author asks, “What if the atomic bomb was never developed and the United States invaded Japan?” SS-GB<\/em> is about a London detective trying to solve an “ordinary” murder under a Nazi regime following Germany’s successful invasion of Great Britain. Procurator<\/em> imagines the quality of life in 20th-century Europe 2,000 years after Pilate released Jesus and crucified Barrabas instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some ways Judges provides an alternate history for Joshua, even though chronologically one follows the other. In the book of Joshua a united people sweep away all opposition and conquer the Promised Land. In the book of Judges a disparate group of 12 tribes occasionally unite when facing an existential threat, but for the most part the enemies they supposedly eliminated are still there, and they are not going away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This session’s passage opens with the third report of Joshua’s death. Unlike the death and burial of Moses, which is witnessed by no one, Joshua’s burial is known to all. However, after his death the 12 tribes were not united under a strong leader. Each tribe (or several tribes) looked after their own affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Joshua<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Joshua’s leadership had begun with the creation of monuments to commemorate the culmination of the exodus. But this author writes that “another generation grew up after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A people who failed to remember their own history would periodically stray from the worship of their liberating God, with the result that they fell into the hands of their enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God, however, remembered the people, and their distress. In those times of national emergency, God called out leaders known as “judges.” They were a disparate bunch. Some settled judicial disputes. Others were military leaders. Still others were charismatic prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some, like Deborah, were already recognized as leaders when the crisis hit. As a lefthander, Ehud may have been stigmatized. Samson was famously flawed, acting recklessly and frequently demonstrating poor judgment. Gideon tested God more than once. Barak seemed to lack faith in God’s plan and preferred Deborah to take the fall if her leadership failed. Jephthah was emotionally wounded by his toxic upbringing, and his success was marred by a rash vow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the centuries that followed, however, they were remembered as a heroic group, as characterized in Sirach (a book of wisdom from the second century BC now found in the Apocrypha): “The judges also, with their respective names, whose hearts did not fall into idolatry and who did not turn away from the Lord\u2014may their memory be blessed!” (Sirach 46:11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Likewise, the New Testament letter to the Hebrews lists several judges and comments upon them favorably: “And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Hebrews 11:32\u201334).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But despite the people’s promises to Moses and to Joshua to remain faithful to God, we know they will fail\u2014as do we. Again and again. The generations failed to learn from their forebears. The people forgot their founding story and strayed. They worshiped the gods of their neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why<\/em> did they stray? Some suggest perhaps because this formerly nomadic people found themselves in a region of settled agriculture. They had to learn from their neighbors how to perform the tasks of harvesting grain and tending orchards of olives and dates\u2014and that may have meant imitating their worship and sacrifice toward the gods of fertility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, they were not forgotten by God. “Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered them” (Judges 2:16). And while some suggest this toxic cycle of sin included an element of repentance, others emphasize that the suffering of the people is curtailed not because they repented (after all, repentance is not always explicitly stated), but because God remembers and remains faithful to the promises made from Abraham onward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The term “alternate history” can refer not only to what might have otherwise happened, but also to different ways of interpreting what actually happened. I grew up in a church whose interpretation of history emphasized that the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the standardization of Christianity mandated by the Council of Nicaea was a triumph for the Christian faith. According to this view of history, when Rome became the center of Empire and Christianity, there was one, true, united church, until heretics emerged in the Reformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anabaptists, alternatively, interpret faith history in a totally different light. The conversion of Constantine was really the fall from grace for Christianity. The Council of Nicaea’s standardization quashed the healthy debate between regional Christianities seeking to remain faithful to the good news of Jesus Christ. The persecuted church, those labeled as heretics by the state churches, were the true remnant that existed in every age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of kings, God called male and female Anabaptist leaders who did not gather armies, but nonviolently imitated Jesus and the early saints in a baptism of fire (too many times literally) and sword, willing martyrs sealing their testimony with their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we Anabaptists, like God’s people in the time of the judges, must resist the temptation of following the false gods of our neighbors: nationalism, power, conquest. Instead we follow the Lion of Judah who in Revelation is revealed as the Lamb bearing the marks of slaughter. Although our denominations can point to strong leadership at crucial times, we tend to be suspicious of strong leaders backed by rigid hierarchies. In some ways, the example of Judges helps us interpret our own alternate history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brethren can point to a “judge” such as Dan West. Seen by some as a gadfly, he created programs like Heifer Project, inviting farmers to donate and accompany cows as gifts to a war-torn Europe after World War II. That program continues today as the ecumenical Heifer International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example of a judge might be Helena Kruger, a Mennonite refugee from Russia who settled as a dairy farmer in Annville, Pa. She was sent by the Brethren to Europe because of her multilingual skills. By both charming and strong-arming military authorities, she created hospitals and housing for German children, and smuggled families out of Russian zones of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The loose confederation of many Mennonite denominations for joint relief projects under the umbrella of Mennonite Central Committee reminds me in some ways of the manner in which the disparate tribes we see in the book of Judges cooperate together at specific times. Elkhart County, Ind., is home to an unusually large concentration of many diverse variants of Amish and Mennonites. Under the umbrella of Mennonite Central Committee, they cooperate to annually raise hundreds of thousands of dollars during the annual Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale and Quilt Auction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflect on your own experience. Are there mistakes in your life that are repeated? Do you sense God’s repeated presence in your life, regardless?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The example of Judges helps us interpret our own alternate history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,37,163,471,207],"class_list":["post-5458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-study","tag-bible-study","tag-church-of-the-brethren","tag-frank-ramirez","tag-judges","tag-messenger"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5458"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5466,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions\/5466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Our alternate history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/10\/Helena-Kruger-quilts-from-BHLA.jpg\")
![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/10\/Helena-Kruger-VW-BHLA.jpg\")