Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: Dating the Pentateuch, Jericho's Anomalies

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: John Ronning <ronning AT xsinet.co.za>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Dating the Pentateuch, Jericho's Anomalies
  • Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 21:08:45 +0200


Dear Walter,

I would echo the sentiment expressed by someone else that
your missives are out of place on the Biblical Hebrew list
(and a number of them have given evidence that you don't
actually know Hebrew - am I correct?). But if you are so
interested in this subject you could broaden your research a
lot.

Archaeologists' results are subject to interpretation and
re-interpretation, for which of course Jericho is a prime
example. Why should we accept Kenyon's results and not
Garstang's? Is it possible Kenyon's anti-zionism led her to
find what she wanted to find? True, Garstang is
acknowledged to have mis-dated an early bronze age wall to
the late bronze age, but that hardly settles the question.
Your statement that "excavations revealed Jericho was an
abandoned unwalled site by the time Joshua supposedly
attacked it in the 13th century BCE" is a nice illustration
of the "bait and switch" approach so common in biblical
archaeology of the last century. It goes like this: (1) the
Bible dates the conquest to circa 1400 BC in 1 Kings and
Judges, which would lead us (if the tradition is correct) to
expect Jericho to be abandoned during the period of the
Judges except for a brief occupation by Eglon; (2)
"scholars" posit that the conquest (if it happened) actually
took place in the 13th century; (3) archaeology finds that
Jericho was not occupied in the 13th century. (4)
conclusion: the Bible is wrong (go figure).

Kenyon said the city was destroyed around 1550 BC, largely
on the basis of a lack of a certain expensive imported
pottery that she did not find in a poor area of the city
(!!!), whereas if she had read Garstang's report she would
have found drawings of that very same pottery, and Bryant
Wood found examples of Late Bronze I pottery in Kenyon's own
finds, as well as Garstang's finds in various museums. The
finding of large quantities of stored grain fits the
biblical account in terms of (1) time of year (shortly after
harvest); (2) a short siege (the grain was not eaten up);
(3) the grain being off-limits as spoil to the conquerors
(it's there to this day), and of course there is evidence
everywhere of the destruction of the city by fire, as
recorded in Joshua. Perhaps the people that retained the
correct tradition of how Jericho fell also knew who did it
and when? If not, how did they find out how Jericho fell?
Did space aliens tell them?

The fallen walls are there to this day, too. The outer
Middle Bronze stone revetment wall still stands (so to
describe Late Bronze Jericho as an unwalled settlement is a
bit strange - are you proposing that the Middle Bronze wall
was torn down and then reassembled sometime later so that
all 20th century excavations have run accross it?).
Likewise the large pile of mud bricks that once made a wall
(which would have been the ones to fall before Joshua) on
top of the revetment wall are there in a heap outside the
revetment wall, where they form a nice ramp enabling the
Israelites to "go up" into the city. And on the north side
of the tell, this mud brick wall still stands to a height of
8 feet in some places (so again, since the mud brick wall
sits on top of the Middle Bronze stone revetment wall, are
you suggesting it was dismantled before the late bronze age
and then reassembled later?).

Kenyon, by the way, also found a brief small occupation
early from the period of the Judges which fits in nicely
with the account of Eglon's headquarters being in Jericho.



Regards,

John Ronning





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page