John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast.

Dr. George Pierce: 00:07 I just want to say a few words about chapter five. They’ve crossed to Jordan, and it’s at that point that we all sort of cringe because everybody has to go through circumcision, at least all the males, to be participants of the Abrahamic covenant. This is the outward physical sign that you are a member of that covenant. In verse 12 of Joshua 5, they’ve observed Passover and we get this: “And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” This is the close to the wilderness wanderings. After they observe Passover, the next day, there’s no manna, because now they’re in Canaan and are able to subsist off of what is growing in Canaan.

Dr. George Pierce: 00:56 And we get this interesting encounter. Joshua 5, starting of verse 13, we have Joshua, he’s going out by himself to kind of check out Jericho, see what’s going on. “It came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, ‘Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?’ And he said,” so this stranger with the sword drawn, he said, “‘Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, ‘What saith my Lord unto his servant?’ And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, ‘Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.’ And Joshua did so.”

Dr. George Pierce: 01:45 And so, we’re going to get the instructions in Joshua chapter six about what to do about Jericho, but it’s an interesting situation in which Joshua has this encounter. He has this heavenly being with him. Some people will think this is an angel, so you think about the captain of the Lord’s host, so Michael the Archangel or someone encountering him. But that statement of taking off his shoes because the ground on which he’s standing is holy, only other places where we see this happening is Exodus chapter three at the burning bush. And that’s the voice of Jehovah himself. I’m wondering if this maybe isn’t a sort of premortal visit of Christ or something in this sort of sense. Maybe not, who knows? But again, we have Joshua’s encounter with the divine. And in this case, we can see that it’s not Joshua and the Israelites who are fighting these battles, and they’re going to be reminded of that. It’s the Lord, and granted the Lord has sent the captain of the host of the Lord. That’s how He’s showing up. He’s in this role to help them and to be able to understand what they need to do to be able to conquer these cities.

Hank Smith: 02:51 Well, I think we’re pretty safe here on you saying we’re not sure who this, but-

Dr. George Pierce: 02:56 We’re not sure, we don’t know. However people want to take that, whether it’s an angel, Michael the Archangel, people want to say it’s a premortal appearance of Christ in some sort of way, and maybe we’d want to argue against that theologically, but I just see it as Joshua knows that he has divine assistance, and he’s instructed that this place is holy, and take off his shoes and treat it with the respect. Whether that was in the past, in Joshua’s present, or in the future to Joshua, which would be our past, something happens there. And I think it goes a long way to show that the Lord is with Joshua again. So we’re going to go back to that be strong and of good courage. He knows, and he’s given all these sort of signs and experiences to know that the Lord is on his side.

Hank Smith: 03:39 I think we could also see these as almost bookend moments. These “take off the shoes” moments. Exodus 3 is, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of the land unto a good land and a large, flowing with milk and honey.” Then you go all the way over to Joshua 5, they’re there, they’re in it, and here’s our bookend moment of, “I did what I said I was going to do. I told Moses I would do it.” I almost think that the Lord wants to be there when He fulfills a promise He made how long ago, how many hundreds of years ago to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He’s saying, “I told you, I keep my promises”

Dr. George Pierce: 04:22 And Jericho has been there for a while. Archeologically we would stretch it back to probably 8000 to 7000 BC. So it’s been there a long time. And the reason why is because it’s built right next to a spring, which is still used as the main water source for the city of Jericho and the surrounding areas. It’s the same spring that Elijah is going to heal in second Kings. It’s a crucial place. It’s where the Jordan has always crossed, and then from there, you either go north up to Jordan Valley, through what would be the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh, eventually to the galley, or you would go up the hills to Jerusalem. Jericho is kind of a crucial place, a fortified city, as we see it. And Joshua is given specific instructions to be able to take over Jericho. The Lord knows that they’re not just going to rush the gates and that’s that. That kind of valor isn’t needed here. What they need though, instead of valor, instead of bravado, they need obedience.

Hank Smith: 05:20 Did you just say, “Instead of bravado, they need obedience.”? My wife’s going to use that against me. I can’t tell you how many times would I… Let me write that down.

Dr. George Pierce: 05:29 How many times do we charge into something without even thinking about it? And if we would’ve just been obedient to begin with, then things would fall into place. Joshua was instructed by the Lord, “This is what you should do. You’re going to walk around the city once, each day, for six days. You’re not going to make a sound. You’re not going to let things clink against each other. You’re not going to say anything. You’re not going to be chatting in line,” which is nearly impossible with any group of people. “You’re not going to be talking, you’re just going to do this. And seven priests are going to carry the ark and they’re going to carry seven trumpets. And on the seventh day, you’re going to walk around the city, not just one time like the previous six days, but seven times around the city.” And in verse 5, it says, “It shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast,” right? “At the end of that seventh time around the city, the seven priests are going to blow their trumpets, and shall come to pass that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall down flat and the people shall send up every man straight before him.” And so, Joshua then is going to relay those commandments to the Israelites. “Look, everybody, you shall not shout,” as he says in verse 10, “nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth,” again, good luck within a group of people, “until the day I bid you to shout. Then you’re going to shout, right? Shout your heads off at that point.”

