Talk:Book of Joshua

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Genocide of the Canaanites

I categorized the Book of Joshua in Category:History books about genocide. The categorization was reverted with the following comment:

'Anachronistic, absurd extrapolation. By that standard, all ancient books are about "genocide".' Duponieux

A passage from the Book for example:

"They totally destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed... For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy..." (Joshua 11:11, 20).

"By that standard, all ancient books are about genocide"? You mean Analects, Antigona, Kama Sutra...?

Does not the chapter "Moral and political interpretation" in the article list reliable scholars who found in the Book genocide and ethnic cleansing? Can you edit your "anachronistic, absurd extrapolation" in the chapter itself?

Israel those days was chiefdom of 12 tribes. Genocide was norm of the chiefdom-level warfare worldwide.

Did you decisively demonstrate that all this anthropological research is "absurd extrapolation"? Can you refer to your research in the field and positive reviews?

Or the concensus cancels all pre-modern genocides as "anachronistic"?--Maxaxa (talk) 07:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

A review of Daniel Hawk's book The Violence of the Biblical God says:

"But is the book of Joshua about genocide? In light of the many internal contradictions within the text and the highly stylized ways killing is described, Hawk concludes that rhetoric about mass killing “contains more style than substance.” Like other recent scholars, he appeals to Deuteronomy 7. If God really wants the Israelites to “wipe out” the inhabitants of the land completely (7:1–2), then why does God immediately follow up with a commandment not to intermarry with them (7:3)? The Israelites presumably will not marry nations they have already slaughtered. The command to kill the nations of the land, then, “does not appear to be concerned with eliminating them so much as keeping Israel at a distance from them.”

The hyperbolic rhetoric of Deuteronomy and Joshua ultimately underscore Israel’s commitment to radical separation from the land’s native inhabitants. The rhetoric is about mass killing, but the actual commitment is to something different—unadulterated commitment to God. The fact that indigenous people who embrace the God of Israel are incorporated into the community without a protest from God would also seem to show that the rhetorical flourishes of the book of Joshua are not meant to be taken literally. The text does present a story of comprehensive military triumph, but it also pokes abundant holes in that very story."[1]

It's clear they weren't totally destroyed. Doug Weller talk 08:14, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The error in the review (and maybe in what it is reviewing; I didn't check) is that "wipe out completely" in ancient times generally didn't include killing women who were considered more suitable for capture. Those women became part of the conquering tribe and so the vanquished tribe thereby became extinct. A command to not intermarry could even be a euphemistic way of saying that the women should be killed too; it certainly does not negate the genocidal aspect. Zero^talk 12:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

References

Removing the odd sentence-paragraph at the end of the introduction

The sole source for, "Many scholars interpret the book of Joshua as referring to what would now be considered genocide," is a chapter in the book "Ritual Violence in the Hebrew Bible: New Perspectives." The chapter was written by a Dr. Tracy Lemos; I think it would be easy to make a case for Dr. Lemos's work to be highly ideological, but this is at present immaterial. What is material is the fact that even in the book in which the chapter appears, it is the only one making claims of genocide. (It is possible that Dr. Lemos provides an extensive list of other scholars who concur, but the book is expensive and no digital copy seems available.)

This is not the first time that someone has tried to shoehorn the anachronism* of genocide into the Book of Joshua (see above, for example). I am reverting this. If someone can find another source or two for this idea that "many scholars interpret the [B]ook of Joshua to what would now be considered genocide," have at it. It would be nice if they were coming from experts who do not obviously have an axe to grind, as well.

(*Yes, I am aware of the "what would now be considered" disclaimer given. I think it's clear why it was written this way.) Psithurismos (talk) 03:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

It's from Oxford University Press. That is, barring some extraordinary evidence which became later apparent, a highly reliable source. The opinion of one editor does not trump OUP.

And by "evidence" I mean evidence, not gibberish.

And now Cambridge University Press is WP:CITED to the same effect. That is a hard to match sourcing.

We don't take polls of how many scholars endorse this view. See the condition stipulated at WP:RS/AC. If OUP says that "many scholars" endorse it, and CUP also says that "many scholars" endorse it, then Wikipedia writes "many scholars". As simple as that—and not open for negotiation.

Briefly: the issue is both well-known and clear-cut. No way to dodge it. We're grownups, not little children.

Results:

• I don't have access to Lemos (OUP) right now, so I don't know what it says; if I remember well I accessed it via Google Books some years ago, but it is no longer there; later edit: found it, offered a quote for WP:V purposes;
• Lemos (CUP) kind of says it, but not explicitly;
• Fortunately, Olyan (OUP) does say that the Book of Joshua fits any narrow definition of genocide. Upon whether he actually says explicitly that many scholars endorse it, I'm not sure;
• Footnote 5 from Lemos (OUP) gives a brief list of scholars who endorse it.
• Even if WP:RS/AC would not be applicable, I have personally WP:CITED many scholars who either endorse it, or at least recognize it is a highly troubling matter, for themselves and for other scholars. E.g. in the middle of one paper, the author argues that genocide scholars frequently endorse it, while at the end of the paper that author seeks to refute their point. I don't think that the latter refutation invalidates the point that genocide scholars frequently endorse it. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)