Theological Considerations shape the
Composition of the Book of Joshua
The concept of an eternal
covenant with God is central to Hebrew theology. According to the narrative, God
granted land of Israel to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah
and Rachel, and to their descendants. In the Book of Joshua, theological
concerns are enmeshed with inseparable notions of “history” in a nationalistically
tendentious narrative whose very existence is evidence pointing to an ancient
Israel.[1] However, some historians like Maxwell Miller
suggest that ancient “Israel” may never have existed in historical Time and Place.[2]
The authors and redactors
of the ancient text did not have access to the abundant but fractious epigraphical,
sociological and archeological evidence which is now, perhaps wasted, on us.
The book itself may have been an essay designed to replace “old biases and ideologies”
such as we see being written today to displace it.[3]
The text gives us the
opportunity to assess the theological perspectives in a narrative that presents
an interpretation of “history” designed to reflect the author’s understanding
of divine purpose.[4] Professor Sweeney suggests that author of
narration presents story to enhance reflection.
For example, in providing dueling accounts of Israel’s history to
“debate with each other”.[5] In turn, this reflection
on the past is a tool for building a better future.[6] This is the signed sacred
purpose of “shaping” of text we continue to indulge.
Making Better People with Better Gods
The theology of Joshua is
problematic in that a peaceful tribal occupation of a Promised Land of “milk
and honey” simply never occurs. The text itself describes the entry, conquest,
and a land “at rest”, but Joshua never describes a productive land supporting
easy life. The region is located in a relatively dry and heavily-trafficked commercial
corridor, at a cross-road. It is constantly invaded by armies and traders from
much more powerful and populous neighbors. Even as the People unite, nationalize,
and create special institutions, gradually adopting forms of governance and
protection as “Israel”, their state suffers almost constant and serious
disruption.
At the outset, Israel was
united around a theological idea: God
made a Covenant with Humans, and by following The Law, the People fulfill the
Covenant. Then, Israel and its Temple were destroyed. The Tablets and the Ark
disappear, and remain “unto this day” never recovered[7]. Did the destruction impact the theology? Can
the unifying effect of the theology preserve the People even after the loss of
Israel and the Temple? Is the theology
itself, and the Deity at the heart of it, revealed to be flawed or absent in
light of failure or error? The reality of evil and exile raise legitimate
concerns about the power of G-d, and “the Former Prophets constitute an
expression of theodicy”.[8]
Joshua himself faced the dilemma of
theodicy. Having just conquered the
Canaanites, slaughtering entire cities in order to fulfill the Covenant, he
asks the People, “does it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord”? (24:15) To be
given “land for which ye did not labor, and cities which ye built not, and ye
dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not, do ye
eat?” (24:13).
So it is Joshua himself
challenging the People. He asks them if
the outcome feels fair. In light of what
has happened, does G-d seem evil? In his
final exhortation to the People, and while engraving the words describing the
fulfillment of the Covenant by G-d on a great stone (24:24), Joshua underlines
a theological question of theodicy.
This Essay explores this
fundamental theological debacle as it is dealt with by the redactors in the
book of Joshua. The issue touches upon
why people write history. To their credit, the Hebrews were among the first to
do so.[9]
Disruption
and Diaspora
By 720 BCE, the northern
kingdom of Israel was annihilated. All 10 tribes of Israel were destroyed by the
Assyrian Empire. Survivors were enslaved
and exiled in most cases never to return.
Some were taken in by the Kingdom of Judah to the South.
Subsequently, the
remaining Kingdom of Judah was also destroyed, this time by the Babylonian
Empire. The city of Jerusalem, with
Solomon’s Temple, was destroyed. This
began what is known as the Babylonian Exile, in 587-586 BCE.
The surviving Jews were removed
to Babylonia, and many also fled to neighboring regions across the world. This is known as the Diaspora. Perhaps largely because of their reliance upon
a Scriptural legacy, some of the people were able to remain intact. We know that in turn, the Babylonian Empire
was conquered by the Persians. King
Cyrus, the first ruler of a truly amalgamated empire, was remarkably tolerant
of religious practices. He expressly
provided for the return of the captive Jews to their legacy land. Many Jews returned to the land of Israel and Josiah
and Ezra led the rebuilding of the Temple. This Exile/Return period is roughly
when Joshua was compiled and written. Even before Deuteronomy was “found” by
Josiah in the rebuilt Temple. The rebuilders were again turning to Scripture.