Hank Smith: 06:46 Yeah.

Dr. George Pierce: 06:46 Now, they’re given other instructions as well. When we get to verse 17, we have an interesting situation in which there are other instructions given for Jericho. In Joshua 6:17, “And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord.” And we’ll revisit that statement, “accursed to the Lord”. “Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.” Israelites go out. They walk around the city one time a day for six days. On the seventh day, they walk around the city seven times, and the priests of the Lord blow their trumpets, everyone shouts, and we have then the situation of, as the song would say, the walls come tumbling down.

Dr. George Pierce: 07:49 What’s interesting then is we get a principle in the Bible, and it’s called the harem. And the harem is a Hebrew word, it is a description of this sort of total warfare, if you will. And this is going back to that phrase, “accursed to the Lord.” Accursed is an interesting way to translate this in the King James version, because the Hebrew word “harem”, it either means to be utterly destroyed, or it means to be devoted to something, if this makes sense. This is the commandment that the Israelites are given in terms of a lot of these cities in Canaan. In fact, it dates back to Deuteronomy 7, in which they’re instructed to go in and wage this kind of warfare. The harem can be viewed as this sort of holy war of utter destruction, decreed by Jehovah to sort of rid out the Canaanites and their religious elements.

Dr. George Pierce: 08:35 But what it’s doing is it’s also then devoting all the spoils of war to Jehovah. The harem is both utter destruction and utter devotion all at the same time, and it’s an interesting sort of concept. People have tried to sort of reconcile that tension since even before the Middle Ages, “How does this work?” But this is the commandment that they’re given. “You have to follow these certain things and be obedient to these certain rituals, if you will, walking around the city, being quiet, shouting on the seventh time, and you have to have hands off, because everything in that city is devoted to the Lord.” And this is another reminder to them that it’s not their power and it’s not their strength that’s going to conquer Jericho, it’s the Lord. And because the Lord is doing the work, then all the spoils belong to the Lord. This is the instruction that they’re given. When they do this, wall comes down, they’re able to go in and take Jericho. Rahab is saved, and we can see then that the benefits of being obedient are the blessings of not having to take Jericho the hard way, and that is trying to attack it straight-on.

Hank Smith: 09:40 George, what do you do when your students ask you about the violence in scripture? I know this is something you’ve talked about before.

Dr. George Pierce: 09:47 First of all, the concept of the harem is kind of interesting because when we look at commands in Deuteronomy 7 and Deuteronomy 12 to go in and utterly wipe out the Canaanites, first of all, we want to understand why that commandment is given. And that commandment is given because the intermingling of the Canaanite and Israelite societies, the major threat is going to be that the Israelites are going to be pulled away from Jehovah and start worshiping other deities. Now, we all know, it’s not like the Old Testament is a secret, we all know what happens, right? Spoiler alert, they start worshiping other deities. Already in Deuteronomy, it’s set up, “Go in there and wipe them out because this is the threat. It’s a real threat.”

Dr. George Pierce: 10:29 And it’s not like religion now. And I was talking about this with Krystal this morning. It’s not like religion now, as some people kind of treat it. Yeah, I can read my scriptures in the morning and then I go about my normal job, which, for you and me, that’s studying scripture, so that doesn’t really count. But I go about my normal job, I don’t know, selling cars or something, or go to worship on Sunday, and then the other six days of the week, I’m living my life, doing my thing, trying to have family home evening every once in a while. But for the Canaanites and Israelites in this period, religion’s just enmeshed into all their life, all of it. There is no separation of religion from the rest of their life. It is their life. And so, the Lord recognizes there’s a real threat there.

Dr. George Pierce: 11:00 This raises the question, what do we do with all the violence? What do we do about women and Canaanite women and Canaanite children, because they’re going in here. And the book of Joshua says they’re wiping out everything and the animals aren’t living and nothing’s being touched and they’re burning it all to the ground and doing all the rest of these things. We have to back up and just think about things.

Dr. George Pierce: 11:21 First of all, the language that’s used within Joshua and Deuteronomy and in 1 Samuel, because we still have more of the conquest going on in 1 Samuel, the language that’s used, as scholars like myself would look at it, is similar to language that’s used elsewhere in the same period, talking about Syrian Kings and other type of Kings that are conquering things.

