“Be Strong and of a Good Courage”
Most of us know the story of Joshua from childhood. The walls came tumbling down, remember? Upon closer examination however, the book of Joshua is very much a mixed bag, offering both inspiration and difficulty. This portion covers:
- Joshua and history, focusing on the archaeological excavation of Jericho
- How we can confront narratives where God commands genocide
- The question of miracles
Recurring Donation:
One Time Donation:
Class member reading: Joshua 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 23, 24
Additional Reading: Joshua 7, 14
Other Reading: the rest of Joshua. Also Helaman 12:13-15
You can access the Assigned Reading here (or PDF).
Resources
To be added soon
Thanks to Sheldon Greaves for guest teaching and hosting, to James Estrada for his diligent post-production, and as always to Steven Nelson for the beautiful bumper music.
Engaging Gospel Doctrine 
I LOVED the hypothesis that you put forth about the concessions–don’t eat animals…ok, just have to kill them like this, etc. Thank you for putting that out there.
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If these lessons can’t be done from a place of faith then maybe they shouldn’t be done at all.
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I would say that they *are* done from a place of faith. What would your evidence be that they are not?
Remember that Part I of each episode (86.1, 87.1, etc) covers the “Sunday School” perspective so perhaps you would prefer to listen only to those sections. Thanks for listening and commenting.
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Forgive me but the mocking movie segment was hard to take. I tried but I guess I’m just not up to the “challenge or be challenged by” objective. I’m just one of those that has the belief that the scriptures are literal and sacred. Good Luck with your podcast.
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We had this lesson this week and really there was so much in the lesson to discuss that was motivating, uplifting and challenging. I did not have the time to discuss the slaughter, but it is difficult. There is so much that I just don’t relate to. The God of the Old Testament is extremely challenging. I wonder – as we hear that the youth of today are a royal generation, their faithfulness inspite of all around them: perhaps we are more faithful, noble spirits so the nature of how God is manifest to us has changed also. The genocidal God of the Old Testament had to be, so that future generations had the chance of demonstrating their faith because of the degree/extent of the wickedness, they all had to be wiped out so others had a chance.
I really enjoyed the podcast – I was listening while travelling into London and while on the tube, I was almost laughing out loud, very loudly regarding the film. I completely took it in the humour it was intended and I’m glad it wasn’t edited out. It made a dull journey very entertaining!
Thank you to all to the production of the podcast.
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