Remembering Joshua the Pacifist
Tomorrow is Easter, and while I will not personally celebrate the holiday for my own reasons, I will make it a point to remember an inspirational story about a man who fought for peace in times of war; for equality in times of oppression. I am of course referring to Joshua from Galilee — Jesus is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name — a humble carpenter’s son with a vision for a better world. Israel at the time of the crucifixion was under foreign occupation. The Romans controlled many aspects of daily life in a well managed oligarchy under the rule of an ambitious soldier-turned-politician named Pontius Pilot. Resources were scarce, and the Romans drained the local economy for their own gain.
Joshua was a pacifist who objected to the brutality of Rome’s authoritarian rule. To combat the oppressors, he took the path of non-violence (as Ghandi would 2000 years later against the British Empire). In an age of violence, non-violence seemed foreign to the denizens of Jerusalem. With charisma, cunning, and a little touch of showmanship Joshua gathered support from many people — not the masses as the Bible would have us believe — and offered the first real resistance to the Roman Empire since the conquests carried out by Flavius Josephus. I like to think of the Pharisees as an insecure institution dependent on their overlords, comparable to the Vichy collaboration government in France in World War II.
Today, the story of Joshua is relatively well known, but his message has been twisted around in some horrendous ways. Son of God? I cannot say. But I guarantee the Bible cannot say either. The name Jesus is a greek translation for Joshua, given to us in that form because the first new testament Bibles distributed were created in Greece. Since then the new and old testaments have undergone many, many translations and rewritings, the end product of which is a document that is very different than what was originally written. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows that everything does not always translate exactly, and thus substitutions must be made, particularly when dealing with idiomatic expressions. Anyone who has ever played the game “telephone” also knows that even among speakers of the same language, simple phrases can and will change dramatically. Bibles are no different. In the Middle Ages, monks copied bibles for distribution and often changed parts of the text. One need look no further than preserved Bibles from the medieval period to find texts riddled with marginal notes, each changing some small piece of the previous version. Later on, kings ordered changes in Bibles for their own purposes which made new versions still available today (like the King James Bible). Have you ever wondered why there are so many different versions of the Bible on the book shelf at your local book store? Any literal interpretation of the Bible is a mistake. Anyone who says the Bible is the direct word of God is terribly misinformed. The Bible itself confirms it: it is recognized in the story of the Tower of Babel that languages would divide human populations; and this applies to the written word as well.
In any case, the story of Joshua is one to be remembered. Like the Norse, Greek, and Babylonian myths it has a lesson to teach for our betterment. It serves as a reminder of what people are capable of in times of oppression. We learn about love, compassion, peace, and non-violence. As a lesson, the story of Joshua is an informative piece that explores human nature and the terrible things people are capable of in the presence of fear. It is perplexing to me that this story be so well known and worshipped by many, yet our world has still come too close to self annihilation in war, greed, and discord. It would seem the same traits of human nature displayed by the antagonists to Jesus’ story are still in play today. This Easter, I will remember the man, his message of peace, and most of all, his efforts to end corruption in human organizations. Help thy neighbor, lay down your arms, love thyself and others. These are good messages, let us not use them for hate.
