TromboneChat

A couple of things I noted:

- the emphasis on "all Israel": being at fault in 1 and 11, being at risk in 12, and carrying out the punishment in 23 and 25.  Whether it happened that way or not, the writer wanted to emphasis the unity of Israel at the time.
- the conversation between Joshua and Achan in the "trial" in 19 - 21 seems very civilised does it not?  I can't imagine it being so stress free and so unlike a typical police interrogation.  But I can't see a reason for depicting it in that way.

Joshua 8 text

Highlights

• [li]Ai - take II[/li][li]Joshua renews the covenant[/li]

Summary

• [li]God tells Joshua to take Ai using an ambush[/li][li]So Joshua hides 30,000 men behind the city and then attacks it with 5000[/li][li]All the Ai soldiers chase the 5000 who run away, leaving Ai undefended, so the 30000 then take Ai and set fire to it[/li][li]The 5000 then turn on the Ai troops who were caught between the 2 Israelite armies.[/li][li]Israel defeated Ai and devoted it and its people to destruction[/li][li][/li][li]Joshua writes the Law on an alter of uncut stones and renews the covenant[/li][li]He did everything completely and exactly as Moses commanded[/li]

Questions and Observations

• [li]As usual, these numbers may not be correct.[/li][li]Joshua's complete obedience has been mentioned a few times in the book so far, so that's looking like a theme.[/li]

Joshua 9 text

Highlights

• [li]The Israelites are tricked into disobeying God[/li]

Summary

• [li]The kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizites, Hivities and the Jebusites hear about the Israelites, and gather together to form a club to fight Joshua.[/li][li]When the citizens of Gibeon aren't invited to join the club, they decide to trick the Israelites instead of fight them. They do this through the clever use of disguises and a cunning plan.[/li][li]The Gibeonites, give all their clothing a "worn" look to fool the Israelites into thinking they are travelers from a far away land.[/li][li]Maybe they hope the Israelites will go "Wow! Us too! This is so random!"[/li][li]The Gibeonites are apparently Hivites according to 9:7. [/li][li]The Hivite/Gibeonite hybrid group explains to Joshua that they have heard of the God of Israel and wish to make treaty with the Israelites.[/li][li]So Joshua accepts the treaty and doesn't ask for God's wisdom on this matter.[/li][li]Three days pass and the Israelites discover the Gibeonites's ruse. The Gibeonites readily admit they're a bunch of liars because they know the Israelites have to honor the treaty they all made because it was sworn before the God of Israel.[/li][li]Joshua, being an honorable man, does not kill the Gibeonites, but rather has them become hewers of wood and drawers of water.[/li]

Questions and Observations

• [li]Skipping a quick chat with God is always a mistake for the Israelites. Pro tip: If you have access to an omnipotent being, take a moment to ask him what's what. Or even read what he's told you in the last book.[/li][li]Deuteronomy 20:10-18 explicitly states that the Hivites were one of the tribes that had to be destroyed but that other tribes could be acceppted as forced labourers if the surrendered.  Ooops[/li][li]I wonder if the Gibeonites are going to cause trouble in the future?[/li]

Joshua 10 text

Highlights

• [li]Israel takes control of Southern Canaan[/li][li]Sunset delayed for a day[/li]

Summary

• [li]The Amorite Kings decide to attack Gibeon because they had made a treaty with Israel[/li][li]They asked Joshua for help.  God told Joshua not to fear them because he had given the Amorites to him.[/li][li]Joshua carries out a surprise attack on the Amorites and scatters them in panic[/li][li]God killed lots of Amorites with large hailstones[/li][li]Joshua asks God to stop the sun while the Israelites battle the Amorites[/li][li]the Amorite kings hide in a cave but are found. Joshua orders that stones be put over the entrace while the battle is raging.[/li][li]After the battle was won, the kings were retrieved, and then debased in front of the Israelites so that they wouldn't be afraid.  They were then killed.[/li][li]The Israelites attacked and destroyed Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron and Debir; all the cities from Kadesh-barnea as far as Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon[/li]

Questions and Observations

• [li]Map of Joshua's reported conquests in the South :  http://www.truthnet.org/Biblicalarcheology/6/conquest1.jpg[/li][li]In vv12,13 Joshua asks God to stop the sun and the moon while they battles the Amorites
   
  • [li]I'm not sure if they actually appeared to stop or just slowed down, but either way this would still be amazing!  I guess there's always the possibility that this was a myth, but that's a boring idea so I'll discount that. .[/li][li]In case anyone wants to be pedantic about geocentricity, I don't think its a concern. Its normal to talk about things the way they appear to us, just like we talk about sunrise and sunset, and even if Joshua actually thought the sun revolved around the earth, God was able to interpret what he wanted.  Anyway Einstein pointed out that its all relative anyway. [/li][li]NASA has an x-file that proves that there is a day missing from the earths rotation.  I know because Mulder told me.  Ha Ha.[/li][li]This is probably the "best" miracle reported since the creation, maybe even "better" than the flood[/li][li]Just think of the implications of stopping the earth in terms of the inertia of all the independent bodies that would be affected, not to mention the stresses on the earth.[/li][li]Aside: there are a couple of models of how God runs the universe. These impact our understanding of how God does "miracles"
    • [li]The common understanding is that God created the universe as a machine with all its physical laws of nature, once he created it, it runs by itself according to those laws.  In this understanding, miracles are where God interferes with the normal running of the universe to do something special and "supernatural".  I think this is called a deistic model.[/li][li]Another understanding is that the universe is continually being created and run by God.  Everything that happens, happens because God is doing it, everything that exists, exists because God is willing it to exist.  So there are no processes or laws, that just happen by themselves, that God has to interfere with to make a miracle happen.  A miracle is just God doing things differently to the way he usually does things. (and plasma's can be modelled because God normally does things pretty consistently)  It was this understanding of the universe that early scientists like Copernicus, Newton and Galileo had.  They thought that the universe could be investigated and would be consistent because of God's nature.[/li]
    [/li]
  [/li][li]And with this chapter it looks like Joshua and Israel pretty much have all of the southern part of the Land under control[/li]

One of the explanations for the long day is that the Sun and Moon represent (or actually are) competing Deities to Yahweh.  Remember that monotheism had not really taken hold at this point;  Yahweh was the God of Israel but not necessarily the only one out there.  So stopping the sun and moon is an illustration of the superior power of Yahweh. 

