The Book of Joshua and the Gospels. Intertextuality of Narrative and Macronarrative Patterns

Some modern approaches conceive the Old Testament history as constitutional narratives for a nation whose official religion is the worship of YHWH. This way of understanding the historical books limits the horizons of their prophetic content and reduces them to mere royal archives that record the official history of a monarchy that today does not even exist. It is unthinkable that the God of the Old Testament gives the people who just flew out of Egypt the privilege to have power over other nations and dominate the territories of other nations. In this case, the Israel of the wilderness would be preparing to be a new Pharaoh and an oppressor of nations. An attentive and critical reading of Joshua shows clearly that the only one who fights in the battles is the Lord and that the role of the people is restricted to obey God’s commands (see, for example, the fall of Jericho in Jos 6; Achan’s episode in Jos 7:8-12 and the rereading of the work of God in Jos 24:1-14). Therefore the people in Joshua do not take possession, but rather get the title of heirs of what actually belongs only to God. The Biblical canon explains this function as a ministry, as a witness to the faith in the One and True God. The Gospels have taken much of the Joshuanic narrative strategies and express in new ways the same message of hope: God saves mankind. The present contribution interlinks between the Book of Joshua, the Biblical canon and the narrative in the Gospels in order to propose a reading that gives back to Joshua its authentic message of liberation