Today’s
Scripture Reading (January 8, 2019): Joshua 12
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is
with these words that one of the best-known
Space Operas finds its beginning. It is the story of Luke Skywalker, his
sister, Princess Leia, as well as the space
rogue Hans Solo and the wise man Obi-Wan
Kenobi, all of whom pool their strength to
defeat the evil Darth Vader and his compatriots. The original movie, released
on 1977, introduced us to planets like Tatooine, the home that Luke Skywalker
can’t wait to leave, and Yavin 4, a moon that circles the gas giant Yavin
Prime, and the moon provides a home to a rebel base that Vader wants to
destroy.
But don’t bother searching out the real Tatooine or
Yavin 4. They don’t exist anywhere outside of the “Star Wars” franchise. And we
don’t expect them to exist. We know that these far off places are the products
of some writer’s imagination. By the way, both Tatooine and Yavin 4 might exist
someday. We seem to tend to take elements
of fiction and try to fashion them into a reality that reflects what it is that
we have imagined. But even then, they will not be the Tatooine or Yavin 4 that
exist in the “Star Wars” universe, with all of the character that these places reflect in fiction.
The importance of Jericho and Ai and the rest of this
list of cities are that it anchors the
events of Joshua in reality and often helps to provide not only a place where
the stories being told happened, but they
give us a time frame as well. The events described in Joshua did not happen in
a fictitious galaxy, far, far away. They took place in our galaxy, and in
places that exist in our space.
Today, Jericho is a city that exists in the
Palestinian Territories at the north end of the Dead Sea. It is home to around
20,000 people. It is believed to be a city with a long history and is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the World.
Jericho still exists in the same spot that it existed during the days of
Joshua. We have a place that we can point to and say this is where Joshua
defeated the King of Jericho.
Ai is a little harder to pin down, but we still
recognize it as a historic city and a city that the original readers would
have likely known. Ai was destroyed long ago, which gives us a hint as to the
timing of Joshua’s story, and yet we can still try to find the historical place
Joshua and his army fought their battles. Currently,
the best option for the city of Ai is found
at that archeological site et-Tell, located not far, just a little north and
west, of Jericho. The et-Tell archaeological site which would also fit with the
story that Joshua tells, and a place where Joshua eventually deposed exactly
one king who was leader over the city.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Joshua 13
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