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Backgammon

Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Persia. The earliest record of backgammon itself dates to 17th-century England, being descended from the 16th-century game of Irish.

Backgammon is a two-player game of contrary movement in which each player has fifteen pieces known traditionally as men (short for 'tablemen'), but increasingly known as 'checkers' in the United States in recent decades, analogous to the other board game of checkers. The backgammon table pieces move along twenty-four 'points' according to the roll of two dice. The objective of the game is to move the fifteen pieces around the board and be first to bear off, i.e., remove them from the board. The achievement of this while the opponent is still a long way behind results in a triple win known as a backgammon, hence the name of the game.

Backgammon involves a combination of strategy and luck from rolling dice. While the dice may determine the outcome of a single game, the better player will accumulate the better record over a series of many games. With each roll of the dice, players must choose from numerous options for moving their pieces and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. The optional use of a doubling cube allows players to raise the stakes during the game.

History
The earliest specific reference to backgammon was in a letter dated 1635, when it was emerging as a variant of the popular medieval Anglo-Scottish game of Irish; the latter was described as a better game. By the 19th century, however, backgammon had spread to Europe, where it rapidly superseded other tables games like Trictrac in popularity, and also to America, where the doubling cube was introduced. In other parts of the world, different tables games such as Nard or Nardy are better known.

Tables games
Backgammon is a recent member of the large family of tables games that date back to ancient times. Its equipment is similar or identical to earlier tables games that have been depicted for centuries in art, leading to the mistaken belief that backgammon itself is much older.

Ancient history

The history of board games can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archaeological discoveries of the Jiroft culture, located in present-day Iran, the world's oldest game set having been discovered in the region with equipment comprising a dumbbell-shaped board, counters and dice. Although its precise rules are unknown, it has been termed the Game of 20 Squares and Irving Finkel has suggested a possible reconstruction. The Royal Game of Ur from 2600 BC may also be an ancestor or intermediate of modern-day table games like backgammon and is the oldest game for which rules have been handed down. It used tetrahedral dice. Various other board games spanning the 10th to 7th centuries BC have been found throughout modern day Iraq, Syria, Israel, Egypt and western Iran.

Sasanian Empire
The Persian tables game of nard or nardšir emerged somewhere between the 3rd and 6th century AD, one text (Kār-nāmag ī Ardaxšēr ī Pāpakān) linking it with Ardashir I (r. 224–41), founder of the Sasanian dynasty, whereas another (Wičārišn ī čatrang ud nihišn ī nēw-ardaxšēr) attributes it to Bozorgmehr Bokhtagan, the vizier of Khosrow I (r. 531–79), who is credited with the invention of the game.

Roman and Byzantine Empires

The earliest identifiable tables game, Tabula, meaning 'table' or 'board', is described in an epigram of Byzantine Emperor Zeno (AD 476–491). The overall aim was to be first to bear one's pieces off; the board had the typical tables layout, with 24 points, 12 on each side; and there were 15 counters per player. However, unlike modern Western backgammon, there were three cubical dice not two, no bar nor doubling die, and all counters started off the board. Modern backgammon follows the same rules as tabula for hitting a blot and for bearing off; and the rules for re-entering pieces in backgammon are the same as those for initially entering pieces in tabula. The name Tavli (τάβλι) is still used in Greece for various tables games, which are frequently played in town plateias and cafes.

The τάβλι of Emperor Zeno's time is believed to be a direct descendant of the earlier Roman Ludus duodecim scriptorum ('Game of twelve lines') with the board's middle row of points removed, and only the two outer rows remaining. Ludus duodecim scriptorum used a board with three rows of 12 points each, with the 15 pieces being moved in opposing directions by the two players across three rows according to the roll of the three cubical dice. Little specific text about the gameplay of Ludus duodecim scriptorum has survived; it may have been related to the older Ancient Greek dice game Kubeia. The earliest known mention of the game is in Ovid's Ars Amatoria ('The Art of Love'), written between 1 BC and 8 AD. In Roman times, this game was also known as alea.

Western Europe

Tables games first appeared in France during the 11th century and became a favourite pastime of gamblers. In 1254, Louis IX issued a decree prohibiting his court officials and subjects from playing. They were played in Germany in the 12th century, and had reached Iceland by the 13th century. In Spain, the Alfonso X manuscript Libro de los juegos, completed in 1283, describes rules for a number of dice and table games in addition to its discussion of chess. By the 17th century, games at tables had spread to Sweden. A wooden board and counters were recovered from the wreck of the Vasa among the belongings of the ship's officers. Tables games appear widely in paintings of this period, mainly those of Dutch and German painters, such as Van Ostade, Jan Steen, Hieronymus Bosch, and Bruegel. Among surviving artworks are Cardsharps by Caravaggio.

Early backgammon
Backgammon's immediate predecessor was the 16th century tables game of Irish. Irish was the Anglo-Scottish equivalent of the French Toutes Tables and Spanish Todas Tablas, the latter name first being used in the 1283 El Libro de los Juegos, a translation of Arabic manuscripts by the Toledo School of Translators. Irish had been popular at the Scottish court of James IV and considered to be "the more serious and solid game" when the variant which became known as Backgammon began to emerge in the first half of the 17th century. In medieval Italy, Barail was played on a backgammon board, with the important difference that both players moved their pieces counter-clockwise and starting from the same side of the board. The game rules for Barail are recorded in a 13th century manuscript held in the Italian National Library in Florence. The earliest mention of backgammon, under the name Baggammon, was by James Howell in a letter dated 1635. In English, the word "backgammon" is most likely derived from "back" and gamen, meaning "game" or "play". Meanwhile, the first use documented by the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1650. In 1666, it is reported that the "old name for backgammon used by Shakespeare and others" was Tables. However, it is clear from Willughby that "tables" was a generic name and that the phrase "playing at tables" was used in a similar way to "playing at cards". The first known rules of "Back Gammon" were produced by Francis Willughby around 1672; they were quickly followed by Charles Cotton in 1674.

In the 16th century, Elizabethan laws and church regulations had prohibited "playing at tables" in England, but by the 18th century, Backgammon had superseded Irish and become popular among the English clergy. Edmond Hoyle published A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon in 1753; this described rules and strategy for the game and was bound together with a similar text on whist.

The early form of backgammon was very similar to its predecessor, Irish. The aim, board, number of pieces or "men", direction of play and starting layout were the same as in the modern game. However, there was no doubling die, there was no bar on the board or the bar was not used (men simply being moved off the table when hit) and the scoring was different. The game was won double if either the winning throw was a doublet or the opponent still had men outside the home board. It was won triple if a player bore all men off before any of the opponent's men reached the home board; this was a back-gammon. Some terminology, such as "point", "hitting a blot", "home", "doublet", "bear off" and "men" are recognisably the same as in the modern game; others, such as "binding a man" (adding a second man to a point) "binding up the tables" (taking all one's first 6 points), "fore game", "latter game", "nipping a man" (hitting a blot and playing it on forwards) "playing at length" (using both dice to move one man) are no longer in vogue.

Modern backgammon
By no later than 1850, the rules of play had changed to those used today. Tables boards were now made with a 'bar' in the centre and men that were hit went onto the bar. Winning double or by "two hits" was achieved by bearing all one's men off before the other has borne any—this was now called a gammon. If the winner bore off all men while the loser still had men in his adversary's table, it was a back-gammon and worth "three hits", i.e., triple.

The most recent major development in backgammon was the addition of the doubling cube. Doubles had originally been recorded by placing "common parlour matches" on the bar in the centre of the board. A doubling cube was first introduced in the 1920s in New York City among members of gaming clubs in the Lower East Side. The cube required players not only to select the best move in a given position, but also to estimate the probability of winning from that position, transforming backgammon into the expected value-driven game played in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The popularity of backgammon surged in the mid-1960s, in part due to the charisma of Prince Alexis Obolensky who became known as "The Father of Modern Backgammon". "Obe", as he was called by friends, co-founded the International Backgammon Association, which published a set of official rules. He also established the World Backgammon Club of Manhattan, devised a backgammon tournament system in 1963, then organized the first major international backgammon tournament in March 1964, which attracted royalty, celebrities and the press. The game became a huge fad and was played on college campuses, in discothèques and at country clubs; stockbrokers and bankers began playing at conservative men's clubs. People young and old all across the country dusted off their boards and pieces. Cigarette, liquor and car companies began to sponsor tournaments, and Hugh Hefner held backgammon parties at the Playboy Mansion. Backgammon clubs were formed and tournaments were held, resulting in a World Championship promoted in Las Vegas in 1967.

In the second half of the 20th century, new terms were introduced in America, such as 'beaver' and 'checkers' for men (although American backgammon experts Jacoby and Crawford continued to use both the older terms as well as the new ones).

Most recently, the United States Backgammon Federation (USBGF) was organized in 2009 to repopularize the game in the United States. Board and committee members include many of the top players, tournament directors and writers in the worldwide backgammon community. The USBGF has recently created Standards of Ethical Practice to address issues on which tournament rules fail to touch.

In its country of origin, the UK Backgammon Federation is the national authority and runs a backgammon championship—the Backgammon Galaxy UK Open Tournament—as well as club championships, online leagues and knockout tournaments. Like the USBGF they are active members of the World Backgammon Federation (WBF) and their tournament rules have been adopted in their entirety by the WBF.