Dr. George Pierce: 11:41 And they’ll have all sorts of bravado, “We went in, we wiped out every single person. There was no male that was living. We conquered this place and we burned it to the ground,” all the rest of it. Then, the very next paragraph they’re, “And we had to go back and campaign against these people.” So, even they recognized the languages is a bit hyperbole. To that point, Joshua himself recognizes that they didn’t do all the things in The Conquest that they should have.

Dr. George Pierce: 12:03 And the book of Judges, in Judges Chapter 1 says they didn’t do all those things. The language, it’s evoking this military language that’s common in this period. Second, if we think about this logistically, and students will come to me and say, “Well, Dr. Pierce, they’re still going in, and the Bible says that they took out all the men and they killed everybody,” and all the rest of this. Annihilation, and I think that’s the word we can use at this point, annihilation like that is logistically impossible during this time period.

Dr. George Pierce: 12:28 If we go back to Joshua Chapter 2, Rahab says that they’ve heard about all their exploits. So, let me just put it this way, Hank and John, you’re used to living in a town, and you had heard that some people have been very successful in their warfare and their God has done all this sort of stuff. Would you stay in that town very long? Absolutely not. You hear that somebody’s coming to attack your town, you do exactly what Lehi did in the Book of Mormon. You pack up the wife and kids, you get a tent from REI, and you head out.

Dr. George Pierce: 12:55 So, in fancy scholar terms, we call that “an indigenous hardiness structure”. It means that these people at this time were able to transition between living in houses to living in caves or living in tents, and very easily, much more than we could. Because I tell you what, I go camping once a year, and I don’t transition very well to living up in the Canyon. It’s just, that’s me. So, I don’t have that indigenous hardiness structure. These people did.

Dr. George Pierce: 13:21 Thirdly, I would probably say Jericho, in Joshua Chapter 6, the city of Ai in Joshua Chapter 7, and I believe it’s mentioned in Joshua Chapter 8 as well, and the city of Hazor further on in Joshua Chapter 11, these are the only ones that are listed as utterly destroyed. Nowhere else in Joshua, it doesn’t mention the city is being destroyed. So, the major emphasis actually is on taking out the Canaanite kings or defeating their armies in the field, and it’s not about destroying cities and women and children and all the rest of these things.

Dr. George Pierce: 13:52 And I think, finally, as I tell my students, one of the things we need to think about when it comes to violence like this is to realize that when we read it, we are bringing to the text baggage from the 20th century. We can think about the Holocaust, especially, or the Rwandan genocide, or those in Cambodia or The Balkans, or anywhere else that this has occurred, and we’re reading it through that lens.

Dr. George Pierce: 14:19 This is the perspective of the historian who wrote it, and he is a product of his time, embedded in these cultures. And we had to think this is not a systematic program of an industrialized nation trying to commit a genocide. This is agro-pastoral economy, and people trying to move in and try and conduct warfare against cities and try and take out the power structure in Canaan, so they can eventually settle. It leads to a tension in which we still have to reconcile how does a loving God issue a commandment like this?

Dr. George Pierce: 14:52 And I think that’s a tension that we have to come to grips with. And there have been various schools of thought on this, and I could go into all that, if you really want, everything ranging from outright rejection of the text to using this text to justify current racism, which is completely wrong. I tell my students this, if there’s a problem with us understanding God’s commandments and His actions, then the problem doesn’t reside in Him, the problem’s in our limitations of understanding His purposes.

Dr. George Pierce: 15:24 Hopefully that makes sense. And we may not understand all of it, and I don’t think we will without having His perspective. Nephi tries, in 1 Nephi, what is it, 17:35. Nephi’s understanding of it as he was working through says, “Behold, the Lord, esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God.

Dr. George Pierce: 15:46 But behold, this people had rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity. And the fullness of the wrath of God was upon them. And the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers. Yea, he did curse it against them unto their destruction, and He did bless it under our fathers unto their obtaining power over it.”

Dr. George Pierce: 16:01 Then, Nephi starts to talk about the sovereignty of God and how God rules over everything and the earth is his footstool. So, this is how Nephi understands it. They had been given their chances, they were going to reject it, they were full of iniquity, and the Lord is sovereign. That’s where I ended with my students is, if we don’t understand it, it’s not a problem with God. It’s a problem with our understanding of God and our understanding of the circumstances.

Dr. George Pierce: 16:25 And we, unfortunately, have to live with that tension that’s there, but have faith that our God does love His children, and if in this life or the next He’s going to give them the opportunity to respond to His call to be able to live with Him again.

