Today’s Scripture Reading (December
7, 2015): Joshua 16
The story
says, and it hard to know how much of it is true, that the Father of Erik the
Red was banished from Norway for manslaughter. The man wandered west and
finally settled in Iceland and began to grow his family there. Later, his son
would suffer the same fate in Iceland. Erik the Red would be banished for three
years from Iceland for some killings that he had committed in 982. Erik would
continue the westward journey started by his father and eventually settled for
a time on the Southern tip of Greenland. This was all happening during a
warming trend in the North Atlantic, and Erik dreamed of building a settlement
in this new land. According to the story, he called it Greenland, because it
brought visions of fertile pastures that would be attractive to new settlers looking
for a place to live. In reality, while there are fertile sections, most of the
Island exists in ice
But there
are other theories behind the name of what is the third largest country in area
in North America. And one of the suggestions is that the name of Greenland was
actually an Icelandic invention and ruse – and partially as a defense of the
small Island nation in the North Atlantic. I mean, who would want to seek out a
country called Iceland (which is actually a green oasis in the middle of the
North Atlantic) when there is a place called Greenland to be conquered (which
is actually a place dominated by ice.) Whatever the reason, there seems to be a
switching of names between the two island nations, and it would be easy to
suggest that someone got the naming of the Islands totally wrong.
Joshua
continues his description of the land that was to be given to each tribe, but
there begins to be some notable differences to the way that the report is
written up. First, the most detailed of the land allotments goes to Judah.
Conservative theologians argue that this is to be expected because God knew
that Judah was going to be the main player in the future history of the
fledgling nation, including the tribe from which both her greatest king (David)
and the Messiah would be born. Liberal theologians use the detailed description
of the land of Judah as being proof that the book of Joshua was not written or
at least gathered together until after the fall of the Northern Tribes to
Assyria - and maybe even after Judah had been exiled into Babylon.
But on the
other hand we have a really scant description of the land allotted to Ephraim
and Manasseh – the sons of Joseph. In giving the land to Joseph sons, Jacob was
effectively giving the “double portion” of the inheritance to Joseph. But the
borders of this double portion are drawn fairly lightly. In fact, to really
understand the borders of the land we have to look at the borders of the land
that were given to the tribes around them. But in the end, we know this – the
sons of Joseph were given the fertile lands in the center of the nation. This
was essentially the Oasis in Israel, the breadbasket for the nation. They were
the choice lands given to the sons of Joseph – Jacob oldest son of his favorite
and really only true wife, Rachel.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joshua
17
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