Software
Backgammon software has been developed not only to play and analyze games, but also for people to play one another over the internet. Dice rolls are provided by random or pseudorandom number generators. Real-time online play began with the First Internet Backgammon Server in July 1992, but there are now a range of options, many of which are commercial.

Rules
Since 2018, backgammon has been overseen internationally by the World Backgammon Federation who set the rules of play for international tournaments.

Backgammon playing pieces may be termed men, checkers, draughts, stones, counters, pawns, discs, pips, chips, or nips. Checkers is a relatively modern American English term derived from another board game, draughts, which in US English is called checkers.

The objective is for players to bear off all their disc pieces from the board before their opponent can do the same. As the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points.

Board
The dimensions of a board when opened, for a tournament game, should be at a minimum of 44 cm by 55 cm to a maximum of 66 cm by 88 cm.

Setup
Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points form a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. In the most commonly used setup, each player begins with fifteen pieces; two are placed on their 24-point, three on their 8-point, and five each on their 13-point and their 6-point. The two players move their pieces in opposing directions, from the 24-point towards the 1-point.

Points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the midpoint. Usually the 5-point for each player is called the "golden point".

Movement
To start the game, each player rolls one die, and the player with the higher number moves first using the numbers shown on both dice. If the players roll the same number, they must roll again, leaving the first pair of dice on the board. The player with the higher number on the second roll moves using only the numbers shown on the dice used for the second roll. Both dice must land completely flat on the right-hand side of the gameboard. The players then take alternate turns, rolling two dice at the beginning of each turn.

After rolling the dice, players must, if possible, move their pieces according to the number shown on each die. For example, if the player rolls a 6 and a 3 (denoted as "6-3"), the player must move one checker six points forward, and another or the same checker three points forward. The same checker may be moved twice, as long as the two moves can be made separately and legally: six and then three, or three and then six. If a player rolls two of the same number, called doubles, that player must play each die twice. For example, a roll of 5-5 allows the player to make four moves of five spaces each. On any roll, a player must move according to the numbers on both dice if it is at all possible to do so. If one or both numbers do not allow a legal move, the player forfeits that portion of the roll and the turn ends. If moves can be made according to either one die or the other, but not both, the higher number must be used. If one die is unable to be moved, but such a move is made possible by the moving of the other die, that move is compulsory.

In the course of a move, a checker may land on any point that is unoccupied or is occupied by one or more of the player's own checkers. It may also land on a point occupied by exactly one opposing checker, or "blot". In this case, the blot has been "hit" and is placed in the middle of the board on the bar that divides the two sides of the playing surface. A checker may never land on a point occupied by two or more opposing checkers; thus, no point is ever occupied by checkers from both players simultaneously. There is no limit to the number of checkers that can occupy a point or the bar at any given time.

Checkers placed on the bar must re-enter the game through the opponent's home board before any other move can be made. A roll of 1 allows the checker to enter on the 24-point (opponent's 1), a roll of 2 on the 23-point (opponent's 2), and so forth, up to a roll of 6 allowing entry on the 19-point (opponent's 6). Checkers may not enter on a point occupied by two or more opposing checkers. Checkers can enter on unoccupied points, or on points occupied by a single opposing checker; in the latter case, the single checker is hit and placed on the bar. A player may not move any other checkers until all checkers belonging to that player on the bar have re-entered the board. If a player has checkers on the bar, but rolls a combination that does not allow any of those checkers to re-enter, the player does not move. If the opponent's home board is completely "closed" (i.e. all six points are each occupied by two or more checkers), there is no roll that will allow a player to enter a checker from the bar, and that player stops rolling and playing until at least one point becomes open (occupied by one or zero checkers) due to the opponent's moves.

A turn ends only when the player has removed his or her dice from the board. Prior to this moment, a move can be undone and replayed an unlimited number of times.

Bearing off
When all of a player's checkers are in that player's home board, that player may start removing them; this is called "bearing off". A roll of 1 may be used to bear off a checker from the 1-point, a 2 from the 2-point, and so on. If all of a player's checkers are on points lower than the number showing on a particular die, the player must use that die to bear off one checker from the highest occupied point. For example, if a player rolls a 6 and a 5, but has no checkers on the 6-point and two on the 5-point, then the 6 and the 5 must be used to bear off the two checkers from the 5-point. When bearing off, a player may also move a lower die roll before the higher even if that means the full value of the higher die is not fully utilized. For example, if a player has exactly one checker remaining on the 6-point, and rolls a 6 and a 1, the player may move the 6-point checker one place to the 5-point with the lower die roll of 1, and then bear that checker off the 5-point using the die roll of 6; this is sometimes useful tactically. As before, if there is a way to use all moves showing on the dice by moving checkers within the home board or by bearing them off, the player must do so. If a player's checker is hit while in the process of bearing off, that player may not bear off any others until it has been re-entered into the game and moved into the player's home board, according to the normal movement rules.

The first player to bear off all fifteen of their own checkers wins the game. When keeping score in backgammon, the points awarded depend on the scale of the victory. A player who bears off all fifteen pieces when the opponent has borne off at least one, wins a single game worth 1 point. If all fifteen have been borne off before the opponent gets at least one checker off, this is a gammon or double game worth 2 points. A backgammon or triple game is worth 3 points and occurs when the losing player has borne off no pieces and has one or more on the bar and/or in the winner's home table (inner board).

Doubling cube
To speed up match play and to provide an added dimension for strategy, a doubling cube is usually used. The doubling cube is not a die to be rolled, but rather a marker, with the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 inscribed on its sides to denote the current stake. At the start of each game, the doubling cube is placed on the midpoint of the bar with the number 64 showing; the cube is then said to be "centered, on 1". When the cube is still centered, either player may start their turn by proposing that the game be played for twice the current stakes. Their opponent must either accept ("take") the doubled stakes or resign ("drop") the game immediately.

Whenever a player accepts doubled stakes, the cube is placed on their side of the board with the corresponding power of two facing upward, to indicate that the right to redouble, which is to offer to continue doubling the stakes, belongs exclusively to that player. If the opponent drops the doubled stakes, they lose the game at the current value of the doubling cube. For instance, if the cube showed the number 2 and a player wanted to redouble the stakes to put it at 4, the opponent choosing to drop the redouble would lose two, or twice the original stake.

There is no limit on the number of redoubles. Although 64 is the highest number depicted on the doubling cube, the stakes may rise to 128, 256, and so on. In money games, a player is often permitted to "beaver" when offered the cube, doubling the value of the game again, while retaining possession of the cube.

A variant of the doubling cube "beaver" is the "raccoon". Players who doubled their opponent, seeing the opponent beaver the cube, may in turn then double the stakes once again ("raccoon") as part of that cube phase before any dice are rolled. The opponent retains the doubling cube. An example of a "raccoon" is the following: White doubles Black to 2 points, Black accepts then beavers the cube to 4 points; White, confident of a win, raccoons the cube to 8 points, while Black retains the cube. Such a move adds greatly to the risk of having to face the doubling cube coming back at 8 times its original value when first doubling the opponent (offered at 2 points, counter offered at 16 points) should the luck of the dice change.

Some players may opt to invoke the "Murphy rule" or the "automatic double rule". If both opponents roll the same opening number, the doubling cube is incremented on each occasion yet remains in the middle of the board, available to either player. The Murphy rule may be invoked with a maximum number of automatic doubles allowed and that limit is agreed to prior to a game or match commencing. When a player decides to double the opponent, the value is then a double of whatever face value is shown (e.g. if two automatic doubles have occurred putting the cube up to 4, the first in-game double will be for 8 points). The Murphy rule is not an official rule in backgammon and is rarely, if ever, seen in use at officially sanctioned tournaments.

The "Jacoby rule", named after Oswald Jacoby, allows gammons and backgammons to count for their respective double and triple values only if the cube has already been offered and accepted. This encourages a player with a large lead to double, possibly ending the game, rather than to play it to conclusion hoping for a gammon or backgammon. The Jacoby rule is widely used in money play but is not used in match play.

The "Crawford rule", named after John R. Crawford, is designed to make match play more equitable for the player in the lead. If a player is one point away from winning a match, that player's opponent will always want to double as early as possible in order to catch up. Whether the game is worth one point or two, the trailing player must win to continue the match. To balance the situation, the Crawford rule requires that when a player first reaches a score one point short of winning, neither player may use the doubling cube for the following game, called the "Crawford game". After the Crawford game, normal use of the doubling cube resumes. The Crawford rule is routinely used in tournament match play. It is possible for a Crawford game to never occur in a match.

If the Crawford rule is in effect, then another option is the "Holland rule", named after Tim Holland, which stipulates that after the Crawford game, a player cannot double until after at least two rolls have been played by each side. It was common in tournament play in the 1980s, but is now rarely used.

Related games
Minor variations to the standard game are common among casual players in certain regions. For instance, only allowing a maximum of five men on any point (Britain) or disallowing "hit-and-run" in the home board (Middle East).

There are also many relatives of backgammon within the tables family with different aims, modes of play and strategies. Some are played primarily throughout one geographic region, and others add new tactical elements to the game. These other tables games commonly have a different starting position, restrict certain moves, or assign special value to certain dice rolls, but in some geographic games even the rules and direction of movement of the counters change, rendering them fundamentally different.

