Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Silver Eiger" <silver.eiger AT mail.ee>]

George Athas wrote:

> Does this mean that Joshua was written within a generation of

> Jericho's destruction (if we can at all talk of that)?

The above question raises another question. Why should we doubt about the
Scriptural record of Joshua and Jericho, and prefer the ideas of sceptical
archaeologists? Professor John Garstang, leader of an English expedition at
Tell es-Sultan between 1929 and 1936, found that what he considered to be
one of the cities built on the site had been subjected to intense fires and
its walls had fallen. This city he identified with the Jericho of Joshua's
time and assigned its destruction to about 1400 B.C.E. Others admittedly
interpret the evidence differently. Writes G. Ernest Wright: "The two walls
which surrounded the summit of the old city, which Garstang . . . believed
were destroyed by earthquake and fire in Joshua's time, were discovered to
date from the 3rd millennium and to represent only two of some fourteen
different walls or wall-components built successively during that age"
(Biblical Archaeology, 1963, pp. 79, 80). Many feel that little, if
anything, remains of the Jericho that existed in Joshua's time, earlier
excavations at the site having removed what might have survived from the
time of its destruction. As Professor Jack Finegan notes: "There is now,
therefore, virtually no evidence at the site by which to try to determine at
what date Joshua might have taken Jericho" (Light From the Ancient Past,
1959, p. 159).

In view of such uncertainty, Professor Merrill F. Unger fittingly observes:
"Scholars also must be extremely wary of attaching undue authority to
archeologists' estimates of dates and interpretation of data. That the
fixing of dates and the conclusions drawn from archeological findings often
depend on subjective factors is amply demonstrated by the wide divergences
between competent authorities on these matters" (Archaeology and the Old
Testament, 1964, p. 164).

It is of interest to note that in 1981 Professor John J. Bimson looked again
at the destruction of Jericho. He studied closely the fiery destruction of
Jericho that took place--according to Kathleen Kenyon--in the middle of the
16th century B.C.E. According to him, not only did that destruction fit the
Bible's account of Joshua's destruction of the city but the archaeological
picture of Canaan as a whole fit perfectly with the Bible's description of
Canaan when the Israelites invaded. Hence, he suggests that the
archaeological dating is wrong and proposes that this destruction really
took place in the middle of the 15th century B.C.E., during Joshua's
lifetime. (Redating the Exodus and Conquest, by John J. Bimson, 1981, pp.
22-27, 110-115, 132-137; Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October
1987, pp. 45, 46.)

Therefore, the fact that archaeological interpretations do not always agree
with Biblical chronology is no reason to reject the latter. The difference
in the viewpoint of archaeologists about Jericho and other places or events
illustrates the need for caution in accepting archaeological testimony,
especially if it seems to contradict the Bible record and its chronology. In
time other evidence may emerge, that will confirm the Bible, as so often has
happened.

Silver Eiger

Estonia, Tallinn