And that may be one level of meaning, but I think that is partly also an apologetic.  In the modern world knowing that the Earth spins rather than the sun moving it is difficult for most of the faithful to believe in this particular miracle, and the competing god explanation may just be a convenient out. 

Joshua 11 text

Highlights

• [li]Israel conquers the North of Canaan[/li][li][/li]

Summary

• [li]King Jabin of Hazor hears of the Israelites further conquests and gathers together the kings of Madon, Shimron, and Achshaph, along with the wandering tribes of the Chinneroth, Naphoth-dor, Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Hivites and Mizpah. Lots of troops, with horses AND chariots.[/li][li]God says "Don't worry" so the Israelites attack and defeat the armies[/li][li]They destroy the cities, killed the people and plundered the spoil and cattle[/li][li]Joshua did just like Moses had done[/li][li]Joshua took all the land[/li][li]Only the inhabitants of Gibeon made peace with Israel[/li][li]Joshua gave the land as an inheritance to Israel, and the land had rest from war[/li]

Questions and Observations

• [li]Joshua (the book) tells the story as though its all done and dusted, Israel was united and completely victorious (except for the little hiccough at Ai) and teh land has rest from war (I bet rest=sabbath).  BUT, we read soon that later there are still wars to be fought and land to be conquered.  What's going on?[/li]

Joshua 12 text

Highlights

• [li]The Kings defeated by Moses and Joshua[/li]

Summary

• [li]Moses defeated lots of kings on the east side of the Jordan[/li][li]Joshua defeated lots of kings on the west side of the Jordan[/li][li]and they each gave the land they conquered to The People[/li]

Questions and Observations

• [li]Some more similarities between Moses and Joshua.[/li][li]And the mission is completed.  or is it?[/li]

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 11, 2016, 02:41PMJoshua 8 text

As usual, these numbers may not be correct.

I'm mentally replacing 'thousand' with 'ten' for each of these numbers, in line with your commentary. So 30,000 warriors assaulting Ai becomes 300, the decoy of 5,000 becomes 50, Ai's 12,000 slain become 120, etc. Sound reasonable?

Hanging the King of Ai sounds like a statement of some kind. To modern eyes, it would say that he was specifically reserved a criminal's death. But what would it say to ancient readers of the Book of Joshua?

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 12, 2016, 02:37PMJoshua 9 text

Joshua, being an honorable man, does not kill the Gibeonites, but rather has them become hewers of wood and drawers of water.

I wonder if the Gibeonites are going to cause trouble in the future?
Bearing in mind the consensus of opinion that this material was composed (or at least drawn together and heavily redacted) for a Jewish court hundreds of years later, this chapter sounds to me like something that someone thought would make a good justification for some particular social class divide in that later era.

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 13, 2016, 05:05PMJoshua 10 text

Map of Joshua's reported conquests in the South :  http://www.truthnet.org/Biblicalarcheology/6/conquest1.jpg

Btw, this list format is pretty but a nuisance to format when quoting - constantly having to fiddle around deleting [ li ] and [ /li ] brackets.

1) As noted earlier, only a couple of these cities were in reality destroyed at the purported time of Joshua (13th century BC) - at the rest, the archaeological record contradicts this narrative.
2) But we're summarising the story - so...
3) The map you posted shows that these cities were all reasonably clustered together. This is not a conquest of the whole area of modern Israel. In fact this whole area seems to be contained in the Southern half of what we nowadays call the "West Bank".
4) The report tells us that they basically killed 100% of the people in the district, seemingly many more people than they had brought with them. All these tribes were presumably 100% wiped out - so presumably we don't hear anything of them ever again? And presumably other neighbouring tribes are drawn into the land by the power vacuum created?

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 13, 2016, 05:05PMIn vv12,13 Joshua asks God to stop the sun and the moon while they battles the Amorites
As Tim pointed out, this feels to be to do with establishing divine hierarchy. The whole early Old Testament span can even be thought of as not so much a history of how a people came to political prominence but a history of how their god concept arose, a conglomerate of earlier god concepts, added to to suit the needs of the moment. It's evident from plenty of passages that there were many competing religious ideas around, and that some were followed by members of the Israelite group. Here, the Israelite God is written to subordinate sun and moon deities - I wouldn't be surprised to hear explicitly from the text that the subdued tribes were sun and moon worshippers.

Or maybe it's a metaphor for the battle going on for a long time...

Interesting that another work is explicitly referenced here - the Book of Jasher, literally "The Book of the Upright/Just Man". This is a now-lost work, sadly. Bit weird that the supposedly contemporary history would reference the description of an earlier work - more circumstantial evidence that the Book of Joshua appeared later.

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 14, 2016, 09:20PMJoshua 11 text

King Jabin of Hazor
Hazor is one the two cities in this long list that actually were destroyed at this time (Lachish being the other). Uncharitable Dave says "a stopped clock is right twice a day".

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 14, 2016, 09:20PMJoshua (the book) tells the story as though its all done and dusted, Israel was united and completely victorious (except for the little hiccough at Ai) and teh land has rest from war (I bet rest=sabbath).  BUT, we read soon that later there are still wars to be fought and land to be conquered.  What's going on?

A little light historical propaganda, mayhap?

The described controlled area is now substantially larger than in the previous chapter - much more of what is modern Israel.

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 14, 2016, 09:25PMJoshua 12 text

Moses defeated lots of kings on the east side of the Jordan
Joshua defeated lots of kings on the west side of the Jordan
and they each gave the land they conquered to The People
I'm not sure I'd realised before that there's a substantial amount of land on the East Bank described here. I wonder if that feeds any modern attitudes - I bet it does.

Joshua 13 text

Highlights

 - List of future targets
 - Division of East bank land amongst the tribes

Summary

 - God lists for aged Joshua future conquests to be made
   - The land of the Philistines - which seems to be somewhere near modern Gaza
   - Lebanon, further North
 - The conquered East bank land is divided up:
   - The Plains of Moab; lots of details

Questions and Observations

1) The future conquest land seems to be basically the Mediterranean coast - correct?
2) Interesting that the tribe of Gad was given Gilead. Remember that in Numbers 32 the tribes of Reuben and Gad mounted a modest insurrection, settling there. Evidently this was treated as official in some sense.