While subsequent tragedies
endured by the Jews are not recorded, or prophesied, in Joshua, we note for
perspective that the Promised Land did not hold anyone safe. No single tribe of people have perdured in
the region – and all of their powerful neighbors in what we call the Iron Age,
are extinct. Until a few decades ago, the Hittites were regarded as just one of
the minor tribes occupying Palestine.[10] Egyptians, became racially
and culturally extinct. Egypt is now populated by Semites. The Jews themselves
saw the destruction of the second Temple at the hand of Rome, expulsion and
massacre in Spain at the hands of Islam, Christianity, and other Jews, and
pogroms in Russia. The Khmel’nitsky massacres in Poland 1648,[11] the Shoah in the midst of
the most educated and modern nation of the world in the 20th
century, and the current assaults on Israel, continue the theological “problem”
faced by the Joshua narrative.[12]
The writing of history by
Joshua (by the Redactor-compiler writing in the name of the former Prophet) is
one instance of that struggle.
The
Book of Joshua recalls the Theology of Deuteronomy
Joshua is the first of
the 12 books often called “Histories”.
Of these, Joshua shares with the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, a
relatively consistent literary style and theological framework. These four
books are collectively referred to as the “Former Prophets” based on the
tradition that maintains they were composed by the early Prophets. And because the theological framework
appears to be based largely on the laws of the book of Deuteronomy, and present
a narrative history of the nation of Israel, modern scholars call these four books
the Deuteronomistic history.[13]
While the discernible theological
concerns raised in the Joshua narrative, are literally legion, they include the
following basic fundamentals of Judaic monotheism:
·
Worship of one invisible god “Hear, Oh Israel,
the Lord our G-d, is one Lord.” Deuteronomy 6:4 .
·
The notion of having no other gods – and
no images -- before Him.
·
The idea of a Temple, or worship in one
place, with a Priesthood. Deuteronomy 12,
does not actually name a particular place, but Joshua gathers the people in a
Tabernacle at Shiloh. 18:1. The Levites are the priests (18:7) with Levitical support
cities taken by lot from the other tribes (21:1-41). Jerusalem is yet inhabited
by Jebusites.
·
The idea of a “chosen people”. To some
degree this is reflected in marriage regulations. (Deut 7:3, repeated Josh 23:12).[14] Miscengeny is repeatedly denounced with the
rationale that foreign women introduce the tribe to the worship of other gods.[15]
·
The idea of the People as a nation led by
an anointed Authority who will read the Torah daily. Joshua, for example, published
the laws on stone, and read aloud. [16]
·
The study of the Torah supervised by the Levitical
priest.
·
Covenant of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy
30:1-9, with the concept of its fulfillment in the conquests led by Joshua.[17] (Joshua 11:15)
·
The idea that G-d will punish Israel and
Judah for failing to observe Torah and worshiping other gods.[18]
·
The Torah is important as a means to learn
and build a better future.[19]
The
Book of Joshua; the Synchronic Signs and Wonders
The Lord spake directly
to Joshua, informing him that “Moses my servant is dead.” Moses was apparently taken
and buried by the Lord himself in the land of Moab where “no man knoweth of his
sepulcher”. (Deuteronomy34:6). The Lord
commands Joshua to “arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people” to
land He again promises to have given to them all.[20] (Joshua 1:2). The Lord does not entitle or commission
Joshua. The Lord does tell Joshua that “there shall not be any man able to
stand before thee” (Joshua 1:5)– no doubt a comforting assurance of
invincibility in light of his charge.
The assembled people then
swear that whoever fails to obey Joshua, “will be put to death”. (1:18). There
is no suggestion of an After-life, or going back to the other side of the
Jordan. No one promises heaven or threatens hell. What we have here is a
military campaign. A single conviction that Israel is a people of great
destiny, in a special land already given, but now necessary to take by force. The slaughter is directly enabled and assisted
by divine powers. These “signs and wonders” have to be considered “theological”
signatures, and many of them reflect other Semitic (Baal-Ishtar) and Egyptian
contemporaneous cult descriptions of conquest.
By direct G-d-to-Prophet commands
a Theocracy is continued which started with Moses. The Book of Law is clearly provided to guide
the designated leader (1:8). Joshua was
not Moses’ first-born, or even son, but had a long an intimate relationship
with him. He becomes a singular heroic figure in that he hews closely to G-d’s
direct instructions. This itself is one of the miracles – an otherwise unlikely
and uncorroborated event.