Acey-deucey is a relative of backgammon in which players start with no counters on the board, and must enter them onto the board at the beginning of the game. The roll of 1-2 is given special consideration, allowing the player, after moving the 1 and the 2, to select any desired doubles move. A player also receives an extra turn after a roll of 1-2 or of doubles.

Hypergammon is a game in which players have only three counters on the board, starting with one each on the 24, 23 and 22 points. With the aid of a computer this game was solved by Hugh Sconyers around 1994, meaning that exact equities for all cube positions are available for all 32 million possible positions.

Nard is a traditional tables game from Persia which may be an ancestor of backgammon. It has a different opening layout in which all 15 pieces start on the 24th point. During play pieces may not be hit and there are no gammons or backgammons.

Russian backgammon is a variant described in 1895 as: "...much in vogue in Russia, Germany, and other parts of the Continent...". Players start with no counters on the board, and both players move in the same direction to bear off in a common home board. In this variant, doubles are powerful: four moves are played as in backgammon, followed by four moves according to the difference of the dice value from 7, and then the player has another turn (with the caveat that the turn ends if any portion of it cannot be completed).

Gul bara and Tapa are tables games popular in south-eastern Europe and Turkey. The play will iterate among Backgammon, Gul Bara, and Tapa until one of the players reaches a score of 7 or 5.

Coan ki is an ancient Chinese tables game.

Plakoto, Fevga and Portes are three varieties of tables games played in Greece. Together, the three are referred to as Tavli and are usually played one after the other; game being three, five, or seven points.

Misere (backgammon to lose) is a variant of backgammon in which the objective is to lose the game.

Tavla is a Turkish variation.

Strategy and tactics

Backgammon has an established opening theory, although it is less detailed than that of chess. The tree of positions expands rapidly because of the number of possible dice rolls and the moves available on each turn. Recent computer analysis has offered more insight on opening plays, but the midgame is reached quickly. After the opening, backgammon players frequently rely on some established general strategies, combining and switching among them to adapt to the changing conditions of a game.

A blot has the highest probability of being hit when it is 6 points away from an opponent's checker. Strategies can derive from that. The most direct one is simply to avoid being hit, trapped, or held in a stand-off. A "running game" describes a strategy of moving as quickly as possible around the board, and is most successful when a player is already ahead in the race. When this fails, one may opt for a "holding game", maintaining control of a point on one's opponent's side of the board, called an anchor. As the game progresses, this player may gain an advantage by hitting an opponent's blot from the anchor, or by rolling large doubles that allow the checkers to escape into a running game.

The "priming game" involves building a wall of checkers, called a prime, covering a number of consecutive points. This obstructs opposing checkers that are behind the prime. A checker trapped behind a six-point prime cannot escape until the prime is broken. A particularly successful priming effort may lead to a "blitz", which is a strategy of covering the entire home board as quickly as possible while keeping one's opponent on the bar. Because the opponent has difficulty re-entering from the bar or escaping, a player can quickly gain a running advantage and win the game, often with a gammon.

A "backgame" is a strategy that involves holding two or more anchors in an opponent's home board while being substantially behind in the race. The anchors obstruct the opponent's checkers and create opportunities to hit them as they move home. The backgame is generally used only to salvage a game wherein a player is already significantly behind. Using a backgame as an initial strategy is usually unsuccessful.

"Duplication" refers to the placement of checkers such that one's opponent needs the same dice rolls to achieve different goals. For example, players may position all of their blots in such a way that the opponent must roll a 2 in order to hit any of them, reducing the probability of being hit more than once. "Diversification" refers to a complementary tactic of placing one's own checkers in such a way that more numbers are useful.

Many positions require a measurement of a player's standing in the race, for example, in making a doubling cube decision, or in determining whether to run home and begin bearing off. The minimum total of pips needed to move a player's checkers around and off the board is called the "pip count". The difference between the two players' pip counts is frequently used as a measure of the leader's racing advantage. Players often use mental calculation techniques to determine pip counts in live play.

Backgammon is played in two principal variations, "money" and "match" play. Money play means that every point counts evenly and every game stands alone, whether money is actually being wagered or not. "Match" play means that the players play until one side scores (or exceeds) a certain number of points. The format has a significant effect on strategy. In a match, the objective is not to win the maximum possible number of points, but rather to simply reach the score needed to win the match. For example, a player leading a 9-point match by a score of 7–5 would be very reluctant to turn the doubling cube, as their opponent could take and make a costless redouble to 4, placing the entire outcome of the match on the current game. Conversely, the trailing player would double very aggressively, particularly if they have chances to win a gammon in the current game. In money play, the theoretically correct checker play and cube action would never vary based on the score.

In 1975, Emmet Keeler and Joel Spencer considered the question of when to double or accept a double using an idealized version of backgammon. In their idealized version, the probability of winning varies randomly over time by Brownian motion, and there are no gammons or backgammons. They showed that the optimal time to offer a double was when the probability of winning reached 80%, and it is wise to accept a double only if the probability of winning is at least 20%. As their assumptions do not correspond perfectly to the real game, actual doubling strategy may vary, but the 80% number still provides a possible rule of thumb.

Cheating
To reduce the possibility of cheating, most good-quality backgammon sets use precision dice and a dice cup. This reduces the likelihood of loaded dice being used, which is the main way of cheating in face-to-face play. A common method of cheating online is the use of a computer program to find the optimal move on each turn; to combat this, many online sites use move-comparison software that identifies when a player's moves resemble those of a backgammon program. Online cheating has therefore become extremely difficult.

Legality
In State of Oregon v. Barr, a 1982 court case pivotal to the continued widespread organised playing of backgammon in the US, the State argued that backgammon is a game of chance and that it was therefore subject to Oregon's stringent gambling laws. Paul Magriel was a key witness for the defence, contradicting Roger Nelson, the expert prosecution witness, by saying, "Game theory, however, really applies to games with imperfect knowledge, where something is concealed, such as poker. Backgammon is not such a game. Everything is in front of you. The person who uses that information in the most effective manner will win." After the closing arguments, Judge Stephen S. Walker concluded that backgammon is a game of skill, not a game of chance, and found the defendant, backgammon tournament director Ted Barr, not guilty of promoting gambling.

Club and tournament play
Enthusiasts have formed clubs for social play of backgammon. Local clubs may hold informal gatherings, with members meeting at cafés and bars in the evening to play and converse. A few clubs offer additional services, maintaining their own facilities or offering computer analysis of troublesome plays. Around 2003, some club leaders noticed a growth of interest in backgammon, and attributed it to the game's popularity on the Internet.

A backgammon chouette permits three or more players to participate in a single game, often for money. One player competes against a team of all the other participants, and positions rotate after each game. Chouette play often permits the use of multiple doubling cubes.

Backgammon clubs may also organize tournaments. Large club tournaments sometimes draw competitors from other regions, with final matches viewed by hundreds of spectators. The top players at regional tournaments often compete in major national and international championships. Winners at major tournaments may receive prizes of tens of thousands of dollars.

International competition
The first world championship competition in backgammon was held in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1967. Tim Holland was declared the winner that year and at the tournament the following year. For unknown reasons, there was no championship in 1970, but in 1971, Tim Holland again won the title. The competition remained in Las Vegas until 1975, when it moved to Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The years 1976, 1977 and 1978 saw "dual" World Championships, one in the Bahamas attended by the Americans, and the European Open Championships in Monte Carlo with mostly European players. In 1979, Lewis Deyong, who had promoted the Bahamas World Championship for the prior three years, suggested that the two events be combined. Monte Carlo was universally acknowledged as the site of the World Backgammon Championship and has remained as such for thirty years. The Monte Carlo tournament draws hundreds of players and spectators, and is played over the course of a week.

By the 21st century, the largest international tournaments had established the basis of a tour for top professional players. Major tournaments are held yearly worldwide. PartyGaming sponsored the first World Series of Backgammon in 2006 from Cannes and later the "Backgammon Million" tournament held in the Bahamas in January 2007 with a prize pool of one million dollars, the largest for any tournament to date. In 2008, the World Series of Backgammon ran the world's largest international events in London, the UK Masters, the biggest tournament ever held in the UK with 128 international class players; the Nordic Open, which instantly became the largest in the world with around 500 players in all flights and 153 in the championship, and Cannes, which hosted the Riviera Cup, the traditional follow-up tournament to the World Championships. Cannes also hosted the WSOB championship, the WSOB finale, which saw 16 players play three-point shootout matches for €160,000. The event was recorded for television in Europe and aired on Eurosport.

The World Backgammon Association (WBA) has been holding the biggest backgammon tour on the circuit since 2007, the "European Backgammon Tour" (EBGT). In 2011, the WBA collaborated with the online backgammon provider Play65 for the 2011 season of the European Backgammon Tour and with "Betfair" in 2012. The 2013 season of the European Backgammon Tour featured 11 stops and 19 qualified players competing for €19,000 in a grand finale in Lefkosa, Northern Cyprus.

Gambling
When backgammon is played for money, the most common arrangement is to assign a monetary value to each point, and to play to a certain score, or until either player chooses to stop. The stakes are raised by gammons, backgammons, and use of the doubling cube. Backgammon is sometimes available in casinos. Before the commercialization of artificial neural network programs, proposition bets on specific positions were very common among backgammon players and gamblers. As with most gambling games, successful play requires a combination of luck and skill, as a single dice roll can sometimes significantly change the outcome of the game.

