(not the marketing stuff… this kind of stuff… from a 2 hour presentation I'm giving on Monday on Joshua 7-12):
– Ai and Achan
– story seems to be baed on separate folk narrative for Coote.
– perhaps reflecting guerilla tactics that Josiah had to neutralize or co-opt.
– Ai means "ruin."
– in early bronze age (approx. 2k years before Josiah), Ai was significant town.
– small unwalled town by time of David.
– connected to Bethel
– Coote suggests Ai stood in for Bethel and the cult which the Dtr loathes
– destruction of Ai explains how Bethel would be destroyed by Josiah – etiology
– same etiology applies to Achan and Ai
– Achan's family corpses with a "great heap of stones"
– King of Ai covered with "great heap of stones"
– word for heap is gal (same as in Gilgal)
– further, word for hanging is tala is a pun on tel (or Ai).
– Achan frames the story of failure at Ai just as Rahab frames story of Jericho.