TELL Magazine August - September 2019

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your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given to you.” (Joshua 23:12-13) The two verses quoted above from chapter 23 of the book of Joshua are fascinating to me and give us a window into what the scholarly approach is trying to unpack in order to arrive at what I believe to be a greater truth. A careful reading the above verses, reveal more about the concerns of those who returned from Babylon to rebuild the Second Temple and to resettle Jerusalem than they do about Joshua. It is most likely that the final editors and redactors of this chapter and the book of Joshua were scribes and priests who were part of the entourage returning to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile in the wake of the Persian conquest of Babylonia and the Middle East from the late 6th century BCE. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah we see that the exiles returning from Babylonia struggled to establish themselves as the ruling elite in Jerusalem and surrounding areas. They undoubtedly returned with the blessings of the Persians and had trouble with the indigenous communities who remained in Judea. The redactors here are warning their returning brethren not to mix with the indigenous population whose cultic practices were different from their own. Large tracts of the book of Joshua therefore are not really about Joshua, the battle of Jericho, the holy wars, or the extermination of the Canaanite inhabitants. What we see in these chapters are veiled references to a power struggle unfolding between those peoples who remained in Judea after the expulsion and those who returned with the authority, granted by the Persian kings and satraps, to govern. Which group will establish itself as the authoritative voice in the formation 18 of a new emerging community in Judea in the late 6th and 5th centuries BCE? Large tracts of Joshua, Judges, other sections of the early prophets and the Torah were reshaped by the hands of editors, probably priests and scribes who advocated for the political claims of the returning exiles Also, interestingly these above verses give us a window into the political climate during the early second temple period, especially the concerns and anxieties of the returning elite. “The Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you, they shall become a trap…” Here we see an acknowledgement by the redactors of the political situation on the ground. The returning exiles do not have full autonomy, nor are they powerful enough to be able to wage war against the indigenous inhabitants, therefore the holy wars of extermination described in other parts of Joshua are modified here to reflect the political and social reality of their time. The conquest narratives are complicated, reflecting the struggles of different groups within the Israelite and the later returning Judaean exiles to establish their authority. They do this by editing older narratives and even occasionally writing whole new passages into those narratives to reflect their concerns and agendas. The editors and redactors of the early Second Temple period focused on reworking older narratives as opposed to writing whole new epics that might have reflected their social situation more clearly. Why is this? In both early and late antiquity, unlike in post- Enlightenment modernity, it was important for a community to demonstrate that it was a part of a chain of tradition. Innovation was not respected in the same way as it is today and could be accomplished only by attribution to an older source. By articulating their political and theological perspectives through the mouths of YHVH and Joshua, returning exiles centuries later could make the claim that their perspectives were not new at all. It could then be accepted by the returning Judaean exiles and the ruling Persian elites as an authentic expression of a tradition grounded in older indigenous ancestral cultic practice. We see a later example of this in Mediaeval times. The Zohar, arguably the greatest mystical work in our tradition, written and compiled at the beginning of the 13th Century CE in Spain and Provence was attributed to the second-century sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, in order for it to be
The Lost Princess TEXT STUDY Weekly on Thursday evenings at 7.15pm Cantor George Mordecai presents a new series of classes. Initially we will study The Lost Princess, a deeply insightful story from Rabbi Nahman, with music and meditation. Email: gmordecai@emanuel.org.au considered authentic. This also is true of early Christianity. The Jesus messiah movement had to yoke itself to the Biblical narrative in order to make the claim that it was not a new idea but actually a legitimate expression of an older Judaean tradition. The Roman authorities had trouble seeing how Christianity fit into the world of late antiquity precisely because early Christians had difficulty showing that their emerging religion was a continuation of an older Judaean tradition and not a departure from it. Our redactors and editors who trekked back to Judea from Babylonia had to show that their group and theological perspective was part of an older set of traditions. They were merely re-articulating and upholding that which had already been established in the past. This would have been the source of their emerging authority. They were not changing anything, it had always been so. Innovation under the guise of an unchanging tradition was an acceptable form of exegesis in the ancient and mediaeval world. The Biblical scholarship that emerged during the Enlightenment changed the rules of engagement. This has created a “circling of the wagons” among many who cannot live with the rupture caused by the last three hundred years of scholarship. Nevertheless, we cannot retreat into a mode of exegesis that shuts out the insights of the last two hundred years of Biblical scholarship. Understanding the way in which our tradition has evolved over time is crucial for us today. Uncovering the human hand in the formation of our major religious text does not delegitimize the narrative. On the contrary it leads to a deeper engagement with it. The socio-political concerns of those who were responsible for the final redaction of the Torah and the book of Joshua does not diminish its sacred essence or relevance to us. Our need to connect to the Divine Source of all Life is an ongoing human project. As our cultural and political conditions change and transform over time we will continue reinterpret and reimagine our relationship with the Divine and our sacred texts. This process is an essential part of the religious quest. 19
Page 1 and 2: Walking the path in your own way Ra
Page 3 and 4: YOUR QUARTERLY JOURNAL ON SPIRITUAL
Page 5 and 6: and reinforced their sense of socia
Page 7 and 8: {BENEATH THE WATERS} Rabbi Jacqueli
Page 9 and 10: which help us to celebrate, grieve,
Page 11 and 12: Shabbat In The Circle One Saturday
Page 13 and 14: NEED A CELEBRANT? Jon Green Civil M
Page 15 and 16: a separate work in form from the pr
Page 17: the most part, peaceful settlement
Page 21 and 22: come more frequently, one as often
Page 23 and 24: A REVEALING EVENING WITH JESSICA RO
Page 25 and 26: {EVERY Q&A PERIOD AT EVERY JEWISH E
Page 27 and 28: OUT OF THE DESERT Kobi Bloom Pesach
Page 29 and 30: continued from page 27 “Israel wi
Page 31 and 32: {BNEI MITZVAH} Introducing some of
Page 33 and 34: {NEW MEMBERS} To welcome the strang
Page 35 and 36: {...TZEDAKAH CONTINUED} Mrs Giza Fl
Page 37 and 38: {BIRTHS} Mazal Tov to Mikayla Lily
Page 39 and 40: MASORTI MINYAN MONDAYS & THURSDAYS

TELL Magazine August - September 2019

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