Portal:Bible/Featured article/November, 2008

Joshua (Hebrew: 'יְהוֹשֻׁעַ), born in Egypt, was a biblical Israelite leader who succeeded Moses. His story is told in the Hebrew Bible, chiefly in the books Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua. He was one of the twelve spies sent on by Moses to explore the land of Canaan who would later lead the conquest of that land, the Bible's Promised Land.

Joshua supposedly lived sometime in the late Bronze Age, around 1200 BC. However, he is associated with problems concerning the evidence for the Exodus from Egypt. Various reconstructions of the Biblical data about the Exodus have not yet matched the archeological evidence. Accordingly, some archeologists dispute the historicity of the many details in the Biblical account of the Exodus and treat it as legendary embellishments of an earlier (still unidentified) event. However, others have taken the account to be legitimate and have based their scholarship on this, including Richard A. Gabriel who has viewed Biblical narratives from what he calls a "military" perspective, including the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. Still others refer to the ancient letters of appeal by Canaanite leaders to Egypt seeking assistance against the invasion of the Hapiru (see Amarna letters), who may or may not be the ancient Hebrews. (more...)