Currently I’m reading through Joshua which is not easy. It would make a great action movie with a very high death count, but hard to find myself in the story. Most likely I would be one of the kings who would hide in the cave and wait all the violence out.
I’m having a difficult time because I’m taking scripture seriously. This partly means I wont do what the pansy liberals (sorry, “progressives”) do and just read the sections that make us happy like the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, Micah, and Isaiah. I really do believe that the entire canon of scripture needs to be taken seriously or we cannot take any of it seriously – we are picking and choosing.
Nor do I want to read it in the same way as the stuck-in-the-mud conservatives who also like to pick and choose, but tend to go to Romans, Titus, Leviticus, and other hard-nosed, damning texts. I bet the progressives would look at Joshua and say, “well, we just don’t take that section of the Bible seriously,” and the conservatives would say, “well, that is a part of who God is, so get right with God or get ready to go to hell with fire!”
I like to take a narrative approach to the scriptures where I try to find myself in the passage. It is easy with the psalms and with the Gospels and with the prophets, but Joshua (along with other parts of the Bible) is tricky. God tells Joshua to wipe out whole nations – it is genocide. And while much of this has been shown to be historically inaccurate
It could be an embrace of identity – we are God’s people. It could be a sense of righteousness – we are chosen by God over these other, pagan nations. It could be justification for nationalism and war. I don’t have a good answer. All I know is that it is a bloody book and it is in the canon. I can offer suggestions but I cannot offer anything that I am comfortable with.
Hmmm…. Perhaps this is a lesson in itself. There are times when we should not feel comfortable with our faith (please don’t state the trite bit that Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and came to afflict the comfortable, it isn’t clever, it just isn’t).
There are times when we might even want things to be different than they are. If I could, I would rewrite Joshua with a much more peaceful approach, but I can’t. So I will remain off balance as I read through Joshua knowing that I may never get to a place where I can make sense of what it is that I am reading.
1 comment:
As you say, this is not for the brave at heart, especially for folks who take Scripture seriously. An additional challenge that I assume we share: Joshua is seen as a type/prefigurement of Christ (some patristic writers made a lot out of their shared name)! I reckon we can share the liberals concern over the "scandal of scripture", but I'm afraid we have to work harder (to include the kind of humility you suggest) for an answer.
Post a Comment