Editing Book of Joshua (section)

=== The enemy ===
{{Further|The Bible and violence}}
[[File:Tissot The Taking of Jericho.jpg|thumb|''The Taking of Jericho'' (watercolor c. 1896–1902 by James Tissot)]]
Joshua "carries out a systematic campaign against the civilians of Canaan&nbsp;– men, women and children&nbsp;– that amounts to [[genocide]]."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dever|first=William|title=Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?|publisher=Eerdmans|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_ByXkpofAgC&pg=PA38|isbn=978-0-8028-0975-9|page=38}}</ref> This practice was known as ''[[Herem (war or property)|herem]]'', as described in Deuteronomy 20:17, which entailed no [[Treaty|treaties]] with the enemy, no [[mercy]], and no [[Exogamy|intermarriage]].<ref name=Younger />{{rp|175}} "The extermination of the nations glorifies Yahweh as a warrior and promotes Israel's claim to the land," while their continued survival "explores the themes of disobedience and penalty and looks forward to the story told in Judges and Kings."<ref name=Nelson />{{rp|18–19}} The divine call for massacre at [[Battle of Jericho|Jericho]] and elsewhere can be explained in terms of cultural norms (Israel was not the only [[Iron Age]] state to practice ''herem'') and theology (e.g. to ensure Israel's purity, fulfill God's promise, judge the Canaanites for their "sexual misconduct").<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Strawn |first=Brent A. |date=2012 |title=On Vomiting: Leviticus, Jonah, Ea(a)rth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43727983 |journal=The Catholic Biblical Quarterly |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=445–464 |jstor=43727983 }}</ref><ref name=Younger />{{rp|175}}

[[Patrick D. Miller]] in his commentary on Deuteronomy, writes that "there is no real way to make such reports palatable to the hearts and minds of contemporary readers and believers," and that the "tension between the Israelites and its neighbors was fundamentally a religious conflict," writing further for the need to understand what the reports teach "so that they make some sense to us in the whole." Miller writes further that the "Deuteronomistic history in Joshua through Second Kings is a story of constant or recurring apostasy" and that for the Israelites, maintaining their allegiance with Yahweh "required, in their sight, removal of all temptation."<ref name=MillerDeut />{{rp|40–42}} Nissim Amzallag sees similarities between Joshua's conquest and the [[Return to Zion|return of Judean exiles]] in [[Ezra–Nehemiah|Ezra-Nehemiah]] but compared to the former, the Judeans merely refrained from intermarrying the "Canaanites". These "Canaanites" were most likely non-exiled Judeans, who were contaminated with "foreign influence".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Amzallag |first=Nissim |date=2018 |title=The Authorship of Ezra and Nehemiah in Light of Differences in Their Ideological Background |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15699/jbl.1372.2018.340296 |journal=Journal of Biblical Literature |volume=137 |issue=2 |pages=271–291 |doi=10.15699/jbl.1372.2018.340296 |jstor=10.15699/jbl.1372.2018.340296 }}</ref>