Like most people, I was not aware of the graphic violence so vividly and proudly recorded in the Book of Joshua. I was even more surprised to learn the savage invasion of Canaan was sanctioned by the venerable Moses and the Israelite god Yahweh.
Apart from the invasion of Canaan itself is the problem of its end result — the spoils of war. Joshua 24:13 unabashedly describes the partition of Canaan as he quotes Yahweh: “So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.”
Indeed.
David Haddad
The world we live in today is much different from the biblical world. We live in a politically correct world. A tolerant world. A post-Holocaust world that has adopted the slogan “never again,” which, properly understood, is an international resolution that the unconscionable mass slaughters of the past will not be repeated in the future.
In this light, one would expect to find the book of Joshua universally renounced. Condemned. Something shameful from the ancient past. Yet Joshua has no shortage of apologists. They use euphemisms and metaphors. They demonize the Canaanites. They say the story is complex, mysterious and even inspirational.
“The book of Joshua is an inexcusable glorification of barbarity and genocide.”
The endless rationalizations obscure the plain meaning of the text. The book of Joshua is an inexcusable glorification of barbarity and genocide. Moreover, Joshua has served as a paradigm for centuries of religious wars said to have been “sanctioned” by “God.” Its most explicit contemporary reenactment is the unrelenting, remorseless demolition of Gaza, which began in October 2023.
Rachel Havrelock is an associate professor of Jewish studies and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is author of The Joshua Generation: Israeli Occupation and the Bible. In a 2024 interview with the Middle East Monitor, Havrelock traces the history of Joshua’s relevance.
For centuries, the book was largely ignored by diaspora Jews. Prior to Zionism, the popularity of Joshua had been limited to Jewish nationalists who periodically arose to promote Jewish political sovereignty.
For example, Joshua was popular during Jewish uprisings against Greek or Roman rule. Apart from that, mainstream Judaism was more interested in the teachings of the Talmud and the Midrash. Joshua had no place. A book of Israelite conquest was irrelevant and even an embarrassment to Jews living in sovereign nations.
This was the prevailing sentiment from the second century all the way to the 19th century. Jews gave more attention to Moses, who they, of course, saw as a divine lawgiver.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to supporters at a Likud Party gathering on November 17, 2019, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Havrelock goes on to explain that subsequent Israeli leaders have outdone themselves in emulating Joshua. We now have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comparing Palestinians to Amalekites. We have Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaking of “extermination” and telling Palestinian Knesset members they are there only because Ben-Gurion did not “finish the job” in 1948.
Joel Baden, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Yale University, and John Collins, a professor emeritus of Old Testament criticism and interpretation at Yale Divinity School, formed the Yale Bible Study program together. In a discussion about that project, they agreed the entire “conquest” of the Promised Land was made up. Israel came to be not by conquest, but rather by forming over centuries.
Regardless, Baden and Collins are both disturbed by how the “conquest” was allegedly carried out. Here, they discuss the problem of what the Hebrews called herem. Herem is the practice of completely destroying anything and everything of the enemy that can be destroyed.
Baden acknowledges that by modern standards, herem is “pretty indefensible,” whether applied externally to enemies or internally to “heretics.” Collins believes it is not a good idea to even attempt to redeem the story of the “conquest.” Barbarity was wrong then, and it is wrong now. They wonder what kind of a god would want everything slaughtered. Baden states what the world needs to hear: There are parts of the Bible that are simply “not redeemable.”
Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg is the creator of neohasid.org, author of Kabbalah and Ecology, and a scholar of Jewish thought. In The Times of Israel, Rabbi Seidenberg writes about “Joshua Jews.”
Joshua Jews are Jews “who believe in conquest, who justify killing tens of thousands, normal morality be damned.” They “include those radical settlers in the West Bank who think they can take possession of the land by carrying out pogroms. Joshua Jews include Netanyahu and his fascist allies” and “the people in Israel’s government who are ready to kill tens of thousands in Gaza with impunity.”
He contrasts Joshua Jews with Torah Jews. Torah Jews are “friends of Abraham” rather than followers of Joshua. Torah Jews are “people who honor the image of God in all human beings, whether Jewish or not, and who reject both taking land by force and any ideas or actions that even hint toward genocide.”
Like Abraham, Torah Jews do not believe in conquest. This “aversion to taking land by force,” he says, “is consistent throughout the book of Genesis.” Rabbi Seidenberg asks, “Do we (Jews) want to be a friend of Abraham, the friend of God? Or do we want to ignore the lessons of Genesis and live lives that are the exact opposite of what the Torah demands of all people living in the land of promises?”
Is Western civilization to be forever haunted by the ghost of Joshua? Will we always be persuaded to live and think as soldiers under the control of the latter-day Joshuas who rule countries around the world? Will we always believe that, like some Kantian duty, patriotism is something we owe to our respective governments rather than something our governments have to earn from us? Will members of the three Abrahamic faiths live ironically, tragically, not as “friends of Abraham,” but as Joshua Jews, Joshua Christians and Joshua Muslims?
It’s far too late to ask these questions. The final answers were given centuries ago.
David Haddad is a playwright living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He is the author of the satirical play Yahweh the Floorwalker, which was awarded second prize in the 2024 New York International Theater Competition. He also is the author of The Scope of William Jennings Bryan. Haddad earned a degree in history from Michigan State University.