Joshua

My NIV Student Bible is full of endless useful information and littered with useful sidebar comments and interjections on the various activities that occur throughout the many books of the Bible. Each book typically has a nice prologue with a brief outline of the book, suggestions on how to approach reading and such, there are little explanatory notes in the bottom margin explaining smaller bits like what a shekel is, and an inserted paragraph here and there explaining key points as they crop up. The Book of Joshua continues an interesting trend among these notes, that being the glossing over or outright ignoring items that could be considered significant.

Some things that seemed to fail to attract notice include: where Cain & Abel found their wives, the parts where EVERYBODY – men, women, & children, innocent or not – were subjected to plagues and/or death repeatedly, the taking of multiple wives, and the rather significant disparity between the treatment of men and women (man, you broke law xyz, you are hereby fined 100 shekels, woman, you broke the same law, you are hereby fined 150 shekels…just kidding, I meant public stoning.  The man meanwhile is presumably thinking, “Glad the fine wasn’t 150 shekels…for that price, heck, I’d rather be stoned to death”). Where would we be in Joshua if we didn’t add to that list. Some of the old favorites are repeated of course (wholesale slaughter of entire civilizations), but then we get reference to the Book of Jashar.

Didn’t hear about that in church or Sunday school? Neither did I. So, what is it?! Well, I’ll leave it to you to further explore this via Google, but the brief tidbits I got out of it were the following.

• Nobody really knows
• It probably should be spelled Jasher, but even that’s up for debate.
• Generally speaking it seems to be agreed that Jashar/Jasher is not a person per se, but more accurately translates to the Book of the Upright. (I believe that’s as in “upstanding”)
• A version of the book seems to exist kinda sorta, but nobody can place its origin prior to 1625 or thereabouts, which just may cast a bit of doubt on its validity.
• It’s referenced on a few different occasions, in different books.
• And finally, it’s not in the Bible.

Why then did this one manage to escape inclusion into this book of books? The whole premise behind the Bible is that this is a book of divine origin and intent, upon which we can base our lives, but the fine folks at Zondervan Publishing House in Grand Rapids, Michigan didn’t see fit to include it in my copy. Nor was it in my King James copy. Nor would it seem to be in anyone else’s.

From a Biblical standpoint, this seems odd. Outside of that, it would seem that this book was assembled over time based on stylistic fit, politics, and popular vote. At any rate, it doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and the biblical scholars who annotated my student Bible didn’t seem terribly troubled by it.

Getting beyond these details, it’s an interesting read. Joshua is a book (and man) of action. There is a significant amount of Holy War action in here as the Israelites, after 40+ years of wandering, suffering, and learning proper obedience go in and finally take the land that God so long ago promised their forefathers. They are to go in and raze entire civilizations down to the last infant and take the spoils for themselves. The reasoning for killing every single last one of them is that, well, they’re just so evil that they’ll only cause problems if left to live.

Really.

Kids back then didn’t have impressionable minds that could be changed apparently, and just couldn’t be saved. There just weren’t any people there that could possibly have a chance of being saved, so the only option was complete and total slaughter.

Except for Rahab the prostitute and her immediate family (Rahab became a direct ancestor of Jesus according to my notes).

Yes, prior to the invasion, Rahab was kind enough…she bent over backward as it were…to shelter two Israeli spies and in exchange, they vowed to spare her life.

I’m not even going to continue with that one.

There is much emphasis in the notes however that letting handfuls of people here and there live would ultimately be the undoing of the Israelites, as this is a direct violation of God’s decree.

What else happens… Ah yes, Jericho falls, and later on the battle with the Amorites was going so swimmingly that Joshua asked God to stop the sun and the moon until it was over, and the rough estimate is that the sun delayed setting for a full day.

Much of the remainder of the book deals with Joshua dividing up and distributing the freshly captured promised land to all the tribes of Israel. Finally, in the fashion of Moses, he gives a recap of events, emphasizes at great length that the Israelites should only ignore God’s laws to their own peril, then he passes away.

All of this brings us to the Book of Judges, presumably where we’re introduced to such characters as Wapner, Judy, and Dredd.

Deuteronomy

The book of Deuteronomy is sad and tragic, and possesses all the predictability and good judgment of characters in a horror flick. The vast majority of the book is spent with Moses begging, pleading, and lecturing the Israelites on God’s law, how it’s really not subject to negotiation, reminders of what God’s wrath is like, and how to be good obedient non-suffering people.

The Israelites, in their role as horror movie sidekick, insist on going up the stairs and opening the door, running deeper into the woods, etc. Much like this year’s Dallas Cowboys (a horror story in their own right), ya just know the entire time you’re reading that yes, they will indeed screw this up. Much of this I chalk up to pure stupidity. As a people, they don’t take lessons to heart very well, whether they’re lessons taught at the expense of other people, or even crap they brought upon themselves. Part of it though could certainly reasonably come from what they observed of their fearless leader Moses. Here was God’s main man, the direct intermediary between the big guy hisself and the unwashed masses, and even he couldn’t get it right. Moses was banned from setting foot in the promised land for what turns out to be a poorly documented infraction. Perhaps the Israelites simply figured it was too daunting of a task to pull off.

