New West Community Church

In the sermon Sunday, we noted that Joshua was very old, and he needed to pass down the work of fighting to a younger generation. We don’t know Joshua’s precise age, but it seems like that he was at least as old as Caleb, who was at this time eighty-five (Josh 14:10). Because every man of fighting age (twenty years or older) had died in the desert wanderings over forty years, there was a gap of at least twenty years between the oldest men in Israel and Joshua and Caleb. Joshua had been their commander throughout the taking of Canaan, but it was now time for the tribes to rely on God and move forward and take what was left of the land. We see here a call for older saints to pass on skills, responsibility, and authority, to the coming generation. We see this principle several times in the New Testament. The apostle Paul mentored young Timothy and then told him to do the same to others. “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who...Continue reading→

By far one of the most interesting and shocking parts of my study this last week was to read an extended and exceptionally erudite commentary on Joshua 10 by the great theologian Jonathan Edwards (Notes on Scripture) in which he argues that Joshua is the true and myth-inspiring character known eventually as Hercules. He writes, “This oriental Hercules (says Vossius), for some ages, more ancient than the Theban, was by his true name called Joshua, who made war with the Canaanites, amongst whom were the sons of Anak, and other giants, as Num. 13:29, 33.” Calling on a host of primary sources (many of them only in Latin), he builds a case for the fact that the account of Joshua and his great victory over the giants in Joshua 10 became corrupted, but some of its basic ideas continued in the ancient myths, including the gods raining down stones from heaven upon giants and a great man (Hercules) who slays the giants. “’Tis said of Hercules, that whilst he was fighting with the giants, Jupiter rained down stones. This answers exactly to the story of Joshua, his strenuous achievement, and God’s raining down stones, by which he slew great part...Continue reading→