Exegesis : Joshua 6 : 15-21

In Chapter 2 of Encountering the New Testament the author talks about a few of the different practices that unified the Jews as well the different religious groups that had different beliefs. Judaism was unified in the beliefs that they had been chosen by God, they were waiting for the messiah to come, they respect the synagogues, they shared the same laws and traditions of elder. Although these beliefs were unifying there were seperate religious groups and leaders that held different beliefs. Probably the most well known group of religious leaders were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a small group of religious leaders that believed in God, and the coming messiah. Although many of the Pharisees did live good lives many of them were

The Drama of Scripture frames the biblical narrative as a work of drama, with six acts. These acts are Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, Church, and New Creation (Drama pp. 23-24, 2014). The first three acts come from the Old Testament, and the final three come from the New Testament. In many ways, I feel that this Six Act Drama plays itself out in my life as well. As a Catholic man of faith, this makes a great deal of sense to me. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, hence CCC, states that, “God is the author of Sacred Scripture. ‘The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit’” (CCC 105, 2000). Additionally, it states “The inspired books teach the truth…” (CCC 107, 2000). These two quotes point to the primacy of Scripture in how I find my life playing itself out. Since Scripture is how God narrates His will, and since we are made in the image and likeness of God, it follows that patterns present in Scripture would manifest themselves in my life. Each act of the drama represents a phase of my life which has either happened, is currently happening, or one for which I still await.

13) The Creation of the World; the Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve; Original Sin; the Fall

This passage is situated at the beginning of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Jesus has returned from Nazareth after several days in the wilderness where the power of the Holy Spirit assisted him in fighting the temptations of the devil. In this story, Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and is now said to be reading from the Torah as was customary. This means that Jesus regularly does this which shows that he is a devout Jew. It was important for him to rest on the Sabbath and go to the synagogue for scripture and teaching on this day. Luke has followed this account with miracle and healing stories depicting Jesus as a compassionate saviour and prophet. Luke arranges the passages in this way in order to ‘write an orderly account’ (1:3) of

In fairy tales, children are pushed into ovens, have their hands chopped off, are forced to sleep in coal bins, and must contend with wolves who've eaten their grandmother. In myths, rape, incest, all manner of gruesome bloodshed, child abandonment, and total debauchery are standard fare. We see more of the same in Bible stories, accentuated with dire predictions of terrors and abominations in an end of the world apocalypse that is more horrifying than the human imagination can even grasp.

In Israel and Judah warfare would be an integral part for the Jewish to reclaim their homelands. With warfare came several brutalities that would be illustrated in the book of Deuteronomy and Joshua. In the book of Deuteronomy, it describes the killings of entire populations in Gad after their capture, plunder the towns, and took whatever resources they had. This was all done with the support of God. In the book of Joshua, has the theme of rule and capture. It describes the brutalities that took place in capturing Jericho. Joshua would commit atrocities that involved exterminating everything in the city by sword. Both books, highlights the atrocities needed to reclaim their holy land. There is no evidence that there is any regulation on their warfare. Soon Israel would be taken over by the

605 (Elwell 1: 572). It was the first attack on Judean territory by the Babylonians, and it began the 70-year captivity of God’s people in that foreign land (Jer. 25:10-11). During this period, Daniel worked as a divinely inspired prophet of God, and at the end of his long career, he wrote the book bearing his name in the B.C. 530s (Archer, New Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, 284). His work largely emphasized history and hope with a special emphasis upon God’s sovereignty (Elwell 1: 575). Until recently, nearly every Christian and Christian-oriented person believed these facts without question (Longman 373). Critical scholars now bombard Daniel with questions and skepticism, ultimately concluding that it is a pseudonymous work of the second-century B.C. that was intended to encourage the Jewish people to overthrow the yoke of Syrian control (Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 361). However, when all the relevant issues are considered, it becomes clear that the recent tide of skepticism concerning Daniel’s dating is

There exist among biblical scholars and historians four separate theories concerning the date of the Conquest of Canaan. These theories consist of the Early Date Exodus Theory #1, Early Date Exodus #2, Late Date Exodus Theory and the Egyptian Domination Theory. This theory begins with the building of the First Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of King Solomon and the fourth theory concerns the Egyptian control of Canaan.

Dating of the book of Daniel is difficult as there is no consensus amongst scholars as to when it was composed. It is widely believed to have been written as early as the late sixth-century BC, alternatively, as recent as the second-century BC. John J. Collins suggests,

Throughout the history of the Bible, few words have had more controversy than the words, faith, works, and justification. James’ uses a powerful interrogative to pose the

Context is the influence of circumstances around a setting, event, or situation. In our understanding of the Old Testament, context has played a tremendous role. Whether it is literary, geographical, or social, each one strongly affected the writing of the Old Testament. Artifacts found from the time of the Old Testament, such as old tools or early forms of writing, like the Mesha Inscription and the Merneptah Stele, also provide context, helping our understanding of the way in which the Israeli people lived. Many of the stone tools discovered show us that humans have lived in the Palestinian region for millions of years; however, the tools found of the Israelites show us they settled on the hills of Palestine instead of on the Coastal plain.

In Exodus 14, Moses and the Israelites have become sandwiched between the Egyptian military and the chaotic Reed Sea. Yet YHWH’s instruction to them is not to turn and fight, but rather ‘be silent’ (Exodus 14:14). YHWH promised to come and fight on their behalf. Fast forward to Deuteronomy 2:26-35, and we get yet another story of Israel and potential military activity. Regardless of whether you read the text as actual warfare taking place, or that of an ideological battle (of which the argument can be made for), I want to note two things: Moses initially tried to make a peace agreement with King Sihon, of which Sihon refused. In addition, we clearly see that it is Heshbon who attacks Israel, and not the other way around. Finally, coming to the story just before Ai in the Joshua narrative, we are given the story of the siege of Jericho (Joshua 6). In the Jericho passage, we see that YHWH is the voice giving Joshua instruction regarding how they are to enter the city. Despite YHWH’s instruction, there are multiple instances in this text where Joshua technically disobeys the voice of YHWH, of which I would ascribe to the resulting destruction. The reason I bring up Jericho and Heshbon, are because they stand in contrast with the Ai narrative in that, like Egypt and Heshbon, YHWH’s voice was present in the happenings. With Ai this is not the case. Joshua will attack Ai without the voice of YHWH preceding the

2. Background and Introduction: Jonah was instructed by God to go to Nineveh and preach the message of repentance to them.

The first 39 books of the larger work called the Bible, is called the Old Testament. The Bible itself is arguably the best selling and most read book of all time, yet it’s well known to be quite challenging to read through and understand. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, notably the most difficult portion of the Bible for most to study and follow, yields 39 books from multiple authors, and spans over 4000 years of crucial world and church history. If that were not enough to take on, the Old Testament comes our way through multiple styles of authorship and formats, including but not limited to, books of history, law, proverbs, ethics,

The author of the book is Zechariah, he whom the lord remembers. The book was written to the Jews in Jerusalem that had returned from their captivity in Babylon. The book was written in and around 520 B.C.