An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 43: Old Gods, New God and more geopolitics (Joshua 21-24)


Joshua 21-24
Old Gods, New God and more geopolitics.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Joshua 21
“And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, at the commandment of the LORD, these cities and their suburbs.”

And that about describes this chapter in a nutshell. The Levites are given a total of 48 cities, chosen by lot from amongst the territories of the other tribes, mostly with the suburbs to administer as well. The rest is largely a gazetteer of the cities, where they are and which sub-tribe they belong to. This makes a strange political situation – I presume that the Levite cities are expected to be supported by the surrounding territories, being a priest caste. A whole city administered by priests, I wonder what that would turn out like.

Joshua 22
“And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.”

The tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh had already settled lands on the far side of the Jordan, and now Joshua sends the warriors back home with his blessing. Once home they erect an altar, and this angers the other tribes who think that they are turning away from God by building an alternate altar. They send an emissary , led by Phinehas, and the 2 and a half tribes explain that this is not a rival altar, but a reminder that they are of the same heritage and also insurance as they (quite rightly) worry that all the other tribes on the far side of the Jordan will eventually come to regard them as foreign. Phinehas is happy with this, and strife is averted for once.

Joshua 23
“And it came to pass a long time after that the LORD had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.”

An old and dying Joshua calls the elders to him and warns them to keep to the covenant and not to intermingle with the conquered people, else all the victories that they won will come to nothing. This is pretty typical biblical repetition – how many times does Moses do a summary of events so far between Exodus and Deuteronomy? I’m still uncomfortable with the whole racial purity concepts going on here. I guess “cultural purity” or “religious purity” is more accurate.

Joshua 24
“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.”

Joshua continues his death-bed precis of events so far, going back to Abraham and the lineage through to Moses – it’s interesting to note here that there is mention of people living “on the other side of the flood”, and it seems to be implied that Abraham was one of these, but he didn’t live before The Flood, so maybe this refers to the Red Sea, or maybe someone got confused (probably me). And also that these people served “strange gods”, although the implication has always been that they’ve worshipped the same God; it’s an odd little acknowledgement of other gods and almost indicates a kind of progression from old gods to Yahweh worship.

Joshua tells the elders that they must choose to either serve God, or their old gods (and here I get a brief flash of a weirwood tree…)or the gods of the Canaanites, only remember who gave you all these cities that you didn’t build. The elders choose God, and Joshua warns them not to mess things up and remember that this is a jealous God. As if they would…

In case they do, he has the laws written down and engraved in stone (are we, from this, to assume that the past six books are a result of this?). Joshua dies, as does Eleazar, and the Israelites also bury the bones of Joseph in land bought by Jacob many generations before.

And thus ends Joshua, a book of conquest which actually seemed to contain more of the post-conquest allotment of land than the conquest itself. So now that the tribes of Israel have ended their wanderings and finally come to the inheritance that was promised to them, I can only assume that they will do something to mess it up and anger God, probably getting too chummy with the Canaanites, because that’s what they always do.

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