Mediterranean and West Asian cultural significance
Backgammon is considered the national game in many countries of the Eastern Mediterranean: Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Greece.

The popularity of the game across the region is primarily an oral tradition, and appears to have been strengthened during the era of the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the whole Eastern Mediterranean in the early modern period. Afif Bahnassi, Syria's director of antiquities, stated in 1988: "For some reason, backgammon became the rage of the Ottoman Empire. It really spread across the Arab world with the Turks, and it stayed behind when they left." The game is a common feature of coffeehouses throughout the region. Since at least the early 19th century, Damascus became well known as the preeminent location for Damascene-style wooden marquetry backgammon sets that have become famous throughout the region.

A unique feature of backgammon throughout the region is players' use of mixed Persian and Turkish numbers to announce dice rolls, rather than Arabic or other local languages. Related to this phenomenon, the game is frequently referred to as Shesh Besh, which is a rhyming combination shesh, meaning six in Persian (as well as many historical and current Semitic languages), and besh, meaning five in Turkish. Shesh besh is commonly used to refer to when a player scores a 5 and 6 at the same time on dice. This language contains six types of irregular inflections:

 * 1) doubles in pure Persian, (6-6 and 3-3);
 * 2a) unequal throws in pure Persian, higher followed by lower
 * 2b) unequal throws in pure Persian, with a connecting vowel in between
 * 3) Mixed Turkish-Persian numeral (6-5, 5-5, 4-4)
 * 4) alternatives for 2a and 2b in pure Turkish (6-4, 5-4, 5-1, 2-1)
 * 5) special cases (3-2, 2-2, 1-1); where 3-2 is a version of 2a with a "ba" added for phonetic reasons, 2-2 is for "twice" or two-times-two, and 1-1 is a hybrid Turkish-Persian where hep is Turkish for "altogether".

In the early 20th century, as use of Classical Arabic was being promoted with the rise of Arab nationalism, efforts were made to replace the Persian-Turkish numbers used in backgammon play.

Studies and analysis

Backgammon has been studied considerably by computer scientists. Neural networks and other approaches have offered significant advances to software for gameplay and analysis. With 15 white and 15 black counters and 24 possible positions, backgammon has 18 quintillion possible legal positions.

The first strong computer opponent was BKG 9.8. It was written by Hans Berliner in the late 1970s on a DEC PDP-10 as an experiment in evaluating board game positions. Early versions of BKG played badly even against poor players, but Berliner noticed that its critical mistakes were always at transitional phases in the game. He applied principles of fuzzy logic to improve its play between phases, and by July 1979, BKG 9.8 was strong enough to play against the reigning world champion Luigi Villa. It won the match 7–1, becoming the first computer program to defeat a world champion in any board game. Berliner stated that the victory was largely a matter of luck, as the computer received more favorable dice rolls.

In the late 1980s, backgammon programmers found more success with an approach based on artificial neural networks. TD-Gammon, developed by Gerald Tesauro of IBM, was the first of these programs to play near the expert level. Its neural network was trained using temporal difference learning applied to data generated from self-play. According to assessments by Bill Robertie and Kit Woolsey, TD-Gammon's play was at or above the level of the top human players in the world. Woolsey said of the program that "There is no question in my mind that its positional judgment is far better than mine."

Tesauro proposed using rollout analysis to compare the performance of computer algorithms against human players. In this method, a Monte-Carlo evaluation of positions is conducted (typically thousands of trials) where different random dice sequences are simulated. The rollout score of the human (or the computer) is the difference of the average game results by following the selected move versus following the best move, then averaged for the entire set of taken moves.

Neural network research has resulted in three modern proprietary programs, JellyFish, Snowie and eXtreme Gammon, as well as the shareware BGBlitz and the free software GNU Backgammon. These programs not only play the game, but offer tools for analyzing games and detailed comparisons of individual moves. The strength of these programs lies in their neural networks' weights tables, which are the result of months of training. Without them, these programs play no better than a human novice. For the bearoff phase, backgammon software usually relies on a database containing precomputed equities for all possible bearoff positions. There are 54,263 bearoff positions for each side. This means there are 542632 total bearoff positions (~3 billion positions). In 1981 Hugh Sconyers wrote a computer program that solved all positions with nine checkers or fewer for both sides. In the early 1990s Hugh extended his results to all bearoff positions. For each position there are four results: no cube, roller's cube, center cube and opponent's cube. So, Hugh's bearoff database contains the exact answers to ~12 billion bearoff situations.

Another neural network software developed by Nikolaos Papachristou is Palamedes that was developed in the early 2000s and it can also play variations like Hypergammon, Portes, Plakoto, Fevga, Narde and has multiple engines for each one.

Computer-versus-computer competitions are also held at Computer Olympiad events.

title: Backgammon


text:
Talk:Boii

Pronunciation?
Anybody know how its meant to be pronounced? The most likely one seems to be bo-ee-eye but i suppose it could just as easily be boy-eye-ross616- (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The Latin pronunciation would have been /ˈboj.iː/. Not sure how modern English or American would go about it, though. They like their eyes. Trigaranus (talk) 17:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

it be boi — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8C:8204:1670:EC01:F6DD:CDCC:284 (talk) 03:29, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Nomenclature rulers
Gotta watch the nomenclature for rulers. See the Roman Emperors list for pointers.

Language consistency
ok -- I'm a relative newbie, but could we please have some consistency here? In the English Language version of the Wikipedia, could the entries be in English (e.g., Bohemia and Bohemians) rather than German -- with the exception of Latin terms, of course, since all of us historians know the correct term in Latin, or should.

Is there a naming protocol for Romans? I think we should use the most complete name possible, except where there is no question, or where there is a more conventional name, like Livy for Titus Livius.

If you are going to contribute entire articles that consist entirely of information that opens up huge cans of worms, would you please log in, so that people can discuss WHY you've chosen to write what you have (this would make me feel a lot better before editing) -- I will even discuss questions in German, if I have to!

Thanks -- just trying to get a grip on the "rules" here!

JHK
 * On nomenclature. Larry will tell you that we use the MOST COMMON form.  See Rudy Giuliani.  That isn't always easy to determine.  The Saint entries are swinging back and forth - should 'Saint' be part of the entry title or not?  On Popes, we settled on Pope + Name + Number as the official nomenclature.  You'll notice that most monarchs have their country:  Henry I of England.  It's not entirely consistent, consistent with the nature of wikipedia, and yes, it drives us all nuts.  --MichaelTinkler

 * Like the "despite the..." edit -- thanks! --JHK

I think it's helpful to see references to all nomenclature, in part because when researching various sources it sometimes allows one to see the links (i.e. here the links between German, Slav, Latin, etc.) This becomes apparent in my suggested addition or line of thought below. CelticRogue (talk) 20:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)CelticRogue

Some content removal
Removed following because it didn't make any sense in the context of he article as written:

In order to better hold on to their already conquered lands in Gallia, Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in 15 BC sent Drusus Claudius and Tiberius Claudius to conquer Bavaria. The Romans set that land up as two Roman provinces. One of these was Rhaetia, whose capital city was Augusta Vindelicorum or modern-day Augsburg;the other was Noricum.

If someone wants to make it work, please feel free to put it back. JHK

 * To use the term Boii in connection with the 9th (!) century is a complete non-sense! Juro

 * It is for you
 * http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gergovie
 * C:\Documents and Settings\Propriétaire\Mes documents\ENVOIS\GORGO TRANSLATES\WIKIPEDIA GORGOBINA in English.pdf

 * Excuse me. Why are Boii in the 9th century non-sense? (Mother Christmas 06:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC))

While that portion of the article is not totally in context it is helpful from the standpoint of more fully describing the reference to Noricum. Also in Celtic history the Roman interactions are significant. It was around this time (a few decades forward or back) that St. Patrick, son of Roman noble, went to Ireland and also when the Irish/Celtic were propagating colonies in Bohemia, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France and as far away as Egypt where the link to the Coptic Christians, the Egyptian conversion from the ancient religion occured at about the same time as the Roman. (Again, we are talking about a time frame of decades, perhaps crossing in to centuries, but historically close in time.) CelticRogue (talk) 20:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Bohemia term
I believe that the Celts were gone from Czech and Slovak lands well before the 9th Century. Also the word "Buh" (God) which is declined to "Bohem" or "Bohem-" in other contexts seems a more reasonable origin of the term Bohemia. Can someone comment? svacina.com/czechi/czechia.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.197.88 (talk • contribs) 05:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

