The Joshua Generation: Conquest and the Promised Land
I set out to read the book of Joshua together with its most literal interpreters - those who enacted a version of the war for the Promised Land - and suggest that interpretations of the book are always bound up with current ideas about war and territorial rights. In particular, I analyze how David B...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2013]
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| In: |
Critical research on religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 1, Issue: 3, Pages: 308-326 |
| Further subjects: | B
Occupation
B Regionalism B national myth B history of interpretation B David Ben-Gurion B book of Joshua |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | I set out to read the book of Joshua together with its most literal interpreters - those who enacted a version of the war for the Promised Land - and suggest that interpretations of the book are always bound up with current ideas about war and territorial rights. In particular, I analyze how David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, and his Bible study group parsed the book of Joshua and argue that their interpretations, like the book of Joshua itself, represent projections of nationalist desire onto a varied, multifarious social setting. Joshua’s conquest and Israel’s founding narrative both involve military narratives generated in order to obscure the presence of non-nationals. In the next stage of the argument, I suggest that the story of the conquest itself attests to the very fluid social setting that it aims to overcome. Just as Ben-Gurion appealed to Joshua as precedent and the contemporary State of Israel looks to Ben-Gurion as a model, post-nationalists can locate a paradigm in the selfsame founding myths. |
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| ISSN: | 2050-3040 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Critical research on religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/2050303213506473 |