A theological point is
made as the book begins with G-d speaking to Joshua. The Law is the Mosaic law
divinely-sourced in Sinai at the foot of which Joshua waited for Moses to
return. An “eerie” theological quality is maintained
through a series of divinely enabled seizures of cities with the help of an
army of angels. The army of angels is
led by a “captain of the host of the Lord” who required Joshua to “loose thy
shoe from off thy foot”. (5:15).[21] The Jordan River is pushed apart by the ark of
the covenant. (3:16; compare the Dead Sea episode, Exod 12:1-27, with both
celebrated in ritual Passover feast).
The synchronic literary
structure is a narrative of the People’s entry into the land, the conquest of
cities and annihilation of the inhabitants, and the distribution of land and
booty to the tribes of Israel. This is, however, not mere history, or merely
history. An understanding of the “divine purpose” pulls the reader/listener
into reflection on what can be learned “to build a better future.”[22] The miracles invoke prior
patterns the audience probably knows about – they are reprised in the narrative
and briefly and without the thrilling drama, here:
·
Waters part for the passage of the people on
dry land behind the Ark – Ch.4.
·
A final dropping of Manna for collection
is made – Ch.5.
·
Ritual circumambulation and trumpets cause
the walls of Jericho to tumble – Ch.6.
·
As Moses had stretched out his rod to
enable Joshua to prevail over the Amelikites (Exo17:8-16), now the Lord tells
Joshua to raise his spear, and he does not draw back the spear until all of Ai
is destroyed. (Joshua 8:18, 26).
·
In a great battle with Five Kings, giant
hail-stones cast down from heaven kill more mighty men of valor among their
number than who died by the sword of the children of Israel. (10:5, 11:11)
·
The sun “stood still in the midst of
heaven”, and the Moon as well, to give the Israelites more time to kill more
Amorites as they fled their ruined cities. (10:13)
·
Joshua was able to smite enemies from the
hills of Hebron all the way down through Kadesh,[23] to Goshen,[24] and out to Gaza and
Gibeon “none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed”. (10:41) “There was no day like that before or
after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man; for the Lord fought
for Israel.” (10:14).[25]
·
By the waters of Merom, Joshua met the
hosts of the enemy, numbering “as the sand is upon the seashore” with “horses
and chariots very many”, and fell upon them and smote them.
·
The remnant of the giants of Ashtaroth
were smote. (12:4; Num 21:24)
In Joshua, the miraculous
“signs and wonders” are attestations of a powerful divinity. These are
theological values expressed in the choice of an idealistic path. The unity of the nation in an unstable land
is idealism coupled with realism. This
early Judaic theology led the nations of the region in the use of religion to maintain
unity – no other nation had a priesthood devoted to teaching everybody, from
Scripture, and including women and children.
We also find in Joshua, that Scripture is pointed to the development of
individual character.[26]
With our double-hindsight
(the redactor is looking back to earlier times, and we look back at the
redactor), we can observe that the path is problematic. We see this as the inhabitants are
annihilated – the Israelites conquer the native Canaanites and “giants”, with the
help of an angelic army. We seen them
waste everything – an army which “utterly destroyed all that was in the city,
both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of
the sword.” (1:11 citing Jericho as one example). We never see or find the land of “milk and
honey”. (5:6) And the occupation never reaches the promised extent. (1:4). And then the very brief exuberance of Joshua
ends up with the Diaspora.
The Diachronic Analysis of the Conquest
of Canaan
The account of the
clearing of “all” would be sickening except for one thing: It did not happen; it could not have taken
place. The cities supposedly destroyed
by Joshua had already become ruins – visible ruins – by the Iron Age. The region had been contested by the Hittites
and Egyptians until their famous “Peace Treaty” in 1296 BCE.[27] and
the Hyksos swept through and conquered Egypt.
The Sea Peoples plundered cities along the Levant, burning what they
could not take away in plunder.
