Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Peter,

At 11.39 25/01/99 -0500, Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
>
>I think Ian has misunderstood my posting. 

I'm sorry if I have misunderstood your post.

>I never mentioned LB walls, 
>but only MB walls which were still standing in the LB period (as Ian 
>had agreed as possible). 

The walls are more than a possibility.

>And when I speculated about stones being 
>taken away, I was not talking about foundations of LB walls (since I 
>agree that there never were LB walls) but about those parts of the MB 
>walls, fully or partially fallen down, which remained above ground 
>level. The recently excavated walls are then the foundations and lower 
>courses (already buried in Joshua's time) of the MB walls.

This in no way fits the evidence.

>Yes, I am perfectly serious. I have put forward a scenario which is 
>compatible with the biblical text of Joshua. Is it also compatible 
>with the archaeological record?

I don't think so.

>If so, there is no cause to argue that 
>the biblical narrative is disproved by the excavations at Jericho.

The city qua city was functionally abandoned, despite the biblical account
of king and soldiers there. The possibility of a small settlement in the
city is based on the evidence of disturbance of some of the tombs (which
Garstang seems to have interpreted wrongly) and a small amount of physical
cultural remains that Kenyon dates some time in the thirteenth century. The
archaeological community works on what is fundamentally an abandonment of
the city prior to the relevant period. As there was no functional city at
the time, you have revised your reading of the secondary text (Joshua) in
an attempt to fit the archaeological evidence, using the chance of a small
settlement on the site at the time of a hypothetical conquest to make
vaguely plausible your secondary source. This does not make for convincing
historical procedures, especially given the dating problems of the OT/HB
accounts.


Ian