Joshua 14 text
Joshua 15 text

Highlights

 - Division of West bank land
 - The faithful Caleb makes a reappearance

Summary

 - Similarly to the previous chapter, the land West of the Jordan is now divided between the Israelite tribes. Chapter 15 carries the detail of this.
 - Levites are, as already noted, treated differently, as the priestly caste.
 - Caleb, who was the sole bold voice in the Numbers 13 debacle, reappears as an old man, and asks for the promised reward for his faithfulness.
 - He is granted Hebron.
 - The inhabitants of Jerusalem (Jebusites) manage to repel the Israelites, and stay there.

Questions and Observations

1) I keep reading "Anakim" as "Anakin"...
2) Here's a map of these divisions.
3) Jerusalem has evidently been a difficult ethnic case for a very long time indeed.
4) There are a number more chapters of this land division stuff, tedious and slow. I suggest we grab these several chapters at a time.
5) That said, they do provide an interesting picture of how Jewish society was laid out at the time of the composition of the Book of Joshua, i.e. later on in Jewish history.

Joshua 16 text
Joshua 17 text

Highlights

 - The tribes of Joseph get their allottment of land
 - They have trouble taking it all.

Summary

 -  The people of Joseph (which were the 2 tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh) receive their inheritance.  Here's a map of these divisions.
 - They did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer who still live there as forced labourers
 - The daughters of Zelophehad come forward to remind Joshua that they had been promised an inheritance because their father had no sons.  (Numbers 27)
 - The tribe of Manasseh gets land on the West and East bank of the Jordan
 - The tribe Manasseh was not able to take possession of all their cities and force the Canaanites out. So they grizzled that they didn't have enough land for all their people but Joshua tells them not to be wimps and take the land that they have been given.

Questions and Observations

1) In these 2 chapters we read that the People were unable to drive out all the Canaanites who lived in the land, this is unexpcted given the apparent ease that they were winning battles up to chapter 10 when they were being faithful.  Interesting.

Joshua 18 text
Joshua 19 text

Highlights

 - Remaining land allocations for tribes

Summary

 - 7 tribes are as yet unallocated for. Joshua sends out surveyors from amongst them to determine what land may yet be allocated.
 - Sevenths of this territory are decided by lot:
  - Lot 1: Benjamin gets the territory that they originally crossed the Jordan into.
  - Lot 2: Simeon territory in the South, contained within Judah's territory.
  - Lot 3: Zebulun in the North, inland in modern Lebanon I think
  - Lot 4: Issachar next door to Zebulun
  - Lot 5: Asher even further North, on the border on the coast
  - Lot 6: Naphtali East of Asher, on the border inland
  - Lot 7: Dan on the coast in the middle. Dan has to fight for it, uniquely listed.
 - Joshua gets a city to himself, supplementary to these agreements.

Questions and Observations

1) I think we see here which tribes were more and less politically favoured in the writer's time - remember being picked last for football teams...
2) Given the siting of their land internal to the portions of the others tribes, it seems curious that Dan would see its land taken back by outsiders. Or perhaps insiders. It isn't specified who they are striving against.

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 17, 2016, 02:52PM2) Given the siting of their land internal to the portions of the others tribes, it seems curious that Dan would see its land taken back by outsiders. Or perhaps insiders. It isn't specified who they are striving against.

We get to read more about Dan in Judges, so that might shed some light on this.

And Joshua's city was in Ephraim's (his tribe) allotment.

Joshua 20 text
Joshua 21 text

Highlights

 - The Cities of Refuge
 - The Levites land
 - Conclusion : The Lord had fulfilled all his promises to the Fathers.

Summary

 - God tells Joshua the rules regarding refuge a "city of refuge".  These were places that a "manslayers" could seek refuge from an "avenger of blood" and have his case heard.
 - If the killing is proved accidental then the man is declared innocent but he can't return home until the death of the current high priest.
 - Refuge cities are established in Kedesh in Galilee (where Jesus is from), Shechem in Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba in Judah

 - The Levites remind Joshua and Eleazar that God had told Moses that the Levites would be allotted cities and pastures even though they did not get a tribal land.
 - The Levites are allocated 48 cities throughout the land

 - Thus the Lord gave all the land that he had promised to Israel and the Lord gave them rest from their enemies, not one of them had withstood them.
 - All the Lords good promises had come to pass.

Questions and Observations

1) God had told Moses to set aside Cities of Refuge.  Joshua and Eliazar now do it.
2) v 43 - 45 seem to be a conclusion, stating that God had fulfilled all his promises to Israel, that they had got the land promised, rest on every side and that none of their enemies had withstood them!  This is not quite what the book depicts, nor what Judges tells us either.  I'm wondering why those discrepancies were included.  I don't think that the writer/s would have included them if they contradictory so I'm left wondering why they were included and what they mean.  (I could ask Mr Google, but I'd rather find out from the text myself.)  Some interesting facts so far are:
  - tribes don't win battles if they are disobedient or unfaithful, or too scared to try.
  - God has given the tribes victory if they ask him what to do and they do it.
I'll see if there is anything in Judges that helps me sort it out.

The cities of refuge seem to have been sensibly spread out.

I find it interesting that the tribes bordering their land to the North don't seem to have been mentioned at all (or have I missed this?). Lots of mentions of Edomites etc.

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 18, 2016, 03:10AM
I find it interesting that the tribes bordering their land to the North don't seem to have been mentioned at all (or have I missed this?). Lots of mentions of Edomites etc.

I never thought about it actually.  I guess that the story is from Israels point of view and that only people that interacted with Israel were mentioned.  So I guess that the nothern nations didn't interact with Israel.  Whereas the Edomites and Canaanites did.

Joshua 22 text
Joshua 23 text

Highlights

 - The eastern tribes nearly cause offence
 - Joshua's retirement speech

Summary

 - The eastern tribes have fulfilled the obligations to help the other tribes so they are allowed to go home
 - On their way home they built an altar near the Jordan.  The People heard about this and made preparations for war.
 - But the People sent Phineas the priest to find out what was going on.
 - Phineas asks them what's going on and says that it looks like same situation as when Peor caused problems and they still hadn't been forgiven.
 - The eastern tribes said that they weren't going to sacrifice on the altar, that it was just a memorial so their descendants wouldnt forget that they were all God people.
 - Phineas accepts this and everyone lived happily ever after.