The narrative itself
seems to acknowledge that the Hebrew/Israelites are still using stone knives –
the circumcision of the men is not done with steel. Egypt did not even have
much iron. The iron came from the Hittites, and the text seems to acknowledge
that the “iron chariots” were formidable to the Israelites. (17:16).[28]
Perhaps the redactors are
using the narrative to “explain” the ruins, to a credible audience who needs to
rebuild national pride. Clearly most of the events appear to be an indulgence
in theology at the expense of history which has never been important to most
people. Theology has truths of its own. This
is an account of a freshly-circumcised bloody generation who are handed the
Promised Land by their powerful G-d, seen to prevail over all others. They are the sealed witnesses to spectacular
Signs and Wonders. The narration warns,
and gives examples of the consequences of refusal to obey the Torah. The narration forms an immediate and
inexplicable record that People, and their leaders, should not do the things
that will forfeit their legacy.
The book of Joshua describes
the conquest of the land of Canaan, led by Joshua following the death of Moses. The portrayal is one of complete conquest of
the land in a number of very quick, clever, and divinely-assisted campaigns. For example, colorful chapters are devoted to
the siege of Jericho and the collapse of its massive walls, on the 7th
day after ritual blowing of shofars.
Professor Sweeney notes that archeological evidence has established that
“Jericho did see its walls collapse”.
However, the desolation “happened by Earthquake, and in 2300 BCE,
roughly a thousand years before Joshua.” The assault team of trumpeters had not
yet arrived.[29]
Before the host has even
crossed over the Jordan, Joshua sent two spies into Jericho. The undercover
agents immediately go to a house of prostitution (2:1).[30] By giving aid, information, and protection to
the spies, the harlot, “named Rahab”, saves herself and her family from the
total destruction Israel brings to Jericho. (2:1-28) And she is allowed to live
as part of Israel, although the rumor that she bears children by Joshua, who
never marries, is not in the canonical text. The story, with other examples,
raise the question of to what extent should Canaanites be recognized, and is it
possible that they present a threat to Israel or its “religious integrity”? [31]
The
conquest of AI, is described. Curiously,
36 Israelites are killed in the first assault, apparently for the sole reason
that a single man had embezzled for himself a small portion of the treasure
looted from the enemy. He was found and executed
for his crime of desecration of the loot, and on the second assault, the city
was taken without casualties. Again, as with every single one of the military
assaults, there are issues with the facts.
Archaeology on the site shows that from 1550 BCE Ai, was already a known
ruin in the area. The word means “ruin”
all the way to 1200. Ai was what its
name suggests. Did the redactor not know
what the name meant?
Relations with the
Canaanites are also discrepant. Gibeonites
came to the camp in disguises, pretending to be sojourners from far-off places.
They conclude a treaty which preserves safe, what? Their city! In spite of the transparently naked
deception, the tribe abides by its word – and made war on the enemies of their
Canaanite allies, including Jerusalem and cities in the South. Lachmish and others fell to Israel, but the Gibeonites
were left intact “to serve us as Canaanites”.
By the end of chapters 11
and 12 we have statements by Joshua that Israel controls all the land of Israel. The metes and bound are completely
omitted. However, Joshua apportions the
land to each tribe. He gathers Israel at
Shechem and reminds everyone of the obligation to observe the Law and Torah. His death is dramatically recounted, and
although G-d does not bury him in a hidden sepulcher, the end is compared to,
the death of Moses.
In his farewell address, Joshua
declares that G-d had fulfilled His promise: “And the Lord gave unto Israel all
the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and
dwelt therein.”[32]
However, the land had been inhabited by others from the outset, and was still
not purged of other peoples, other races, and other gods. Joshua clearly raises issues of whether the
delivery of the Promised Land was fulfilled in the first place – there were
still Canaanites in the land (15:10, 17:12, Jebusites in Jerusalem 15:63), and
even giants (17:15), and “strangers that were conversant among them” (8:35). Even
worse, the schismatic altar of Reuben and Gad within the tribes themselves
(Joshua, Chapter 22), raised the prospect of civil war. The daughters of Mannaseh receiving
inheritance while no other daughters’ rights were recognized (17:6), and the
difficulties of dividing the inheritance “by lots” (18:10) – a distribution by
chance – also raises questions of justice, which is always a theological
issue. The role of the Levites, left out
of the land distribution, but getting a monopoly on ritual practices. This creates a tribal birthright class
division. This also distinguished Judah from Northern Israel, which did not
defer to the Levites.
Joshua has a military and even legalist manner of
thinking. He is not just a commander, but an exponent of “the laws of Moses”. As
Joshua’s story and legacy is considered, the redactors are clearly asking
themselves if the subsequent Exile was punishment for failure to obey the law? Even more sobering, it is difficult to find an
example of a powerful protective deity in the sequence of putative conquests of
ruins.
