This book promises rather more than it delivers (or could deliver really in its length). It is realy and exegetical study of Joshua 11, treating it with the sociolgical framework of Gotwald in principle. His argument is that the text only give direct divine sanction for the hamstringing of horses and burning of chariots, which are symbols and instruments of monarchial domination, but that takes chapter 11 rather out of the wider context, and does not address the rather glaring issue of extermination which is a key feature of the text.

Also I am not sure that his situating of the sociological rationale of the text within the narative time (13th century) rather than within the time when the text was probably written (7th or 6th century) is the ideal way of aproaching the texts. In that sens Lori Rowlett's 'Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence' is much more convincing. ( )

Utilizing both a materialist and literary reading of the the text, Brueggemann explores one of the bloodiest chapters of the bible, Joshua 11. Some of the questions he considers: How are these texts of violence to be understood as revelation? What is it that is disclosed? How shall this disclosure be received as serious, authoritative, and binding as the only rule for life and faith? ( )