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...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:  
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Critical research on religion
1. VerfasserIn: Havrelock, Rachel S. 1952- (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Lade...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Veröffentlicht: Sage [2013]
In: Critical research on religion
weitere Schlagwörter:B Occupation
B Regionalism
B national myth
B history of interpretation
B David Ben-Gurion
B book of Joshua
Online Zugang: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung: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.
ISSN:2050-3040
Enthält:Enthalten in: Critical research on religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/2050303213506473