The Message that G-d did not Fail the
People
The Book of Joshua
presents a narrative of the fulfillment, by a Deity, of the Covenant. Yet the
narrative also reveals, even invites, consideration and challenge. For example, the fact of Exile and the
absence of the Temple infer the possibility that G-d has failed, or has
abandoned Israel. The answer from a “historical”
or even legal “causation” perspective, is clearly that God failed the
People. There is simply no evidence that
God ever performed the Promise to provide the Promised Land. After all, a grasp
of causality is a mark of legal thinking. If the People never have a secure
homeland, is their conduct even relevant?
Joshua makes clear –
explicitly – that God did not fail the People, rather, the answer in Joshua is
that the People failed God. And it is also drawn surgically to exclude the
possibility that members of the Priesthood are responsible. Is a single Priest, or even a single member
of the tribe of Levi found to be careless, or to neglect the Temple duties? The
account carefully documents the performance of liturgical duties – bearing the
ark, circumcision, celebration of Passover at Gilgal (5, 6), purification by
stoning the entire family and animals for Achan’s theft of looted booty.
(Joshua 7).
In light of, and in spite
of, the historical issues, it is important to understand why this narrative is
written as it is. Joshua is the first
leader who led the wanderers into Israel as the land of the Covenant. We know these people existed from the “Israel
stele” of Mernephtah.[33] This Pharaoh reigned
1224-1216 BCE. The stele is the first place
we find Israel mentioned outside of the Torah, historically. So Israel is in
the land 1200 BCE. And we find corroboration in Egyptian records of cities
named in Joshua.[34]
Pottery and shards from kitchen middens
and ruins can be dated and chronologically profiled.[35]
The Amarna letters written in the middle 1300s
BCE will see how those letters discuss how people called the “habiru”--
barbarians – were moving into the land.[36] The archaeological record
of the land of Israel reveals that there never was a full conquest of the
entire land. What you see is gradual
migration and borderline conflict often divided between the hill country of
what is now the West Bank and the low-lying coastal plain areas where we now
find Tel Aviv, Yaffa, Ashkalom and the Valley in northern Israel that divides
the hill country of northern Israel from the hill country of the Galilee. In addition, we find conflict between the
people of the Hills and the fortified coastal plain. This tells us that the Habiru settled the
hill country and people called the Sea Peoples, pushed out of the Aegean by Hellenes
who were going down the coast. They threatened Egypt in the time of Ramses III.[37] The Sea Peoples – Greeks – also penetrated Asia
Minor and completely destroyed the Hittite Empire.
Getting back to the
Joshua theology, it is idealistic, and militant, but it stays focused on the
message that G-d made a covenant and kept His word. G-d granted Israel the land
of Canaan, with very few casualties, thanks to an army of angels, an angel
captain, and a righteous spokesman leading the sacrifices and battles. The text is formed to show that G-d keeps his
end of the covenant.
The role of Other Gods and Canaanites
The conquest narrative
contains an important “twist”. Not only are the Canaanites not completely
destroyed, but they turn out to play a key role in the examination of what
prompted Israel to turn to “other gods”.
That would be a trigger to a jealous G-d. Professor Sweeney suggests that the presence
of Canaanites turns Israel to their gods, and “thereby bringing about divine
punishment culminating in the Babylonian exile.”[38]
Professor Sweeney
proposes at least four factors support this conclusion.[39] First, archeological
surveys confirm conflict in the land, but no evidence of a settled Canaanite
population destroyed within Israel. The conflicts are between coastal and
interior people, and hill and valley people. Secondly, the major cities Joshua
destroyed, were already ruins roughly a thousand years earlier. Jericho, Ai,
Gibeon and Hazar diachronic and archeological studies do not support the
narrative. Thirdly, the narrative focuses on a covenant that calls upon all
Israel, “indigenous and resident alien alike” to assemble at Shechem. This is
the site referred to in the Amarna Letters by the Kings of Megiddo and
Jerusalem trying to get Pharaoh to “send archers”. However, it was never
destroyed in the Iron Age, and continued to serve as a focal point, a central
and even sacred location, for Israel’s national identity. This reveals a
polemical in that it seeks to expose “sins” committed by Jeroboam and northern
Israel that explain their demise as punishment from an all-powerful JHWY in
keeping with the covenant ceremonies enacted by Joshua at Shechem. This polemic
also points to the fourth factor which must be considered, and that is, the
Judean perspective of the Book of Joshua. City names, and lineages, show a
Judean interest or perspective in the narrative. Another example is that Joshua
points out that the Judeans were unable to conquer Jerusalem, and that Joshua
himself is modeled on the Judean King Josiah, who is possibly the author. Part of the theological concern is looking
for heroic figures to serve as “ideal monarchs”, which Josiah would like to
have been.