Hank Smith: 16:45 Two thoughts. One, last week we talked with Dr. Satterfield about God playing a very long game here. He doesn’t see it in the terms we do, in the average human lifespan, that He is seeing this from creation to millennium, ” I’m gonna get my end result,” which is exalted children. This is my work and my glory to bring to pass immortality, eternal life of man, not necessarily the comfort of man while they’re on earth.

Hank Smith: 17:11 So, we can see this maybe playing into His larger plan. My friend, Andrew Smith, wrote in the Religious Educator in 2018 about a Christian theologian by the name of Terence Fretheim, and he quotes him saying, “In pursuing divine purposes, God does not act alone, but works with what is available with human beings as they are with all their foibles and flaws as well as their wisdom. God does not perfect people before working in and through them. God can work even through human evil toward the divine purposes.”

Hank Smith: 17:42 And he goes on, he says a bit about what you said about some Christian theologians have the spectrum. Theologian Denny Weaver states, “The rule of the devil attempts to rule by violence, whereas the rule of God conquers by nonviolence.” On the other side, another theologian, Miroslav Volf, concludes, “There are things only God may do. One of them is to use violence.”

Hank Smith: 18:06 Then, Andrew Smith says this, “To be sure, both positions are well thought out and based on valid intellectual interpretations of scripture.” I like what you’re doing here is you’re leaving it a matter of faith in God. Maybe it is hyperbole, maybe it’s not, but let’s trust that God loves his children.

Dr. George Pierce: 18:25 There’re all kinds of positions that you could actually be a faithful member of the church and adopt, there’s what we call “radical discontinuity”, and that is, God in the Old Testament is vengeful and judgmental, and Jesus is about love, peace, and grace. There’s “moderate discontinuity” in which we say, God doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s a different dispensation. He does not work and command us to go out to slay people.

Dr. George Pierce: 18:49 There’s “eschatological continuity” in which The Conquest is meant to be a type of things that will come in the end times. That’s how the New Testament writers are going to interpret The Conquest and say, “This is how we’re going to frame end times things through the lens of this.” And this is what I adhere to as a spiritual continuity in that, in the Old Testament, God physically fought the enemies of Israel, and we see that in Joshua.

Dr. George Pierce: 19:17 But there are times then that God actually fights Israel itself because it needs to be called to repentance. God is going to come in the future as the divine warrior, and we see that in Joshua 11, in Revelation 19, that Jesus will return, and He’s going to be the one doing the fighting. But as we see in the New Testament, Jesus is the one who fights spiritual powers and authorities. So, The Conquest is just part of, like you said, it’s part of this long game of spiritual continuity.

Dr. George Pierce: 19:44 There’re certain rules and rituals that need to be followed. It’s not up to us to do this. In fact, the prime moment is when Jesus is in Gethsemane and the soldiers come to take him, after his prayer, to the Father, and Peter starts swinging the sword, and he ends up cutting off the high priest’s servant’s ear. And it’s in that moment then that Jesus informs him that the Kingdom of Heaven is not going to be brought about by violence in a physical sense. It’s about Him to bring it in.

Dr. George Pierce: 20:09 In that same way He’s working through this Old Testament, through the history of Israel to bring about His purposes, things that we are not commanded to do, things that we are not going to take upon ourselves or shouldn’t take upon ourselves to engage in. And again, it goes back to, we may not understand all the purposes in the book of Joshua and those commandments in Deuteronomy 7 and Deuteronomy 12.

Dr. George Pierce: 20:34 But that’s because I have a limited understanding, and I just have to live with that limited understanding and go forward in faith and obedience and say, “What he’s commanding me to do in the 21st century is to go out and to minister and to love others and to serve others and to bring about the Kingdom in those ways, not by physical violence in any sort of sense.”

Dr. George Pierce: 20:56 I was just reading this book this morning, Four Views on the Canaanite Genocide. And the very last chapter is a great one, because the theologian, Tremper Longman, he’s, “Look, we’re not commanded to go and be physically violent. That’s Jesus’s role in the future as he fights spiritual powers and authorities. It’s not our role.” Their big thing was people taking stuff in the 21st Century, like these chapters in Joshua, and justifying racist and sometimes terroristic actions, using the Bible.

Hank Smith: 21:24 George, this has been fantastic. Let me quote a Gospel topic essay entitled Peace and Violence Among 19th Century Latter-day Saints. Towards the end of the article it states, and this is published by the church, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemns violent words and actions, and affirms its commitment to furthering peace throughout the world. Throughout the church’s history, church leaders have taught that the way of Christian discipleship is a path of peace.”

Hank Smith: 21:53 Then, Elder Russell Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, connected the Latter-day Saints’ faith in Jesus Christ to their active pursuit of love of neighbor and peace with all people. 

