Culture tricks in Biblical narrative

This chapter offers cross-cultural readings of Joshua 9 that demonstrate (1) how cultural contexts condition biblical narratives and readers and (2) how the reading process, which takes readers across cultures, can trick narratives, readers, and readings. Rooted in Tonga and India, and currently located in Australia, we read the trickery of the Gibeonites (whose men were all warriors) as invitations to cross cultures and to shift our alliances from favoring the invading Israelites to appreciating the struggling natives of the land and the outcastes. In so doing we seek to free both the Israelites and the Gibeonites from the trickery of narratives, history, traditions and readings.