The Misreadbible: Joshua

The MisreadBible #5

by J.R. Eldridge

Picking up where Moses popped off, The MisreadBible: Joshua continues the blasphemously brilliant retelling of the Bible with a fresh take on the blood-soaked conquest of Canaan.

With the Israelites finally poised to enter the Promised Land, the unenviable task of leading them now falls to Joshua. Alongside his overzealous sidekick Caleb, a host of battle-unready Israelites, and an increasingly erratic deity, Joshua must conquer cities, divvy up land, and somehow manage to sleep at night.

From the walls of Jericho to the allocation of goat-infested hill country, this irreverent parody dives headfirst into the morally murky waters of holy war, all while skewering the contradictions, loopholes, and divine double standards of the original text.

Packed with biting satire, absurdist humour, and more theological whiplash than being launched from God’s flaming hail catapult, this ungodly retelling of the Book of Joshua delivers divine carnage—and heretical hilarity.

172 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

J. R. Eldridge is the creator of The MisreadBible series, a collection of satirical retellings that playfully dissect the Bible’s most bizarre and bewildering stories. Drawing on his love of history, mythology, and comedy, Eldridge reimagines the texts with irreverent wit. He lives in Northumberland, England, where he spends his time on creative projects, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and walking his adorable whippet Xena.

Reviews

[Aaron Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

J. R. Eldridge continues his abuse of God in this latest instalment of his series, The MisreadBible: Joshua. Old man Moses is no more, gone to pieces one might say, and it’s now up to soon-to-be-long-suffering Joshua to endure the slings and arrows of the Bible’s non compos mentis sky faerie. How Eldridge turned the blood-sport of this particular section of the Bible into a comedy is, well, nothing to laugh at, even if it makes you laugh (don’t think too hard about this). But it likely has something to do with the fact the Bible consistently makes an ass of itself via plot holes, contradictions, and inconsistencies. Things like having his favourite humans invading a city and putting all the humans (pregnant women, children, babies—you name it, He kills it) to the sword, only to have God’s chosen visit that same city a few chapters later to find all the humans are still there and somehow missed their own genocide.

If you’re the religious sort, you might not enjoy having the contradictions and horror of Joshua laid bare like a pregnant Amalekite about to face the sword, but at least Eldridge makes you chuckle while it’s happening. And for those of us who feel the Holy Book is little more than psychopathy fan fiction, it’s refreshing to have this horror show filtered through a Pythonesque lens, even if through that lens darkly.

But enough of my stabs at humour. Get a copy of this book, and troll God by saying you’re laughing with him, not at.