TELL Magazine August - September 2019

{THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN: A CASE STUDY
IN THE EVOLUTION OF SACRED NARRATIVE}
Cantor George Mordecai
The conquest of Canaan has been etched in the consciousness of the Judeo-Christian
world since time immemorial. It is the subject of one of the most popular African
American spirituals of all time. I remember, 41 years ago, as a boy soprano singing
“Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” as part of large choir at the Opera House.
The story of the Israelite conquest
of Canaan is an epic! It has been an
inspiration for great works of music
and art as well as serving as a major
theological justification for Jewish
and Christian claims to the Land of
Israel. For most of the period since
the narrative was composed, we have
accepted it as a true and accurate
account of a series of events that did
indeed take place. However, as a
result of the scholarship that emerged
in the wake of the Enlightenment,
the Biblical stories that we hold so
dear were seriously questioned and
subject to historical critique. Scholars
of the Bible saw literary and historical
inconsistencies in the text that had
been identified earlier by Rabbinic
and Christian commentators. The
difference between the approach
of the scholars as opposed to
the Rabbinic and Christian
commentators revolved around the
fact that these scholars were not
bound by theological restrictions.
They were not compelled to resolve
seeming contradictions and problems
in the text in order to fit the text into
a narrative that supported Jewish and
Christian claims of divine authorship.
We would be hard pressed today
to find too many historians who
hold the view that the study of
history is a empirical science.
Nevertheless this ‘scientific position’
was definitely the view of the late
18th and 19th century scholars who
pioneered what became known in
the English speaking world as the
Documentary Hypothesis. So what
was so radically different about
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this view? Not constrained by the
need for theological conformity,
they concluded that the Bible was
not composed at once but over a
period of many centuries by different
authors who held very different
political and religious world views.
They identified four main authors
whom they called J for those whose
The Taking of Jericho by James Jacques Joseph Tissot
deity was named YHVH; E for
those who worshiped Elohim and
the El pantheon; P for the priestly
caste who were concerned with
the duties of the priesthood; and
D for those who were responsible
for the composition of the book
of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of
the Pentateuch that stands out as