites arose in the land. Most of these sites suffered destruction in the Middle Bronze Age or earlier, hundreds of years before the Israelites came on the scene. [10]The time periods involved in the destruction layers of the cities overlap the campaigns of the Sea Peoples (who consistently burnt rich cities to the ground, even if they intended to later settle on the ruins), and the currently unexplained general late Bronze Age collapse of civilisation in the whole eastern Mediterranean; it is far more plausible, from the point of view of an increasing majority of archaeologists, for these causes to have been responsible for the destruction of the cities, rather than an invasion of Israelites lasting only about five years.[11] The cities Megiddo, Beth Shan, Gezer did suffer destruction during the thirteenth century BCE, but the biblical record states that the Israelites could not drive out the inhabitants of these lands(Judges 1, Josh. 16:10).[10]

In addition, since archaeological remains show a smooth cultural continuity in this period, rather than the destruction of one culture (Canaanite) and replacement by another (Israelite), a large body of archaeologists believe that the Israelites were simply an emergent subculture within Canaanite society — i.e. that an Israelite conquest would be a logical nonsense — it would have involved the Canaanites invading themselves, from Canaan.[12] From the point of view of critical Biblical scholars, it is more plausible that the author(s) of Joshua combined a series of independent traditions about battles and destruction of various cities at differing times, in order to create a nationalistic narrative that could dovetail neatly with the tradition of an exodus from Egypt.[13]

Book of Judges

Many scholars see a fundamental contradiction between the stories of conquest in Joshua and Judges 1. According to Joshua 10:29-40; 11:14-23; 12:7-8; 21:43-45, Canaan was conquered in a full scale national war and subsequently divided among the tribes in Joshua's lifetime(Joshua 10:40;11:14-23;21:43-45). According to Judges 1, however, only part of the country was conquered "after the death of Joshua"(Judges 1:1) and that in separate tribal wars. [14] Scholars traditionally have given more credence to the Judges account in part because the critical analyses of the book point to a more complex stratigraphic layering of the textual source materials.[6]

Opposing views

Some writers have defended the historicity of the book's account[15][16][17]. König, for example, suggests that earlier passages (such as Joshua 11) from the JE source suggesting a sudden, complete conquest may be "natural hyperboles". More recently, Younger has compared the accounts of the conquest in Joshua 9-12 to other Near Eastern texts with descriptions of conquests which he argues uses similar hyperbole [18]. Proponents of this view suggest that the later passages containing lists of unconquered territories within the areas alloted to the tribes of Israel (eg. Joshua 18:3) are more historically balanced and compiled by the same Deuteronomist redacter as Judges.

Ethical issues

One difficulty arises out of the numerous commands from God recorded in the book for the Israelites to destroy people and animals in the land that they are occupying. This is related to the concept of cherem (set apart for God, or set under a ban) in which entire cities (such as Jericho; see Joshua 6:17-19) are recorded as commanded to be devoted to destruction.

Some theologians (including many adherents of liberal theology) see this as an ethically unjustifiable order to commit genocide, which is inconsistent with the overall view in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures of God as a loving, compassionate Creator. They see it as a theological polemic, with the majority of events invented during or after the Babylonian captivity, to encourage faithfulness to the Jewish creed at a time when it was being threatened. For instance, Morton says that Joshua "should be understood as a rite of ancient peoples (Israel among them) whereby within the context of their times, they attempted to please their God (or the gods)".[19]

Others, including many conservative theologians, see the book as a historically accurate account written during or soon after the life of Joshua, explain the cruelty of the Israelites as God's way of making an example of nations that engaged in abhorrent practices. Although the book gives no explicit justification is given in the book for the commands to kill, Deuteronomy 9:4 indicates that this is on account of the "wickedness of those nations". Some theologians have pointed to evidence of practices such as child sacrifice, although others argue that it may have been polemic invented at a later date in order to justify the act of extermination [20]. Hence they believe that the message of Joshua was intended not only for the surrounding nations, but for the Israelites as well (e.g. the stoning of Achan due to his transgression of the herem).

An alternative viewpoint is to cite progressive revelation in which God reveals himself partially to Joshua and the Jews, but (in due time) fully through Jesus Christ [21]. Proponents of this view argue that the description of war in the book of Joshua was culturally conditioned. For instance, Chapman suggests that the accounts of war and genocide are "the gradual process by which God works in the history of a particular people for whom war is an essential part of religion and culture" [22]. The Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder suggests that the concept of cherem was unique in relation to the morality of the time not in its violence, but in ensuring that "war does not become a source of immediate enrichment through plunder" [23], and hence was the beginning of a trajectory that would lead ultimately to the teaching of nonviolence.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ John van Seters (2006), The edited Bible: the curious history of the "editor" in biblical criticims, pp. 260-269
  2. ↑ Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, R. K. Harrison and Thomas Nelson Publishers, “Joshua, Book of,” in, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Rev. Ed. of: Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary.; Includes Index. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995).
  3. ↑ Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? William G. Dever, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006
  4. ↑ The biblical world, Volume 2, John Barton, 45
  5. ↑ How to read the Bible, Marc Zvi Brettler, pp. 95-99
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Biblical peoples and ethnicity: an archaeological study of Egyptians, Ann E. Killebrew, pp. 152-154
  7. ↑ The Oxford guide to people and places of the Bible, Bruce M. Metzger, Michael Coogan, P. Kyle McCarter, p. 39
  8. ↑ Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, Carolyn Pressler, pp. 74-75
  9. ↑ According to Joshua 14:7-10;10:40;21:43-45, it took Joshua five years to conquer the whole land of Canaan
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, p. 166
  11. ↑ Israel Finkelstein, The Bible Unearthed
  12. ↑ ibid
  13. ↑ Sturgis, Matthew (2001). It Ain't Necessarily So. Headline Publishing Group. ISBN 0747245061. 
  14. ↑ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, p. 1136
  15. ↑ E. König, "Judges, Book of," in: A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings, 1898
  16. ↑ Kaufmann, Yehezkel (1953). The biblical account of the conquest of Canaan. Magnes Press. 
  17. ↑ orr, James (1906). The Problem of the Old Testament Considered with Reference to Recent Criticism. Charles Scribner. 
  18. ↑ K. Lawson Younger Jr. (1990). Ancient Conquest Accounts. A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing. JSOT Supplement 98.
  19. ↑ Morton, pp. 324-325
  20. ↑ John, Day (2002). Yahweh and the gods and goddesses of Canaan. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 1-85075-986-3. 
  21. ↑ Dodd, C.H. (1952). The authority of the bible. Nisbet & Co.. 
  22. ↑ Colin Chapman, "Holy War", in Zondervan Handbook to the Bible (1999), ed. David Alexander
  23. ↑ Yoder, John Howard. (1971). "If Abraham Is Our Father." In The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism. Wipf and Stock.

References

External links

Translations

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain. This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

Preceded by
Deuteronomy		 Hebrew Bible Followed by
Judges
Christian Old Testament