Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <cctr114 AT its.canterbury.ac.nz>]

George wrote:-

>I'd suggest another interpretation of Joshua: that it is a condensed,
>and thus idealised, version of how Israelites conquered the land. So,
>perhaps some of those kings listed as conquered by Joshua were actually
>conquered centuries later, but for ideological reasons, were attributed
>to one single campaign of Joshua.

The book is written in a style which tries to create the impression
that there was a great conquest by the Israelites. I've read the book
many times, including three times in the Hebrew, and it seems to me
that, if you look at what they conquered and how much was left
unconquered, the "invasion" started with a hiss and roar with a few
initial victories but very quickly fizzled out in to a long, slow
infiltration.  I can imagine a story-teller breaking into a cold sweat
as he was reciting the great works of Joshua to an audience hoping that
they won't notice the fact that he didn't really accomplish much.

If you cut through the grandstanding it's not really that far off
what the archaeologists are trying to say really happened.

Bill Rea, Information Technology Services, University of Canterbury  \_ 
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