the way a strand of rabbinic tradition understood the matter. In an interpretation of Joshua 11:19 (“There was not a town that made peace with the Israelites”) the Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Sheviit 10.1 (16b) reasons that all the Canaanites were given opportunity to make peace, but they refused (Hoffman, “The Deuteronomistic Concept of Herem,” p. 197; see pp. 89–96, commentary on Josh. 10–12). The presence of the Rahab story at the beginning of the conquest indicates that Joshua’s authors also thought