 - Joshua gets old and decides to retire.  He gathers the leaders of Israel and reminds them
   - what God has done for them,
   - to be strong, and to follow the Law
   - that God has allotted them the land of the other nations that are still in the land.
   - not to mix with the other nations or to follow their gods.
   - that if they transgress the covenant then they will perish.
 

Questions and Observations

1) Be strong! again
2) And they haven't conquered all the land yet.

Unauthorised offerings are a big deal, still. I guess this is all about keeping the religious concepts central so that variations aka heresies cannot arise. Quite possibly a politically sensible thing to be so controlling about.

Joshua 24 text

Highlights

 - Quick narrative recap of the whole travel itinerary from Terah to the present day
 - Admonitions to have and keep the faith
 - Joshua dies

Summary

 - The various staging-posts of the Israelites' journey as traced in this narrative are run over:
  - Terah in Ur
  - Abraham to Canaan
  - Isaac
  - Esau to Seir, Jacob to Egypt
  - Departure from Egypt
  - Wilderness
  - Conquest
 - Pointing out the obvious profit in all this, Joshua attributes it to their religion and admonishes the Israelites to have that religion and to keep it.
  - A stone is erected to commemorate this.
 - Joshua dies and is buried at his city
  - Also Joseph's bones, brought from Egypt, are buried at Shechem.
  - Eleazar dies and is buried at Phinehas's town.

Questions and Observations

1) Terah and his forefathers are described as having "served other gods". This seems confusing when compared to the Genesis account.
2) The Jebusites were listed as not submitting to the Israelites a few chapters ago (holding Jerusalem despite Israelite offensives). Now they are listed as submitting to them.
3) They are admonished to "Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt". So presumably at least some of them in the Israelite group have never been into the Yahweh thing...
4) Joshua is listed as living to 110. We still haven't worked down to believable numbers. I wonder if the eventual onset of this will coincide with the story starting to generally become more historical than mythical.
5) It is probably bad of me, but I keep smiling wryly at the name of the Jebusites, which is a bit too close to Jeebus-ites...
6) Thus concludes the Book of Joshua, which we've gone through in only two weeks. I'll post a narrative summary.

In preface, the condensed summary of the earlier books:

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 06, 2016, 02:58PMGenesis

• [li]Big picture stuff
  • [li]Creation; Adam & Eve[/li][li]Humans, take 1; Cain & Abel, Noah[/li][li]The Flood; Wash everything away, start again[/li][li]Humans, take 2[/li]
  [/li][li]Abraham; extensive travels, original covenant, Lot, not sacrificing Isaac[/li][li]Jacob; conflict with twin Esau, banishment, wives, 12 sons[/li][li]Joseph; betrayal to Egypt, rise, saving of family, supposed origins of 12 tribes[/li]

Exodus

• [li]New scene, three generations on - Israelites now of low status in Egypt[/li][li]Moses grows up, fights battle of wills with Pharoah over plagues, leads Israelites to depart[/li][li]Wandering, take 1; through the desert to Mt. Sinai, where they make a long camp and...[/li]

Leviticus

• [li]...many laws are given[/li]

Numbers

• [li]Wandering, take 2; they reach their destination, but are too weak to attempt the task, and so...[/li][li]Wandering, take 3; more pootling around, building up military prowess over the years in the preparation for invasion; new leaders emerge, and they finish on the brink of their destination again[/li]

Deuteronomy

• [li]Moses orates; recap of terms and conditions, forward planning[/li][li]Moses dies[/li]

Joshua

• [li]Conquest
  • [li]Joshua appointed leader, to cross Jordan, conquer Canaan[/li][li]Spies report back that the time is ripe[/li][li]Jericho is the first city to fall. Then Ai, at the second attempt.[/li][li]The Gibeonites talk them into an alliance.[/li][li]Southern Canaan all conquered (sudden shift of narrative gear)[/li][li]Ditto the North[/li]
  [/li][li]Division of conquered land between the tribes
  • [li]The East bank land that Moses took[/li][li]West bank land[/li][li]Remaining land[/li][li]Cities of refuge and Levite cities nominated[/li]
  [/li][li]Joshua dies[/li]

for me the highlights would be about renewing the covenant
- Joshua reminds Israel of the good things that God has done for them (with reminders that they served other gods)
- Joshua gives Israel the choice of whether to server God or other gods
- The People say they will serve The Lord
- Joshua says that they won't, and that when that happens God will punish them
- The People say that they WILL serve the Lord.
- So Joshua made a covenant with the people that they would follow God.

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 19, 2016, 03:24AM
Questions and Observations

1) Terah and his forefathers are described as having "served other gods". This seems confusing when compared to the Genesis account.
2) The Jebusites were listed as not submitting to the Israelites a few chapters ago (holding Jerusalem despite Israelite offensives). Now they are listed as submitting to them.
3) They are admonished to "Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt". So presumably at least some of them in the Israelite group have never been into the Yahweh thing...
4) Joshua is listed as living to 110. We still haven't worked down to believable numbers. I wonder if the eventual onset of this will coincide with the story starting to generally become more historical than mythical.

1. Nothing is said in Genesis about which gods they served before God called Abraham. Its a theme that God called people that didn't deserve it, so from that perspective its not surprising to find out that they didn't serve God.
3. Maybe not never, but at least not very loyally
6. Only 2 weeks

Apropos...

A mostly politics site I read has noted a book that attempts to ascertain the actual origin of the Israelites.


Who Were the Ancient Israelites?
Quote
So setting aside the possible theological implications for believers, if the Israelites were not invaders who came in from somewhere else, where did they come from exactly? Who were they?

This is the central question in Dever's book.

The themes that I thought the writer of Joshua emphasised

 - God's faithfulness in keeping his promises, especially with respect to giving them the Land
 - The Lord is better than those other puny gods of the Amorites
 - the unity of Israel
 - the obedience of Joshua and linking with Moses explicitly by showing him doing and saying similar things
 - the need for the People to keep God's covenant with them and the unlikelihood of that happening.


Its ironic that if I take Joshua as historically correct then I have to deal with issues like genocide, trying to work out whether Israel conquered or not, and who numbers stack up, but if I take it as being more mythical written for a purpose other than recording historical fact, then those "problems" can be more easily explained.  Hmmmm.

