“Such characteristics of boldness and initiative taking are echoed in the Christian context, but in a different key. In Heb 4:16 Christians are encouraged to ‘approach the throne of grace with boldness’, and bold initiative taking is exemplified in the Canaanite woman who greatly impresses Jesus with her faith (Matt 15:21-28). In other words, the New Testament and the Christian perspective of ‘faith’ offers an important lens through which to interpret Joshua in a new context, a context in which the symbolic connotations of the land, and its possession as inheritance are developed yet further.” —Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture, page 175
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I'm not totally comfortable with this, and I'm not sure why. Can somebody else chime in here?
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2 comments:
In South Africa, passages such as this were used by European colonizers to justify the taking of land and slaughtering of the local residents.
Yes; that is true. Earl would argue that they read Joshua wrongly. He lays down some pretty strict hermeneutical principles at the beginning of the book. While I have a hard time with some of his "spiritualizing" readings, this is one case where a spiritualized meaning is more correct than a "Lebensraum" reading!
james
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