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The Book of Joshua as a Political Classic

April 15, 1989 | Daniel J. Elazar

The argument of this paper is that the Book of Joshua is a classic of political thought, that can be and should be read as a coherent whole, in fact, as a major statement of the classic political world view of the Bible. For political science, it is the first classic exposition of federal republicanism.1 While the themes it emphasizes are derived from the Torah itself, the Torah combines them with other elements. In Joshua, the federal republican character of the Israelite edah (lit: congregation or assembly -- the biblical term for the Israelite polity) under God is the central theme.2