Re-Writing History

Joshua Chapter 16, the Strange and the Spectacular

Vital Stats:

Verses: 10

Is It Read At Synagogue?: No.

Famous Quotes/Phrases: Not especially. I mean, we only have 10 verses to work with, so the odds aren’t great to begin with, right?

Basic Plot: We’re now learning of the boundaries of the tribe of Ephraim. But this extremely brief chapter ends with a similar odd note that the previous (much longer) chapter concludes with: We find out that the Canaanites had not been completely defeated, and they remain in the midst of the Ephraimites. Unlike the Jebusites, though, who are mentioned in Chapter 15, the Canaanites are performing forced labor, so even though they are not eliminated, they appear to not be a threat to Israelite rule at this time.

What’s Strange: In his book Every Promise Fulfilled: Contesting Plots in Joshua, L. Daniel Hawk comments extensively on how different the description of Judah’s territory is compared to that of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two tribes that make up the descendants of Joseph: “[While] the narrator presented Judah’s acquisitions in holistic terms, Joseph’s situation appears fragmented and uncertain. The status of Joseph’s descendants is ambivalent from the beginning. … [While] the description of Judah’s borders is related with precision and detail, those of Ephraim and Manasseh are fragmentary, take up much less textual space, and present numerous topographical difficulties. The integrity of Judah’s territor is thus contrasted with the broken contours of the land settled by the Joseph tribes.”

Hawk’s implication is clear: The text seems highly interested in where the tribe of Judah settles … and as for other tribes, not so much.

What’s Spectacular: This favoritism toward Judah is fairly understandable when we consider the fate of the tribes. I realize that I’m fast-forwarding here, but I don’t think this represents a “spoiler alert”: Leading up to the first great turning point in Jewish history after the Exodus — the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem — the tribe of Judah is basically the last tribe standing. And it is Judah that is exiled to Babylonia after that temple is destroyed, and the remnants of Judah that eventually return to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple.

So is the book of Joshua really good at foreshadowing Judah’s future (relative) success, or is there something else going on? Many biblical scholars believe that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were written, or at least edited, from the same source or school of thought. In other words, when the book of Joshua is actually put to paper (or parchment, at that time at least), the writer already knows the eventual fate of the tribes. This is a likely reason why the tribe of Judah would get way more attention than other tribes all the way back in the book of Joshua.

This is one way in which the Hebrew Bible reads less like a history written little by little and more like a novel written by an author who knows how it will end before it begins. But when you think about it, many histories are written, and re-written, with the perspective of how things turn out later. An American history book written in the year 2000 would primarily describe Joe Biden as a U.S. Senator who couldn’t break through on the national stage and Donald Trump as a wealthy real-estate tycoon. Less than 25 years later, that history would be written completely differently given the perspective of what has happened since 2000. Our knowledge of today alters and deepens the way we see yesterday.

Shabbat Shalom!