Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Obama: The Joshua of His Generation?
Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Joshua is one of the great under-heralded leaders of the Bible, squeezed between Moses and David, the two monoliths. Maybe my favorite story from his life comes before he inherits the leadership mantle from Moses when he's one of the spies sent to check out the Promised Land and, along with Caleb, reports back that it can be taken. The others, of course, say the place is filled with giants who are too powerful. For that Joshua finds himself winning the Hebrew Idol competition. The prize: Leadership of the troops and his profile on the logo of the Israel Tourism Authority.

I grew to love Joshua even more when I was in a helicopter over Jerusalem at the start of WHERE GOD WAS BORN. [To read an exclusive excerpt of this chapter of my book, click here.) My favorite moment in the story of the Conquest occurs at the end, when Joshua gathers the Israelites together to read them the Law of Moses -- men, women, and children. As Yaya, the general I recruited to help me analyze Joshua's military tactics, explained, "Women only got the right to vote 100 years ago, and then only in certain places. This was 3,000 years ago. That's why the Bible survives. Its values are universal."

How interesting, in this context, to see Barack Obama compare himself not to Moses, but to Joshua this week in Selma:

You know, several weeks ago, after I had announced that I was running for the Presidency of the United States, I stood in front of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois; where Abraham Lincoln delivered his speech declaring, drawing in scripture, that a house divided against itself could not stand.

And I stood and I announced that I was running for the presidency. And there were a lot of commentators, as they are prone to do, who questioned the audacity of a young man like myself, haven't been in Washington too long.

And I acknowledge that there is a certain presumptuousness about this.

But I got a letter from a friend of some of yours named Reverend Otis Moss Jr. in Cleveland, and his son, Otis Moss III is the Pastor at my church and I must send greetings from Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. but I got a letter giving me encouragement and saying how proud he was that I had announced and encouraging me to stay true to my ideals and my values and not to be fearful.

And he said, if there's some folks out there who are questioning whether or not you should run, just tell them to look at the story of Joshua because you're part of the Joshua generation.

Labels: Bible in America, Politics in America

Posted by B Feiler at 7:05 AM
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