Note 38 — Chapter III · ROOTS OF THE MYTH

However that may be, the pseudo-historical Joshua could not have been elevated by the Talmudists to a divine status in other regards had he been a historical personage; and when we find him specially honoured in Samaria38 we can draw no inference save that he was once a Palestinian deity. The fact that the name means “Saviour”39 is of capital importance. In Jewish tradition and in his Book he is specially associated with the choosing of the Paschal lamb, the rite of the Passover, and the rite of circumcision.40 Here then is the presumptive God for the early rite of Jesus the Son of the Father. As we shall see later, “the Angel of the Lord” is found to equate with “the Word of the Lord”—another cue for the gospel-makers. And in the Jewish New Year liturgy, to this day, Joshua-Jesus figures as the “Prince of the Presence,” which again is supposed to identify him with Metatron as = μετα θρόνου, “behind the throne.” Only as a Palestinian deity thus subordinated to Yahweh is he explicable. And as the “Angel of the Presence” again occurs in Isaiah, lxiii, 9, figuring as Saviour and Redeemer, it is fairly clear that there was some Jewish doctrine which made of Joshua a Saviour deity.