Hank Smith: 22:00 “The hope of the world is the Prince of Peace. Now as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what does the Lord expect of us? As a church, we must renounce war and proclaim peace. As individuals, we should follow after the things which make for peace. We should be personal peace makers.” So I like what you’ve done here, George, as you’ve said, “Look, if there is going to be violence, that’s the Lord’s role, not ours, leave it to him. Our job is to do as he has commanded and to be peacemakers.”

Dr. George Pierce: 22:35 Our charge as we look at the New Testament or Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants is to go forward and to usher in the kingdom through peaceful means. The Lord’s role is to take care of those things in the end times. And so historically when these chapters of Joshua or other violent episodes in scripture are used to justify actions, whether that’s the crusades or any sort of other holy war, or justification by dictators running evil governments, or even just by conservative Westerners who see the Bible as the inherent word of God and use that for racist or violent means, we can see in scripture that Jesus himself condemns such things.

Dr. George Pierce: 23:22 We have to understand different dispensations, different times and different missions and what we’re called to do. We’re not carving out a place in the promised land. We are ministering to each other and serving each other.

Hank Smith: 23:37 And we can’t answer everything. One thing we need to say probably before we move on is there is some ambiguity there, there’s some tension there. That’s hard and that’s okay. It’s okay for it to be hard. I want to return to this article from Andrew Smith, from the religious educator in 2018. He talks about Joshua and other chapters of scripture where there’s quite a bit of violence. And he says, “The divine violence exhibited by Jesus in these chapters contrast distinctly and somewhat paradoxically with the divine mercy he shows in other chapters. Without a proper contextualization,” which George you’re giving us today.

Hank Smith: 24:16 “The differences and seeming contradictions can cause consternation. It has been shown that these scriptures in the events they portray are meant to be understood as challenging and somewhat discomforting for us as well as God. However, they also show that we need not be scared of engaging with challenging and discomforting sections of scripture.” He goes on to say, “These chapters provide valuable doctrinal instruction about the relationality and the differences between God and his mortal children. As Latter-day Saints, we must constructively view and understand all of the scriptures that have been preserved for us, even those that are challenging so that we may derive a stronger knowledge of and a relationship with the Lord our Savior.”

Hank Smith: 24:57 “As teachers in Zion, it is also of utmost importance for our students, that we develop the capabilities to guide them in use of such methods, approaches, and tools and understanding, and properly applying the doctrines, principles and narratives found in the scriptures. In this way, discomforting and unsettling sections of scripture can be turned into faith building way stops rather than doubt inducing stumbling stones in our paths of discipleship.” I like what he said there, that we’re not scared of these texts, we deal with them the best we can. We can’t answer every question that we have about these. And we, again, turn to faith and the Savior.

Dr. George Pierce: 25:32 And we don’t understand, again, I go back to my statement of, if we have a problem in understanding, it’s not that there’s a problem with God, it’s a problem with our understanding and our limitations. Sometimes we do have to live with attention and say, “I don’t understand it all now, but in the eternities, I’ll get it and it works for me.”

Hank Smith: 25:55 I’m going to quote my friend, John Bytheway, he frequently reminds me, if you lack information, you can ask Google. But this is the type of thing that needs wisdom, and you only get wisdom from one place, right, John?

John Bytheway: 26:06 If any of you lack information, ask of Google, I tell my class, especially things like where’s the nearest five guys, but if any of you lack wisdom, that’s an entirely different matter, isn’t it? I think with all scripture, we’re going to get more, we don’t have the whole story. The Book of Mormon many times, I’m telling you a hundredth part, I cannot include a hundredth part. The last verse in the Book of John, “If all the things Jesus did were written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” I think we’re getting a fragmentary account in the Old Testament too.

John Bytheway: 26:37 So I love what you were saying, George, is what are the lessons, the doctrines I can learn? We’re going to have an explanation, I believe one day for these other things that maybe don’t make sense to us now.

Hank Smith: 26:49 John, I expect in the spirit world and in the millennium and long past that, I’m going to be doing lots of, “Oh, oh, I get it now.”

John Bytheway: 26:57 Section 101, “In that day, I the Lord reveal all things, hidden things which no men knew.” That part right there, “Hidden, oh. Things of the earth by which it was made the purpose and the end thereof, things that are above, things that are beneath.” And he just gives us this list, like, “I’m going to tell you everything one day. So fear not even unto death. In this world, your joy is not full and neither is your wisdom,” it sounds like, “But in me, your joy is full.”

Hank Smith: 27:25 Yeah. And please don’t throw out the whole book because this piece causes you a little tension, live with the tension, live with the ambiguity. It’s okay.

