Joshua

"Richard Nelson’s 1997 commentary in the Old Testament Library series is a masterpiece of lucid historical analysis performed within a sensible redaction-critical framework." Carolyn Sharp, "Joshua," S&HBC, 2019, p. 33.

A well balanced technical commentary, taking both criticism and exposition seriously.

A fine critical and exegetical study of Joshua

Joshua as the product of Deuteronomistic redaction. [Full Review]

Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Pp. xviii + 310, Hardcover, $40.00, ISBN 0664219411. J. Andrew Dearman Austin Theological Seminary Austin, TX 78705 Much learning and digested scholarship are included in this compact commentary. Matters of historical background, literary and form analysis, and textual criticism are treated briefly in the introduction (pp. 1-24), and the main body of the commentary is divided into twenty-eight sections. With a few exceptions Nelson’s sections correspond to the canonical subdivisions of Joshua (twenty-four chapters). The book includes an appendix of site identifications and two indexes. One index is for ancient sources cited in the commentary, and the other is a general subject index. A bibliography is provided before the introduction and commentary. This is a historical-critical commentary in the now classical sense of the term, supplemented with careful observations about structure and literary theme in the final form of the text. In each section the author deals with theories of underlying sources, form-critical proposals, and text- critical issues, building on the observations in the brief introduction. He holds that editors associated with the Deuteronomistic History have shaped the final form of Joshua and that theories which attribute a substantial layer to the priestly writers (or school) are suggestive but not proven. More specifically, Nelson sees the double redaction theory of 1-2 Kings as related to the redactional history of Joshua. In the seventh century BCE, a version of Joshua was compiled, and it was supplemented by an exilic editor. Thus there is a relationship between the portrait of Joshua and that of Josiah from the last quarter of the seventh century. [Full Review]