The Joshua Generation: Israeli Occupation and the Bible

An interesting and yet odd little book.

Basic structure:
- Ch. 1 & 2: Overview of the Book of Joshua
- Ch. 3 & 4: How David Ben-Gurion led modern Israel to read Joshua in a way that cast Jewish settlers as the re-embodiment of Joshua and the Israelites, driving out the Canaanites.
- Conclusion: Excursus on the struggle between the Israelis and Palestinians for Palestinian access to fresh water, with two sentences at the end dreaming about a future where they give up the strife.

I enjoyed the book, especially chapters 3&4. I am fascinated by the idea that modern Israelis have used novel interpretations of the Bible to support their political cause in ways that seem very familiar to American evangelicals.

The conclusion seemed like a complete non sequitur, a tacked-on ending apparently important to the author but almost completely unrelated to the bulk of the book. I’m very surprised the editor allowed her to keep it.

Still worth a read for the main body of the book.