One conclusion one can
draw from this four factor analysis is to simply accept the reality that Israel
never wiped out the indigenous Canaanite culture, and of course, never
displaced anyone. As professor Sweeney puts it “Israel/Judah grew out of that
very same Canaanite culture to develop a very distinctive understanding of
themselves as a nation”.[40]
Joshua is not a call to
destroy Canaanites. Clearly Israel descended from those very people. Joshua is
addressed to Israelites to assert their Israelite identities adhere to the
Torah as the basis for life, and to reunify the nation as it was unified in the
days of Joshua.
Conclusion and Reprise on the Judges
Contemporizing the
question requires us to ask if there is or has been a punishing God who was, or
is, “policing” the Covenant. Worshiping
one God – simply avoiding the graven images and temples of other competing
gods, does not seem difficult.
Conducting group prayers and recitations in a Temple is consoling and
does not take great exertion. If the deity has a track record of powerful
protection and abundant provision, the demand for exclusive worship is not onerous
and becomes obvious. We fall on our
faces in worship.
Some may argue that the
Deuteronomistic theology in Joshua is conditional: If Torah is not observed, then the People are
expelled from the Promised Land. The
relationship is over. But Deuteronomy
contains “saving clauses”. Deuteronomy
28 and 30, start out with conditions but then clearly state a redemption
opportunity: When the People repent, God
“will restore you to the land.”
This dynamic of
Covenant-violation-redemption-restoration becomes one of the major issues for Jewish
thinking throughout history, and is itself drawn from the book of Joshua, as
well as Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
This Essay only undertook
to explore Joshua, but by way of final contrast, the book of Judges shows a
very different picture. The Israelites
rely on their Judges. In Northern
Israel, they start going after foreign gods. We see an almost certainly
fictional emergence of a Golden Calf cult. It is striking to note real problems
in Northern Israel, and not so much in Judah. This is a polemic, already
referred to above between Northern Israel and Judah, in the book of Judges
against the Joshua assurance.
Bibliography
Ceram, C.W. The Secret of the Hittites; Discovery
of an Ancient Empire. New York, NY: Dorset Press, 1956.
“Dictionary of the
Bible.” Keylawk Library, 1963.
https://www.librarycat.org/lib/keylawk/item/134639122.
McKenzie, Steven L., and
Stephen R. Haynes, eds. To Each Its Own Meaning; an Introduction to Biblical
Criticisms and Their Application. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1999.
Pritchard, James B., and
Daniel E. Fleming, eds. The Ancient Near East; an Anthology of Texts and
Pictures. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Roskies, David G. Against
the Apocalypse; Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. New
York, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999.
Scofield, D. D., Rev. C.
I., ed. The Holy Bible; Containing the Old and New Testaments. New and
Improved. Scofield Facsimile Series No. 2. New York: Oxford University Press,
n.d.
Sweeney, Marvin A. Tanak:
A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible, 2011.
http://www.librarything.com/work/12075940/edit/133767278.
[1] McKenzie and Haynes, To Each Its Own
Meaning, 21–22.
[2] Ibid., 30, listing alternative views and eight sociopolitical
circumstances far short of a great Kingdom, but from which the local Saul-David monarchy, may
eventually emerge.
[3] Ibid., 32.
[4] Sweeney, Tanak, 172, 1st sentence
of 1st paragraph.
[5] Ibid., 172–173, quoting end of 1st
paragraph on 173.
[6] Ibid., 177. “In all cases, the reflectio on history evident
in the Former Prophets, in all of its postulated stages, represents the effort
to learn from that history in order to learn from the experience of the past
and to build a better future.”
[7]
Objects valuable to one people are often sought after for eradication by
other people, perhaps especially if “sacred”. Examples are myriad. Almost all evidence of the Hittite Empire was
lost and would perhaps have remained unknown but for the references in Hebrew
Scripture. We note here that the Josiatic author(s) use of the phrase “unto
this day' suggests that the events that it recounts took place some time before
they were recorded.
