Reading Joshua: First Things First
Whew. It's been a while. For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting some new, hard-hitting, post-evangelical, seminary(ish)-level, mid- to long-form blog content ... many apologies for the delay.
Work wise, I've been busy writing a couple of books, teaching some seminary courses, pastoring a group of renegade religious folks in Maryland, and, a little more generally, trying not to succumb to an increasing lack of motivation that is due either to (1) the lingering effects of living through a global pandemic or (2) your run-of-the-mill mid-life crisis (sans sportscar).
Anyway, I'm back here, writing, because I have a few projects in the works focusing on the book of Joshua. After a decade+ thinking about Psalms, it's been a welcome distraction. But, beyond the occasional sermon and some brief remarks in an OT intro course, Joshua is a new academic interest for me, which makes it a little intimidating. Also ... Joshua is a landmine of historical/textual/interpretive/theological/ethical issues. To help me process my thoughts, I wanted to include you in the conversation. I hope we'll get to some other, non-Joshua topics on this forum, too, but I'm thinking my namesake will be home base for a while.
To kick things off, I thought it would be helpful to start with some "first things." We'll revisit these topics in more detail in future posts, so for now, I'll provide a few bullet points. (This may not be my most "pastoral" move, but I think we'll be ok.)
In no particular order …
(1) The belief that the things described in the book of Joshua actually happened in history ... in the exact way they are described... is a minority opinion in the world of biblical scholarship.
(2) Point #1 is based primarily on the research of mainstream archaeologists, the majority of whom have interpreted the rocks and rubble and pottery and other material culture "on the ground" as providing contradictory evidence to what we find in the biblical narrative.
For example, the consensus view on Jericho—site of the infamous “Joshua and the battle of Jericho”—is that the city would have been uninhabited and unwalled during the time of a Joshua figure. (The consensus view is also unsure if Joshua existed, so they may say things like “a Joshua figure.”)
This is Kathleen Kenyon. She is an important figure in the archaeology of Jericho. We’ll talk about her work later.
(3) The story of Joshua provides the conclusion to a major plot point in the Pentateuch—namely, Israel's "taking" the Promised Land. As such, the story is tied what precedes it, things like, Moses and the exodus and the wilderness wanderings and "Israel's emergence" as a nation. These stories are also questioned from a historical viewpoint, which adds to the confusion.
(4) Scholars have postulated at least four theories to explain how and why and when "Israel" became "Israel." A straightforward reading of the story in Joshua is that of an established nation entering the Promised Land from the east and waging a thoroughgoing and highly successful military war against the major cities and inhabitants of Canaan. Historically speaking that is unlikely. Again, the archaeology doesn't seem to support it.
(5a) Not to pile on, but the book of Joshua includes some internal contradictions in its own storytelling. One example is how some texts suggest an exhaustive/total removal of Canaanites from the Promised Land (e.g., nothing/no one survived), while other texts acknowledge the presence of inhabitants after Israel is in the land. Stuff like this has led scholars to propose differing theories on the book's composition—when and where and for what purpose it was written. For example, there is a view of multiple "redactions" of Joshua, where later editors add new emphases to a pre-existing story.
(5b) Along these lines, there is also a fun conversation about how the book of Joshua fits into the larger story of the Old Testament. (Ok, “fun” is a relative term.) Is Joshua part of a "Hexateuch" (and to be grouped with the first five books of the Old Testament) or part of the "Deuteronomistic History" (which is a retelling of Israel's history from Joshua–Kings that is based on the theology from Deuteronomy) or was it originally a stand alone book (that was then redacted/edited for inclusion elsewhere)?
(6) The Hebrew text of Joshua and the Greek translation of the Hebrew text (known as the Septuagint) are … uhhh … different.
(7) All of the foregoing issues (in #1–6) might lead/should lead some readers to question what all of this means for our view of the Bible. What if it “didn’t happen”? What if the archaeological record contradicts the biblical story? What do we do with the contradictions? How do we figure out how to read Joshua?
To differing degrees, these are all (well, most of them are, I think) enough to make us question whether the Bible is the “inspired, inerrant, authoritative, Word of God.”
(8a) The stories in the book of Joshua give most modern Western readers pause. Taken as a whole, they present God as a bloodthirsty tyrant, who instructs Joshua to kill everyone/thing. And that is a problem theologically and ethically.
Or it should be a problem. Some folks, apparently, are cool with it, which has led to …
(8b) The story of divine conquest has been used to legitimize a great number of atrocities in the history of Christianity.
Such being the case, this very real and very important question could be asked:
(8c) Is it possible to read the story "Christianly"? Or is the seeming contradiction between the ethics of Joshua and Jesus too great? Indeed, the concept of "loving your enemy and praying for those who persecute you" is notably absent. How do we reconcile that?
So there you go. Welcome to the fun!
I don’t want to just drop a bunch of bombshells and leave. I’m writing about it because in my experience, none of this was on the table for conversations. In my church communities, it was implied (if not stated outright):
If something is in the Bible, it happened.
And if something is in the Bible, it must be free of error or contradiction.
And because God is good, nothing God does in the Bible (even slaughtering Canaanites) can be bad.
I think we can do better than this, and that's what I hope to facilitate here.
Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. There a lot of significant issues to address. But I'm hopeful that if we face them down, we can move toward a "better" reading of Joshua. To get some of your wheels turning, I've included some questions for you to consider.
Questions: Have you been nurtured in a faith community that allows you to reach conclusions similar to the majority of biblical scholars (i.e., Joshua probably isn't best read as a historical narrative)?
Has your faith community wrestled publicly with the theological difficulties of the story of the "conquest"? Or is it simply accepted?
Does rethinking the Bible (what it is and how it works) appeal to you? Or scare you? Or are you ambivalent?
In the next post, we’ll talk about the Deuteronomistic History because it’s fun.