Dr. George Pierce: 27:32 And as I tell my students, I reverse 1 Nephi 11:17, so I tell them, “I don’t know the meaning of all things. Nevertheless, I know that he loveth his children.” So I just flip that on Nephi, “I don’t know, but I know he loves us and I know he loves them and it’ll all work out in the end.”

Hank Smith: 27:50 It’s interesting, George, the Come Follow Me manual does a big, fast forward to the end of Joshua.

Dr. George Pierce: 27:55 I just want to draw one thing just because as an archeologist, I can’t let it go. The Book of Joshua presents us this sort of conquest narrative and they go in and they fight this city and they fight that city. And archeologically, we can fill in a little bit more of the picture, John was talking about how we only get like a hundredth part or not all of the pieces together. Joshua tells us one thing. Archeology tells us that it wasn’t just going in conquering cities, they also peacefully settled in some regions. The Book of Judges tells us that they had their villages and the Canaanites had theirs and they didn’t engage in warfare. Sometimes Canaanites made covenants with Israel.

Dr. George Pierce: 28:33 We see that in Joshua chapter nine, those of Gibeon want to make a covenant with Israel and come in that way. I want to draw our attention to just one thing and I thought I had this morning as I was studying this in preparation for our discussion, Joshua chapter 11. So there’s a whole bunch of, they fought this and they defeated this king and this king, and we get down to Joshua 11 at the very end of it, verse 23, as we’re wrapping up the conquest, because chapter 12 is a whole list of cities and Kings they conquer, but we get this, Joshua 11:23, “So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said into Moses and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel, according to their divisions, by their tribes. And the land rested from war.”

Dr. George Pierce: 29:24 That rest is not just the Israelis got to then hang out and go on vacation and not do anything. Rest in the Bible meant that they were able to start settling the promised land. They were able to start dividing things up. They were able to start building homes, planting crops, doing what they’re supposed to do, fulfilling their roles. And so when we look at this concept of rest, and I think it’s important when we think about it in terms of Genesis as well, so six days of creation, on the seventh day, God rested. It doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything, it means that then he was able to take up his rightful role in preserving creation and sustaining it as we see in the Book of Colossians, but also then ruling over creation.

Dr. George Pierce: 30:09 So it’s not like he just didn’t do anything. What “rest” in, I think here, especially in Joshua and for us in terms of application means that we sometimes have conflicts in our lives, whether we’ve created that or we’ve stepped into it or been drawn into it, or it’s a personal challenge or family matter, or employment, or calling, or anything, we need to have that rest to be able to concentrate on those things that matter and to fulfill our role. And Genesis is where this helps out with this. We need that day to be able to fulfill our role, to learn how to be more like the Savior, to be able to act in a way the Savior would act, to be able to eventually fulfill our role of being like him because isn’t that the end goal?

Dr. George Pierce: 30:56 We can put the conflicts aside, they may rear up again in some sort of way, take the time and take the opportunity to have that rest from war to be able to do what we’re supposed to do and to be more like the Savior.

Hank Smith: 31:06 All right, we come to the end of Joshua. We gave him a good run. As we close out Joshua’s time as the leader of Israel, what do we have to say towards the end, the last chapters?

Dr. George Pierce: 31:16 So in Joshua chapters 23 and 24, we see the division of the land between all the various tribes has been done. And sometimes it’s not very exciting reading, but it’s there for a purpose, to mark out the territories. And Joshua then calls Israel together, and he knows his time has come, he gives them some encouragement. It says that in Joshua chapter 23, “It came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies roundabout that Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.” And he calls for Israel and all the elders to come together. And he gives them sort of his last testimony, if you will, about what the Lord has done for them.

Dr. George Pierce: 32:02 He tells them that he’s divided the land and the Lord God has expelled out these people from before them. And he reminds them as he goes to chapters 23 and 24, that it’s the Lord who’s done all this. Verse 14 of Joshua chapter 23, “And behold, this day, I’m going the way of all the earth, and ye know in all your hearts and all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you, all are come to pass unto you and not one thing hath failed thereof.” And I think that’s just a good reminder for them, “All those promises the Lord made, he made good on them. He brought you up out of Egypt, he brought you across the river, he chased out the Canaanites before you, he fought your battles for you. Everything that he promised, he came through.”

Dr. George Pierce: 32:53 And I think that’s a great lesson for us too, because everything that he’s promised us, he’s going to come through. 

Dr. George Pierce: 33:00 We can go into the title pages of the Book of Mormon with Moroni writing this. Part of the purpose is to remind us that the Lord keeps his covenants. He says, basically gives them the blessings.

