Canter Bridge

The Book of Joshua leaves traces of a prejudice that was to die hard in Israel. When two and a half of the dozen tribes that populate this narrative of Israel’s entrance into the ‘promised land’ lay claim to an inheritance on the east side of the Jordan River, a breach is opened up between them and the tribes that crossed over to the western side. It was a chasm that would run deeper than mere topography.

The Joshua narrative never completely accomodates itself to this decision, referring instead to the river’s western side as the true promised land. The eastern habitation never escapes the onus of compromise.

It was perhaps the elephant in the room. Take, for example, the deliberations of the ‘easterners’ about an uncertain future, a reflection that led to the controversial erection of a quasi-altar far from the ideological heartland:

No! We did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? For the LORD has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you Reubenites and Gadites; you have no portion in the LORD.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the LORD.

In these chapters, the high priest Phineas undertakes an embassy to the eastern ‘two-and-a-half’ to reproach them for having abandoned YHWH, his promises, and his demands. It is only at some pains that the eastern tribes convince him that this has not been their intention, but rather that they felt the need to consolidate and concretize their YHWH-allegiance by means of a memorial whose veracity no westerner could in future effectively question.

Anxiety about Israelite identity haunts these pages. It would be scarcely absent in the history of ancient Israel. Indeed, it could not, for the fledgeling nation is the quintessential work-in-progress, defining itself as much by the ethical boundaries of the Ten Words as by the boundaries and boundaries of land allotments and battle lines.

The question of who belongs to Israel would be fiercely argued throughout the history of sectarian Judaism, not least by the Qumran community and the early Jewish followers of Jesus. The conversation has not dissipated, even today. Thus, the relevance of quasi-altars, anxiety become stone in an attempt to ward off the day when others might say ‘you do not belong to YHWH, you do not belong to us.’