Joshua as a Hymn of Glory: An Analysis and Comparison of Ancient Near Eastern Texts

A knowledgeable reader of the Hebrew Bible understands that there are two conflicting conquest narratives contained in the books of Joshua and Judges. This paper seeks to reframe Joshua 5–11 in a genre other than the traditional interpretation of a conquest narrative. These chapters of Joshua, as compared with Merneptah’s Victory Stele and the annals of Adad-Nārārī II, fit thematically into an entirely different genre from ancient Near Eastern literature: hymns of glory. Using four char- acteristics inspired by the work of Susan Hollis—propagandistic royal ideology, divine empowerment or call, utter destruction of enemies, and will of the deity accomplished—to analyze these three texts will dem- onstrate how they fit into this genre. Although this does not prove the Deuteronomistic Historian’s purpose in creating the book of Joshua, it does present the hymns of glory genre as a likely medium of oral trans- mission for Joshua 5–11.