ABSTRACT
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book of the Bible and the first book of the Former Prophets. Joshua describes the classic polity envisaged in the Torah, headed by an Eved Adonai, paralleled by a Kohen Gadol. In Joshua, the federal republican character of the Israelite edah under God is the central theme. The central concern that binds all the historical books together is the Prophetic concern with the maintenance of God's covenant with Israel and the working out of the relationship between the Israelites, God, and other humans through the covenant. In Joshua, the entire discussion is couched in rather precise technical political and geographic terminology. The very first problem of concern is the time of the conquest and its character, in other words, the validity of the biblical account. The problem facing the Israelites, then, was how best to reform the confederacy's constitution.
