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Conquest and Form: Narrativity in Joshua 5–11 and Historical Discourse in Ancient Judah*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2013

Ian Douglas Wilson
Ian Douglas Wilson*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

One goal of this essay is to offer an exploratory, historiographical analysis of the conquest account in the book of Joshua, an analysis that focuses upon the sociocultural milieu of ancient Judah. I propose to show how this narrative of conquest might have contributed to discourse(s) among the literate Judean community that perpetuated the text, and I will offer a few thoughts on the potential relationship between the narrative and the supposed cultic reforms of the late seventh century b.c.e. A number of biblical scholars have argued that the late monarchic period gave rise to the conquest story as recounted in Joshua. In this essay, I would like to pay special attention to precisely how this narrative might have functioned within the milieu of the late monarchic period, thus refining our understanding of the narrative's contribution to the discourses of this era and our knowledge of its relationship to other narratives that were probably extant at the same time. In other words, what particular features of the narrative might have had special import in this period? Specifically, I will argue that the narrative reveals certain discursive statements about Yahweh's cultic supremacy and about important cultic sites in late monarchic Judah, and that this is evident in particular narratival features that are present in the text.

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Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 106 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 309 - 329
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2013 

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Footnotes

*

A draft of this essay was presented at the 2011 Ancient Historiography Seminar of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Special thanks go to Ehud Ben Zvi, Sonya Kostamo, Francis Landy, Ken Ristau, John Van Seters, and the anonymous readers of HTR for their helpful comments and critiques.

References

1 E.g., at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta, a session entitled “The Future of Biblical Studies”—sponsored by the National Association of Professors of Hebrew—featured talks by Joel S. Baden, William A. Tooman, Lauren A. S. Monroe, Serge Frolov, and Peter Machinist. A notable theme in the discussion was that, when it comes to historical and literary readings of the Hebrew Bible, biblical scholars should take a “both/and” approach instead of an “either/or” one. See also the essays in Parts 1 and 2 of Literary Constructions of Identity in the Ancient World (ed. Hanna Liss and Manfred Oeming; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2010).

2 Liverani, Mario, “Memorandum on the Approach to Historiographic Texts,” Or 42 (1973) 178–94Google Scholar, at 179 [italics in original].

3 See Foucault, Michel, “What is an Author?” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice (ed. Bouchard, Donald F.; trans. Bouchard, Donald F. and Simon, Sherry; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977) 113–38Google Scholar; also idem, The Archaeology of Knowledge (trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith; London: Tavistock, 1972; repr., New York: Vintage Books, 2010).

4 This is evident when he discusses the so-called “transdiscursive” authors such as Marx and Freud, whose works actually gave rise to new discourses. See Foucault, “What is an Author?” 131–36.