 * The word you are thinking of would have been "Богъ" at the time (in OCS, with the Genitive and Accusative Sg. form "Бога", Dative Sg. "Богоу" —— where did you take a final "-m" from?). It did not produce forms at that stage with a g→h change. Also, the earliest Slavonic sources do not use a name derived from this form (or otherwise related to our word "Bohemia") for the region, but rather the word "Čechy" (starting from the 10th century), which was also the name of the region's chief tribe after the Slavic settlement (ancestors to our modern-day Czechs). The word "Bohemia" only appears in Latin (and later, in MHG) sources of the Middle Ages and belongs to the western, Latin-Germanic tradition (as opposed to e.g. the word "Silesia", which had never become established in the western tradition and is in its present form a Slavonic descendant of the name of the Germanic Silingi, complete with opening of closed syllables and all). And yes, the Celts and most of their Toponyms had vanished long before the arrival of the Slavs. The onomastic tradition was held up by speakers of Germanic languages (and via Latinate written texts). The common etymological explanation "Boiohaemum" = "Boii-home" and "Baiovarii" = "Boii-dwellers" has recently been further strengthened by archaeology —— unfortunately, I couldn't give you the name of the archaeologists involved anymore; maybe you will find it via googelisation. In an early Bavarian-Baiovarian graveyard of the 6th c. AD, isotope analysis has confirmed the traditional view that many of the people who identified themselves as "Baiovarii" had, in fact, come to Bavaria from Bohemia. So it is quite safe to assume that along with the people, also the name migrated from the former land of the Boii, which allows us to identify the boi-/bai- morphemes in "Boii", "Baiovarii" and "Boiohaemum" as being one and the same root. (The change o→a is a Germanisation of the Celtic root.) The name "Boiohaemum" also makes an appearance before 30 AD in Velleius Paterculus' Historiae Romanae, II. 109. This is much too early by far for any distinctly Slavonic presence in that region or anywhere else at all, let alone for one with a g→h change in the word "Богь". So it all falls neatly into place with the commonly accepted etymology. :-) Hope this answers your question. Trigaranus (talk) 09:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Again the Celtic link is in agreement with Trigaranus. Check out the relationship with the Boinne people of Ireland. They were the civilization that built Bru na Boinne in roughly 3200 B.C. In English that is the pre-historic cairn or passage tomb at Newgrange. Older than Stonehenge or some of the Pyramids, the people that settled along the Boyne River in Ireland were unique for the time period given their knowledge of Astronomy and their ritual preference for cremation. These were the Celtic peoples that settled throughout the known world and we are discovering that they were in parts of the world that were thought to be unknown as well. CelticRogue (talk) 20:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Also it should be considered that the Celts never really left anywhere totally, before or after the 9th century. (Consider the famous painting, Death of Postumus at the Hands of the Boii, circa 1480.) Mostly the Celtic people blended with the others, but the direct links remain in the cultures and the regions, (See the folks in the north of Spain, parts of France) in much the same way that conquering peoples blended with the indigenous Celts in Ireland, (The Vikings in Dublin, the Normans further north in Ireland.) CelticRogue (talk) 20:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Added headers/footnotes
Hello everybody,

I've just added the latest version (17 April 2007) with headings and footnotes. Hope you like it! Tell me if you would like to have something changed or clarified.

Ales gueti, Trigaranus 15:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

 * It's me again, just checking through the article. I'm going to make a minor change again, but I will let a detailed argumentation follow. Trigaranus

New/old claims about the Boii
I have read all these responses. And I want to make amendments: 1. Boii named their ground "Boiohaemum" - native land of boii (native country). 2. Boii really lived in territory of Slovakia and also Transylvania in 9 century AD 3. The word "Bohemia" has not taken place from the German adverbs. 4. Baiovarii were not Germanic people. They were Celtic tribes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by (User talk) 11:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I've allowed myself to enter a new header here for readability's sake. Let me just check with you: Which are your sources on numbers 1, 2 and 4? And what to you mean by 3? BTW get yourself signed up as soon as you can, it'll make discussions much easier. All the best, Trigaranus (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

References in ancient written sources Sometime between 205 BC and 184 BC, T. Maccius Plautus refers to the Boii in his work, Captivi:

At nunc Siculus non est, Boius est, Boiam terit But now he is not a Sicilian - he is a Boian, he has got a Boian woman. ( There is a play on words: Boia means " woman of the Boii ", also " convicted criminal's restraint collar ".) [1]

 * First and most importantly of all, I would like to ask you to sign in, as this is more polite than adding anonymous comments. This will give everyone the opportunity to take this discussion off the article page and to directly converse with one another. Otherwise this page here will grow enormous in no time at all.
 * Secondly, Plautus was a writer of comedies, so you will have to forgive him his plays on words. They are meant to be funny, and actually often are quite witty (rather than "ridiculous"). The word boia (-ae, fem.) means a neck shackle, an iron restraining device, and does not have any connection to the word "Boius/Boia" designating a member of the Boii tribe. The language in question is Latin, which Plautus was more than proficient in. What you mean by your last sentence (about "boi"), I do not fully grasp, but I hope this covers it.
 * As far as your initial statement is concerned ("I'm one from Boii. Is insulting to hear about our disappearance."), no one wished to insult you by any means, and no one wanted to imply that your people have disappeared. However, those "Boii" which you justly number yourself amongst are the modern Boiki of the Carpathians, who indeed live in the countries you enumerated. In my opinion, it is quite possible that the name of the Boiki could have originated from the regional name "Boiki" (i.e. Bohemia) mentioned in De Administrando Imperio as home of the White Serbs. But this does not constitute sufficient grounds for a claim of direct descent of the Boiki from the ancient Boii. The "ancient names, surnames and important customs" which you mention will certainly be very old, but derived from a traditional Slavic background rather than from a late La Tène tribe.
 * It has always been (take the Aeneid "proving" Trojan/divine ancestry for the Romans), and still is, a common practice for social and cultural groups to look for an ancient ancestor as a means of strengthening one's posititon and one's identity as a group. But the truth is: a similar name in the past does NOT automatically create an ancient ancestor. In order to uphold such a claim, you will have to support it with clear evidence. Some time ago, this article was being edited to include a rather preposterous claim of the Bowyer family to "descent from the Boii". The sources they entered as "proof" of this claim were more than fishy. To do justice to your ethnic group (the Boiki), it would be best to expand their article with each and every hard fact - not fanciful image - about them that you can gather. If indeed there should be first and family names amongst the Boykos that are originally Celtic, anyone with an interest in ancient philology will be fascinated to hear about them.
 * All the best, Trigaranus (talk) 19:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

 * So, give us an outline of factual evidence for that claim. And please, leave out the emotions. For a start, hit us with a few first and family names that have a clearly Celtic etymology. Trigaranus (talk) 18:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

 * Can I ask you once more to sign in instead of leaving anonymous comments. I would really like to take this off the article talk page, as some might see this as an unnecessary discussion.
 * A Celtic etymology is something different from phonological assonance. I was hoping to get a modern form of an old Celtic name. It is quite obvious that both the name of your ethnic group as well as many family names from amongst the same group are partly homophonous to the name of the Boii. So is the German plural for the word "tree". An English bowmaker known as a "bowyer" has nothing to do with the Boii, although in my language, he would sound exactly the same as a member of that tribe. There are many parallel examples for the Boykos/Boii affiliation: Before the firm establishment of empiricism, the "learnèd" elite of the Danish thought themselves to be descended from the Dacians (Dani - Daci), those of the Germans from the Teutons (thuidisc - Teutones, which is at least the same IE root), the citizens of Zürich from the Tigurini (Turicum - Tigurini, who at least lived somewhere in Switzerland at one time, although their name has nothing to do with Zurich), the Hungarians from the Huns (instead of the Onogurs, but Attila was more impressive), the Goths from the Getae (same region, but a few new centuries of added "antiquity"), the people of Schwyz from the Swedes (people will believe anything), and last but not least the British from a man named Brutus of Troy. All of these (apart from the last one, for which a Brutus had to be invented first) were based on nothing else than homophony with an ancient name. And each and every one of them has long been disproven as, historically speaking, nonsensical.
 * How would anyone know the blood type of the ancient Boii?
 * Anthropometry is not the most favourable of means of establishing ancestry (Craniometry is more suitable, but still rather quite dated). Genetic genealogy on the other hand side is a precise scientific method, and I would bet quite a lot of money that the Boii and the modern Bavarians, Czechs, Polish, Hutsuls, Boykos, Slovenians and even the Hungarians all have one thing in common: they are just different names for the people who haved lived in their respective homes for the last 10.000 years since the last Ice Age. Direct genetic continuity (i.e. real descent) between the past inhabitants of Bohemia (the Celtic-speaking Boii) and the modern inhabitants of the same place (the Czechs) has to be assumed as a given to a large degree.
 * Ethnic continuity on the other side requires a socio-cultural core to continue, a common identiy. I am convinced that the Boykos have a long-standing cultural tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages. The easternmost of the Boii, from whom you claim descent, were defeated by Burebista in the 1st c. BC, who probably drove them from their oppidum of Bratislava in retreat to Devín. From there they were later incorporated into the Roman province of Pannonia. Their mint at Bratislava was given up, and there is no more news of the tribe. In fact, their former lands were called ’’deserta Boiorum’’, which means that the land was considered wilderness (i.e. no more organised tribal structures). In other words, we have on one hand evidence of the desintegration of the ethnos outside the Roman Empire; on the other hand, there is not a single piece of news reporting alleged remnants of the tribe to have weathered the upheavals of the following centuries. This complete lack of any sources whatsoever for an AD Boian continuity even as short-lived as to extend into Late Antiquity constitutes not only a problem for serious historians, but also for anybody today who claims to be a "Celtic Boii". You are perfectly free to believe whatever you like about the ethnic group you belong to. But as long as there is no better evidence than a few names vaguely reminiscent of the ancient tribal name (and partly lending itself readily to modern explanations), there is no point to be made for any ethnic continuity at all. And, according to Wikipedia standards, we are not allowed to publish our own theories here, but only such as are put forward by serious research employing empiricist methods.Trigaranus (talk) 13:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Most anciently found
Hello there! I've removed the "most anciently found in Pannonia" from the article and placed it here. Although I checked various sources, I haven't found anything to prove that "most anciently" clain, and even though the German article mentions that they were originally from the Rhine-Main-Danube area, even that seems to be pure speculation. As far as I know, we don't know. So if you have any source to support that claim, please add it as a reference and re-insert the passage. Cheers, Trigaranus 19:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've also removed the following from the header, hoping the contributor does not mind too much: ""in the area of the Seine and Marne rivers, but later migrated across the Alps and settled near the mouth of the Po River in Italy around 400 BC. It was part of a wave of Celtic tribes that included the Boii, Lingones and Senoni, who sacked Rome in 387 BC."" The reason why I have moved it here is that any localisation of Boii in Gaul before the Gallic wars is highly conjectural. All we have as an indication as to where they moved to Italy from, are burial customs that link them to Bohemia: "One notable characteristic —- the prevalence of cremation among the Boii —- serves both to distinguish them from other Celtic communities in the Po Valley and to link them to the Bohemian homeland from which they came. (...) The burials of the Senones and Cenomani, on the other hand, reflect more closely styles already apparent in the Marne region."