[8] Sweeney, Tanak, 172.
[9] To
place the Redactors and compilers in perspective, Herodotus of Halicarnassus
(484 BCE – ca.425 BCE) is generally acclaimed as the "father of
history" composing his Histories from the 450s to the 420s BCE. Some
scholars argue that his work was “scrupulous, objective, and scientific for his
time”, although much of it is filled with fanciful creatures. He traveled
throughout the world, writing “autopsies” and polemics against the Persian
Empire.
[10] Ceram, The Secret of the Hittites;
Discovery of an Ancient Empire, 24.This understanding was in fact
drawn from the description in Joshua 3:10.
[11] Roskies, Against the Apocalypse;
Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture, 41–43 noting before and
after persecutions
throughout the entire region. The author notes the extremeties of survival into
which Jews and Gypsies were thrown, the former struggling to acquire learned
professions, the latter acquiring carnival skills, while both sought mastery of
musical instruments.
[12]
Professor Sweeney, video lecture 10/4/2016: “Jews constantly struggle with God,
like Jacob wrestling with God, to try to understand.”
[13] Sweeney, Tanak, 171. Crediting Noth’s
contributions at 174, and later interpreters at 175-176.
[14]
The prohibition is a constant leitmotif constantly ignored. The Patriarchs
themselves are miscegenists, and like the Egyptians, also indulged in close
family marriages. Abraham married his ½ sister Sarah. Isaac married his cousin
Rebekah, who was also from the line of Terah, a Chaldean who migrated to Herra (Gen
11:24-ff)., one of the main centers of perduring and prosperous Ishtar-Baal
idol worship. Moses married Zipporah, a Midian.
It is
not surprising that foreigners constantly appear in the stories – Tamar
(Genesis 38), Rahab (Joshua 2:1), and Ruth. The “Hebiru” are a mixed people—and
“strangers are conversant among them” (Joshua 8:35). The tribes may even have
spoken different languages at this time. Moses needed an “interpreter”.
[15] Joshua’s final exhortation contains a much
broader prohibition than merely against miscegeny. It advises all not to come
among any others. “If you cleave unto the remnant of these nations…and go in
unto them and they unto you”, then “they shall be snares and traps unto you,
and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off
this good land which the Lord your God hath given you”. Josh 23:7-13.
[16] Scofield, D. D., The Holy Bible,
268; Joshua 8:34-35.”And afterward he read all the words of the law,
the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the
law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not
before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and
the strangers that were conversant among them.” These verses are the door taken
by Unitarian Universalist evangels to include themselves amog the Chosen, who
are clearly all “conversant” humanity.
[17] Ibid., 284–285; Joshua 23:15. 24:13.
[18] Sweeney, Tanak, 172. Deuteronomy 6:15: “For the
Lord thy G-d is a jealous god among you, lest the anger of the Lord thy G-d be
kindled against thee, and destroy thee from the face of the earth.” Joshua
23:11-16; 24:19-20. Apparently, in Joshua’s last days, he noticed the people
still had “strange gods among you”. Joshua 24:23.
[19] Ibid.,
172, 177.
[20] Scofield, D. D., The Holy Bible,
Joshua 1:3-4.
The Promised Land is described as: “Every place that the sole of your foot
shall tread upon…” apparently inferring a law of appropriation. It goes on: “From the wilderness and this
Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the
Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be
your coast.” This is the entire Middle
East and Asia Minor.
[21]
Removal of shoes is an attribute of Holy Ground. Literalists, in compliance
with this command, have been fighting barefoot ever since; that may be why
there are no more of them.
[22] Sweeney, Tanak, 172.
[23] “Dictionary of the Bible,” 546; Kadesh
plays “a significant role” during the Exodus. Joshua led the war against
Amalek over this place. (Ex 17:8). It is
the site of the greatest chariot battle in history, between the Hittites and
Egyptians, in 1296 BCE. The Battle set the stage for the world’s first world-changing
Peace Treaty and a global shift in religious theologies, with the exchange of
princesses in marriage. Ceram, C.W. The
Secret of the Hittites; Discovery of an Ancient Empire.
[24]
Goshen is the region in the delta of Egypt where these People had been slaves
of the Egyptian. Gen 45:10; the reference may be to a never-identified area
closer, in Judah perhaps. Would the Israelis name a village after the region of
their enslavement? Compare Joshua 10:41 and 11:16. The “land of Goshen” is
taken by Joshua himself.