Since the destruction of the Canaanites has been mentioned in recent posts, I thought I'd post this short video presentation by John Currid, Old Testament professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC.  He gives a good summary of typical orthodox Christian responses to questions that arise over this issue.  Here's the link:

http://rts.edu/site/wisdomwednesday/

I couldn't watch the video at work, can you summarize?

You say that is an orthodox response, but it seems to be linked to apologetic sites, which I don't consider orthodox. 

I would have said the mainstream position is a combination of A) the genocide did not happen, at least to the extent described, and B) the acceptability of genocide reflects the cultural mores of the time and not the command of Yahweh.  Neither idea is usually acceptable to apologists. 

Quote from: timothy42b on Apr 20, 2016, 06:57AMI couldn't watch the video at work, can you summarize?

You say that is an orthodox response, but it seems to be linked to apologetic sites, which I don't consider orthodox. 

I would have said the mainstream position is a combination of A) the genocide did not happen, at least to the extent described, and B) the acceptability of genocide reflects the cultural mores of the time and not the command of Yahweh.  Neither idea is usually acceptable to apologists. 

Neither of your responses are what I would call orthodox.  They are the responses of Classical Protestant theological liberalism. 

Classical Protestant liberalism is just that-- Protestant liberalism, not historic orthodoxy. Sorry, but that's how anyone who should describe him/herself as holding to historic orthodoxy would respond, as far as I'm concerned. 

The site is Reformed Theological Seminary, a seminary committed to the Westminster Standards, one of the classic standards of historic Protestantism.  The post may have an apologetic aspect, but the site is not an "apologetic" site,, not that that would really change anything.

Quote from: timothy42b on Apr 20, 2016, 06:57AMI couldn't watch the video at work, can you summarize?

I watched it. It's similar to what I recall from Lutheran confirmation class.

My summary would be

-God rules over all and can order anything thing he wants. It's legal if he commands it.
-The indigenous people deserved to die because they were aware of God's law and chose not to obey.
-If the indigenous people were permitted to persist, they would be a bad influence on the Israelites.



I find that unpersuasive (What about 1-year old babies? What about slaves or servants who had no choice in their society?) but that was the speaker's essential case.

The one thing you left out was that was proleptic of the final judgment. 

I agree that it won't be persuasive to many because if one brings certain presuppositions about God to the text rather than understanding what God is like from the text, it makes all the difference in the world.

Quote from: John the Theologian on Apr 20, 2016, 09:47AM if one brings certain presuppositions about God to the text rather than understanding what God is like from the text, it makes all the difference in the world.

Here I disagree quite strongly but don't have time to address.  More later. 

Judges 1 text


Highlights -

 - The conquest continues after Joshua dies ...
 - sort of. 
 - Actually it fails.

Summary

 - There are more Canaanites to fight : Judah and Simeon step up and take a number of Canaanite Kings including Jerusalem.
 - Caleb and the house of Joseph won their fights too.
 - Benjamin didn't drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem so they're still there
 - Manasseh didn't drive out their Canaanites and they're still there as forced labourers.
 - Same for Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali. 
 - The Gadites got repulsed back to the hills, they needed help from Joseph to subject some of the Amorites.

Questions and Observations

1) The conquering starts well but peters out pretty quickly.  Rather than totally destroying, they can only subject people and even then that doesn't happen all the time. (I'm assuming that destrying is the goal because that's what they were told to do.)
2) In Joshua, Israel had a united army, in Judges they are tribal armies.  Not doing very well either.
3) In v8 the men of Judah defeat and burn Jerusalam. They then head off to fight more Canaanites.  Then we read in v21 that the people didn't drive the Jebusites from Jerusalem and that they live there this day.  I guess the burning wasn't complete (mud brick houses?) and that Jerusalem was still habitable and still had people left.  So maybe Judah came through a got rid of the defence leaving it for Benjamin to clean up, which they didn't finish.

I'm wondering what the circumstances are that you fail to kill them but somehow were still able to enslave them?

I'm not sure, but I reckon that if you are able to enslave someone then you are also able to kill them, so it comes down to a choice rather than ability.

So the question is why did they chose to enslave rather than kill?

From a human perspective slavery could seem to be more compassionate.  It gives you free labour too.  So win-win.

From God's perspective, they were choosing not to obey God and doing what they wanted instead

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 20, 2016, 08:04PMJudges 1 text


Highlights -

 - The conquest continues after Joshua dies ...

Or, Judges retells the same conquest story, only with far different details.  Rather than the utter destruction and genocide, there are alliances and coexistences. 

Being something of a newbie to this section of the material, I needed to look up the title: Judges as a term is essentially referencing political leaders by their judicial function. So it says "judge", which to modern ears carries a solely judicial meaning, but it means "leader" or "ruler", a function that included hearing judicial cases, as with Moses.

As for the Book of Joshua, I have had a look at the Wiki entry on its composition to get a flavour of how the text is regarded by scholars. It is emphasised that these books form part of the Deuteronomistic History, the D source as scholars understand things, which (the theory goes) was composed in Babylonian exile, redacted from various ancient stories to create as coherent a narrative as possible.

Regarding these texts with that in view, it becomes eminently possible to imagine that conflicting stories of the same events were reconciled by placing them as if the chronologies ran successively rather than concurrently. I'll be interested to see as we go what seems to be in conflict, and what doesn't...

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 20, 2016, 08:04PMJudges 1 text


Highlights -

 - The conquest continues after Joshua dies ...
 - sort of. 
 - Actually it fails.

Summary

 - There are more Canaanites to fight : Judah and Simeon step up and take a number of Canaanite Kings including Jerusalem.
 - Caleb and the house of Joseph won their fights too.
 - Benjamin didn't drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem so they're still there
 - Manasseh didn't drive out their Canaanites and they're still there as forced labourers.
 - Same for Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali. 
 - The Gadites got repulsed back to the hills, they needed help from Joseph to subject some of the Amorites.

