Yehoshu'a (Joshua)

יהושע‎

Originally Hoshe'a (Numbers 13:16) before Mosheh added the divine name and made it Yah-Hoshe'a, which the Redactor later turned into Yehoshu'a. Note that the divine name is not YHVH, but Yah. Hoshe'a means "liberator" or "saviour", and is the same name that Jesus had, connecting back to Yishai (Jesse- יִשַׁ֔י) in 1 Samuel 17:5, the father of David, as well as the prophets Elisha (אֱלִישָׁע) and Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah - יְשַׁעְיָהוּ). In the original Greek Septuagint his name is always given as Jesus (Ἰησοῦς), though English translations restore Joshua.

His father was named Nun, which means "fish", though the Septuagint rendered him as Naue; and he is always Bin Nun (בִּן-נוּן), never Ben Nun, which is an unusual variation, and probably closer to "correct" if we remember that Arabic would say ibn (ابن).

Why the fish? Possibly connected with Hatmehyt, the fish goddess, though this is unlikely as she was really a goddess of the Mediterranean coast, her shrine at Djedet (Mendes to the Greeks) at the bourne of the Nile, and important to the coastal fishermen without having any impact on the rest of Egypt; given that the Beney Yisra-El were not much involved in the fishing industry at that time...

However, there is a fascinating article (click here) on the subject of fish in ancient Egypt by Jennifer Houser Wegner on the website of Penn Museum; she also includes a recommendation to read Douglas Brewer and Renée F. Friedman's, "Fish and Fishing in Ancient Egypt" (1989). In brief, it was a fish which ate Osher's (Osiris') penis, after the god Set cut him up into fourteen pieces and threw the parts into the Nile. As Hoshe'a was the "saviour", the restored or reborn Osher, so his father was... you can figure out the rest of this myth for yourself.

But to return to the son. Yehoshu'a's tribe was Ephrayim. He was born in Mitsrayim (Egypt) before the Exodus. He srrved as Mosheh's "minister" (Numbers 11:28), which appears to mean some kind of personal amanuensis, and accompanied Mosheh part of the way when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (Exodus 32:17) He was one of the twelve spies (Numbers 13); and only he and Kalev spoke favourably. He was commander at their first battle after exiting Mitsrayim (Egypt), against the Amalekites in Rephidim (Exodus 17:8-16) and led the Beney Yira-El into Kena'an (Canaan) to conquer it. He is thought to have lived (if at all!) between 1450 and 1370 BCE, which was the late Bronze Age. Joshua 24:29 claims he was 110 when he died, but Biblical years are reckoned differently from ours.

The Book of Joshua tells the story of his conquest of Kena'an, and the division of the kingdom into tribes, and as such provides a key component of the Yisra-Eli historical narrative. Sadly, it has no historical value whatsoever, because it is not in any way a reflection of history that actually happened (though there may be some historicity here and there). It is much more likely an astrological map of the Yisra-Eli cosmos, equivalent to Homer's "Odyssey" in its methodology, which is to use bits and pieces of known history and sew them together into a tapestry that fits the astrological requirements. Yehoshu'a is the Risen Lord, hence his name, and he sits at the right hand of the sun-god, the left hand of the moon-goddess (see Joshua 10:12). The 12 tribes are the 12 zodiacal constellations, drawn on a map of Kena'an to mirror the positions of the constellations on a map of the Heavens. The conquest of the shrines is a shrine-by-shrine pilgrimage, at which the pre-Yisra-Eli cults are either removed, or their former removal celebrated, and a covenant-renewal ceremony undertaken. The political constitution can be seen in exactly the same way in the amphictyony of Greece, the 12 tribes of Yishma-El, the 12 principal knights of King Arthur, the 12 disciples of Jesus, and other variations on the same Risen Lord mythology

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