[25] Ceram, The Secret of the Hittites;
Discovery of an Ancient Empire, 159 ff. The language of Scripture
clearly invokes similar language used by Rameses II for his vaunted “victory”
over the Hittite King Muwatilis in the Battle of Kardesh. The “day like no
other” is a guidepost of oral traditions.
[26] Sweeney, Tanak, 172. “Rather than charging G-d
with being powerless, unreliable, unjust, or absent in times of crisis, the
Former Prophet[] chooses to explain the Babylonian exile by charging that the
people of Israel and Judah—and not JHWH—were responsible for their own fate.”
[27] [27]
Ceram, The Secret of the Hittites;
Discovery of an Ancient Empire, 153–199, Ch. 9 “The Battle of Kadesh”. Fought
in 1296 BCE between Rameses II and the Hittite King Muwatallis. Just after Sethos I drove out
the desert tribes, finally responding to the pleas of Egypt’s allies documented
in the Letters of Amarna (p. 168), and secured the region up to the ridge of
Tyre, the Hittites invaded Palestine. To
secure his succession and legacy, Ramses II assembled the largest army of any
Pharoah. Two huge armies were massed and met in Kadesh. The outcome changed
history and entered into legend.
Unprecedented numbers of the iron-chariots which had propelled the
Hyksos victory over the Egyptians in previous centuries were now hurled against
each other by the world’s biggest armies, and their semitic allies. The Hitite
chariot were superior to the Egyptian and in the field they outmaneuvered and
outmanned the Egyptian chariots. The life of the Pharoah was preserved by two
actual miracles – the Hittite units deployed to vanquish, turned to looting
instead, and a force of Egyptian cadets arrived by sea just in time to save the
Pharaoh’s life. Both armies broke off
the engagement. The Hitites were 375 miles from home and weighted down with
booty. Victory was declared by both sides, and the world’s first written Peace
Treaty was agreed to. A remarkable peace descended on the region. The terms
survived the centuries, and even the almost total destruction of the Hittites
at the hands of the invading Hellenes.
The Treaty Stone became the “Rosetta Stone” enabling scholars to finally
read Hittite epigraphical material, and a forgotten people were rediscovered. Perhaps
even more significant than the Battle, was the fact that after the world’s
first globally-celebrated Wedding, a Hittite princess introduced Ishtar to
Egypt. This directly resulted in a religious synthesis and efflorescence. In the following centuries, humanity began adopting
new theologies developed in the schools and libraries of Alexandria.
[28] Ceram, The Secret of the Hittites;
Discovery of an Ancient Empire, 153 ff. Refers to the Chariot as the
“greatest invention of the Second Millenium BC”. Although the light war-chariot was introduced
by the Hyksos in their conquest of Egypt, the “iron chariot” could only refer
to a Hittite iteration of the weapon.
[29]
Professor Sweeney, Lecture video 9/27/2016.
[30] McKenzie and Haynes, To Each Its Own
Meaning, 28–29;”Historians
necessarily work with conceptual models…” and the Bible presents some “very
pronounced” models which may be wrong. Why is Rahab considered a “harlot” and
what is a harlot? We reference the perspectivity of Feminist criticism.
Ibid. 268 ff.
[31] Sweeney, Tanak, 182.
[32] Scofield, D. D., The Holy Bible,
Joshua 21:43, page 282.
[33] Pritchard and Fleming, The Ancient
Near East, 328.
[34] Ibid., 227. The captain of a Nile vessel relates of his participation
in a campaign into “Asia”, and the three year siege of “Sharuhen”, a city named
in the distribution by Lots administered by Joshua to the tribe of Simeon from
the inheritance of the tribe of Judah which was “too much for them”. Joshua
19:6, 9.
[35] Ibid., Fig. 27.Pottery and shards from Palestine have been
consistently used to date periods of their use.
[36] Ibid., 429–453; especially “Hapiru” 423,
and “Apiru” 433,435.
[37] Ibid., Plate 92, depicting Rameses III in battle with Sea Peoples.
[38] Sweeney, Tanak, 182.
[39] Ibid., 182–87.
[40] Ibid., 189.
[TK1]This
iteration was NOT submitted. I wanted to add some Chariot material, correct the
Joshua=>Josiah reference re builder of Temple II, and RZ Kardak.
I like this version.
No comments:
Post a Comment