Dr. George Pierce: 33:11 Verse 15 of Joshua 23, “Therefore it shall come to pass that as all good things are come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so shall the Lord bring upon you all evil things until he has destroyed you from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.”

Dr. George Pierce: 33:24 It gives them the flip side as well. Listen, he promised you good things, he delivered, but if you’re disobedient then you’re going to face the judgment that’s coming. What we get in Joshua chapter 23 and 24 essentially is a covenantal renewal.

Dr. George Pierce: 33:40 Joshua 24 talks to them going back from the time of Abraham. He gives them this historical lesson from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Moses.

Hank Smith: 33:48 It’s like a curtain call here, because you have Abraham.

Dr. George Pierce: 33:51 It’s a big long history lesson. Talks about Balaam and Balak. We get to verse 11, “And ye went over the Jordan and came into Jericho.” Now he’s talking about recent history that they should all remember, and how the Lord sent out the hornet before them, which is kind of interesting. The Lord using natural things like a hornet to discomfort people and make them leave.

Dr. George Pierce: 34:10 It says here, “I’ve given you a land for which ye did not labor, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them. And of the vineyards and olive yards which ye planted not do ye eat.” It’s a reminder of the Lord’s goodness to them.

Dr. George Pierce: 34:23 You got into this land. I did all the fighting. You’re dwelling in cities and in houses you guys didn’t even build. You’re eating of stuff that you didn’t even plant. Joshua 24 verse 14, “Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and truth.”

Dr. George Pierce: 34:37 He gives this call in verse 15, Joshua 24, verse 15, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Whether the Gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood, or the Gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Dr. George Pierce: 34:58 It’s a great reminder, and I think in terms for us it’s a challenge. Choose you this day whom you’re going to serve. Each day brings a promise or the hope that we’re going to serve the Lord, but it’s a conscious choice we make.

Hank Smith: 35:15 It’s just a powerhouse verse. It’s one of those verses you want your kids to memorize. Choose, choose, who are you going to serve? Isn’t Elijah going to sing that same thing later on?

John Bytheway: 35:24 How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord is God, then serve him. I love that, because it sounds like that. You got to get off the fence here and decide.

Dr. George Pierce: 35:34 I think literally in Hebrew it’s like, “How long are you going to jump between two branches?” If you have that image in your head, how long are you going to jump between two branches, and when is that other branch going to break?

Dr. George Pierce: 35:43 When I was growing up we actually had this on the wall of my home. My dad had this plaque, “Choose you this day whom you will serve. As for our house, we’re going to serve the Lord.” We try and make that happen. When it doesn’t, that’s the great part about covenantal renewal.

Dr. George Pierce: 35:59 That’s what Israel’s doing here. They’re renewing their covenant before Joshua dies. We have covenantal renewal every week available to us.

Hank Smith: 36:06 George, Doctor Pierce, this has been a great day. I love the Book of Joshua much more than I did before. I think our listeners would be interested in your personal journey of faith and your biblical scholarship, how those two have intertwined together, and your conversion to the church, which some might be surprised to hear was not all that long ago.

Dr. George Pierce: 36:27 It was not. I was raised in a Baptist household. My father previously was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and left that, and became Baptist for his own reasons. We were raised with the same principles of the gospel, and devotion to family, and to the Savior that we would consider to be standard nowadays in our church.

Dr. George Pierce: 36:53 That language was always familiar to me. I’ve always grown up and going to Christian schools. From the time when I was four years old up through my first master’s degree, I attended Christian schools and colleges and universities. Bible study was always part of my life.

Dr. George Pierce: 37:14 Reading these chapters, especially in the Old Testament, the historical narrative like Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, that was what I did when I was bored in other classes.

Dr. George Pierce: 37:23 Reading the narratives over and over and over, and understanding the stories, and trying to wrestle with these things, happened at a very early age. Questions and concerns, which just then led to further study and knowledge. I graduated with a degree in history, but there was always a call to biblical studies.

Dr. George Pierce: 37:43 I found myself happiest when I was studying the Bible and studying scripture. I’d had a class in biblical archeology. That led me down the path of archeology, because not only do we have then the text of the Bible, but then there’s now material culture, so realia.

Dr. George Pierce: 37:58 I think that’s helped, in some way, to strengthen my faith, but also to give me some perspective. Having stood at some of these places, or having visited or pondered over these things, and thought about how it works, and feeling the spirit testify to me at these places, not of maybe the reality of the place, but of the reality of the doctrine that’s taught within those narratives.

Dr. George Pierce: 38:19 Thinking about those things and going forward, I studied Biblical archeology on a graduate level, and archeology in general, which led me after a time living in Israel to UCLA for my doctoral work. It was while I was at UCLA as a Presbyterian that I encountered another graduate student, Krystal Lords, who was transferred in from Berkeley.

