Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Mr. Riordan has raised the question of the transmission of Mosaic texts of
the the 15th century BCE and scribal schools under a state to perpetuate
them over a period of seven centuries to the 8th century BCE.

That Canaan had governments in place generating offical state correspondence
in cuneiform to the Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty is well known, as attested
by the tablets found at Tell el Amarna, dated to the reigns of Amenhotep III
and IV (alias Akhenaton), 1411-1358.

The book of Joshua suggests a successful victory over many areas of Canaan
by the Israelites in the 15th century- the problem though, is how to account
for the historical situation portrayed in the Tell el Amarna tablets that
appear not to know of an Israelite State in existence from Hazor to
Beersheba. The tablets suggest the biblical conquest and settlement account
as portrayed in Joshua is a fiction.

I would welcome any "counter observations" on the historical implications of
these tablets in relation to the book of Joshua.


All the best,

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany