Jericho already in ruins when Joshua came?

[sedkosmo]

The name of the instructor is Professor Amy-Jill Levine, who heads up Biblical Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University. This is a DVD presentation, so there is no way to challenge the teacher - only to boycott the course. I attended the first two hour session, in which I heard Dr. Levine also state that she shares the view of many Scripture scholars that King David was mythical.

The New Jerusalem Bible, published by Doubleday in 1983, states: “Archaelogy offers no conclusive evidence for the destruction of Jericho at the end of the thirteenth century BC, but this is in no way conclusive, since the strata of this period have perhaps been lost owing to erosion of the site.”

I find Jeff Cavins Great Adventure - Journey Through the Bible and Scott Hahn’s Letter and Spirit much more worthwhile.

 

[choy]

I think there is some truth in all of the Bible, but it is NOT a history book.

not because a Bible is not a history book, doesn’t mean the events depicted or the locations depicted are not true

 

[patrick457]

Here’s one thing I can only provide: this link. I’d like to see how the posters think of the article. Do they have any good rebuttals or additions?

 

[JP_Marat]

The name of the instructor is Professor Amy-Jill Levine, who heads up Biblical Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University. This is a DVD presentation, so there is no way to challenge the teacher - only to boycott the course. I attended the first two hour session, in which I heard Dr. Levine also state that she shares the view of many Scripture scholars that King David was mythical.

The New Jerusalem Bible, published by Doubleday in 1983, states: “Archaelogy offers no conclusive evidence for the destruction of Jericho at the end of the thirteenth century BC, but this is in no way conclusive, since the strata of this period have perhaps been lost owing to erosion of the site.”

I find Jeff Cavins Great Adventure - Journey Through the Bible and Scott Hahn’s Letter and Spirit much more worthwhile.

RESPONSE:

I agree that the case can’t be absolutely proven. But the clear preponderance of the evidence suggests legend rather than historical fact. A summary from the Wikipedia:

“(British archeologist Kathleen) Kenyon’s work was accepted for the remainder of the 20th century, until in 1990 Bryant Wood published a paper in which he challenged her methods and conclusions. The essence of Wood’s case was that locally-produced pottery from the site coincided with other local pottery common to around 1400BC, and that carbon-14 testing (a technology not available to Kenyon) of a sample of charcoal from the site indicated a date of 1410 BC. Wood’s case against Kenyon’s dating caused a stir in archaeological circles, but failed to gain a large following among scholars.[1] The argument was further settled and Kenyon’s findings confirmed in 1995 by radiocarbon tests using more advanced techniques: these dated the destruction to 1562 BCE (plus/minus 38 years) with a certainty of 95%.[2]”

“The simple fact is that there is no mention of the Hebrews or Israelites in any text from Canaan, Egypt, or elsewhere in the Near East before 1207 B.C. And yet there should be if the Exodus took place in 1450 B.C. and the Israelite conquest of Canaan took place in 1410 of 1400 B.C., because there are plenty of Canaanite and Egyptian texts what could have mentioned them if they were present.[4]” (Biblical scholar Eric Cline) .

 

[patrick457]

Since we’re talking about Bryant Wood, excuse me as I would quote the article I formerly linked to:

Bryant G. Wood published his analysis in 1990 [WoodB.Jer]. We are unable to do full justice to his arguments here; suffice to say that, based on several factors (ceramic data, scarab evidence, radiocarbon dating, and stratigraphical considerations) he has asserted that the MBA city is indeed the one that fell to Joshua (though he credits an earthquake, and not God, with the destruction).

Much is sometimes made over the fact that Wood’s radiocarbon dates had to be retracted, due to an error by the British Museum (which also had to retract other findings for the same reason). But the dating was done on wood items, and radiocarbon dating gives the date the wood grew, not the date it was burned, and it is hardly unlikely that a wooden item was in use for an extended period. See more on this issue here.

Wood’s main argument had to do with Kenyon’s dating [175] being based on an argument from silence – a type of pottery that was NOT found. Arguments based on such silence are far from compelling, especially since only a minimal amount of any given site is excavated, Jericho included.

Moreover, it was unreasonable of Kenyon to expect to find this particular type of pottery in a poorer part of the city, where she excavated, especially since she admitted that Jericho was off the trade route for richer goods. To seal the matter, Wood checked back on Garstang’s report and found an example of pottery that was clearly a locally-manufactured imitation of the pottery Kenyon was looking for and didn’t find – thus indicating awareness of it. Wood supplemented his findings with a study of local pottery.

To ignore Wood’s case, as BHI notes, would be “obscurantist” [176] and to offer Jericho as an example of how the Bible has been disproven is “irresponsible.” It remained to be fully evaluated as of the writing of BHI.

A second author to connect Middle Bronze Age Jericho to the Joshuan conquest has taken a much different path than Wood - one that did not even begin at Jericho. David M. Rohl, an Egyptologist, was attempting to resolve various inconsistencies in the standard Egyptian chronology, and only incidentally as a result (since the histories of Egypt and Israel are so closely related) managed to resolve quite a few Biblical problems - among them the one of Jericho.

Quite simply, Rohl has provided strong evidence that the Egyptian chronology should be pushed forward some 300-400 years. This serves also to push the Middle Bronze Age forward, right into the path of Joshua. [Rohl.PAK, 303-4]

Regardless of their work, however, the Middle Bronze Jericho appealed to by Wood and Rohl provides striking correlation with the Joshuan conquest account. The mud-brick wall that had been the city’s primary defense, which in its original state was made the city rather like “a great medieval castle” [Bims.RExC, 128], had in some places quite literally collapsed outward [see Bart.Jer, 85], providing a primitive ramp up into the city. Inside, the city’s houses and civic buildings had been blackened by “a severe conflagration” [Rohl.PAK, 304], “destroyed violently by fire” [Bienk.JerLBA, 127] consistent with events described by Joshua 6:24 -

Josh. 6:24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it…

Also found were “large storage jars filled to the brim with carbonized grain” [ibid., 304; see also Bart.Jer, 88] - consistent not only with the burning, but with this assertion:

Josh. 3:15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest…

The Israelites crossed the Jordan at harvest time - and it seems they arrived at Jericho just as the harvest had been taken in.

The city in question is also characterized by a “large number of multiple-burial tombs” [Bienk.JerLBA, 126; Bart.Jer, 89], averaging 20 burials each (the most held by any one tomb was 40) with a total of approximately 1150 burials. These deaths are linked with plague for the most part, which fits the OT data of a plague in Numbers 22-24 nicely. [Bims.RExC, 131] Bartlett [ibid., 93] sums up the data thus:

The end of MB Jericho was violent, as is shown by the burnt ruins of the final level of MB buildings on the southeast side of the tell. The ruined walls are covered by a layer of burnt debris one meter thick washed down from higher up the slope. This layer shows clearly that the higher buildings were burned, and that a considerable period of erosion followed the destruction of the site.
Finally, in accordance with Joshua 6:19, where it is recorded that the Israelites took the vessels of silver, gold, brass and iron from the city, there was very little gold found at the site, although this has been interpreted along with other evidence to mean that the city had a low standard of living. [Bienk.Jer., 127]​

 

[patrick457]

Just to refresh everyone’s minds a bit:

And Yericho was shutting and shut up because of the face of the sons of Israel; none going out, and none coming in. And YHWH says to Yehoshua, “See! I have given into your hand Yericho and its king - mighty men of valor: and go around the city - all men of war - encircling the city once; thus you shall do for six days. And seven priests shall bear seven shofarot - ram’s horns - before the Ark; and on the seventh day you shall encircle the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the shofarot. And it will happen, at the prolongation of the horn, the ram’s horn, [in your hearing the voice of the shofar,] all the people will shout a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall in its place, and the people will go up, each over-against him.”
And Yehoshua ben-Nun calls the priests and says to them, “Bear the Ark of the Covenant, and let seven priests bear seven shofarot - ram’s horns - before the Ark of YHWH.” And it happens, when Yehoshua speaks to the people, that the seven priests bearing seven shofarot - ram’s horns - before YHWH have passed over and blown the shofarot, and the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH is going after them; and he who is armed is going before the priests blowing the shofarot, and he who is gathering is going after the Ark, going on and blowing the shofarot. And Yehoshua had commanded the people, saying, "You shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, nor let go out from your mouth a word until the day of my saying to you: ‘Shout!’ Then you shall shout." And he made the Ark of YHWH go around the city, encircling one time, and they enter the camp, and spend the night in the camp.

And Yehoshua wakes early in the morning and the priests bear the ark of YHWH. And seven priests bearing seven shofarot - ram’s horns - before the ark of YHWH are walking, going on, and blew the shofarot - and he who is armed is going before them, and he who is gathering up is going behind the ark of YHWH - going on and blowing the shofarot. And they encircle the city on the second day once, and turn back to the camp; thus they have done six days.

And it happens that, on the seventh day they rise early, at the going up of the dawn, and encircle the city, according to this manner, seven times; (only on that day they encircled the city seven times); and it happens, at the seventh time, the priests have blown the shofarot, and Yehoshua says to the people, “Shout, for YHWH has given to you the city; and the city has been set apart, it and all in it, for YHWH! Only Rachab the harlot shall live, she and all with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent; only you keep from what is set apart so that you might not, as you are setting it apart, take some of what is set apart and make the camp of Israel set apart and bring trouble on it; and all the silver and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, sacred it is to YHWH; into the treasury of YHWH they go.”

And the people shout, and blow the shofarot, and it happens when the people hear the voice of the shofar that the people shout a great shout, and the wall falls in its place, and the people goes up into the city, each over-against him, and they capture the city; and they dedicate all that is in the city, from man even to woman, from young even to old, even to ox, and sheep, and donkey, by the mouth of the sword.

And to the two men who are spying the land Yehoshua said, “Go into the house of the woman, the harlot, and bring out the woman and all that she had, as you have sworn to her.” And the young men - the spies - go in and bring out Rachab, and her father, and her mother, and her brothers, and all that she had; all her families they have brought out and place them at the outside of the camp of Israel. And the city they have burnt [with fire], and all that is in it; only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they have put into the treasury of the house of YHWH; and Rachab the harlot, and the house of her father, and that she had, has Yehoshua kept alive; and she dwells in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Yehoshua sent to spy out Yericho.

And Yehoshua made this oath, saying, “Cursed is the man before the face of YHWH who rises up and builds this city, [Yericho]; with his first-born he will lay its foundation, and with his youngest he will set up its gates!” And YHWH is with Yehoshua; and his fame is in all the land.

-Joshua 6*

 

[JP_Marat]

Since we’re talking about Bryant Wood, excuse me as I would quote the article I formerly linked to:

Bryant G. Wood published his analysis in 1990 [WoodB.Jer]. We are unable to do full justice to his arguments here; suffice to say that, based on several factors (ceramic data, scarab evidence, radiocarbon dating, and stratigraphical considerations) he has asserted that the MBA city is indeed the one that fell to Joshua (though he credits an earthquake, and not God, with the destruction).

Much is sometimes made over the fact that Wood’s radiocarbon dates had to be retracted, due to an error by the British Museum (which also had to retract other findings for the same reason). But the dating was done on wood items, and radiocarbon dating gives the date the wood grew, not the date it was burned, and it is hardly unlikely that a wooden item was in use for an extended period. See more on this issue here.

Wood’s main argument had to do with Kenyon’s dating [175] being based on an argument from silence – a type of pottery that was NOT found. Arguments based on such silence are far from compelling, especially since only a minimal amount of any given site is excavated, Jericho included.

Moreover, it was unreasonable of Kenyon to expect to find this particular type of pottery in a poorer part of the city, where she excavated, especially since she admitted that Jericho was off the trade route for richer goods. To seal the matter, Wood checked back on Garstang’s report and found an example of pottery that was clearly a locally-manufactured imitation of the pottery Kenyon was looking for and didn’t find – thus indicating awareness of it. Wood supplemented his findings with a study of local pottery.

To ignore Wood’s case, as BHI notes, would be “obscurantist” [176] and to offer Jericho as an example of how the Bible has been disproven is “irresponsible.” It remained to be fully evaluated as of the writing of BHI.

A second author to connect Middle Bronze Age Jericho to the Joshuan conquest has taken a much different path than Wood - one that did not even begin at Jericho. David M. Rohl, an Egyptologist, was attempting to resolve various inconsistencies in the standard Egyptian chronology, and only incidentally as a result (since the histories of Egypt and Israel are so closely related) managed to resolve quite a few Biblical problems - among them the one of Jericho.

Quite simply, Rohl has provided strong evidence that the Egyptian chronology should be pushed forward some 300-400 years. This serves also to push the Middle Bronze Age forward, right into the path of Joshua. [Rohl.PAK, 303-4]

Regardless of their work, however, the Middle Bronze Jericho appealed to by Wood and Rohl provides striking correlation with the Joshuan conquest account. The mud-brick wall that had been the city’s primary defense, which in its original state was made the city rather like “a great medieval castle” [Bims.RExC, 128], had in some places quite literally collapsed outward [see Bart.Jer, 85], providing a primitive ramp up into the city. Inside, the city’s houses and civic buildings had been blackened by “a severe conflagration” [Rohl.PAK, 304], “destroyed violently by fire” [Bienk.JerLBA, 127] consistent with events described by Joshua 6:24 -

Josh. 6:24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it…

Also found were “large storage jars filled to the brim with carbonized grain” [ibid., 304; see also Bart.Jer, 88] - consistent not only with the burning, but with this assertion:

Josh. 3:15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest…

The Israelites crossed the Jordan at harvest time - and it seems they arrived at Jericho just as the harvest had been taken in.

The city in question is also characterized by a “large number of multiple-burial tombs” [Bienk.JerLBA, 126; Bart.Jer, 89], averaging 20 burials each (the most held by any one tomb was 40) with a total of approximately 1150 burials. These deaths are linked with plague for the most part, which fits the OT data of a plague in Numbers 22-24 nicely. [Bims.RExC, 131] Bartlett [ibid., 93] sums up the data thus:

The end of MB Jericho was violent, as is shown by the burnt ruins of the final level of MB buildings on the southeast side of the tell. The ruined walls are covered by a layer of burnt debris one meter thick washed down from higher up the slope. This layer shows clearly that the higher buildings were burned, and that a considerable period of erosion followed the destruction of the site.
Finally, in accordance with Joshua 6:19, where it is recorded that the Israelites took the vessels of silver, gold, brass and iron from the city, there was very little gold found at the site, although this has been interpreted along with other evidence to mean that the city had a low standard of living. [Bienk.Jer., 127]​

RESPONSE:

This same information can be found in a number of bible histories. This is taken from Wikipedia:

"Kenyon’s work was accepted for the remainder of the 20th century, until in 1990** Bryant Wood published a paper in which he challenged her methods and conclusions. The essence of Wood’s case was that locally-produced pottery from the site coincided with other local pottery common to around 1400BC, and that carbon-14 testing (a technology not available to Kenyon) of a sample of charcoal from the site indicated a date of 1410 BC. Wood’s case against Kenyon’s dating caused a stir in archaeological circles, but failed to gain a large following among scholars.[1] The argument was further settled and Kenyon’s findings confirmed in 1995 by radiocarbon tests using more advanced techniques: these dated the destruction to 1562 BCE (plus/minus 38 years) with a certainty of 95%.[2]**
The battle’s historicity is therefore dismissed by modern scholars - archaeologist

But I like the explanation that the traditional biblical chronology is off by 1,000 years! But it’s easier to admit that the Battle of Jericho yarn is fictional.

 

[zz912]

Here’s one thing I can only provide: this link. I’d like to see how the posters think of the article. Do they have any good rebuttals or additions?

It is interesting that other historical documents are given the presumption of accuracy, while the Bible is given the presumption of inaccuracy. Ten or twenty years from now there will be another discovery that changes the whole archeological viewpoint, and it will correspond with the Bible. Seems this happens pretty regularly.