Questions and Observations

1) The conquering starts well but peters out pretty quickly.  Rather than totally destroying, they can only subject people and even then that doesn't happen all the time. (I'm assuming that destrying is the goal because that's what they were told to do.)
2) In Joshua, Israel had a united army, in Judges they are tribal armies.  Not doing very well either.
3) In v8 the men of Judah defeat and burn Jerusalam. They then head off to fight more Canaanites.  Then we read in v21 that the people didn't drive the Jebusites from Jerusalem and that they live there this day.  I guess the burning wasn't complete (mud brick houses?) and that Jerusalem was still habitable and still had people left.  So maybe Judah came through a got rid of the defence leaving it for Benjamin to clean up, which they didn't finish.

These messy details have a ring of honesty about them which the glowing write-up of the Book of Joshua lacks. It still doesn't seem likely that we can trust it as a history text-book (in timescales, like reading a new book on the Wars of the Roses based on tales passed down in the family), but it's heartening to see some realistic-feeling complexity brought to proceedings. Where Joshua presented us with a picture of an armed federation of 12 tribes touring and emptying the land in repeated conquest, then sitting down and drawing lots to allocate which bits of this emptied area were whose, this is presenting us straight away with a many-fronts situation which feels intuitively a lot more plausible.

I note that the book Robert linked to a few posts back talks about how, in the complete absence of archaelogical support for the version of events that begins in Exodus, it is possible to develop theories of how Israelite culture was a local product - that the Israelites were the descendants of people already living in Canaan. In this view, one can see how a patchwork of tribal loyalties would grow organically, giving rise to areas under varying local controls, shared with other ethnic groups, here labelled as one: "Canaanites".

However, if we just listen to the narrative, there's a theme here, sadly common: seeing people not learning from their mistakes... The Israelites have escaped much-resented oppression - so what do they find themselves doing? Oppressing everyone else left right and centre. Whoops. That's not going to turn out well.

I ask myself why the conquest is still described as "continuing". According to the Book of Joshua, it was already completed, with the land more or less emptied of opposition by the industrial-scale slaughter. It is true that this doesn't feel narratively coherent, and Tim's point that this should be read in parallel, not sequence, immediately feels quite plausible.

Judges 2 text

Highlights

 - Setting the scene for the book: Israelites worshipping non-God gods lose their power; successive Judges will arise to show them how to do it correctly.

Summary

 - The Angel of the Lord tells the Israelites off for making alliances
 - Death of Joshua (again)
 - Years pass
 - Israelites worship Baal and Ashtoreth -> military disaster
 - Judges will arise to lead, but the Israelites will not learn.
 - There will be a sequence of these.

Questions and Observations

1) The oddness of the chronology is underlined by the repetition of Joshua's death and burial as if a current event.
2) This is a prologue to the main set of stories in the book, it seems.

Personal milestone: That's my 100th chapter summary. Martin is working his way ahead, on 112 as stands. Anyone else want to dip in?

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 21, 2016, 05:28AM

As for the Book of Joshua, I have had a look at the Wiki entry on its composition to get a flavour of how the text is regarded by scholars. It is emphasised that these books form part of the Deuteronomistic History, the D source as scholars understand things, which (the theory goes) was composed in Babylonian exile, redacted from various ancient stories to create as coherent a narrative as possible.


Here is where I will agree with you and John Theo will disagree.

You are referring to the Documentary Hypothesis, which divides the text into four sources:  J (for an author or editor that uses Yahweh as the name for God), E (one that uses Elohim), P (the Priestly source), and D (the Deuteronomist you cited.) 

This will not be discussed with people in the pews, obviously.  But clergy who've attended seminary in the Catholic or the overwhelming majority of Protestant denominations will be familiar with and accept this as orthodoxy.  There is a recent trend in the hardline conservative Protestant seminaries to reject this and claim it has been refuted.  Their position, which seems quite revisionist to me, is that their view is and has always been orthodox and the Documentary Hypothesis is a recent invention of liberal Protestants.  That doesn't seem defendable to me. 

Quote from: timothy42b on Apr 21, 2016, 08:12AMHere is where I will agree with you and John Theo will disagree.

You are referring to the Documentary Hypothesis, which divides the text into four sources:  J (for an author or editor that uses Yahweh as the name for God), E (one that uses Elohim), P (the Priestly source), and D (the Deuteronomist you cited.) 

This will not be discussed with people in the pews, obviously.  But clergy who've attended seminary in the Catholic or the overwhelming majority of Protestant denominations will be familiar with and accept this as orthodoxy.  There is a recent trend in the hardline conservative Protestant seminaries to reject this and claim it has been refuted.  Their position, which seems quite revisionist to me, is that their view is and has always been orthodox and the Documentary Hypothesis is a recent invention of liberal Protestants.  That doesn't seem defendable to me. 

Tim, it is true that the DH was widely accepted in the late 19th century among scholars associated with Protestant liberalism, but your claims are far too sweeping.  Since Protestant liberalism was the "majority view" in most seminaries, it did attain some sort of "majority" status.  However, much has shifted in the last 50 years.  By shear  number of seminaries and  number of seminary students, Protestant liberalism is no longer as dominate in the theological world.  The only complete numerical dominance is in the still somewhat inflated numbers on the membership rolls of many mainline denominations.  Many of those members may actually be CE-- Christmas/Easter-- members. Certainly the DH has its supporters, but the picture is much more complicated than your depiction and it is by no means revisionist to say that it has a fairly recent history-- it's primary advocates are 19th century.

Here are some links to the history of the DH.  Neither are from a conservative or "apologetics"-- that seems to be not acceptable to you-- site.  Both show the fairly recent origins of the theory and that while, there may have been somewhat of a consensus in Protestant liberal circles, there is not still even a complete consensus there.  Those who have held to more traditional views of the authorship of the Penteteuch-  many of whom have been very competent scholars with serious academic training-- have always been very skeptical of the DH.  See the tab on "weakening of support" on the Wiki article for more.

http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=725

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

Quote from: John the Theologian on Apr 21, 2016, 08:47AMTim, it is true that the DH was widely accepted in the late 19th century among scholars associated with Protestant liberalism, but your claims are far too sweeping.  Since Protestant liberalism was the "majority view" in most seminaries, it did attain some sort of "majority" status.  However, much has shifted in the last 50 years. 
I do not agree with your pejorative use of liberal to describe what is really mainstream Protestant and Catholic Bible scholarship.  This is not a recent aberration but remains long standing traditional understanding. 