5 See, e.g., G. Ernest Wright, introduction to Joshua, by Robert G. Boling (AB 6; New York: Doubleday, 1982) 66–72; Nelson, Richard D., Joshua (OTL; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 5–9Google Scholar; Campbell, Antony F. and O'Brien, Mark A., Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Present Text (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2000) 101–6Google Scholar; Römer, Thomas, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2007) 81–90Google Scholar; Schmid, Konrad, Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments (Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-liche Buchgesellschaft, 2008) 86–89Google Scholar; Knauf, Ernst Axel, Josua (ZBKAT 6; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2008) 17–18Google Scholar; see also the bibliographies in these works. For those who date the book's foundations to the monarchic period, there is no consensus regarding its place within a larger corpus of monarchic-era literature. There is the long-standing scholarly tradition of attaching Joshua to the Pentateuch, thus creating a Hexateuch that witnesses fulfillment of the divine promise of land made to the patriarchs; for discussion and critique see Rösel, Hartmut N., “The Book of Joshua and the Existence of a Hexateuch,” in Homeland and Exile: Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded (ed. Galil, Gershon, Geller, Mark, and Millard, Alan; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 559–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the other hand, Martin Noth, rejecting the idea of a Hexateuch, argued that the conquest material of Joshua 2–11 stems from a 9th-cent. Benjaminite collection of old etiological legends and war stories, which the 6th-cent. Deuteronomist then incorporated into his history (Das Buch Josua [3rd ed.; HAT 1.7; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1971] 11–13). Noth's reconstruction has been particularly influential over the years (e.g., Mayes, A. D. H., The Story of Israel between Settlement and Exile: A Redactional Study of the Deuteronomistic History [London: SCM, 1983] 53Google Scholar; Nelson, Joshua, 7–8), although some have questioned Noth's 9th-cent. date (e.g., Rose, Martin, Deuteronomist und Jahwist [ATANT 67; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1981] 163–69Google Scholar, who suggests a post-722 context). On the related and crucial question of Deuteronomy's date, see Pakkala, Juha, “The Date of the Oldest Edition of Deuteronomy,” ZAW 121 (2009) 388–401Google Scholar; the keen response from MacDonald, Nathan, “Issues and Questions in the Dating of Deuteronomy,” ZAW 122 (2010) 431–35Google Scholar; and Pakkala's, rejoinder, “The Dating of Deuteronomy: A Response to Nathan MacDonald,” ZAW 123 (2011) 431–36Google Scholar. These issues reflect the widespread disagreement over Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic literature, as a whole. For a thorough history of scholarship on the “Deuteronomistic History,” at least up to the mid-1990s, see Römer, Thomas and de Pury, Albert, “Deuteronomistic Historiography (DH): History of Research and Debated Issues,” in Israel Constructs Its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research (ed. de Pury, Albert, Römer, Thomas, and Macchi, Jean-Daniel; JSOTSup 306; Sheffield, U.K.Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 24–141Google Scholar (on Joshua, see esp. 112–16). See also Gary N. Knoppers, who offers a more recent appraisal of approaches to Deuteronomistic literature, focusing on scholarship on 1 and 2 Kings (“Theories of Redaction(s) in Kings,” in The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception [ed. André Lemaire and Baruch Halpern; VTSup 129; Leiden: Brill, 2010] 69–88).

6 See Knauf, Josua, 17. Knauf, one should note, questions the very idea of an overarching “Deuteronomistic History”; see idem, “Does ‘Deuteronomistic Historiography’ (DtrH) Exist?” in Israel Constructs Its History, 388–98.

7 See Römer, So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 81–90; also idem, “Book-Endings in Joshua and the Question of the So-Called Deuteronomistic History,” in Raising Up a Faithful Exegete: Essays in Honor of Richard D. Nelson (ed. K. L. Noll and Brooks Schramm; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2010) 87–101.

8 Römer states, “[T]he optimistic tone in some conquest stories, as well as the positive view of the Davidic dynasty, and the praise of kings Hezekiah and Josiah in particular . . . suggest that some parts of the Deuteronomistic History (DH) at least originated in a period when the Judean kingship had not yet come to an end” (So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 67). See also the foundational work of Cross, Frank Moore, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973) 278–85Google Scholar; compare Nelson, Richard D., The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 18; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981)Google Scholar. On Joshua in particular within this view, see Sweeney, Marvin, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 125–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 See Van Seters, John, “Joshua's Campaign of Canaan and Near Eastern Historiography,” SJOT 4 (1990) 1–12Google Scholar; also K. Lawson Younger, Jr., who conducts a semiotic analysis of conquest literature from Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylon, and the book of Joshua, also citing the work of Liverani as a methodological starting point (Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing [JSOTSup 98; Sheffield, U.K. Sheffield Academic Press, 1990] esp. 61–124 for his discussion of Assyrian accounts).

10 See Rowlett, Lori L., Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis (JSOTSup 226; Sheffield, U.K.Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)Google Scholar. But see my comments on Rowlett below, n. 30. On Joshua as a royal figure, specifically as a “prototypical Josiah,” see Nelson, Richard, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” JBL 100 (1981) 531–40Google Scholar. On the history and politics of Josiah's time, see Na'aman, Nadav, “The Kingdom of Judah Under Josiah,” in Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors (Collected Essays 1; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005) 329–98Google Scholar.

11 See, e.g., Machinist, Peter, “The Rab Šāqēh at the Wall of Jerusalem: Israelite Identity in the Face of the Assyrian ‘Other’,” HS 41 (2000) 151–68Google Scholar; Wilson, Ian D., “Judean Pillar Figurines and Ethnic Identity in the Shadow of Assyria,” JSOT 36 (2012) 259–78Google Scholar. As in many imperial or colonial contexts, Judah's culture was a complex hybrid of sociocultural elements, adopting and resisting ideologies and forms of cultural expression to forge its identity. Judean sociocultural identity exhibited a hybridity of sorts in the monarchic as well as post-monarchic periods.

