Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [69]
While standing near Jericho, Joshua sees a man and asks if he is a friend or foe. The man replies that he is “commander of the army of the Lord.” Joshua knows he will have help in the battles to come.
When the Bible comes to the legendary attack on Jericho, history begins to stick its awkward nose into the picture. Unlike the Garden of Eden, Mount Sinai, the Sea of Reeds, and many other biblical locales whose geographical identity or precise location is unknown and debatable, Jericho is a very real place. During the past century, it has been one of the most carefully excavated sites in the Holy Land.
Located approximately eight miles north of the Dead Sea, at 840 feet (258 meters) below sea level, Jericho is the lowest city on earth. Situated twenty-three miles east of Jerusalem, Jericho—which probably meant “moon city,” reflecting the worship of a local deity—is also one of the oldest human settlements in the world. Archaeologists have now dated Jericho’s beginnings quite thoroughly. The extensive digs in and around Jericho and nearby Tell es-Sultan suggest that hunters were drawn to the area in the ninth millennium BCE by a spring. By about 8000 BCE, a permanent settlement of some two thousand people had been established. With an irrigation system, a large tower, and a defensive wall, Jericho is justifiably called the world’s oldest city. Around 6800 BCE, the original settlers were displaced by a new group. A third group took over the site around 4500 BCE and it was then occupied continuously until the middle of the Late Bronze Age.
In your Sunday school version, Jericho was destroyed when the tribes marched silently around Jericho, once a day for six days, led by seven priests blowing seven ram’s horns. On the seventh day, they march around the city seven times and, on the last lap, the priests blow their horns and the people let out a great shout. The walls fall down flat and the city is captured. They probably didn’t mention what happens to the people of Jericho whose homes are now rubble. Joshua minces no words. All of Jericho’s inhabitants are put to the sword, except for the prostitute Rahab and her family.
How did King David and Jesus descend from a pair of biblical prostitutes?
The story of Rahab, the prostitute who was censored out of most of the “clean” Sunday school versions, deserves a longer look. There are two rather compelling points to consider. Remember Tamar, the woman who pretended to be a prostitute with Judah back in Genesis? When her twins were born, a red cord was tied around the hand of one, Zerah. That cord provides a symbolic connection to the red cord Rahab dangles out her window. According to other Jewish accounts, Rahab was the ancestor of several prophets. But New Testament genealogy in Matthew says Rahab was the mother of Boaz, who marries Ruth (see Ruth) and is another ancestor of David. That means the great king of Israel—as well as Jesus, whose lineage is traced to David—is descended from a pair of prostitutes whose exploits are generally overlooked.
But what sort of prostitutes? There were actually two kinds in the Hebrew scriptures. The run-of-the-mill “streetwalker” variety, obviously tolerated in this otherwise sexually restrictive culture, and the “cultic prostitute” of Canaanite religion. Traditionally, Canaanite religion was thought to have employed temple prostitutes who had sex with worshipers and priests in fertility rites. That view has undergone some revision. The word traditionally translated as “temple prostitute” is more accurately a “consecrated” person. While sex with the Canaanite priests was probably part of the job description, some scholars now suggest that these women served in other roles, perhaps as midwives, or women who sang holy songs or otherwise served in the Canaanite temples. (An fascinating overview of prostitution in the Hebrew scriptures can be found in Jonathan Kirsch’s The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of