Dr. George Pierce: 38:43 As graduate students we all hung out together. We obviously noted that she was different from the rest of us. There may have been some consumptions of things that were not compliant with the word of wisdom at the time, but not her.

Dr. George Pierce: 38:59 She lived a life that was devoted to the gospel already. It was through her witness just living the gospel, there was no putting the Book of Mormon in our face, no discussions from Preach My Gospel, nothing else like that. She just lived the gospel, and it made a difference. It was very noticeable.

Dr. George Pierce: 39:22 We’ll skip the story and go straight to we started dating. My agreement with Krystal while we were dating was that I would not try to give her any anti-church material or lead her away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She would not present me with the Book of Mormon or proselytize to me in any sort of way.

Dr. George Pierce: 39:40 That worked out for a while. Then I started getting more interested in the church, and she went away on excavation to Egypt and gave me a lot of time to read. I read through most of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism to understand the church.

Hank Smith: 39:52 That’s where a doctorate student goes to …

Dr. George Pierce: 39:54 Yeah. Right. I read through most of the Book of Mormon, through at least Helaman 12. I didn’t even get to the good part yet. Up through Helaman 12. She came back and I started going to church with her.

Dr. George Pierce: 40:07 What really made sense in my mind and where it all clicked is we came up here to visit her parents in Utah. They took me to Temple Square. We went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and I watched Prophet of the Restoration. Everyone chuckles at that, but it’s there that it made sense in my mind, watching that and piecing everything together.

Dr. George Pierce: 40:25 What really made sense, and, Hank you’ll appreciate this because we were there together, was when Joseph was hauled out of the John Johnson farm and tarred and feathered, and Sidney Rigdon as well, and, yet, the next day was out preaching and more.

Dr. George Pierce: 40:39 In my mind, I said to myself, and this was months ahead of Elder Holland’s testimony, I said to myself, “If it was not true, why? Why would you ever go through all that if it isn’t true?” That’s when as an academic it made sense in my head and it made sense in my heart that there’s a truthfulness to this.

Dr. George Pierce: 41:04 Because I know, I for one, would not want to be tarred and feathered and then go out and continue to preach the gospel. I would have been like, “Guys it’s been a good run, but I’m going to go back and dig wells.”

Dr. George Pierce: 41:11 Eventually we had a ward conference that was focused on missions. I looked at Krystal and we both said, “Maybe we should call the missionaries.” Those two missionaries had a golden convert, because I was already decided. I just wanted to see what they were up to.

Dr. George Pierce: 41:23 Elders Brown and Rourke came and gave me the lessons. It went from the two of them talking to me in Krystal’s living room, to eventually adding on the ward mission leaders, the Elders Quorum presidency, most of the Elders Quorum in the Santa Monica Third Ward, till eventually I was like, “Let’s just get baptized and go forward.”

Dr. George Pierce: 41:43 In June of 2009, I was baptized a member of the church. A year and change later, Krystal and I were endowed at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. At the end of July of 2010, we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. Then June of 2013, I started teaching at BYU, which was a daunting experience, teaching Book of Mormon to returned missionaries.

Dr. George Pierce: 42:05 I’ll be honest, when I got baptized I still had only read up through Helaman 12. I have read the rest of the Book of Mormon between now and then, so I know the ending. That’s my story.

Dr. George Pierce: 42:15 Being an archeologist in Israel’s allowed me the privilege and opportunity to be able to be hands on in the dirt where some of these things happened, and to be able to understand the life of ancient Israel and the Philistines and the Canaanites. And to be able to bring that to my students and say, “These are real people with real problems, and the real solution was obedience to the gospel, or to the law of God,” as we see in the Old Testament. Being able to share that with the students is priceless.

Hank Smith: 42:46 I love it.

John Bytheway: 42:47 Your story itself is a testimony. That’s so cool. Thank you. I’m so glad to meet you. Thank you, George. That was beautiful.

Hank Smith: 42:57 I was very excited to share George with you, John, and I’m sure Krystal was as well, and as well with the rest of our listeners. We hope you loved George and Doctor Pierce Prime.

Dr. George Pierce: 43:06 Doctor Pierce Prime.

Hank Smith: 43:07 George and Doctor Pierce …

Dr. George Pierce: 43:07 That’s her.

Hank Smith: 43:08 … Prime, …

Dr. George Pierce: 43:08 That’s her name.

Hank Smith: 43:08 … as she’s called. We want to thank all of you for listening today. Thank you for staying with us. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. We hope all of you will join us next week when we come back with another episode of FollowHIM.