12 I have excluded chs. 1–4 from this analysis because critics tend to see a high concentration of post-monarchic additions in these texts, and because there is a definite transition in the narrative at the beginning of ch. 5: the Israelites have now entered the land as a nation to begin their conquest. I do not deny that chs. 1–4 are integral to the narrative as a whole, but I have restricted this discussion to the subunit of chs. 5–11.

13 Not all of the content in Josh 5–11 can be attributed to the monarchic period. Major sections excluded from my analysis are the circumcision and Passover episode at Gilgal (5:2–12) and the sacrifices and reading of Torah on Mount Ebal (8:30–35), passages that critics have identified as redactional additions to the text. On Josh 5:2–12, see Boling (Joshua, 193) who, following Frank Moore Cross, suggests that Dtr 1 initially crafted these verses based on an old covenant festival, and then in the post-monarchic era Dtr 2 expanded the text to emphasize the rites of circumcision and Passover; on 8:30–35, see Na'aman, Nadav, “The Law of the Altar in Deuteronomy and the Cultic Site near Shechem,” in Rethinking the Foundations: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters (ed. McKenzie, Steven L. and Römer, Thomas; BZAW 294; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000) 141–61Google Scholar. In addition to these larger sections, there are, of course, individual statements and verses that some critics attribute to later redactions (e.g., the cross references to the Rahab story in 6:17, 22–23, 25). Placing the Achan episode in the monarchic period is debatable (more below).

14 See Barton, John, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Studies (2nd ed.; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1996) 52–55Google Scholar.

15 At this point in the discussion, one might wonder why a story about the people of Israel conquering the promised land—a story in which the tribe of Judah does not play a prominent role—would have any import in the kingdom of Judah. On the question of Israel in Judean thought, see, e.g., Israel Finkelstein and Neil A. Silberman, who argue that a large influx of Israelites from the north permanently altered the demographics and identity of Judah in the late 8th cent. b.c.e. (“Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of Pan-Israelite Ideology,” JSOT 30 [2006] 259–85). For an opposing view, see, e.g., Philip R. Davies, who places these issues of identity in the post-monarchic period (The Origins of Biblical Israel [LHBOTS 485; London: T&T Clark, 2007]). See also my “Concluding Thoughts,” below.

16 White, Hayden, “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,” in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) 26–57Google Scholar, at 43. See also his seminal work, “Introduction: The Poetics of History,” in Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) 1–42. See also Beeson, Stuart D., “Historiography Ancient and Modern: Fact and Fiction,” in Ancient and Modern Scriptural Historiography (L'historiographie biblique, ancienne et moderne) (ed. Brooke, George J. and Römer, Thomas; BETL 207; Louvain: Peeters, 2007) 3–11Google Scholar.

17 See, e.g., the critical responses to White's early work in the volume, “Metahistory: Six Critiques,” History and Theory Beiheft 19 (1980); also the collection of essays entitled “Hayden White: Twenty-Five Years On,” in History and Theory 37 (1998) 143–93.

18 It should be emphasized that, although White draws comparisons between factual representation and fictional representation, he does not deny our ability to uncover and to know certain things about the past. See, e.g., White, Hayden, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978) esp. 81–100Google Scholar (“The Historical Text as Literary Artifact”) and 121–34 (“The Fictions of Factual Representation”).

19 White, Metahistory, 36–37.

20 The book of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), which on the surface certainly appears to understand history in the mode of Irony, might be an interesting text for analysis along these lines, but even then it would provide only one possible viewpoint (and a rather idiosyncratic one) among many in the diverse collection of biblical literature. Perhaps a biblical scholar could trace developments in the biblical communities’ epistemology of historical reality by analyzing different redactional layers in a given body of texts (e.g., one could explore possible differences in the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian period layers of Deuteronomistic literature). But this would require a complete and confident reconstruction of each layer, surely a difficult task.

21 I.e., even if the proposed urtext of Josh 5–11 was in fact circulating in 7th-cent. Judah, there is no way to know what portions of the narrative later editors/redactors might have cut out in order to reshape or expand the older narrative. Compare White's comments on the historiographical process in Metahistory, 5–7. The crafting of any historical narrative involves privileging some historical data over others; the selected set of data and its emplotment thus help shape the narrative and the idea(s) of history inherent in its text. The editing, expansion, and standardization of the text of Joshua, one might argue, involved similar processes.

