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11. “The Walls Came Tumbling Down”: Reading Joshua
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11 “The Walls Came Tumbling Down” Reading Joshua Primary Reading: Joshua (esp. chaps. 1–12, 21, 23–24). A Challenging Book to Read Joshua is a difficult book for us to read, for a number of reasons. First, its main theme is the conquest of the land of Israel. Few of us care to read stories of conquest, because war evokes great ambivalence. It isn’t pretty. During the recounted battles, Israel practiced cheirem (Mr#c2), a ban or proscription against conquered places—“exterminat[ing] everything in the city with the sword: man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass” (6:21). Furthermore, almost half of the book is comprised of long (boring) lists. To complicate matters, it is extremely unlikely that the Book of Joshua represents what really happened. In the words of a recent commentator: “hardly any of the material it preserves is the sort that can be directly used for historical reconstruction.”1 Thus, the real question to ask about Joshua is: “Why would anyone have told the early history of Israel in this fashion?” Joshua as History As noted earlier, the present state of the evidence does not enable historians to reconstruct exactly how the people Israel came into being, and how they came to possess their land.2 This much, however, is generally conceded: ■ A people called Israel existed in the land by the end of the thirteenth century B.C.E. (see “The Beginning of Israel” in chapter 4); ■ Someone conquered some of the cities that the Bible claims Joshua conquered ; 95 ■ It is difficult to discern who conquered them (we know that the Sea People, including the Philistines, were also settling in the area at this time and taking over population centers); ■ One reason that the conquerors’ identity is obscure is because Israelite artifacts are practically the same as those of other local groups living at this time; ■ Of the cities that according to Joshua were conquered in the period, archaeological evidence for many of those sites show no signs of conquest ; ■ This period meanwhile shows a remarkable upsurge of new settlement in the central hill or highland area of the country; and ■ Egypt’s longstanding political control over the area of Canaan had waned by this point.3 Significantly, the difficulty in distinguishing Israelite artifacts implies that Israel had not spent centuries enslaved in Egypt. Archaeology is not fully objective—it interprets found artifacts, and thus some people may doubt a number of the points made above. We cannot always identify biblical places with certainty. Scholars debate which modern site corresponds to a biblical site, especially when the modern site with the same name as the biblical one does not corroborate the biblical evidence.4 However, when determining correct place-names for sites, we should not begin with the assumption that the Bible is factual history, expecting the archaeological record to corroborate it. (Until recently, scholars made such an assumption—either explicitly or tacitly—all too often.) The following question highlights the problems with the biblical account: What would the archaeological record look like if the Book of Joshua were factual ? We would expect to find a complete destruction of the major Canaanite cities datable to the same time period. In addition, we would expect to find Canaanite material culture (pottery jugs, housing styles)5 replaced by totally new styles, most likely with Egyptian motifs or styles, reflecting the origins of the conquering people. However, such evidence eludes us even after a large number of excavations and surveys (mini-excavations). What have archaeologists found instead? Some evidence of destruction, but significantly more evidence for new settlement patterns at previously uninhabited sites in the highlands. This suggests to many that the main claim in Joshua—a complete and total conquest by Israel—is false; rather, many Israelites originated as Canaanites.6 Archaeologists in general now doubt that the people Israel arose predominantly outside of the land of Israel.7 96 How to Read the Bible [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:05 GMT) Embedded Clues in the Stories of Joshua The Book of Joshua repeatedly paints a picture of a complete conquest of the entire land. This comes through clearly in two summary texts, one located in the middle of the book, and one toward the end. Each uses the word kol (lOk<, “all, every, whole”) repeatedly to highlight the theme that all was conquered according to all that God had promised. Thus the first passage reads: Joshua conquered the whole (lk) of this region: