Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence

A New Historicist Analysis

Lori L. Rowlett

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Supplement Series 226

Copyright © 1996 Sheffield Academic Press

Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd

Mansion House

19 Kingfield Road

Sheffield S11 9AS

England

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1-85075-627-9

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Methodology

Chapter 3

Historical Context

Chapter 4

Divine Warfare

Chapter 5

The Conventional Language of War in the Ancient Near East

Chapter 6

The Rhetoric of Violence in Joshua 1:1–9

Chapter 7

The Discursive Function of חזק ואמץ in the Text

Chapter 8

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index of References

Index of Authors

Preface

The present work began as a doctoral dissertation for the University of Cambridge. I acknowledge the contribution of many other scholars, both in the literature and in personal conversations. Any imperfections are entirely my own, however.

I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Hugh Williamson, whose helpful comments and suggestions kept me on track. I would also like to acknowledge my fellow research students at Cambridge, particularly Judith Hadley, Madawi al Rashid, Tim Wright, Elizabeth Burr and Ginger Caessons, as well as the scholars (faculty and students) from other institutions who passed through Cambridge while doing their own research projects, most notably K. Lawson Younger and Richard Hess. Friends, family, and colleagues in the United States have also been a source of encouragement and support. I would like to thank my parents and my brother Larry, my cousins Richard Rieves and John Thomas, my friends Dave Webb and Jacques Berlinerblau, lifelong friends from the old neighbourhood Debra Allen and Carolyn Castro Stoup, and more recent friends Irene Baros-Johnson and magical Amanda Barker.

I dedicate this book to the memory of Hilary Whitehorn Pottinger, with whom I lived in Cambridge until her untimely death. I consider myself privileged to have known her and loved her.

Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature

ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament

AnOr Analecta Orientalia

ARM Archives royales de Mari

AS Anatolian Studies

ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments

BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

BDB F. Brown, S.R. Driver and C.A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament

BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (3rd edn)

Bib Biblica

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

BoTU Die Boghazköi-Texte in Umschrift

BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CTA A. Herdner (ed.), Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939

DH Deuteronomistic History...