22 E.g., see the discussion and bibliography in Greenspoon, Leonard, “The Book of Joshua: Part 1: Text and Versions,” Currents in Biblical Research 3 (2005) 229–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The book of Jeremiah, with its divergent textual traditions, is a prime example; see any critical commentary on the book. In Joshua, one can point to 8:30–35: in the lxx this passage is located just prior to the Gibeon episode (Josh 9:2α–φ), whereas in 4QJosha one reads it immediately after the crossing of the Jordan; see, e.g., Noort, Ed, “4QJoshuaa and the History of Tradition in the Book of Joshua,” JNSL 24 (1998) 127–44Google Scholar. Joshua 6 has also long been a crux interpretum among text and redaction critics; see, e.g., van der Meer, Michaël N., “‘Sound the Trumpet!’ Redaction and Reception of Joshua 6:2–25,” in The Land of Israel in Bible, History, and Theology: Studies in Honor of Ed Noort (ed. van Ruiten, Jacques and de Vos, J. Cornelius; VTSup 124; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 19–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Obviously, these issues present problems for scholars attempting to explore biblical historical discourse in any ancient period.

24 On these issues, see the extensive discussion by Na'aman, Nadav, “The ‘Conquest of Canaan’ in the Book of Joshua and in History,” in Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E. (Collected Essays 2; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005) 317–92Google Scholar.

25 Joshua 1–4, which recounts the story of Rahab and the spies at Jericho, as well as the crossing of the Jordan, functions as an introduction to the actual conquest—a first act, so to speak. The miraculous crossing of the Jordan has literary parallels in Assurbanipal's annals (7th cent. b.c.e.) (see Van Seters, “Joshua's Campaign,” 7) and even in second-millennium texts (see Hoffmeier, James K., “The Structure of Joshua 1–11 and the Annals of Thutmose III,” in Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context [ed. Millard, Alan R.et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994] 165–79Google Scholar). Of course, it is also strongly reminiscent of Israel's crossing of the Red Sea (Exod 14–15), thus highlighting Joshua's role as successor to Moses. Römer nevertheless sees the river-crossing episode as a creation of the Neo-Babylonian period (So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 134). Even if Joshua 3–4, the crossing of the Jordan, is a Neo-Babylonian or Persian-period text in its present form, a story of Yahweh drying up the waters of the river was likely circulating in the monarchic period. This is even more likely if, during the late monarchic period, the Joshua narrative functioned as a conclusion to the exodus story, as Schmid (Literaturgeschichte, 86–89) and Knauf (Josua, 17–18) suggest.

26 Römer states, “The laws of warfare in ch. 20 probably did not belong to the first edition of Deuteronomy [in the 7th cent. b.c.e.], even if the prohibition of the destruction of fruit trees (20:19–20) may be understood as a polemic against Assyrian practice” (So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 80; see also his comments on p. 131). Pace Römer, the conquest account in Joshua and the military laws of Deut 20 certainly could have existed concurrently in the late monarchic period; they play off each other, and their perspectives on warfare are in sync with one another. See Fishbane, Michael, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 206–7Google Scholar. On Deut 20:19–20 and its relation to Assyrian siege techniques, see Jacob L. Wright, who does not see these verses as anti-Assyrian polemic (“Warfare and Wanton Destruction,” JBL 127 [2008] 423–58).

27 E.g., Josh 6:2; 8:1–2; 10:8–11, 42; 11:6–9, 18–20; also Deut 20:4.

28 See Pepper, Stephen C., World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948) 141–50Google Scholar; also White, Metahistory, 15.

29 Regarding ideological outlook, I refer to the text's inherent understandings of social praxis and historical processes. Compare White, Metahistory, 22–25. White draws from the work of Mann-heim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, 1936)Google Scholar. Whereas Mannheim follows Marx and sees ideology as deceptive (Ideology and Utopia, 61), White understands it as essentially value-neutral.