the hill country of Judah, all (lk) the Negeb, the whole (lk) land of Goshen, the Shephelah, the Arabah, and the hill country and coastal plain of Israel— everything from Mount Halak, which ascends to Seir, all the way to Baal-gad in the Valley of the Lebanon at the foot of Mount Hermon; and he captured all (lk) the kings there and executed them. . . . Apart from the Hivites who dwelt in Gibeon, not a single city made terms with the Israelites; all (lk) were taken in battle. . . . Thus Joshua conquered all the (lk) the country, according to all (lk) the LORD had promised Moses; and Joshua assigned it to Israel to share according to their tribal divisions. And the land had rest from war (Josh. 11:16–17, 19, 23; transl. adapted). Similarly, the second summary passage reads: The LORD gave to Israel the whole (lk) country which He had sworn to their fathers that He would assign to them; they took possession of it and settled in it. The LORD gave them rest on all sides, according to all (lk) He had promised to their fathers on oath. Not one man of all (lk) their enemies withstood them; the LORD delivered all (lk) their enemies into their hands. Not one of all (lk) the good things which the LORD had promised to the House of Israel was lacking. Everything (lk) was fulfilled (Josh. 21:41–43; in some editions, vv. 43–45; transl. adapted). Here the repetition of the word kol seems meaningful: it is like a bell rung over and over so as to sound a continuous thematic note. We call a repeated word that helps give structure and meaning to a literary unit a “leading word.” (Bible scholars often use the German equivalent, Leitwort.) Leading words provide guidance to the reader; they are keys to a unit’s meaning. (Many contemporary translations—including that of JPS—seek to render the Hebrew’s plain sense into normal English idiom. Their translation approach often does not precisely convey the repetition of leading words in the original “The Walls Came Tumbling Down” 97 language. Partly this is because normal English discourse avoids such repetitions as awkward or monotonous. More to the point, a given Hebrew word usually has more than one sense, and a plain-sense translation by nature chooses whichever English word best expresses its meaning in each context. A disadvantage of the idiomatic translation approach is that a biblical unit’s theme may literally be lost in translation, as our two summary passages in Joshua illustrate.8 In contrast, other translation approaches are more sensitive to the text’s use of a leading word. In particular, in their Bible translation, the two great twentieth -century German-Jewish thinkers Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber reflected such repetitions whenever possible by repeating the same German word.9 A contemporary translator of the Bible into English, Everett Fox, is continuing to follow Buber and Rosenzweig’s principles.10) In addition to the repetition of kol, other leading words in the text suggest a complete, total, and swift conquest. The miraculous and nearly instant conquest of Jericho—the first city attacked after crossing the Jordan (Josh. 6)—sets the stage for this idea. Later, when the Southern coalition is defeated (chap. 10), a sixfold repetition of “let none escape” (10:28, 30, 33, 37, 39, 40), reinforces the impression that the conquest was complete. A simultaneous description of six proscribed cities has the same effect (10:1, 28, 35, 37, 39, 40).11 Chapter 12 also uses repetition for emphasis. The first part of that passage, about the conquest of Transjordan (the area east of the Jordan River), repeats the word ve-ad (di-v$, “until” or “up to”) six times, underscoring the all-encompassing nature of Israel’s boundaries. The second part of that passage, concerning the conquest of the Northern coalition, is stylized and redundant. In enumerating the cities and kings captured, it says thirty-one times “the king of X: 1,” where X is the name of one city after another. (This list is all the more remarkable because evidence dug up from the ruins of those city-states have shown that they did not have kings.) And in case the reader misses the point, the list concludes: “Total number of kings: 31.” In sum, through the strategic use of leading words, the predominant strand of Joshua highlights the claim that “the LORD gave to Israel the whole (lk) country which He had sworn to their fathers that He would assign to them” (Josh. 21:41). Contradictory Assessments A tale of swift and total victory, however, is not the only story that Joshua tells.12 For instance, we also read: “Joshua waged war with all those kings over a long period” (11:18)—a sharp contrast to other passages’ portrayal of a sort of ancient 98 How to Read