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Hermeneutical Controversy Regarding Circumcision, Passover, and Manna (Joshua 5:2-12): Are There Hermeneutical Differences Among the Manuscripts, and Do These Indicate Editorial Activity?

  • Korean Journal of Old Testament Studies
  • Abbr : KJOTS
  • 2025, 31(4), pp.269~310
  • DOI : 10.24333/jkots.2025.31.4.269
  • Publisher : Korean Society of Old Testament Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology
  • Received : October 20, 2025
  • Accepted : November 22, 2025

Eunwoo Lee 1

1장로회신학대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes Joshua 5:2-12 through textual and redaction criticism, focusing on three key motifs: circumcision, Passover, and the cessation of manna. By comparing the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript 4QJoshᵃ, and Samaritan Pentateuch(SP), this paper demonstrates that the passage is not a single unified tradition but a multilayered composition shaped through successive editorial stages across diverse historical contexts. The earliest stratum, represented most clearly in the LXX, consists of a concise narrative describing Israel’s collective circumcision, the celebration of Passover, and the end of manna at Gilgal—signifying a theological transition from wilderness wandering to settlement in the Promised Land. Subsequent redactional developments reflect distinct ideological and theological agendas: the Assyrian-period layer (7th century BCE) mirrors restoration ideologies such as Josiah’s reforms, employing the wordplay on Gilgal (“to roll away”) in v.9 to proclaim Yahweh’s sovereignty over imperial shame; the Babylonian exilic layer (6th century BCE) reorganizes the text according to the Deuteronomistic theology of history, portraying the death of the disobedient generation and covenant renewal by a new one; and the Persian-period Priestly layer (5th century BCE) integrates liturgical regulations drawn from Leviticus 23 and Exodus 16, emphasizing the ritual restoration and identity formation of the postexilic community. Finally, the MT exhibits theological expansion through repetition, temporal precision, and etymological wordplay-revealing the postexilic editors’ intention to reconstruct communal identity through the “restoration of law and tradition.” The 4QJoshᵃ manuscript mediates between the LXX and MT, sharing omissions with the former and expansions with the latter, thus representing an intermediate phase in textual transmission where interpretive amplification had begun but not yet reached full canonical form. The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), harmonized with Genesis 17, reinterprets circumcision as both covenant fulfillment and communal identity. Thus, the textual evolution from LXX → MT, with intermediate variants in 4QJoshᵃ and SP, reveals a gradual transformation from a simple ritual narrative to a complex theological document. Joshua 5:2-12 encapsulates Israel’s continual “rewriting” of faith, embedding within the traditions of circumcision, Passover, and manna its theological journey from wilderness wandering to the establishment of a covenantal Torah community.

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