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Jan. 27, 2005 Any sober, mature person who reads the Book of Joshua--if such a person would even read it in the first place--recognizes immediately, from 3 key episodes in the tale, that it is, at the very least, marred by flights of fancy, things that did not happen and could not have happened and the likes of which never will happen on this planet: 1.) Joshua makes the Jordan River stand still and the waters heap up, letting the Israelites pass over on dry ground; 2.) At the siege of Jericho, Joshua`s priests blow trumpets, his people shout a great shout, and the city walls fall down flat; 3.) Joshua commands the sun and the moon to stand still in the sky, and they obey. It's incredible that in the 21st century I still have to get into quarrels trying to convince people that these things did not happen, that they've been hoodwinked into thinking such things were possible back then and that the very presence of the tales in the Book of Joshua demonstrates conclusively the partial or total falsity of that book. Perhaps there's a grain of truth to the numerous genocides and land grabs that the Israelites are said to have perpetrated under the leadership of Joshua in other parts of the book, but I for one would certainly approach even those tales of butchery and bloodshed with skepticism. Stone walls discovered by archaeologists at Jericho are believed to have antedated Joshua's supposed time--1200 BC--by about 1000 years. Christians probably argue otherwise, but I don't think they have the trumpets that tumbled the walls in any case. In short, the bad news is the very existence of the Book of Joshua, and the good news is that it's nonsense. The consensus of scholars today is rather that Jews infiltrated Canaan over a period of decades or centuries, than that they made the series of swift, merciless conquests described in the Book of Joshua. Furthermore, a tablet erected by Pharaoh Mernepath in 1209 BC says, "Israel is laid waste." Are we to assume Merneptah was lying, and that the Israelites had occupied or were occupying the region with tremendous vigor and carnage? The Book of Joshua is not long enough or well enough written to be described as epic poetry without insulting Homer by the comparison, but, unlike Genesis, it's more than just a nursery rhyme. No one knows who wrote the Book of Joshua or when it was written. Some date it to just after Joshua's supposed time; others date it to the 6th century BC, to the time of the Exile or a little earlier. The only thing that's certain is that the oldest known extant copy is the one found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, from around 200 BC or later. Basically, then the Book of Joshua is an unknown author's exaggerated account of events that occurred probably centuries before his time, if they occurred at all, and the oldest copy of which was found in a cave by Bedouin goatherds in 1947. If it is God's word, then it's certainly true that God works in mysterious ways. But aside from the miracle stories and the dubious provenance of the Book of Joshua, there's a moral problem. We often hear that the Ten Commandments are the perfect legal system and the very backbone of the moral structure upon which our way of life rests. We all know that the Ten Commandments forbid adultery, theft and murder. We would expect that the very first book after the Torah (Pentateuch) would be an uplifting saga about how the Israelites were able to prevail over their foes by a pious commitment to those divinely inspired commandments. What do we find? 1.) Joshua makes a deal with a harlot to betray Jericho to him; 2.) Joshua steals all the gold, silver, brass and iron that he finds in Jericho. 3.) Joshua kills all the men, women, childrean and animals of Jericho except the harlot. Some moral structure! I´m truly impressed! Really and truly! How does God do it? ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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