05_AN_Krause_416_co_416-427 30/10/15 13:13 Pagina 425 425 AESTHETICS OF PRODUCTION AND AESTHETICS OF RECEPTION 425 as an example of faith in the God of Israel, thus providing an alternative paradigm. According to Deuteronomistic ideology as illustrated in Numbers 25, foreign women lead to apostasy and hence must be excluded from Is- raelite society. This ideology found its full-blown expression in the Deuteronomistic conquest account of Joshua *1–12, with its depiction of the ethnic cleansing of Canaan promoting the idea that the exclusion of for- eigners is demanded by obedience to YHWH. Deliberately contradicting this view, the author of Joshua 2 inserted a counternarrative of a God-fearing foreigner and her inclusion into the community 26. The “Rahab paradigm” thus introduced argues for the possibility of integrating foreigners — on the double condition that they prove loyal to Israel and worship YHWH 27. III. Aesthetics of Production and Aesthetics of Reception in Analyzing Biblical Intertextuality The latter reasoning raises intriguing questions concerning religion and politics in the Persian period. But this discussion is beyond the scope 26 The rescue of Rahab in Josh 6,17-19 has been inserted by the same hand. Both passages are part of a comprehensive reworking of the Deuteron- omistic conquest account which is also responsible for the story of Achan in Joshua 7 and a ‘Fortschreibung’ of the Jordan crossing in Joshua 3–4, accord- ing to which the miracle’s rationale was to inspire fear of YHWH in “all the peoples of the earth” (see the finale in Josh 4,21ff. and note the unmistakable parallels of this passage with Rahab’s confession in Josh 2,9-11). For a dis- cussion, see KRAUSE, Exodus und Eisodus, 415-427. 27 Constraints of space forbid a detailed justification of the proposed di- rection of dependence. The case seems quite clear-cut, however. In my view, the principal argument is the conflation of references to various pentateuchal texts to be found in Joshua 2; for the theoretical background, see D.M. CARR, “Method in Determination of Direction of Dependence. An Empirical Test of Criteria Applied to Exod. 34,11–26 and Its Parallels”, Gottes Volk am Sinai. Untersuchungen zu Ex 32–34 und Dtn 9–10 (eds. E. BLUM – M. KÖCKERT) (VWGTh 18; Gütersloh 2001) 107-140, here 124. In addition, the intertextual relationship between the Deuteronomistic example story of Num 25,1-5 and its counternarrative in Joshua 2 is one of the “specific cases” described by David Carr in which “the character of one and/or the other parallel makes it an unlikely source for the other” (ID., The Formation of the Hebrew Bible. A New Reconstruction [New York 2011] 428). Or does it seem likely to assume that the author of a Deuteronomistic example story warning against the wickedness of foreign women would refer to the most favourable depiction of a foreign woman to be found in the Hebrew Bible? Mutatis mutandis, the latter argument also renders the possibility of a common authorship of both texts or their affiliation with one and the same redactional layer implausible.