the Bible [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:05 GMT) Six-Day War. More important, immediately after chapter 12’s summary of the completed conquest, we read: (13:1) Joshua was now old, advanced in years. The LORD said to him, “You have grown old, you are advanced in years; and very much of the land still remains to be taken possession of. (2) This is the territory that remains: all the districts of the Philistines and all those of the Geshurites, (3) from the Shihor, which is close to Egypt, to the territory of Ekron on the north, are accounted Canaanite, namely, those of the five lords of the Philistines—the Gazites, the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites—and those of the Avvim (4) on the south; further, all the Canaanite country from Mearah of the Sidonians to Aphek at the Amorite border (5) and the land of the Gebalites, with the whole Valley of the Lebanon, from Baal-gad at the foot of Mount Hermon to Lebo-hamath on the east, (6) with all the inhabitants of the hill country from the Valley of the Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, namely, all the Sidonians. I Myself will dispossess those nations for the Israelites; you have only to apportion their lands by lot among Israel, as I have commanded you.” As a glance at any Bible atlas indicates, this “land that remains” is substantial! In other words, this passage directly conflicts with the account given a few verses earlier.13 What are we to make of the fact that this book presents more than one idea concerning basic notions such as how the land was conquered and what its boundaries are? Like many other scholars, I conclude from its internal contradictions that the Book of Joshua is not the work of a single author. Rather, it is a composite book. Either it has gone through several stages of editing and redaction, or it was written by an author who (for some unknown reason) incorporated earlier sources—even though they did not agree with the author’s point—or both. Further evidence for the book’s composite nature comes into view when we consider what critical scholars call the Deuteronomistic History. The Deuteronomistic History What is the relationship of the first several books of the Bible to each other? Scholars have grouped them in various ways.14 The canon has joined the first five books together as the Torah or Pentateuch, literally “five books.” This unit ends with the death of its main protagonist, Moses. Yet Moses is absent from Genesis, and one could argue that the theme of entry into the promised land— “The Walls Came Tumbling Down” 99 which begins in Genesis 12—more accurately characterizes these books. This theme, however, is not fulfilled until Joshua. Thus many scholars, especially through the middle of the twentieth century, saw the first six books of the Bible, the Hexateuch (six books) as a literary unit. They believed that the Pentateuchal sources—collectively termed “JEPD”—spill over into Joshua (though not beyond), justifying the studying of these six books as a unit. In 1943, the German biblical scholar Martin Noth proposed a new model.15 Building on the work of others, he emphasized the fact that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings share similar vocabulary and theology. Noth concluded that those books form a literary unit that he named the Deuteronomistic History (abbreviated “DtrH”). He suggested that this work, which incorporated earlier sources, was composed during the Babylonian exile. With certain modifications, this hypothesis has gained wide assent.16 Scholars have questioned Noth’s claim that there was a single Deutero-nomistic “historian.” Many now believe that there were two: one working during the reign of Josiah (late seventh century B.C.E.) and the other during the Babylonian exile (586–538), who may be distinguished on the basis of vocabulary and ideology.17 Still others have suggested additional historians, seeing these historians’ work as extending into the postexilic period.18 Despite the many competing reconstructions of how the Deuteronomistic History arrived at its present form, a broad enough consensus exists that we can speak of Deuteronomy through Kings as a “collection.” Why we should consider Joshua a part of this collection is clear: it shares many features of Deuteronomy. For example, the establishment of altars on Mount Ebal and the curse ceremony performed there in Joshua 8:30–34 fulfill a ritual prescribed in Deuteronomy 17. In 8:29, the impaled corpse of the King of Ai is removed at sunset—this assumes Deuteronomy 21:23. Joshua takes for granted that the nations of Canaan need to be proscribed or killed—this institution is found in Deuteronomy only (20:16–18). A sefer ha-torah (hr+ot