Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Ian wrote:

"Jericho was destroyed in the first half of the sixteenth century BCE, 
totally abandoned for over a century, then there was a small 
settlement on the site from 1400-1325 then nothing until the eleventh 
century."

Maybe my memory is faulty, but I thought I remember a claim that 
Jericho was uninhabited from the 16th to the 11th century. Have we 
seen a shift of position?

Suppose for the moment that we accept the above. Why was the 
settlement abandoned in 1325? (How accurate is that date anyway?) 
Could that have been because of the Israelite conquest? Also, how 
small was the settlement? Were the inhabitants living within the 
remaining (but perhaps rickety!) walls of the previous settlement, or 
did they build their own walls? The real conservatives might not like 
the following theory any more than I expect Ian will, but how about it 
anyway: perhaps what the Israelites really conquered was an abandoned 
city in whose ruins a few semi-nomads were living, whose walls were so 
shaky that a trumpet blast was enough to bring them down!

Peter Kirk