30 Contra the Assyrian annals to which the Joshua narrative is often compared. The Assyrian texts place a pronounced emphasis on the human king's role in the endeavors of the empire. The Assyrian annals, thus, are more radical and less apocalyptic in their understanding of social praxis. This reflects the highly propagandistic nature of the annals—narratives that, in their primary contexts, explicitly dealt with contemporary events and issues, and which were inscribed upon palace monuments and artifacts to stand as bold messages from the king to his contemporary court and to the courts of his future successors. See Tadmor, Hayim, “Propaganda, Literature, Historiography,” in Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project (ed. Parpola, Simo and Whiting, Robert M.; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997) 325–38Google Scholar; also Irene Winter, “Art in Empire,” in Assyria 1995, 359–81. For a recent treatment of Assyrian art in relation to royal ideology, see Ataç, Mehmet-Ali, The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar. Joshua, on the other hand, does not explicitly deal with issues contemporary to the late monarchic period, nor do we have any evidence that it was ever a monumental text. The Israelites certainly adopted elements of the Assyrian discourse, which stands within a larger ancient Near Eastern literary tradition (see Younger, Ancient Conquest Accounts), but the discourse of the Joshua narrative, in my analysis, has as much to say about theology as it does about politics or military expansion. Therefore, I must disagree with Rowlett, who argues for a common political rhetoric in both the Assyrian texts and the Joshua conquest account (Rhetoric of Violence, 119–20). I agree that the Judean literati used some Neo-Assyrian forms (and other common ancient Near Eastern motifs) to assert their identity, as Rowlett states in her concluding chapter, but I am not so sure about her assertion that the language of Joshua “is to serve as a warning to the people of Josiah's kingdom [in the late 7th cent. b.c.e.] that the post-imperial power of the central government could and would be unleashed upon any who resisted its assertion of control” (ibid., 183). First of all, we cannot assume that the narrative would have been widely known among the populace of ancient Judah. Further, if there is an element of warning to the Judean people, the warning is to not disobey Yahweh's instructions; couched in a narrative about the distant past, such a warning would be relevant to the monarch as well as the common person.

31 See Nelson, Joshua, 81. This visit by the heavenly commander is comparable to Joseph Campbell's “supernatural aid,” which typically appears in mythological stories when the hero responds to the call to adventure; see Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd ed.; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968) 69–77Google Scholar. On the potential for reading Joshua as a heroic story, see Coats, George W., “The Book of Joshua: Heroic Saga or Conquest Theme?” JSOT 38 (1987) 15–32Google Scholar. Note also the parallel in Assurbanipal's Prism B, in which Ishtar of Arbela appears to a “visionary” (šabrû) in a dream, holding a bow and a drawn sword, in order to encourage Assurbanipal in his battle against Elam; see Martti Nissinen, with Seow, C. L. and Ritner, Robert K., Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (SBLWAW 12; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003)Google Scholar Text 101 (esp. 147–48); also Van Seters, “Joshua's Campaign,” 9–11. On this particular literary image of Ishtar and its relationship to Ishtar's iconography, see Cornelius, Izak, “Aspects of the Iconography of the Warrior Goddess Ištar and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecies,” in Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (ed. Nissinnen, Martti and Carter, Charles E.; FRLANT 233; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) 15–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 This epithet, which some understand to have been the official cultic name for Yahweh in Shiloh and Jerusalem, has attracted much scholarly attention. See, e.g., Mettinger, T. N. D., “Yahweh Zebaoth ,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (ed. van der Toorn, Karel, Becking, Bob, and van der Horst, Pieter W.; 2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 920–24Google Scholar.

33 The highest concentrations of the title appear in Proto-Isaiah, Jeremiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

34 Those being in 1 Sam 1:3, 11; 4:4; 15:2; 17:45; 2 Sam 6:2, 18; 7:8, 26–27; 1 Kgs 18:15; 2 Kgs 3:14.

35 See Römer, So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 67–106, and the bibliography therein for a recent overview of the Deuteronomistic texts that were probably extant during the monarchic period.

36 Baruch Halpern suggests that the biblical writers/editors have “Davidized” Joshua's achievements (“Gibeon: Israelite Diplomacy in the Conquest Era,” CBQ 37 [1975] 303–16, esp. 315). Note also that in the post-monarchic book of 1 Chronicles, David is visited by (the angel/messenger of Yahweh), who holds an outstretched sword (1 Chr 21:16: [his sword was drawn in his hand]; compare Josh 5:13; also Num 22:23, 31). However, in 1 Chronicles, the heavenly visitor is not there to encourage; he has come to punish Jerusalem on account of David's census. The version of the story in 2 Samuel 24 does not mention the drawn sword.

