St. Paul daily globe., 1888-01-30
BIBLE LEGENDS.
Some of Them Are of Gauzy
Nature.

Nature.
Fl. NJ. Simmons spoke at the First Uni
tartan church on "The Conquest of
Canaan" and said the two accounts of
it in the biblical books of Joshua and
Judges are fine illustration of the
growth of legend. The former book
repeatedly says of city after city, that
Joshua burned it with fire and utterly
destroyed all the souls that were therein;
he left none remaining:" and says in
summing up that he ''smote ali the
land" and utterly destroyed all that
breathed, as the God of Israel COM
manded." But the book of Judges,
which is supposed to contain much ear
lier accounts, shows that the real facts
are far more honorable to both Israel
and their God, and that the Canaanites
any one else. 1t informs us that the
whole country, (after the death of
.Joshua,) was still full of Canaanites,
and that several of these same cities,
specified by name, which he is said to
have burned and utterly destroyed all
the souls that were therein" were still
unharmed and held by their old inhab-
tants until long after he died.
1t even shows that famous Jabin.
king of Hazor, whom Joshua
had slain, and whose city and chariots
there was none left that breathed," still
alive and in the field with his chariots
and great army, some time after.
These earlier accounts i'll the book of
Judges are doubtless the more correct.
AS is there shown, the land was invaded
|. by different tribes at different times,
was won little by little, and its old in
habitantS mostly left to mingle with the
cOnquerOrs. After legend, in its usual
way, ascribed all the work to one man.
Just as early Cretan civilization came
to be summed up as the work of MinoS-
SO this movement of many generations
came to be told as the work of joshua
although he seems from the book of
Judges to have had very little to do with
it. In the spirit of hostility to the hea-
then, which grew up in more priestly
times, he was represented as having
slain all the Canaantes. Finally, legend
added some of those wonders, which it
has always dealt in so freely,
and this Joshua was made
to have stopped the Jordan and
blown down the walls of Jericho with
| trumpetS. He was even said to have
stopped the sun for ''abOut whole
day" But if we may trust the book of
Judges, Joshua was not even present in
the contest with the king of Hebron,
and instead of stopping the sun, was
lying in his grave on Mount Ephraim,
| on the north side of the hill of Gaash.
And there he continued to lie in peace
while the ISraelites sometimes warred
with, and sometimes welded with, those
CanaaniteS whom he is supposed to
have entirely exterminated at the order
of his God.
For the honor of both Joshua and his
God, we ought to be glad to learn that
both were so much better than we were
wont to hear. Some would. of course,
say that our treatment of the story is
prOfane. To such can only say that it
is all taken from the Bible, and chiefly
by quotations. Besides, if there is any
profanity, it would seem to be rather
with those who say that God ordered
such butcherieS as are ascribed to him
in the book of Joshua. Rather. it is
religious act to deny that impious doc
trine, and to show that the story of
JOshua's murders by the order of the