QuoteHowever, much has shifted in the last 50 years.
Yes, this much is true.  The rise of fundamentalism has brought a new literal and inerrant approach to scriptures, one that was not true for most of church history, including the early church.  A literal and inerrant approach has expanded in very conservative seminaries and Bible colleges, and this approach must reject the Documentary Hypothesis.  You are claiming orthodoxy for this, but it remains a fringe view, though numbers have expanded. 

What you have not admitted is that this group conservative Bible scholars does not just reject the DH, but textual criticism in total.  They are not saying that traditional Bible scholars examined the text and got it wrong, they are saying that examining the text is not a valid approach regardless of the results. 

http://richardelliottfriedman.com/?p=289

Tim, I'm not using the term liberalism in a pejorative sense, but a historical one.  See the link below for an overview of Protestant liberalism and notice the high connection between that theology and a critical approach to Scripture.  Traditional scholars were not opposed to textual criticism per se.  What they were opposed to was an approach to the text that was suspicious of its historicity.  Higher criticism has a distinct Enlightenment origin  and no protest on your part can change that historical reality.  It was a foreign idea to earlier generations of Christians.  Those earlier generations asked many questions of the text, but they were questions from a perspective of trust in the text rather than one of doubts about the text.  The difference is huge.  20th century Fundamentalism is not new in opposition to an approach such as Higher Criticism.  20th century Fundamentalism simply was not as interested in scholarly rebuttals as other branches of historic orthodoxy.

Here's the link about Protestant liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianity

The classic monograph which challenged Protestant liberalism is still J Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism.  It's worth a read by anyone who wants to explore the subject. He was a Princeton trained theology who did graduate work in Germany during the heyday of Liberal Theology.  I urge you to give it sincere read.

http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Liberalism-new-Gresham-Machen/dp/0802864996

Any analysis of the text reveals repetitions, stylistic and linguistic variations, and contradictions that are easily explained by a multiple author hypothesis, whether it is DH or another. 

The most consistent refutation to this idea is:  Moses wrote it.  The Bible says so.  Repeat louder. 

I've read a large number of the attacks on DH or variants and they pretty much all boil down to this.  Basically that's what you said:  we have to trust the text at all costs.  The text says Moses wrote it so no other hypothesis can be true.  If textual criticism leads to other hypotheses then we must prohibit the practice. 

This is not a scholarly article but fairly well done, for a blog:

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/bad368008.shtml

Of course he's from Yale, a hotbed of liberalism.   

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 21, 2016, 06:10AMJudges 2 text

Highlights

 - Setting the scene for the book: Israelites worshipping non-God gods lose their power; successive Judges will arise to show them how to do it correctly.

Summary

 - The Angel of the Lord tells the Israelites off for making alliances
 - Death of Joshua (again)
 - Years pass
 - Israelites worship Baal and Ashtoreth -> military disaster
 - Judges will arise to lead, but the Israelites will not learn.
 - There will be a sequence of these.

Questions and Observations

1) The oddness of the chronology is underlined by the repetition of Joshua's death and burial as if a current event.
2) This is a prologue to the main set of stories in the book, it seems.

Personal milestone: That's my 100th chapter summary. Martin is working his way ahead, on 112 as stands. Anyone else want to dip in?

Are these first chapters supposed to be a mixed up chronological narrative or do they have some other purpose? 

I think they are more about setting up a template for the rest of the book: the author tells us that the People aren't dominating anymore, and he introduces elements of history to support a pattern and then describes the pattern that explains what is going on.

Dave notes that the pattern follows a sequence.  I'd like to emphasise that the sequence is one where the each generation is more corrupt than their fathers.

Judges 3 text


Highlights -

 - God tests Israel.  They fail. Judge saves. Repeat ...
 - A sinister assassination of a very fat king


Summary

 - The Lord left the five lords of the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites in Canaan to test Israel's devotion to him. Let's hope he grades on a curve, because…
 - Israel forgets God, worships Baal, and gets taken over by Mesopotamia, whom they have to serve for 8 years.
 - Israel cries unto the Lord, so he raises up the first judge: Othniel, Caleb's nephew.
 - Under Othniel, Israel enjoys 40 years of peace.
 - But then he dies, and you know what happens next: Israel forgets God again, this time serving Moab for 18 years.
 - Israel then cries unto the Lord (again), who raises them up another judge to deliver them: Ehud, son of Gera, who hatches a plan to take out Eglon.
 - Israel sends Ehud to give Eglon a present.
 - Ehud is left-handed (or, according to some translations, ambidextrous), like many of his fellow Benjamites (20:16), which is important because this allows him to wear his dagger hidden on the right side of his body, where Eglon wouldn't expect it to be.
 - When Ehud arrives, he tells the king he has a secret to tell him, so "all that stood by him went out from him" (KJV 3:19).
 - Alone with Eglon in his summer parlor, Ehud stabs Eglon in the belly. The dagger gets stuck in the king's fat, so Ehud just leaves it, locks the parlor doors, and walks out like he owns the place.
 - Eglon's servants don't notice he's dead until Ehud is long gone.
 - Ehud rallies Israel to battle against Moab, and they kill 10,000 lusty men, which ushers in 80 years of peace.

Questions and Observations

1) The pattern is established.
2) Its interesting that the length of the story about a judge is not proportional to how good he is.  (Othniel does everything he is supposed to do and only gets 5 verses.  Samson is a terror and gets 5 chapters.)
3) My documentary theory proposes that the story of Ehud and Eglon was written by a 12 yo boy.  I loved it when I was a kid: blood and guts! toilet humour! what more could you want.
4) Soon we're going to read about Ruth the Moabite who married an Israelite and became King David's Granny.  I wonder if she lived around this time.

- Quote...this allows him to wear his dagger hidden on the right side of his body, where Eglon wouldn't expect it to be.
It's amazing Elgon lasted 18 years with security precautions like that.

Quote23 Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them.

24 When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked...
He locked the doors from the outside but the servants still need a key to open them.



Quote24 When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, “Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber.” 25 And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord dead on the floor.
How is it the person writing Judges knows this? Ehud didn't see it. They killed the Moabites in battle later. Who would have related this part of the story to the Israelites?

Quote from: robcat2075 on Apr 21, 2016, 08:19PM-
It's amazing Elgon lasted 18 years with security precautions like that.

Yeah.  the story does sound a bit satirical doesn't it.  A bit like Balaam and his donkey.

