The thirteenth episode of the third season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (September 25, 2019). You can listen to the episode and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

Show Notes

This episode is based on Joshua 7, 8 in the Old Testament of the Bible. (Click the references to read the original texts). Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

The story of Ai is preceeded in the Bible by the story of Jericho and also depends on that story to a certain extent. To hear my retelling of the Jericho story, go to Episode 3.7 Pretty Canaanite Woman.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the story of Ai:

The Conquest and Archaeology

As I have stated before in this podcast, the entire story of the conquest of Canaan as told in the Book of Joshua is a historical problem. A massive influx of foreign invaders, a genocide of indigenous Canaanites and several major battles are the kinds of things that ought to leave distinctive marks for modern archaeologists to find. And yet, despite extensive excavations taking place over more than two centuries, no reliable evidence has been found that supports the kind of conquest described in the Bible.

For this reason, I tend not to think of the Book of Joshua as a simple historical account. I suspect that the author (or authors) were doing something a little bit different than just telling pure history.

In a previous episode (Episode 2.6 Lookie what I found!), I retold the story of the convenient discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the temple at Jerusalem. That story suggested that the core of the Book of Deuteronomy was written by a group of scribes and priests sometime during the reign of King Josiah. Many scholars today suggest that the so-called “Deuteronomic History” (found in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) was produced by the same group of scribes who wrote Deuteronomy at around the same time and afterwards. Of course, these scribes would have made use of existing chronicles and other literary and oral sources, as they sometimes acknowledge, to write those accounts, but I suspect that, when it came to the events of the Book of Joshua, they really didn’t have much in the way of historical sources.

Their purposes writing this account were many, no doubt. But the story of Ai suggests to me that one of the reasons they might have had in putting together the story of Joshua was to instruct a young leader in Judah (perhaps King Josiah himself) on how to lead the people and how to win battles.

The Detruction of Ai

Archeologists have largely agreed that the city of Ai did exist and have identified it with the site called et-Tell. This is a location just a few kilometers outside of ancient Bethel that has been extensively excavated. The Book of Joshua acknowledges that the ruins of Ai were known at the time when the book was written — something that is consistent with the archaeological findings at that location.

The ruins at et-Tell have been identified as the remains of the City of Ai, but the destruction of the site predates the time of the conquest by centuries.

The excavations of Ai have indeed revealed an ancient city that was destroyed and never reoccupied. The problem is that the destruction predates the “conquest” of Canaan by many centuries. When Joshua arrived (if indeed he did arrive) Ai had already been a ruin for a very long time.

This leads me to think that the story of Ai may have been created around the well-known ruins. Nevertheless, whoever wrote it had a very good grasp of military tactics in that age. It is not hard to see how the story could have been used to teach commanders important lessons like:

Not to underestimate how many warriors you need to attack a city

How to motivate troops to fight following a defeat

How to conduct a feint, a false retreat, a sneak attack and ambush

How to take a walled city

So was Joshua a kind of textbook for commanders? If that is the case, however, it makes me wonder about what it may be teaching about leadership. Is the story of Ai also meant to be a lesson on how to deflect blame when you have failed as a leader?

My Cynical Take

I will admit that my take on the story is a bit cynical. I know that the Book of Joshua is very clear about where the blame lies for the original defeat at Ai. Everything is placed at the feet of Achan and his disobedience at Jericho. The purging of the evil of Achan is also given the credit for the subsequent victory. But I had always found that account a little bit hard to swallow.

Both the original defeat and the subsequent victory make perfect sense as the result of poor military strategy in the first case (sending insufficient forces) and the excellent military tactics in the second (a perfectly executed feint and ambush by a much larger force). I just get suspicious when people attribute something to supernatural causes which can easily be explained otherwise. I don’t have trouble believing that strange and unexplained things sometimes happen, but I get suspicious when the supernatural explanations that are offered a little bit too convenient, particularly for those who have power and authority.

MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE

“AhDah” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Cryptic Sorrow” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/