37 Pace L. Daniel Hawk, who states that the emplotment of the Achan episode is ironic (Every Promise Fulfilled: Contesting Plots in Joshua [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1991] 75). Ch. 7 is indeed juxtaposed with Rahab's story in ch. 2, as Hawk shows (ibid., 79), and therefore presents an ironic understanding of (ban, devote to destruction); see also idem, Joshua (Berit Olam; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000) 107–10. However, following the highly romantic beginnings of the conquest in chs. 5 and 6, this turn of events highlights the failure of the protagonist(s) to continue the heroic success witnessed at Jericho, thus making the plot tragic from a conquest perspective. Only with the second major turn of events, the Gibeon episode, does the plot of the conquest fully evince irony, as I will argue below.

38 E.g., Römer, So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 88 and 135; also Dietrich, Walter, “Achans Diebstahl (Jos 7). Eine Kriminalgeschichte aus frühpersischer Zeit,” in ‘Sieben Augen auf einem Stein’ (Sach 3,9). Studien zur Literatur des Zweiten Tempels. Festschrift für Ina Willi-Plein (ed. Hartenstein, F.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2007) 57–67Google Scholar; and Knauf, Josua, 73.

39 John Strange admits, “The date of the [entire Ai] story [7:1–8:29] is difficult to assess” (“The Book of Joshua: Origin and Dating,” SJOT 16 [2002] 44—51, at 45–46). Nevertheless, he goes on to speculate that it is very late. Nelson, to the contrary, argues that the Achan story was added to the larger narrative of chs. 2–11 in a “pre-deuteronomistic” setting, viz., very early (Joshua, 98–99).

40 Enemies allying with one another, increasing their power and resources, and thus increasing the impressiveness of the protagonist's eventual victory, is a common trope in ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts; e.g., the southern coalition that forms against Sennacherib. See Sennacherib's Prism Inscription, esp. col. V, in Luckenbill, Daniel D., The Annals of Sennacherib (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock, 2005) 40–45Google Scholar.

41 The biblical Gibeonites and the text of Joshua 9 have a long history of scholarly discussion. E.g., Liver, J., “The Literary History of Joshua IX,” JSS 8 (1967) 227–43Google Scholar; Blenkinsopp, Joseph, “Are There Traces of the Gibeonite Covenant in Deuteronomy?” CBQ 28 (1966) 207–19Google Scholar; Kearney, Peter J., “The Role of the Gibeonites in the Deuteronomic History,” CBQ 35 (1973) 1–19Google Scholar; Halpern, “Gibeon”; Rösel, Hartmut N., “Anmerkungen zur Erzählung vom Bundesschluß mit den Gibeoniten,” BN 28 (1985) 30–35Google Scholar; Sutherland, Ray K., “Israelite Political Theories in Joshua 9,” JSOT 53 (1992) 65–74Google Scholar; Boer, Roland, “Green Ants and Gibeonites,” Semeia 75 (1996) 129–52Google Scholar; Edelman, Diana, “Gibeon and the Gibeonites Revisited,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. Lipschits, Oded and Blenkinsopp, Joseph; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2003) 153–67Google Scholar; Gordon, Robert P., “Gibeonite Ruse and Israelite Curse in Joshua 9,” in Covenant as Context: Essays in Honour of E. W. Nicholson (ed. Mayes, A. D. H. and Salters, R. B.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 163–90Google Scholar; Day, John, “Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Old Testament,” in Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld (ed. Rezetko, Robertet al.; VTSup 113; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 113–37Google Scholar; also Na'aman, Nadav, “The Sanctuary of the Gibeonites Revisited,” JANER 9 (2009) 101–24Google Scholar (contrast this essay with Na'aman's earlier discussion in “Conquest of Canaan,” 371–77, where he takes a slightly different position on the date of this text).

42 On the plot structure and elements of comedy, see Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957) 163–86Google Scholar.

43 See Hawk, Every Promise, 89. Gordon, “Gibeonite Ruse,” 174, notices the absurdity of the Gibeonite bread: if these sojourners had come so far, why would they still possess the provisions needed for their long journey!