QuoteHe locked the doors from the outside but the servants still need a key to open them.

lots of locks work like that.  at least down here.  You can close the door from the outside and have to use a key to get back in.

QuoteHow is it the person writing Judges knows this? Ehud didn't see it. They killed the Moabites in battle later. Who would have related this part of the story to the Israelites?

A couple of possibilities:
- It may have been a little extra added to make the story more memorable to 12 yo boys, or to mock the Moabites.
- Not all the Moabites were killed.  Some definitely survived.  eg Ruth.
- The Israelites had spies

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 21, 2016, 09:48PM
- It may have been a little extra added to make the story more memorable to 12 yo boys, or to mock the Moabites.
- Not all the Moabites were killed.  Some definitely survived.  eg Ruth.
- The Israelites had spies



Here's a thought on some of the gruesome language and details, and it even applies later to such advice as "if your eye offends thee pluck it out," etc. 

Did you ever take one of those memory courses, or read one of the memory books?  One key trick to fixing something in your memory is to associate it (commonly called link) with a vivid image, often gruesome, scatological, sexual, or ridiculous. 

In a time when literacy was a bit less common than now, might this have been a common practice for oral tales? 

Spoiler Alert.

I know we're still on Judges 3 but someone referenced Judges 21 this morning.

One of my fellow handbell directors said she had two groups of ringers:  Judges 21:25, and Jonah 4:11.

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 21, 2016, 04:07PM - The Lord left the five lords of the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites in Canaan to test Israel's devotion to him.
Bit of a wanton use of the standard get-out-of-jail-free card, this. I'd have saved it for more urgent narrative need if I were the writer.

Quote from: drizabone on Apr 21, 2016, 04:07PM3) My documentary theory proposes that the story of Ehud and Eglon was written by a 12 yo boy.  I loved it when I was a kid: blood and guts! toilet humour! what more could you want.
Maybe not a surprise that at least one Mediaeval monk enjoyed it too - .


Also: Ehud and Eglon in Lego. Shame the storyteller decided to refer to left-handed people as "disabled" though. Thought that kind of nonsense was decades dead.


Sequence of leaders (to remind myself):
Moses, Joshua, Othniel, 40 years, Ehud, 80 years, Shamgar
Maybe these year numbers should be treated as inflated in line with ages.


Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an ox-goad. Not the Bible's finest moment of plausibility... Also, remarkably terse treatment.

I had a moment of raised hope when I saw a King of another country referenced (Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia), wondering if there might be outside info on him (despite the list John posted of historically verified Biblical figures not including anyone so long ago). But it seems not, and in fact, in common Biblical fashion, his apparent name is actually a description of him: "Twice-evil Cushite" in Hebrew, apparently.

Judges 4 text
Judges 5 text

Highlights

 - Deborah is the next rescuing Judge

Summary

 - 20 years pass after Ehud's death, and Jabin, King of Hazor, takes control of the Israelites.
 - Deborah is now the Judge of the Israelites.
 - She summons Barak, orders him to raise an army of Naphtalites and Zebulunites, and promises to deliver Sisera, Jabin's general into his hands, through another woman.
 - Barak raises his army, and Sisera meets him at Mount Tabor, where Barak soundly defeats him. All are killed, bar Sisera, who escapes on foot.
 - Heber the Kenite is camping nearby, and has good relations with Jabin. Sisera takes refuge in his tent.
 - Jael, Heber's wife, takes him in and offers him comfort.
 - But then she drives a tent-peg through his brain...
 - And proudly shows Barak her handiwork.
 - After this, Jabin's power falls to the Israelites in time.
 - Chapter 5 retells the story in poetic form ("Song of Deborah"), with a number of contradictions to Chapter 4.

Questions and Observations

1) Interesting that no remark at all seems to attach to a woman being the leader of this people. The men don't have good previous form for treating women as equals.
2) Also interesting that the story is related as if Ehud were the previous Judge. What about Shamgar? Perhaps slaying 600 Philistines with an ox-goad wasn't such a big deal, leadership-wise.
3) Jabin, King of Hazor... We have heard that name before - a king of the same place with the same name led the confederation against the Israelites as described in Joshua 11.
3a) So there is a problem... Hazor was completely annihilated in Joshua 11:10-15 - every last person murdered. But now there is a powerful enough king there to subjugate the Israelites? And of the same name as the king before the destruction? This seems distinctly unlikely.
3b) Which makes the idea that Joshua and Judges are parallel (not sequential) chronologies seem more appealing. In this view, Jabin King of Hazor is the same person in both books, told in two versions of the story. The two versions conflict, but that is only a problem for Biblical believers. This version certainly feels more realistic than the version of Joshua.
3c) It is also possible that the destruction of Hazor and its people was very much less then described in Joshua, leaving them to rebuild. But the accuracy of the text takes a knock either way.
4) I had previously had no idea that Barack Obama had a Biblical first name.
5) The geography is interesting - Naphtali and Zebulun were two of the Northernmost tribes, but Deborah's seat in Ephraim was much further South.
6) Typical Biblical exaggeration - all are killed at the battle of Mount Tabor except the leader. Right...
7) Shamgar does get a mention in the Song of Deborah, as a leader under whom conditions had deteriorated. Not sure how well that fits with the heroic narrative of rescuing Judges listing him.
8) The Song mentions more tribes as comprising Barak's army - Ephraim, Benjamin, Zebulun, Issachar, Naphtali. Judges 4 describes is as only Naphtali and Zebulun.
9) The Song talks of the River Kishon sweeping combatants away, something not mentioned in Judges 4.
10) Rare to see such an obvious duplication of narrative - the writer pretty clearly having two sources that conflicted and (following best practice) including both so as not to lose any information.
11) It is thought that the Song in Judges 5 is one of the oldest portions of the Bible.

Quote from: MoominDave on Apr 22, 2016, 11:06AMSequence of leaders (to remind myself):
Moses, Joshua, Othniel, 40 years, Ehud, 80 years, Shamgar, 20 years of Jabin of Hazor, Deborah.
Maybe these year numbers should be treated as inflated in line with ages.

QuoteMoses, Joshua, Othniel, 40 years, Ehud, 80 years, Shamgar
Maybe these year numbers should be treated as inflated in line with ages.

80 years of peace would just about have to be the world record for any country on the planet, before or since.