Joshua 7-12

Joshua 7:1-12:24

Appetite for Destruction

“He has written a great sermon to rally Israel to the new possibility of

salvation, through obedience to the ancient covenant of YHWH,

and hope in the new David, King Josiah.”

- Frank M. Cross

A Brief History of (Supposed) Biblical Time

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Book of JoshuaBook of Joshua

- History or What?- History or What?- Importance of Dtr- Importance of Dtr

- Importance of - Importance of NarratorNarrator



Josiah and the DtrJosiah and the Dtr

- Reflection on of Dtr- Reflection on of Dtr- Re-Conquering of - Re-Conquering of

IsraelIsrael-Connections to -Connections to

JoshuaJoshua



Postcolonial Critical Objections to Historical Model

Joshua and the Dtr

Major Themes

•Narrator’s Omnipotence and Disclosure

•Parallels and Narrative Structures

•Etiologies

•National and Class Distinctions

•Josiah’s Shadow

Setting the Scene

Ai, Achan, and Parallels

Narrative Components

•Narrator’s Omnipotence

•Corporate Guilt

•Process of Judgement and YHWH’s Power

•Reflection of Josiah’s Reforms

Ch. 7: Elimination of Achan

8:1-29, Ai Destroyed

8:30-8:35, Mt. Ebal Interlude

9:1-27, The Gibeonites

Main Themes

•Narrative History

•Etiology

•Fractured Canaanite Society

•Tribes vs Kings

•Deuteronomistic Idealizations

Chapter 10: The South

Parallels in Structure

•War Oracle from YHWH (10:8, 11:6)

•Joshua Attacks by Surprise (10:9, 11:7)

•YHWH On Israel’s Side (10:10-14, 11:8)

•Joshua Kills Kings, Destroys Towns (10:16-39, 11:10-15)

•Summary of Destruction (10:40-43, 11:16-20)

Parallels in Themes

•Struggle Against Highlanders

•Struggle Against Lowlanders

11:1-15, The North

11:16-12:24, Final Tally

Take Aways

•Holy War and Modern Sensibilities

•Central Authority

•Class Wars

•History and Narrative

One More Thing...

History Written by the Victors

But what is history?

And what is the Deuteronomistic History?

DH as Palimpsest?

“Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth drew the conclusion that these accounts were

originally local traditions from the end of the second millennium BCE; their purpose was to explain the settlement of the tribe of Benjamin. Later, a Judean editor would

have collected and revised these etiologies, applying to them a pan-

Israelite perspective.”

- Thomas Romer

Romer asks...

“Should we speak of

a Deuteronomistic ‘movement,’

a Deuteronomistic ‘party,’ or

a Deuteronomistic ‘school,’

or are there other terms to be preferred?”

“The people of Josiah’s kingdom were unfamiliar with the modern understanding of

the nation, and Josiah’s kingdom never developed into one... Is it possible to

understand space without applying the discourse of nationalism that equates

identity and authority of the land with the centralized power? Is it possible to imagine Josiah in an alternative space from the one

constructed by the West?”

-Uriah Kim

“It is not the historian who stages events, weaving them together to form a plot, but

History itself. History is the playwright, coordinating facts into a coherent sequence:

the historian narrating what happened is merely a copyist or amanuensis. He is a spectator like anyone else and, whatever he may think of the performance, he does not question the stage

conventions.”

- Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay

Further Reading•Decolonizing Josiah: Toward a

Postcolonial Reading of the Deuteronomistic History by Uriah Kim, Sheffield Phoenix, 2005

•The So-Called Deuteronomistic History by Thomas Romer, T&T Clark Intl, 2005

Education

Joshua 7-12