44 On the sun at Gibeon and Yahweh's interventions, see Younger, Ancient Conquest Accounts, 208–20, with further bibliography.

45 Boer suggests that, from the perspective of later Persian-period readers, the Gibeonites might be imagined both as a subjugated people and as a cipher for post-exilic Israel itself, contributing to the complex identity struggles that surely went on in Persian Yehud (“Green Ants and Gibeonites,” 147–49).

46 Na'aman, “Sanctuary of the Gibeonites.” The archaeological record shows that Gibeon (el-Jib) flourished in the late monarchic period and then went into decline in the 6th cent. and subsequent Persian period (ibid., 102).

47 Na'aman, “Sanctuary of the Gibeonites,” 107–8.

48 See Frye, Anatomy, 226–28; also White, Metahistory, 9–10.

49 On this text, see Kenik, Helen A., Design for Kingship: The Deuteronomistic Narrative Technique in 1 Kings 3:4–15 (SBLDS 69; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Seow, C. L., “The Syro-Palestinian Context of Solomon's Dream,” HTR 77 (1984) 141–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kenik comments on the transitional nature of this story, but she does not draw a parallel between the relocation to Jerusalem and Solomon's reception of divinely granted judicial wisdom (Design for Kingship, 182–97).

50 See Hawk, Every Promise, 92–93.

51 See Uehlinger, Christoph, “Was There a Cult Reform under King Josiah?” in Good Kings and Bad Kings: The Kingdom of Judah in the Seventh Century BCE (ed. Grabbe, Lester L.; London: T&T Clark, 2007) 279–316Google Scholar. On the supposed Josianic reforms and the biblical texts, see the various views and arguments of: Rainer Albertz, “Why a Reform like Josiah's Must Have Happened,” in Good Kings, 27–46; Philip R. Davies, “Josiah and the Law Book,” in Good Kings, 65–77; Christof Hardmeirer, “King Josiah in the Climax of the Deuteronomic History (2 Kings 22–23) and the Pre-Deuteronomic Document of a Cult Reform at the Place of Residence (23.4–15*),” in Good Kings, 123–63; Na'aman, Nadav, “The King Leading Cult Reforms in His Kingdom: Josiah and Other Kings in the Ancient Near East,” ZABR 12 (2006) 131–68Google Scholar; idem, “The ‘Discovered Book’ and the Legitimation of Josiah's Reform,” JBL 130 (2011) 47–62; and bibliographies therein. On religious trends during the late monarchic period in particular, see, e.g., Albertz, Rainer, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period (trans. Bowden, John; 2 vols.; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 1:156–242Google Scholar; and during the Iron Age in general, see, e.g., Zevit, Ziony, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001) 648–68Google Scholar.

52 See, e.g., Juha Pakkala, who argues at length against the idea of the Hezekianic and Josianic reforms as the Hebrew Bible portrays them, but does leave open the possibility that Josiah restored the Jerusalem temple (2 Kgs 22:2–7, 9) and abolished any cultic symbols potentially associated with Assyria (2 Kgs 23:11) (“Why the Cult Reforms in Judah Probably Did Not Happen,” in One God—One Cult—One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives [ed. Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann; BZAW 405; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010] 201–35).

53 For helpful comments on continuity in social memory, see Zerubavel, Eviatar, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) 37–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On epic frameworks in the Bible as a whole, see the thoughts of Frye, Anatomy, 315–17. On the issue of pan-Israelite thought in Judah, see above, n. 15.

54 See A Companion to Ancient Epic (ed. John Miles Foley; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005). Compare the definition of Cross, Canaanite Myth, vii. Here I do not mean to imply that the narrative is “epic” in the sense of Homeric poetry. See, e.g., John Van Seters's critique of comparisons between Greek epic and biblical historiography, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983; repr., Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1997) 18–31. For a more recent treatment of epic material in the Bible, see Susan Niditch, “The Challenge of Israelite Epic,” in Companion to Ancient Epic, 277–87.

55 See Nelson, Joshua, 21–22.

56 On the issue of the indigenous Canaanite population in pentateuchal literature, see Schwartz, Baruch J., “Reexamining the Fate of the ‘Canaanites’ in the Torah Traditions,” in Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume (ed. Cohen, Chaim, Hurvitz, Avi, and Paul, Shalom M.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004) 151–70Google Scholar.

