05_AN_Krause_416_416-427 11/11/15 10:34 Pagina 421 421 AESTHETICS OF PRODUCTION AND AESTHETICS OF RECEPTION 421 ...hnh wab ~yXna hnh Josh 2,2 wnynpl ~yXna hxlXn Deut 1,22 #rah-ta rpxl #rah-ta wnl-wrpxyw wab #rah-lk-ta rpxl ... Josh 2,3 wnbbl smyw Josh 2,11 wnbbl-ta wsmh wnyxa Deut 1,28 ~ymXb ~yhla ...hwhy ~ymXb trwcbw tldg ~yr[ Yet can these parallels plausibly be interpreted as evidence for an in- tertextual reference intended by the author of Joshua 2? I argue they can- not. Words like awb (“to enter”, “come”, “arrive”), bwv (“to return”), rps Piel (“to tell”), or rma (“to say”) are everyday words in the strict sense. Does it sound reasonable that anyone reading or hearing the story of Rahab should be prompted to understand it in light of the spy episode (or any other episode) by the occurence of these words? This view commends itself all the less when it is observed that the words in question are isolated from each other. There are hardly any syntactical parallels of significant complexity. As for expressions such as !tn + #ra (“to give + land”), or ssm Niphal + bl (“to melt + heart”), one has to bear in mind that they are idiomatic stock phrases belonging to the realm of holy war. These expressions are part and parcel of conquest narratives in the Hebrew Bible. That is to say, they do not point the reader or hearer towards any specific conquest narrative. At most, some significance may be claimed for the occurence of rpx (“to dig”, “to search”), in Deut 1,22 and Josh 2,2.3, as the verb is used to describe the task of spying in these two instances exclusively. But this finding cannot carry the burden of proof loaded onto it, for it is all by it- self, isolated with regard not only to syntax but also to semantics. In order to make a cogent argument for an intertextual reference intended by the author, one has to demonstrate how parallel lexemes and/or syntactical structures are integrated into the bigger picture of semantics, that is, into the story as a whole 14. When we claim that the author of a story wanted us to understand it in light of some other story, we should be able to show how the gist of that other story corresponds to the gist of the story at hand. The gist of the spy episode of Kadesh Barnea is that the generation of Israelites that has been freed from the house of slavery forfeits the Prom- ised Land. Because of their disobedience and lack of faith, the people are sentenced to forty years in the desert. Only the next generation will con- quer Canaan. Accordingly, proponents of an intertextual reference in Joshua 2 to Numbers 13–14 and Deut 1,19-46 interpret the spy mission to Jericho as a reversal of the spy mission from Kadesh Barnea. The old generation of despair is superseded by a new generation of hope, which proves to be obedient and hence worthy of entering the Promised Land 15. 14 See also LEONARD, “Identifying”, 255. 15 As is well known, the versions of the spy episode in Numbers 13–14 and Deut 1,19-46 do make distinct points when it comes to the questions of