American Conquests -- Joshua and the Ideology of Total War

I have been following with great interest a series of guest posts by Dan Hawk over at Allan Bevere's blog.  Dan is an Old Testament professor at Ashland Theological Seminary and author of a new commentary from Cascade Books entitled Joshua in 3-D.  If you go to Allan's blog you can get information about a discounted price. 

Dan's posts have placed the conversation in juxtaposition to the themes found in the blockbuster movie  Avatar, the biblical story of Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and the legacy of the American conquests.  In this week's posting (from Wednesday), Dan notes that the Joshua story pictures the decimation of the Canaanite population in terms of clearing out land for new the new inhabitants.  It's not that their necessarily wicked, their just there -- in the way.  You know, sort of like the Native Americans were "there" and in the way of American expansion.  What is interesting is that there is an ideology of total destruction that goes back to the biblical story (and likely beyond it), an ideology that has been carried on through the ages, and was brought to America by the colonists (though apparently total war was unknown to the indigenous population of North America (at least until the Europeans arrived).  

But there is something else going on here.  Not only did the Joshua narrative speak of engaging in ethnic cleansing, but it couches it in the context of a defensive move.  Interestingly enough, the American colonists spoke in much the same terms.  Hawk writes:

 In Joshua, the narrative attempts to mask the scope and brutality of the conquest by rendering the wars against the indigenous peoples as defensive operations. The kings of Canaan, representing the hostile powers of the land, are presented as increasingly hostile as the story goes along, beginning with the attempt of Jericho’s king to find the spies, moving to the king of Ai’s attack on Israelites waiting in ambush, and culminating in attacks by coalitions of kings at Gibeon and the waters of Merom. In each case, the Israelites are recast as defenders rather than aggressors.

I encourage you to go over and read the full essay by clicking here, but I'd also like to start a conversation about the way we envision our own history (if we're residents of the United States) and the consequences of our expansion into other territories.  Indeed, I wonder if the issues that are emerging in Arizona are not part of this same conversation? 

The Double Vision of our Conquest Narratives

How do you feel about the book of Joshua?  It's the story of a conquest, the story of a displacement of a people already living in the land, so that another people can have a place to live.  In fact, according to the narrative, God unleashes genocide upon the inhabitants.  Consider the story of Ai in chapter 8, where God commands the slaughter of the entire population, including women and children -- 12,000 in all.

What do we make of these conquest narratives?  The biblical one and our own?   How  exactly was the West won?

Dr. Daniel Hawk, an Old Testament Professor at Ashland Theological Seminary, has a new commentary out on this book and this subject.  It's entitled Joshua in 3-D.  I've not read the commentary -- though if you stop by Allan Bevere's blog you can order it for 40% off (I must do this!).  Dan Hawk is in the midst of a series of guest posts at Allan's blog, the latest being entitled "Double Vision."  As with earlier posts, Dan weaves together commentary on Joshua with comments about American understandings of Manifest Destiny and the anti-conquest images of Avatar (I must confess to being among the few Americans to have not yet seen the movie).   

In today's posting, Dan speaks of the images with which the conqueror uses to describe the other.  Often we use negative terms like savage and uncivilized to describe the people in the land, while the invader takes on the aura of civilized and noble.  And yet, there is at the same time counter images, that seek to picture the other in a different manner.  It's one of ambivalence. 

One problem is that reality exposes these projections for the pernicious fabrications they are. The early colonists would not have survived had not indigenous peoples imparted to them their rich agricultural wisdom. The eloquence and acuity of indigenous orators consistently impressed colonial listeners. Indigenous cultures were so strong and sophisticated that many scholars have conjectured that were it not for the epidemics that ravaged Native peoples (at mortality rates that in some cases approached ninety percent), the whole colonial enterprise might have turned out very differently.

The other problem is that even the invader recognizes the falsity of the constructions. Guilt and misgiving leak through in stories that exemplify the nobility of the indigenous peoples and portray invaders “going Native.” The result is an ambivalent, schizoid invader identity.

On that last point, I'd suggest another movie adaptation of the idea -- Dances with Wolves. 

But in terms of our biblical narrative, the writer of Joshua does find a people in the land, the Gibeonites, who are even more faithful than the Israelites.  They become, in a sense, the "noble savage" of our "Manifest Destiny" lore.  Both Allan and I -- and Dan -- would welcome your thoughts about conquest/invasion stories, and how they shape us. 

One thing that I'll add in closing relates to comments I made on Allan's post -- we have a discomfort with narratives that speak of ethnic cleansing and genocide, especially if God is involved.  And so, we create alternative myths.  That is, we picture the land as uninhabited and needing settlers.  This was true of the American scene.  It was true of the Afrikaner conquest of South Africa.  It is true of the Israeli conquest of Palestine.  If the land is sparsely populated, then surely we have the right to take it -- especially if God has promised it to us (whether we're the old Israel or the new Israel).