Bible Challenge Day 87: Conquest, Twice! (Judges 1)

Because I am a history geek, I have always found Judges one intriguing. At the end of Joshua, the Israelites appear to have conquered and settled virtually all of the Promised Land, basically wiping out the Canaanites who stood in their way. But Judges one offers a quite different picture of conquest.

 

A few clues indicate that Judges one is indeed a second version of the same events. Joshua dies at the end of the book bearing his name (24:29). Joshua dies again in Judges two (verse 8), implying that Judges one covers material that took place during his lifetime. Also the episode of Othniel and Achsah is narrated twice, in very similar words (Joshua 15:15-19; Judges 1:11-15). Several places described as conquered in Joshua are again described as attacked in Judges. The most interesting example is Jerusalem, which is described as conquered in both Joshua 12:10 and Judges 1:8, but then described as successfully resisting the Israelite attack in Judges 1:21.

 

I conclude a couple of things. First, the editors of the Bible were not particularly interested in smoothing out discrepancies. Competing accounts of the same event are put side by side with no effort to determine which is more accurate (or if either is). Second, the conquest was not quite so total as Joshua seems to indicate. That is a relief to me since the book of Joshua seems genocidal. For once I am glad that the facts were more complicated than the story as told!

 

Most important, however, is the question, why tell the same story twice? And why tell it differently? In my view, the answer is literary and theological. The book of Joshua portrays the Israelites as faithful and united as they finally experience the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham so long ago. This version of the story teaches that God rewards faithful (and patient!) people. Judges, by contrast, is largely the story of Israel’s sin and gradual loss of control of the Promised Land. It is therefore unsurprising that the tribes are portrayed as less united, less successful, and less faithful. This version of conquest sets up the lesson that God punishes unfaithful people, but will forgive and restore them when they repent.

 

What emerges from this kind of analysis is less emphasis on historical accuracy in all its details and more on literary art and theological lessons. And that seems appropriate for a religious book whose primary purpose is to teach us how to relate to God!

Fr. Harvey