The conquest of Canaan in the light of The Book of Joshua. History and faith
Roman Krawczyk
Katedra Teologii Biblijnej, Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie, ul. Hozjusza 15, 11-041 OlsztynAbstract
In the Bible, Joshua is presented as the “second” Moses. The biblical author presents the person and the work of Joshua using Moses as a model: Joshua is to finish the work of Moses, i.e. take possession of the Promised Land for the Israel. The fulfillment of God's order is described in the first part of the Book of Joshua (1:1-12:24): First, Joshua captures Jericho, followed by other cities and areas of the Promised Land. This is the part of the Book of Joshua that the paper is concerned with. Descriptions of the takings of individual cities and areas of Canaan have hallmarks of historic texts; they contain names, numbers, the course of military operations and their results. However, archaeological research do not confirm the instant conquest of Canaan by the Israeli in the 13th century, described in biblical texts, and, thus, most researchers and exegetes reject literal interpretation of biblical texts about the conquest of Canaan since they are of the opinion that these texts were written much later than the actual events described by them. How should this discrepancy between the biblical descriptions and the opinions of researchers based on the results of archaeological research and exegetic analyses be interpreted? To answer this question, the author of this paper first analyzes main military campaigns led by Joshua (I), and then attempts to interpret them in the light of archaeological data (II).
Keywords:
Joshua, conquest of Canaan, military campaigns, Jericho, Gibeon, GalileeReferences
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Katedra Teologii Biblijnej, Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie, ul. Hozjusza 15, 11-041 Olsztyn