 

[patrick457]

RESPONSE:

This same information can be found in a number of bible histories. This is taken from Wikipedia:

"Kenyon’s work was accepted for the remainder of the 20th century, until in 1990** Bryant Wood published a paper in which he challenged her methods and conclusions. The essence of Wood’s case was that locally-produced pottery from the site coincided with other local pottery common to around 1400BC, and that carbon-14 testing (a technology not available to Kenyon) of a sample of charcoal from the site indicated a date of 1410 BC. Wood’s case against Kenyon’s dating caused a stir in archaeological circles, but failed to gain a large following among scholars.[1] The argument was further settled and Kenyon’s findings confirmed in 1995 by radiocarbon tests using more advanced techniques: these dated the destruction to 1562 BCE (plus/minus 38 years) with a certainty of 95%.[2]**
The battle’s historicity is therefore dismissed by modern scholars - archaeologist

I take it we’re only talking about one of the many segments of the scholarly community here, are we not? It would be a woeful generalization if we use blanket terms…

But just to supplement that article, there are there is also some disagreement on the datings in this regard: Piotr Bienkowski, considered and supported Kathleen Kenyon’s dating - against Bryant Wood’s proposal, giving the hypothesis that Joshua most likely existed in or near what we would consider the Levantine Middle Bronze Age. In fact, Bienkowski and Wood published papers trying to respond to each other’s claims. So I think it too early to make a definite decision since the debate is still alive and well (as an aside, I just noticed that Wood had made a very brief article giving his response to the Carbon-14 dates). The best thing is to be observant for further findings and thinking.

But I like the explanation that the traditional biblical chronology is off by 1,000 years! But it’s easier to admit that the Battle of Jericho yarn is fictional.

There’s been a recent trend to question the conventional Egyptian chronology. If the argument that the coventional chronology proves to be off by some years proves to be true, there would be large repercussions on many of the datings in ancient history. Since the scholarly community is rather cautious/slow on many ‘new’ hypotheses and theories that go against the accepted ‘facts’ since they would require a major rethinking and revision of prior theories and ‘facts’, I guess many of the questions would not be answered definitively for some time.*

But hey, not everything that is “easy” proves to be necessarily true. Sometimes, you just have to take the hard road.

*Some argue that this is exactly why Wood’s proposal failed to gain a large scholarly following (in many ways it goes against the now-established hypothesis of Dame Kenyon), along with the fact that Wood’s more detailed analysis experienced a publishing delay.

 

[patrick457]

It is interesting that other historical documents are given the presumption of accuracy, while the Bible is given the presumption of inaccuracy. Ten or twenty years from now there will be another discovery that changes the whole archeological viewpoint, and it will correspond with the Bible. Seems this happens pretty regularly.

Personally, I think this stems from the fact that in the early days of archeology, many people digged trying to search Biblical places or to prove the Bible right. There were, of course, many false starts and disputes along the way (as is common), which probably prompted most modern archeologists to drop any “Biblical baggage” and attempt to dig without any bias as possible. Still, in my opinion, this attempt at avoidance of any hint of bias towards the Scriptures may have pushed many archeologists and scholars in the opposite direction: digging with a bias against the Biblical accounts. Now I’m not saying that all scholars and archeologists who question Biblical historicity are doing so with purposeful malice in their minds, but I would say that many of them probably have this bias unconsciously.

 

[puzzleannie]

good grief it was 40 years ago

but descriptions of archeological work in the Jericho region abound, it was almost one of the first sites to be systematically excavated and studied according to modern scientific methods, and one of the sites most widely written about, so just google

 

[nordskoven]

King David is nonexistent in the archaeological record so bash the Bible…Whoops! The Tel Dan stele, engraved on black basalt, one of the toughest stones there is, mentions the “house of David” in the gloatings of a Syrian king headquartered in Damascus, the oldest continually occupied city in the world. Vanderbilt University must not have gotten the memo. Damascus is prophesied in the Bible to be reduced to rubble and uninhabited.

bible-history.com/archaeology/israel/house-of-david-inscription.html

Jericho is the second oldest settlement in the world, though not always continuously occupied as a city. The science behind Joshua’s divinely-inspired liquefaction of the Jericho substrate was repeated by none other than Nikola Tesla. Tesla set up a small, powerful vibrator and let it run against a steel support beam of his New York headquarters. It triggered an earthquake and was shaking the building apart. The police arrived as Tesla was smashing the vibrator. Replace foot-stamping, shofar-blowing, wildly-shouting Hebrews for the vibrator. Good science is good religion.

Tesla said he could level the Empire State Building with the right resonant frequency. After the landlords yellow and red light show celebrated the 60th anniversary of Communism’s genocidal takeover of China 70 million corpses later, one almost would have wished Tesla had spared the world this affront.