- Barry Cunliffe

 * I have also moved the addition "...who had 120 рatrimonial groups and..." from the header, as I have not found any ancient sources backing that up (besides, what is a patrimonial group?), and I would like to leave this here until referenced.

I've re-inserted the references to the eastern Boii settlements, which had been dropped from the header at one point. While I'm aware that the last relative clause is non-defining, it nevertheless might be misinterpreted as stating that not the Senones but a coalition of Boii, Lingones and Senones sacked Rome. Trigaranus (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup template
This talk page is pretty messy (hard to read - at least for me). I am not sure which cleanup template would be best to insert here, so I added.  El i AS  16:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow.. I have seen some messy talk pages in my time.. but this really is in quite a bad state! I have tried to section the conversation(s) the best I could judging by what was being discussed (at least, it is easier to navigate now). Bungle (talk • contribs) 18:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Map Suggestion
I've created a map indicating some of the most important Boii migrations. Tell me what you think about it and if we should include it in the article. Trigaranus (talk) 21:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Mr. Trigaranus! All these responses and then nothing for almost a year! What happened, give up? Hm. Celtika was not built in a day. I'm going to work on this but very slowly, shaping it bit by bit. Now, for your map - I think I will use it, but it leaves too much unsaid. We seem to have to understand the Boii got everywhere in Caesar's time and that will not fly at all. I will see what I can do. I note that a lot of ancient sources, who would fill in the gaps, such as the geographers, have been left out. I think one can be too rigid about this. If the Boii came over the Alps to north Italy even though no one says where they actually had been I think we have to assume they did not suddenly begin to exist, like quanta, but were north of the Alps in central Europe. Otherwise they are going to be tunneling here there and everywhere like electrons - now in the location, now in that location. Let's see how it develops. I doubt it will develop any differently from the picture scholars have had, but we have to document it all with sources. Best wishes.Dave (talk) 17:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

 * PS. I opened up your map and was so disappointed to see that the lettering is unreadable. We don't have too many good maps on this. I would suggest bolding the lettering or using one of the darker fonts, if you still have motivation for it.Dave (talk) 19:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Half forgotten about that map. If you point me to a freeware programme that uses vectoring, I'd me more than happy to have that sorted. Trigaranus (talk) 08:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism
Please check out this site:
 *

You will see that it is this article word for word less recent changes. The site is that of Elio Corti, a man who claims to be a chicken fancier and makes all sorts of other claims most of which I personally doubt. He does not give Wikipedia credit for this article. I suppose legally he is not obliged to, but it raises questions as to who copied whom! As his site does not look too scholarly and he is fairly whimsical, claiming to be interested in the history of chickens, I would guess he probably is copying Wikipedia. I don't see any copyright on his site. If anyone knows anything about this, come forward. Meanwhile this article lacks refs on most of what is said. It sort of leaves me in a vacuum. If it is Corti's, I'm not allowed to modify it. How about some legal beagleing here? Meanwhile I am going to feel free to rewrite using legitimate sources.Dave (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Boii in Balkans and Galatia
Sorry, Bottleville, but this does not belong here. There is only the slightest circumstantial evidence that Boii could have participated in these movements (we talked about them). It is not enough to warrant such a long narrative on the invasion of the Balkans and Galatia in an article about a tribe that was never mentioned a single time in connection with these events. If you have a publication by a historian making a point of their likely involvement, you can mention that in another paragraph. But everyhing beyond that is too much, I'm afraid. I know how it feels like to contribute productively to an article and then have it removed (not very pleasant), but here it will have to happen. Trigaranus (talk) 10:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Dear Dave, I'm sorry to go on pestering you here. Many of your edits in this article (and a large section of the Tolistobogii) has to be changed or removed in order to conform to WP policies. Some of it is WP:OR, some WP:SYN. There is a possibility of a connection between Boii and Tolistobogii, but it is slim, certainly not valid enough to include an entire historical episode (Celts in the east) in this article on a tribe that was never mentioned in connection with those movements. What we can have in this article here is a note that there is this possibility of a connection to the Tolistobogii, and then have all the facts in that other article. I know it's tempting, but we cannot do more than this on WP. Trigaranus (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Some more: where does that "Vindos" stuff come from? I've just found him here, and he is more present than he should in the Tolistobogii article. I'd be very happy to find a source for that. Trigaranus (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello,

The derivation boii from the Old Irish legal term for "outsider:" amboue, seems to me a little bit cumbersome, as in old Irish "an bo" just signifies "the catlle", thus boii = "the cattle owners".

I don't recognize the suffix "-hemiam" to be of Celtic origin or been used in Celtic languages. I think the word is of Germanic origin: "heim", "heem", "hem" still been used in German, Scandinavian and Dutch languages for "home", the latter being the English cognate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.131.251.25 (talk) 12:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua (סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Sefer Yəhōšūaʿ, Tiberian: Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ ; ; Liber Iosue) is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian exile. It tells of the campaigns of the Israelites in central, southern and northern Canaan, the destruction of their enemies, and the division of the land among the Twelve Tribes, framed by two set-piece speeches, the first by God commanding the conquest of the land, and, at the end, the second by Joshua warning of the need for faithful observance of the Law (torah) revealed to Moses.

The strong consensus among scholars is that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and most likely reflects a much later period. The earliest parts of the book are possibly chapters 2–11, the story of the conquest; these chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua likely written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BCE), but the book was not completed until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and possibly not until after the return from the Babylonian exile in 539 BCE.

Structure
I. Transfer of leadership to Joshua (1:1–18)
 * A. God's commission to Joshua (1:1–9)
 * B. Joshua's instructions to the people (1:10–18)

II. Entrance into and conquest of Canaan (2:1–12:24)
 * A. Entry into Canaan
 * 1. Reconnaissance of Jericho (2:1–24)
 * 2. Crossing the River Jordan (3:1–17)
 * 3. Establishing a foothold at Gilgal (4:1–5:1)
 * 4. Circumcision and Passover (5:2–15)
 * B. Victory over Canaan (6:1–12:24)
 * 1. Destruction of Jericho (6)
 * 2. Failure and success at Ai (7:1–8:29)
 * 3. Renewal of the covenant at Mount Ebal (8:30–35)
 * 4. Other campaigns in central Canaan. The Gibeonite Deception (9:1–27)
 * 5. Campaigns in southern Canaan (10:1–43)
 * 6. Campaigns in northern Canaan (11:1–15)
 * 7. Summary of lands conquered (11:16–23)
 * 8. Summary list of defeated kings (12:1–24)

III. Division of the land among the tribes (13:1–22:34)
 * A. God's instructions to Joshua (13:1–7)
 * B. Tribal allotments (13:8–19:51)
 * 1. Eastern tribes (13:8–33)
 * 2. Western tribes (14:1–19:51)
 * C. Cities of refuge and levitical cities (20:1–21:42)
 * D. Summary of conquest (21:43–45)
 * E. De-commissioning of the eastern tribes (22:1–34)

IV. Conclusion (23:1–24:33)
 * A. Joshua's farewell address (23:1–16)
 * B. Covenant at Shechem (24:1–28)
 * C. Deaths of Joshua and Eleazar; burial of Joseph's bones (24:29–33)

God's commission to Joshua (chapter 1)
Chapter 1 commences "after the death of Moses" and presents the first of three important moments in Joshua marked with major speeches and reflections by the main characters; here first God, and then Joshua, make speeches about the goal of conquest of the Promised Land; in chapter 12, the narrator looks back on the conquest; and in chapter 23 Joshua gives a speech about what must be done if Israel is to live in peace in the land.

God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Mosaic covenant. God's speech foreshadows the major themes of the book: the crossing of the Jordan River and conquest of the land, its distribution, and the imperative need for obedience to the Law. Joshua's own immediate obedience is seen in his speeches to the Israelite commanders and to the Transjordanian tribes, and the Transjordanians' affirmation of Joshua's leadership echoes Yahweh's assurances of victory.