The book for the most part was a re-hashing of Exodus through Numbers told with less clinical presentation and with more heart as Moses laid out everything they’ve been through, everything God has done for the Israelites and against their enemies, fleeing Egypt, wandering in the desert, and taking the promised land. Moses took some time to blame the Israelites for the circumstances leading up to his ban on crossing the Jordan. Really, it’s no wonder, as this whole scenario is captured with brilliant brevity in the movie City Slickers when Billy Crystal (Moses) is trying to patiently explain for the 50th time to Daniel Stern (the Israelites) how to program a VCR (follow God’s word) so that he can watch one channel while recording another (be fruitful and prosperous), only to have Bruno Kirby (God) scream about how the cows (the cows) could friggin figure it out already. Eventually even Moses’ patience has to run out.

There were good talks on when and how to effectively stone people to death and how to properly go to war, and women continue to get the shaft. If a man takes a wife, goes around falsely accusing her of being a hussy, and the girl’s father can provide proof to her virtuosity, the slandering man is fined 100 shekels. If the charge is true though, the girl is taken to her father’s house and stoned to death on the doorstep (one would suspect fathers with daughters carried some kind of stone damage rider on their hut-owner’s insurance). This is of course because the girl, for her part, would be doing something disgraceful and evil, while the guy…er…um…apparently calling a virgin a slut isn’t disgraceful and evil and worthy of stoning. I would like to imagine though that in the original language in which this was written, a proper translation for the man’s actions would come across as “excessive douchebaggery” or some such. I would also love to know how often this sort of thing came up back in ancient society, and how on earth these fathers provided proof.

Man: “This woman is a slut!”

Father: [while rummaging through a box] “Wait just a cotton pickin’ minute! Let’s see…lock of her baby hair, first baby sandals…where is it…her first molar…she got two shekels from the Tooth Fairy for that one…junior agricultural achievement ribbon, second place for raising that well-mannered camel in junior high…ah, here it is. Her hymen. Yup, safe and sound right here in the keepsake box. You sir owe me 100 shekels, you devilish rapscallion!”

Man: “My bad. Hey, at least this isn’t a stoning offense eh?”

More likely than not, I’d guess this scenario played out more along the lines of the guy decided whoa, married a chick with far too many hang-ups, or her laugh’s annoying, or her nose hairs tickle me when we smooch, I’ll say she’s a slut, and she’ll be summarily stoned to death, freeing me up to get some new action. The father likely protested, but to what end?! I realize I’m not a woman, but perhaps women readers could enlighten me as to what sort of proof you could leave behind with anybody that could be used as proof of your virtuosity later on.

Another curiosity along these lines is tucked into Chapter 24. If a man marries a woman, then she becomes displeasing to him, he can write her a certificate of divorce. Pardon me? Speak into my good ear??? Among the really devout, there’s much talk about letting no man put asunder that which God has joined. Divorce is some forbidden and sinful thing. This section would seem to run counter to that. (but then, these guys seem to have a habit of taking multiple wives too)

The book ends on somewhat of a high note with Moses getting to peek at the promised land from a remote mountain vista, roughly at which point he died. Moses is credited with writing the first five books of the Bible, and very coincidentally he was the only prophet with whom God had such a direct relationship. I hate to draw parallels here, but Joseph Smith was also (I think) the only Mormon prophet to whom God (or God’s agents) had direct and repeated contact. A curious thing, that.

Fortunately for us (and to keep blog posting going), Moses imparted much of his mojo onto the rising star Joshua, who valiantly leads the Israelites into the promised land, and as is extensively suggested in Deuteronomy, certain peril (largely self-inflicted).

Now, to see what wonders await us in the book of Joshua.

One masterpiece after another

Typically in the movie business, you come up with a great idea, get people excited about the first installment, then phone in a couple of sequels of continually diminishing quality for the cash (Matrix, I’m looking at you).

Somebody forgot to tell Pixar.

Toy Story 3 brings us the next chapter in the lives of our beloved characters, and the story and attention to detail make this installment every bit as good as the first two. In this one, Andy is all grown up and heading off to college, and this of course throws the toy community into a nervous tizzy. As we’ve come to expect from the folks at Pixar, this movie – this cartoon – has more heart, tender moments, and edge-of-your-seat, heart-gripping action than most traditional movies. We come to care about the well developed characters and their pain is our pain…their joy is ours. There is something here for the kids, for the adults, and for the kid in all of us adults. This movie was a real treat, and I cannot recommend it enough.