57 The Mesha inscription reads, “[F]or I (Mesha) had put it (Nebo) to the ban () for Ashtar Kemosh. And from there, I took th[e ves]sels of yhwh, and I hauled them before the face of Kemosh.” Trans. K. A. D. Smelik, in The Context of Scripture (ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger; 3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 2:138.

58 See Brekelmans, Christianus, “,” in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (ed. Jenni, Ernst and Westermann, Claus; 3 vols.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997) 2:476Google Scholar.

59 Of course, from the perspective of the conquerors, all wars are holy. See, e.g., Oded, Bustenay, War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1992)Google Scholar.

60 See Nelson, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” 537–40. If Josh 5:10–12 and 8:30–35 are indeed later additions, as some critics assert (see above, n. 13), then the textual parallels between Joshua and Josiah, at least from a 7th-cent. perspective, are less convincing. However, the thematic parallels noted by Nelson are certainly present.

61 See Monroe, Lauren A. S., “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War-ḥērem Traditions and the Forging of National Identity: Reconsidering the Sabaean Text RES 3945 in Light of Biblical and Moabite Evidence,” VT 57 (2007) 318–41Google Scholar.

62 See Zvi, Ehud Ben, “The Concept of Prophetic Books and Its Historical Setting,” in The Production of Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud (ed. Edelman, Diana V. and Zvi, Ehud Ben; London: Equinox, 2009) 83–84Google Scholar, with additional bibliography.

63 See Davies, Philip R. (“The Origin of Biblical Israel,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 5 (2005) 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1–2), who argues that the most likely time frame is during the reign of Manasseh. Davies, however, does not account for the Judean material culture present at Benjaminite sites in the late 8th cent., prior to Manasseh (see below).

64 See Lipschits, Oded, Sergi, Omer, and Koch, Ido, “Judahite Stamped and Incised Jar Handles,” TA 38 (2011) 5–41Google Scholar, esp. 15–16. The amount of Judean jar handles at these sites reached its peak in the first half of the 7th cent., supposedly under the reign of Manasseh. However, significant numbers of Judean handles (and other items of Judean material culture) are also present at the Benjaminite sites in the late 8th cent., prior to Sennacherib's campaigns.

65 See Lipschits, Sergi, and Koch, “Judahite Stamped and Incised Jar Handles,” 22–23.

66 See Na'aman, “Sanctuary of the Gibeonites,” 107–8; also above.

67 On Bethel and its place in biblical discourse, see, e.g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period,” in Judah and the Judeans, 93–107; also Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (LHBOTS 473; London: T&T Clark, 2010) 81–102. Bethel, in the liminal zone between South and North, is a complex site in the biblical landscape. The text of 2 Kings 23, likewise, apparently has a complicated history and reflects shifting ideas concerning the site; see Hardmeier, “King Josiah,” for detailed discussion and bibliography. Critics frequently locate 23:16–20 in the post-monarchic period, but Hardmeier argues that the core of v. 15 was essential to a monarchic-period text that recounted Josiah's actual reforms (ibid., 145). On the archaeology of the site, see Finkelstein, Israel and Singer-Avitz, Lily, “Reevaluating Bethel,” ZDPV 125 (2009) 33–48Google Scholar.

68 See Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz, “Reevaluating Bethel,” 40–41. The Iron IIB–C pottery assemblages from Bethel contain a number of items that are characteristically Judean, including folded rim bowls and kraters, a lmlk storage jar, a pillar figurine that is potentially of the Judean type, and the Judean-type inscribed weight. This is also true of Khirbet el-Mergame, which lies 12 km northeast of Bethel. However, other prominent northern sites such as Hazor, Megiddo, and Samaria do not evince this mixture of southern and northern styles. Judging by the material remains alone, one cannot tell precisely how pronounced Judean influence may have been at Bethel during the late Iron Age, but the mixture of Judean and Israelite pottery suggests a certain amount of sociocultural crossover at this liminal location. On Judean material culture and the supposed borders of Judah in the late Iron Age, see Kletter, Raz, “Pots and Polities: Material Remains of Late Iron Age Judah in Relation to Its Political Borders,” BASOR 314 (1999) 19–54Google Scholar.

69 See Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz, “Reevaluating Bethel,” 45.

70 White, Tropics of Discourse, 3 [italics in original].