Entry into the land and conquest (chapters 2–12)

Rahab, a Canaanite woman of the Bible, sets in motion the entrance into Canaan by the Israelites. To avoid repeating failed attempts by Moses to have notable men of Israel predict the success rate of entry into Canaan mentioned in the book of Numbers, Joshua tasks two regular men with entering Jericho as spies. They arrive at Rahab's house and spend the night. The king of Jericho, having heard of possible Israelite spies, demands that Rahab reveal the men. She tells him that she is unaware of their whereabouts, when in reality, she hid them on her roof under flax. The next morning, Rahab professes her faith in God to the men and acknowledges her belief that Canaan was divinely reserved for the Israelites from the beginning. Because of Rahab's actions, the Israelites are able to enter Canaan.

The Israelites cross the Jordan River through a miraculous intervention of God with the Ark of the Covenant and are circumcised at Gibeath-Haaraloth (translated as hill of foreskins), renamed Gilgal in memory. Gilgal sounds like Gallothi, "I have removed", but is more likely to translate as "circle of standing stones". The conquest begins with the battle of Jericho, followed by Ai (central Canaan), after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mount Ebal in northern Canaan and renews the Covenant in a ceremony with elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia.

The narrative then switches to the south. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering an alliance with them by saying that they are not Canaanites. Despite this, the Israelites decide to keep the alliance by enslaving them instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem attacks the Gibeonites but they are defeated with Yahweh's miraculous help of stopping the Sun and the Moon, and hurling down large hailstones (Joshua 10:10–14). The enemy kings were eventually hanged on trees. The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701 BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in the Kingdom of Judah as his model; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century BCE.

With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign. A powerful multi-national (or more accurately, multi-ethnic) coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated at the Battle of the Waters of Merom with Yahweh's help. Hazor itself is then captured and destroyed. Chapter 11:16–23 summarises the extent of the conquest: Joshua has taken the entire land, almost entirely through military victories, with only the Gibeonites agreeing to peaceful terms with Israel. The land then "had rest from war" (Joshua 11:23, repeated at 14:15). Chapter 12 lists the vanquished kings on both sides of the Jordan River: the two kings who ruled east of the Jordan who were defeated under Moses' leadership (Joshua 12:1–6; cf. Numbers 21), and the 31 kings on the west of the Jordan who were defeated under Joshua's leadership (Joshua 12:7–24). The list of the 31 kings is quasi-tabular:

 * the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one;
 * the king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one; (etc.; Joshua 12:10–11).

Division of the land (chapters 13–22)
Having described how the Israelites and Joshua have carried out the first of their God's commands, the narrative now turns to the second: to "put the people in possession of the land." Joshua is "old, advanced (or stricken) in years" by this time.

This land distribution is a "covenantal land grant": Yahweh, as king, is issuing each tribe its territory. The "Cities of Refuge" and Levitical cities are attached to the end, since it is necessary for the tribes to receive their grants before they allocate parts of it to others. The Transjordanian tribes are dismissed, affirming their loyalty to Yahweh.

The book reaffirms Moses' allocation of land east of the Jordan to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and then describes how Joshua divided the newly conquered land of Canaan into parcels, and assigned them to the tribes by lot. Joshua 14:1 also makes reference to the role of Eleazar the priest (ahead of Joshua) in the distribution process. The description serves a theological function to show how the promise of the land was realized in the biblical narrative; its origins are unclear, but the descriptions may reflect geographical relations among the places named.

The wording of Joshua 18:1–4 suggests that the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh received their land allocation some time before the "remaining seven tribes", and a 21-member expedition set out to survey the remainder of the land with a view to organising the allocation to the tribes of Simeon, Benjamin, Asher, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar and Dan. Subsequently, 48 cities with their surrounding lands were allocated to the Tribe of Levi.

Omitted in the Masoretic Text, but present in the Septuagint, is a statement that: "Joshua completed the division of the land in its boundaries, and the children gave a portion to Joshua, by the commandment of the Lord. They gave to him the city for which he asked, Thamnath Sarach gave they him in Mount Ephraim, and Joshua built the city, and dwelt in it. And Joshua took the stone knives with which he had circumcised the children of Israel, which were in the way in the wilderness, and he placed them in Tamnath Sarach."

By the end of chapter 21, the narrative records that the fulfilment of God's promise of land, rest and supremacy over the enemies of the Israelites was complete. The tribes to whom Moses had granted land east of the Jordan are authorized to return home to Gilead (here used in the widest sense for the whole Transjordan district), having faithfully 'kept the charge' of supporting the tribes occupying Canaan. They are granted "riches… with very much livestock, with silver, with gold, with bronze, with iron, and with very much clothing" as a reward.

Joshua's farewell speeches (chapters 23–24)
Joshua, in his old age and conscious that he is "going the way of all the earth", gathers the leaders of the Israelites together and reminds them of Yahweh's great works for them, and of the need to love Yahweh. The Israelites are told – just as Joshua himself had been told – that they must comply with "all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses", neither "turn[ing] aside from it to the right hand or to the left" (i.e. by adding to the law, or diminishing from it).

Joshua meets again with all the people at Shechem in chapter 24 and addresses them a second time. He recounts the history of God's formation of the Israelite nation, beginning with "Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, [who] lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods." He invited the Israelites to choose between serving the Lord who had delivered them from Egypt, or the gods which their ancestors had served on the other side of the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land they now lived. The people chose to serve the Lord, a decision which Joshua recorded in the Book of the Law of God. He then erected a memorial stone "under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord" in Shechem. The oak is associated with the Oak of Moreh where Abram had set up camp during his travels in this area. Thus "Joshua made a covenant with the people", literally "cut a covenant", a phrase common to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. It derives from the custom of sacrifice, in which the victims were cut in pieces and offered to the deity invoked in ratification of the engagement.

The people then returned to their inheritance, i.e., their allocated lands.

Closing items
The Book of Joshua closes with three concluding items (referred to in the Jerusalem Bible as "Two Additions"):
 * The death of Joshua and his burial at Timnath-serah
 * The burial of the bones of Joseph at Shechem
 * The death of Eleazar and his burial in land belonging to Phinehas in the mountains of Ephraim.

There were no Levitical cities given to the descendants of Aaron in Ephraim, so theologians Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch supposed the land may have been at Geba in the territory of the Tribe of Benjamin: "the situation, 'upon the mountains of Ephraim', is not at variance with this view, as these mountains extended, according to Judges 4:5, etc., far into the territory of Benjamin".

In some manuscripts and editions of the Septuagint, there is an additional verse relating to the apostasy of the Israelites after Joshua's death.

Authorship and date
The Book of Joshua is an anonymous work. The Babylonian Talmud, written in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE, attributed it to Joshua himself, but this idea was rejected as untenable by John Calvin (1509–64), and by the time of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) it was recognised that the book must have been written much later than the period it depicted. There is now general agreement that it was composed as part of a larger work, the Deuteronomistic history, stretching from the Book of Deuteronomy to the Books of Kings, composed first at the court of king Josiah in the late 7th century BCE, and extensively revised in the 6th century BCE.

Historicity
The prevailing scholarly view is that Joshua is not a factual account of historical events. The apparent setting of Joshua in the 13th century BCE corroborates with the Bronze Age Collapse, which was indeed a time of widespread city-destruction. However, with a few exceptions (Hazor, Lachish), the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time. The archaeological evidence shows that Jericho and Ai were not occupied in the Near Eastern Late Bronze Age.

Ai was first excavated by Judith Marquet-Krause. According to Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, the story of the conquest represents the nationalist propaganda of the 8th century BCE kings of Judah and their claims to the territory of the Kingdom of Israel; incorporated into an early form of Joshua written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BCE). The Book of Joshua was probably revised and completed after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and possibly after the return from the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE.

In the 1930s Martin Noth made a sweeping criticism of the usefulness of the Book of Joshua for history. Noth was a student of Albrecht Alt, who emphasized form criticism (whose pioneer had been Hermann Gunkel in the 19th century) and the importance of etiology. Alt and Noth posited a peaceful movement of the Israelites into various areas of Canaan, in contradiction to the Biblical account. American archaeologist William F. Albright questioned the "tenacity" of etiologies, which were key to Noth's analysis of the campaigns in Joshua.

Archaeological evidence in the 1930s showed that the city of Ai, an early target for conquest in the putative Joshua account, had existed and been destroyed, but in the 22nd century BCE. Some alternate sites for Ai, such as Khirbet el-Maqatir or Khirbet Nisya, have been proposed which would partially resolve the discrepancy in dates, but these sites have not been widely accepted. In 1951, Kathleen Kenyon showed that Jericho was from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2100–1550 BCE), not the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 BCE). Kenyon argued that the early Israelite campaign could not be historically corroborated, but rather explained as an etiology of the location and a representation of the Israelite settlement.

In 1955, G. Ernest Wright discussed the correlation of archaeological data to the early Israelite campaigns, which he divided into three phases per the Book of Joshua. He pointed to two sets of archaeological findings that "seem to suggest that the biblical account is in general correct regarding the nature of the late thirteenth and twelfth-eleventh centuries in the country" (i.e., "a period of tremendous violence"). He gives particular weight to what were then recent digs at Hazor by Yigael Yadin.

Archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who replaced Yadin as the supervisor of excavations at Hazor in 1990, believed that recently unearthed evidence of violent destruction by burning verifies the Biblical account of the city's conquest by the Israelites. In 2012, a team led by Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman discovered a scorched palace from the 13th century BC in whose storerooms they found 3,400-year-old ewers holding burned crops. Sharon Zuckerman did not agree with Ben-Tor's theory, and claimed that the burning was the result of the city's numerous factions opposing each other with excessive force.

In her commentary for the Westminster Bible Companion series, Carolyn Pressler suggested that readers of Joshua should give priority to its theological message ("what passages teach about God") and be aware of what these would have meant to audiences in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. Richard Nelson explained that the needs of the centralised monarchy favoured a single story of origins, combining old traditions of an exodus from Egypt, belief in a national god as "divine warrior," and explanations for ruined cities, social stratification and ethnic groups, and contemporary tribes.

Manuscripts
Fragments of Joshua dating to the Hasmonean period were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QJosha and 4QJoshb, found in Qumran Cave 4). The Septuagint (Greek translation) is found in manuscripts such as Washington Manuscript I (5th century CE), and a reduced version of the Septuagint text is found in the illustrated Joshua Roll. The earliest complete copy of the book in Hebrew is in the Aleppo Codex (10th century CE).

Faith and wrath
The overarching theological theme of the Deuteronomistic history is faithfulness and God's mercy, and their opposites, faithlessness and God's wrath. In the Book of Judges, the Books of Samuel, and the Books of Kings, the Israelites become faithless and God ultimately shows his anger by sending his people into exile. But in Joshua Israel is obedient, Joshua is faithful, and God fulfills his promise and gives them the land as a result. Yahweh's war campaign in Canaan validates Israel's entitlement to the land and provides a paradigm of how Israel was to live there: twelve tribes, with a designated leader, united by covenant in warfare and in worship of Yahweh alone at a single sanctuary, all in obedience to the commands of Moses as found in the Book of Deuteronomy.

God and Israel
The Book of Joshua takes forward Deuteronomy's theme of Israel as a single people worshipping Yahweh in the land God has given them. Yahweh, as the main character in the book, takes the initiative in conquering the land, and Yahweh's power wins the battles. For example, the walls of Jericho fall because Yahweh fights for Israel, not because the Israelites show superior fighting ability. The potential disunity of Israel is a constant theme, the greatest threat of disunity coming from the tribes east of the Jordan. Chapter 22:19 even hints that the land across the Jordan is unclean and that the tribes who live there have secondary status.

Land
Land is the central topic of Joshua. The introduction to Deuteronomy recalled how Yahweh had given the land to the Israelites but then withdrew the gift when Israel showed fear and only Joshua and Caleb had trusted in God. The land is Yahweh's to give or to withhold, and the fact that he has promised it to Israel gives Israel an inalienable right to take it. For exilic and post-exilic readers, the land was both the sign of Yahweh's faithfulness and Israel's unfaithfulness, as well as the centre of their ethnic identity. In Deuteronomistic theology, "rest" meant Israel's unthreatened possession of the land, the achievement of which began with the conquests of Joshua.

The enemy
Joshua "carries out a systematic campaign against the civilians of Canaan – men, women and children – that amounts to genocide." This practice was known as herem, as described in Deuteronomy 20:17, which entailed no treaties with the enemy, no mercy, and no intermarriage. "The extermination of the nations glorifies Yahweh as a warrior and promotes Israel's claim to the land," while their continued survival "explores the themes of disobedience and penalty and looks forward to the story told in Judges and Kings." The divine call for massacre at Jericho and elsewhere can be explained in terms of cultural norms (Israel was not the only Iron Age state to practice herem) and theology (e.g. to ensure Israel's purity, fulfill God's promise, judge the Canaanites for their "sexual misconduct") but Patrick D. Miller in his commentary on Deuteronomy remarks, "there is no real way to make such reports palatable to the hearts and minds of contemporary readers and believers." Nissim Amzallag sees similarities between Joshua's conquest and the return of Judean exiles in Ezra-Nehemiah but compared to the former, the Judeans merely refrained from intermarrying the "Canaanites". These "Canaanites" were most likely non-exiled Judeans, who were contaminated with "foreign influence".

Obedience
Obedience versus disobedience is a constant theme of the work. Obedience ties in the Jordan crossing, the defeat of Jericho and Ai, circumcision and Passover, and the public display and reading of the Law. Disobedience appears in the story of Achan (stoned for violating the herem command), the Gibeonites, and the altar built by the Transjordan tribes. Joshua's two final addresses challenge the Israel of the future (the readers of the story) to obey the most important command of all, to worship Yahweh and no other gods. Joshua thus illustrates the central Deuteronomistic message, that obedience leads to success and disobedience to ruin.

Moses, Joshua and Josiah
The Deuteronomistic history draws parallels in proper leadership between Moses, Joshua and Josiah. God's commission to Joshua in chapter 1 is framed as a royal installation. The people's pledge of loyalty to Joshua as the successor of Moses recalls royal practices. The covenant-renewal ceremony led by Joshua was the prerogative of the kings of Judah. God's command to Joshua to meditate on the "book of the law" day and night parallels the description of Josiah in 2 Kings 23:25 as a king uniquely concerned with the study of the law. The two figures had identical territorial goals; Josiah died in 609 BCE while attempting to annex the former Israel to his own kingdom of Judah.

Some of the parallels with Moses can be seen in the following, and not exhaustive, list:
 * Joshua sent spies to scout out the land near Jericho, just as Moses sent spies from the wilderness to scout out the Promised Land
 * Joshua led the Israelites out of the wilderness into the Promised Land, crossing the Jordan River as if on dry ground, just as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt through the Red Sea, which they crossed as if on dry land
 * After crossing the Jordan River, the Israelites celebrated the Passover just as they did immediately before the Exodus
 * Joshua's vision of the "commander of Yahweh's army" is reminiscent of the divine revelation to Moses in the burning bush
 * Joshua successfully intercedes on behalf of the Israelites when Yahweh is angry for their failure to fully observe the "ban" (herem), just as Moses frequently persuaded God not to punish the people
 * Joshua and the Israelites were able to defeat the people at Ai because Joshua followed the divine instruction to extend his sword, just as the people were able to defeat the Amalekites as long as Moses extended his hand that held the staff of God
 * Joshua is "old, advanced in years" at the time when the Israelites can begin to settle on the promised land, just as Moses was old when he died having seen, but not entered, the Promised Land
 * Joshua served as the mediator of the renewed covenant between Yahweh and Israel at Shechem, just as Moses was the mediator of Yahweh's covenant with the people at Mount Sinai/Mount Horeb.
 * Before his death, Joshua delivered a farewell address to the Israelites, just as Moses had delivered his farewell address.
 * Moses lived to be 120 and Joshua lived to be 110.

Moral and political interpretations
The Book of Joshua deals with the conquest of the Land of Israel and its settlement, which are politically charged issues in Israeli society. In her article "The Rise and Fall of the Book of Joshua in Public Education in the Light of Ideological Changes in Israeli Society," Israeli biblical scholar Leah Mazor analyzes the history of the book and reveals a complex system of references to it expressed in a wide range of responses, often extreme, moving from narrow-minded admiration, through embarrassment and thunderous silence to a bitter and poignant critique. The changes in the status of the Book of Joshua, she shows, are the manifestations of the ongoing dialogue that Israeli society has with its cultural heritage, with its history, with the Zionist idea, and with the need to redefine its identity.

David Ben-Gurion saw in the war narrative of Joshua an ideal basis for a unifying national myth for the State of Israel, framed against a common enemy, the Arabs. He met with politicians and scholars such as Biblical scholar Shemaryahu Talmon to discuss Joshua's supposed conquests and later published a book of the meeting transcripts; in a lecture at Ben-Gurion's home, archaeologist Yigael Yadin argued for the historicity of the Israelite military campaign pointing to the conquests of Hazor, Bethel, and Lachish. Palestinian writer Nur Masalha claimed that Zionism had presented the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (which saw the creation of the State of Israel) as a "miraculous" clearing of the land based on Joshua, and the Bible as a mandate for the expulsion of the Palestinians.

The biblical narrative of conquest has been used as an apparatus of critique against Zionism. For example, Michael Prior criticizes the use of the campaign in Joshua to favor "colonial enterprises" (in general, not only Zionism), which have been interpreted as validating ethnic cleansing. He asserts that the Bible was used to make the mistreatment of Palestinians more morally palatable. A related moral condemnation can be seen in "The political sacralization of imperial genocide: contextualizing Timothy Dwight's The Conquest of Canaan" by Bill Templer. This kind of critique is not new; Jonathan Boyarin notes how Frederick W. Turner blamed Israel's monotheism for the very idea of genocide, which Boyarin found "simplistic" yet with precedents. In her tenure as Minister of Education, Israeli leftist politician Shulamit Aloni often complained about the centrality of the book of Joshua in the curricula, as opposed to the secondaryness of humane and universal principles found in the Books of the Prophets. Her attempt to change the Bible study program was unsuccessful.

title: Book of Joshua