Week 10 Exegesis Activity: How It Might Mean (Joshua 2 and 6)
This week, return for the last time to Joshua 2 and 6. This time, we
consider what meanings the text might have for later communities, especially
some particular community of today in some particular circumstances.
Prepare:
Engage again the resources you visited
last week (course materials and discoveries from “How it Meant”), but this time
with an eye on how Joshua 2 and 6 might mean more broadly, beyond its original
author(s) and their community/communities in their ancient context. What kinds
of meanings, intended or unintended, might Joshua 2 and 6 be able to sustain?
What kinds of misreadings or misunderstandings about Joshua 2 and 6 are
possible?
Post a total of about 500 words:
Theological Analysis: In about 250 words, and engaging course materials
as appropriate, address the following directly and thoroughly:
Analyze Joshua 2 and 6 theologically. What are the major theological claims
of the
passage? (e.g., about does it say or assume about God, about the nature of
God’s activity in the world, about people, about human community, about the
so-called “natural world,” etc. How are God, humans and the world presented in
relation to one another?)
Are these claims appropriate to your own understanding of
God’s love for all persons and God’s demand that everyone embody that
love?
Are these claims credible? By “credible,” we mean: 1)
are these claims coherent to other biblical witness? How or how not?
What if they are not? 2) are these claims intelligible in the light of
the way the world is understood today? How or how not? What if they are not? 3)
are these claims moral? Why or why not? What if they are not?
Hermeneutical Analysis: In about 250 words, and engaging course
materials as appropriate address the following:
Based on your exegetical and theological analysis, can you suggest some
hermeneutical possibilities of the text for the life of the church and the
situation of the world today? (You should, for clarity, have a particular group
or situation in view.) If your theological analysis of the text concludes that
its claims are inappropriate to the gospel or unintelligible to the world today
or immoral, what can you say about the text to the modern church and world?
Avoid platitudes! First, keep your one, select group or situation clearly in
view, as opposed to “the church” more broadly conceived. Second, your
hermeneutical possibilities should follow recognizably from the fruits of your
“How It Says” and “What It Meant” work, as well as your
theological analysis above.
