Joshua (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary)

by Carolyn Sharp

Publisher:

Smyth & Helwys

, 2019

Overview

The book of Joshua is rich, brimming with dramatic irony, heart-pounding conflict, and luminous stories of miracles. But Joshua presents serious challenges for theological ethics, giving us a deity who demands militarized appropriation of indigenous territory and extermination of Canaanite noncombatants. In this commentary, Carolyn Sharp explores archaeological, literary, theological, and ethical dimensions of Joshua in depth. Sharp honors indigeneity on every page of her commentary, supplying postcolonial epigraphs, quotations of ancient Canaanite voices, and twenty-nine sidebars with insights from Native Studies. Dozens of side- bars offer suggestions for the Christian preacher. This volume is essential for those seeking to engage fruitfully with violent traditions in Scripture.

The Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary series brings insightful commentary to bear on the lives of contemporary Christians. The volumes employ a stunning array of art, maps, and drawings to illustrate the insights of the Bible. It is built upon the idea that meaningful Bible study can occur when the insights of contemporary biblical scholars blend with sensitivity to the needs of students of Scripture.

Key Features

• Explores archaeological, literary, theological, and ethical dimensions of Joshua
• Blends insights of contemporary biblical scholars with sensitivity to the needs of students of Scripture
• Provides an array of art, maps, and drawings to illustrate the insights of the Bible

Praise for the Print Edition

Exceptional. . . . This is a landmark commentary for the twenty-first-century church: illuminating, provocative, multi- voiced, and timely.

—L. Daniel Hawk, Ashland Theological Seminary

Carolyn Sharp has set a new standard for critically informed, interdisciplinary, and ethically engaged commentary on the book of Joshua in today’s context fraught with militarism, racial violence, and the dehumanization of immigrants and indigenous persons.

—Brad E. Kelle, Point Loma Nazarene University

Carolyn Sharp’s exposition of the book of Joshua is a pathbreaking, breathtaking opener to a new era in reading the book of Joshua. Sharp gives us a ton of historical-critical, cultural, and archeological material. She adds more than a few tons of contemporaneity to her interpretation. She has not, moreover, forgotten the mandate of this commentary series to serve the preaching-teaching of the church as she offers a myriad of rich linkages to her critical work. But the hallmark of Sharp’s study is unflinching honesty and candor concerning the violent, genocidal narrative of land seizure that dominates the book of Joshua. Sharp will not collude with conventional practices of disregarding or explaining away the relentless brutality of the book that has legitimated many subsequent brutal land seizures: “Pernicious ideology remains pernicious.” This book is a new norm for honesty about how our “Holy Book” and its legacy have done immeasurable damage. All of that is coupled with exquisite scholarship!

—Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary

Product Details

• Title: Joshua
• Author: Carolyn J. Sharp
• Series: Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary (SHBC)
• Publisher: Smyth & Helwys
• Publication Date: 2020
• Resource Type: Commentary
• Topic: Joshua

About Carolyn Sharp

Research explores aspects of the composition, redaction, and rhetoric of Hebrew Scripture texts. In recent articles, she has examined the representation of Hebrew Bible traditions in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, urged the creation of a multivocal Old Testament theology shaped by the notion of diaspora identity, and explored the potential of Old Testament hermeneutics to address contemporary ecclesial debates. Professor Sharp’s book, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah (T&T Clark, 2003) treats literary-critical and redactional problems in Jeremiah and related issues in Kings and Deuteronomy. One of her current book projects, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible: The Power of the Unspoken in Sacred Texts, explores literary and theological aspects of irony in Old Testament texts. Another book project, Wrestle This Word: Old Testament Studies and the Christian Believer, will reflect theologically on contemporary developments in the field of Old Testament in accessible terms geared to seminary students and pastors. An Episcopal Church Foundation Fellow, Professor Sharp is active in the Episcopal Church, preaching and leading parish study groups on biblical theology and hermeneutics. BOOKS Prophecy & Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose (2003)