Books of Joshua & Judges foreshadowing todays corruption of Zionism

[u/melefofon]

Im sure Im not the first to see this foreshadowing of the last 100 years of palestinian/israeli history and the Books of Joshua followed by Judges. I looked around on Google and on this sub and didnt find anything so Im putting this idea out there for you...

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The early Zionists drew parallels between themselves and the book of joshua and likely took inspiration from the genocide of the canaanites at the hands of the israelites. At the beginning of Joshua the israelites are coming out of the dessert after escaping egypt (Foreshadowing the holocaust). God wanted to get rid of all of the canaanites because of how morally corrupt they were so he helped the israelites defeat them. God promised this land to the Israelites in this books and then after getting rid of all of the canaanites they split up the land amongst each tribe (Foreshadowing the war of 1948).

In the Book of Judges we are told all of these stories about how the israelites overtime became more and more corrupt and unethical. There are stories of tribe vs tribe annihilating eachother, gang rape and some really gory scenes. One of the main lessons to be learned from the book of judges is a warning of the corruption of the judges who were essentially the politicians. I see the Book of Judges as a foreshadowing of 1948 -> Present.

What does Judges tell us about how this war in palestine will end?

The story of Samson (aka: IDF) commits "an act of terror" with gods help and martyrs himself taking thousands of philistines with him to their death.

[u/melefofon]

I wasn't trying to insinuate that it was a prediction or mystical in anyway. I'm not very religious and I don't know the scriptures in detail or even how they have been interpreted over the years...

Treating the tanach as a source of lessons to be learned about life.

Joshua was referenced by early Zionists... I was only trying to say they should read a little further to learn what happened after they took Canaan.

I guess a lot of the tanach after Joshua is about how the Israelites became corrupted over and over again and God would punish them...

[u/Fun_Swan_5363 → u/melefofon]

Something funny about the Canaanites and their genocide, is that they are mentioned later in the account. So they weren't really all slaughtered, possibly.

If that is true, then from the standpoint of scribal literary posturing and complexity, the Tanach description of genocide MAY fall under the category of political trash-talking by Jews at the time of the Tanach's writing, against their neighbors. 

That interpretation is per a couple of Christian podcasts I've heard (so maybe it is incorrect.) But if you subscribe to it as a possibility, then whenever a Bible account seems factually untrue, you can assume the story was put in there for some rhetorical or theological reason.

Which of course makes Netenyahu's use of the Bible account in Joshua to justify what he is doing to the Palestinians, doubly problematic.

[u/melefofon → u/Fun_Swan_5363]

I know the Canaanites are still around after Joshua. Did the Philistines form from the remnants of the Canaanites?

Potentially, the genocide was not a complete inhalation...they intermarried and absorbed them into the Israelite culture. This is maybe why the Israelites continue to worship idols throughout their early history.

[u/Fun_Swan_5363 → u/melefofon]

AFAIK per some archaeological finds the Philistines showed up attacking Egypt from the sea during the Bronze Age Collapse. I'm not an expert but per several podcasts I heard on it, this is roughly the same time as the Exodus. So once Egypt got control of the Philistines, they ended up living where Gaza now is. (But yeah probably they mixed a bit with the Canaanites over time.) IIRC some think the Philistines originally came from Crete or elsewhere in the Mediteranean. The Bronze Age Collapse may have been caused by a decades-long drought, in which case if they were attacking Egypt, they were probably doing so because they had heard there was still food there. It's over a year since I listened to the podcasts on it so I hope my memory is serving me correctly.