Nov 2: [Joshua]

YHWH is a warrior

Researching God is a Grunt, I started looking into the fighting words of the Bible, those terms behind bold statements like Exodus 15:3, “The LORD is a warrior, the Lord is his name.” In Hebrew, God is called ish milhama, literally ‘a man of war.’ the same word used for God in Isaiah 42:13. It is used very sparingly to describe humans, including Machir of Manasseh (see Joshua 17:1) and King David, but not always in a positive sense. “Warrior” can act as a compliment (as in 1 Samuel 16:18 or 2 Samuel 17:8) as well as a warning. (beware Goliath, 1 Sam 17:33) In 1 Chronicles 28:3, David is prohibited from building God’s Temple because the warrior-king has shed blood. As God’s only Son, Jesus is the son of a warrior, a military brat. But more than that, his namesake(s) made use of Israel’s history to remind people that their salvation comes from God through (divine) military intervention.

… [Joshua] is His name.

In the first century, most middle to low-status Jews like Mary and Joseph spoke a local dialect called Aramaic, a Northwest Semitic language related to Hebrew. To folks in Judea, Jesus’ name was Yehoshua (H3091), a theophoric name combining the divine prefix יהו‎ (Yah-) with a suffix meaning “salvation,” הוֹשֵׁעַ (-oshua); Yehoshua. It was a common name for devout Jews because it evoked the man who lead the Israelites in the campaign to take the Promised Land (in the Book of), Joshua.

But the New Testament was not written in Aramaic or Hebrew. Latin was the high-status language of the Roman capital and Greek was used by power brokers in remote provinces like Syria and Judea. For Greek speakers, including the authors of the New Testament, the Son’s name was Ἰησοῦς (iesous, G2424). Evangelists created a Hellenized name by assigning Greek characters to Semitic sounds. Latin transformed it into IESVS, which was eventually Anglicized for English speakers into “Jesus.”

But let’s be real, the dude’s name was Joshua, the most famous military leader in Israel’s history. It is the same name of the High Priest, son of Jozadak, who rebuilt the Temple upon returning from exile. (see Zechariah 6, Ezra 3) If the first Temple is called “Solomon’s Temple,” it is fair to call the second one “Joshua’s Temple.” Think about that when Jesus talks about destroying t/His Temple and rebuilding it in three days.

The Holy Family’s Hometown

So the Crowning Ruler 📏 of creation was a military brat named after Israel’s most famous military commander. As if that isn’t enough martial imagery for you, his ministry began and was focused on the lands of Israel’s commando clans, Zebulun and Naphtali. Before it was Galilee, the region northwest of the “Sea of Kinneret” (Numbers 34:11, Hellenized to “Gennesaret” in Luke 5:1) was allotted to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali.

It was these troop-heavy tribes who secured victories for Deborah and Barak over Sisera at Mt. Tabor (Judges 4), and Gideon over Midian at the Hill of Moreh (Judges 7). They were the epitome of Israelite military order and prowess, but their reputation suffered enormously after being carried off to exile as the first two of ten ‘lost’ tribes. It was so bad that Isaiah calls their lands galil hagoyim, ‘the district of non-Jews.’ (Isaiah 9:1).

TYFYS, now GTFO

By the time Rome controlled the area, gālîl became Galilee, and the name (and the area’s reputation) stuck. Mary and Joseph were based in a small town that had no name until the Gospels assigned it one. Nazareth and Nazarene sure seem to derive from the nāzîr rites of Numbers 6, but that’s another story (learn more in my upcoming book, God is a Grunt). What is interesting is that Nazareth is dead center in the land of Zebulun, Naphtali’s younger half-brother and battle buddy, making it a disreputable military town on par “Fayette’nam” outside the gates of Ft. Bragg, NC.

Jesus loves military families because he came from one, one that preferred their backwater 🪖 hamlet over the prestigious land of Judah, to which Joseph would have had a claim as a descendant of David. And where does He and His “warrior” Father decide the transfiguration should occur? Christians have traditionally identified it as Mt Tabor, the same hill battle-acquired by Zebulun and Naphtali for their higher-brow fellow Israelites. You’re welcome, jerks.