J13-2: A Perfect Example Of Why We Should NOT Take Certain Bible Passages Literally

Remember a couple of posts back, how I kept hammering home why it’s important to NOT take certain passages in the Bible literally.

For example, take a look at verse 23 from Joshua Chapter 11…

^“Y’hoshua took the whole land, in keeping with all that Adonai had said to Moshe and to Israel according to their divisions into tribes. Then the land rested from war.”-Joshua 11:23

Now compared and contrast that verse with the very first verse of Joshua Chapter 13 where we’re at now in our study.

“Now Y’hoshua was old; the years had taken their toll. Adonai said to him, “You are old, and the years have taken their toll; but there is yet a great deal of land to be possessed.”-Joshua 13:1

So are we dealing with a bonafide contradiction here?

The answer is no man, we’re not.

Again, this isn’t gonna make sense to us until you understand Biblical Hebrew and how the Scriptures were compiled.

Those statements about Joshua conquering the whole land are one of those broad generalizations that again were NOT meant to be taken literally.

Later, the author of Joshua went back to add more nuance and more detail so as to give us a more complete picture of the situation in the Holy Land at the time.

The writer of Joshua was actually called the “Compiler” and it’s pretty clear he relied on many different sources to piece together an accurate account of how the Israelites led by Joshua really conquered both the Southern and Northern parts of Canaan.