Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dating the Pentateuch, Jericho's Anomalies

Claims have been made that Jericho is one of the oldest continuously
inhabited sites in the Ancient Near East. Excavations were made down to
bedrock by Dame Kathleen Kenyon, establishing that Jericho's first settlers
were of the 9th millenium BCE. Occupation of the tell (called tell
es-Sultan) ceased with the Babylonian captivity of 587 BCE (but settlements
were established nearby from the Persian period to the present day).

Three anomalies have cropped up as a result of the excavations at Jericho,
which contradict the Hebrew Bible's historical presentations:

The first anomaly is that the excavations contradict Genesis' portrayal of a
great flood which engulfed the world and covered the mountain heights to a
depth of 15 cubits (Ge.7:20). This flood, according to the Bible's internal
chronology, occured in the the 3rd millenium BCE, yet the excavations at
Jericho, going back to the 9th millenium, reveal no saltwater laid flood
debris at any time, much less the 3rd millenium.

The second anomaly is that exacavations revealed Jericho was an abandoned
unwalled site by the time Joshua supposedly attacked it in the 13th century
BCE (the Humanist posited Exodus and Conquest period).

The third anomaly is the claim made that Jericho was rebuilt in Israelite
times during the reign of King Ahab of Israel, in the early 9th century BCE
by Heil the Bethelite, who supposedly set up the city with a foundation
offering of his firstborn son, and the city's gates with another foundation
offering of his youngest son (1 Kings 16:34). Archaelogists did establish
that the city had been rebuilt in Israelite times, but not in the early 9th
century BCE. Rather, it had been established in the 8/7th century BCE and
remained occcupied till the Babylonian Captivity.

It is unlikely that the Heil the Bethelite narrative was composed in the
8/7th century BCE when the national memory would remember the correct
foundation date of the city. But 100/200 years later, when memories have
faded or forgotten, would permit such a tale to be presented without
objection. This would date the Heil the Bethelite narrative to the 6th or
5th century BCE.

The latest elements date a composition, so 1 Kings, as we have it,  is a
creation of the 6/5th century BCE.

Landes:

"It is striking that most of the remaining Old Testament references imputing
some kind of sedentary life at Jericho (cf. Judg 3:13, 2 Sam 10:5; 1 Ki
16:34; 2 Ki 2:5, 15, 1; Ezra 2:34, Neh 3:2, 7:36) are likewise without
archaeological support. After the 14th century, occupation at Jericho is not
substantially attested again until the 8th, but principally the 7th century
BC...It may well be that this occupation continued until the coming of
Nebuchadrezzar's army in the early 6th century BC (cf. 2 Kings 25:5; Jer.
39:5; 52:8)."
(Supplementary Vol., p.473, G.M. Landes, "Jericho," Interpreter's Dictionary
of the Bible, 1976)

Holland:

"With regard to a Late Bronze Age fortification system at Jericho, there is
no archaeological data to support the presence of a walled town...After
Jericho was abandoned during the early part of Late Bronze Age IIb [ca.
1350-1275 BCE), it was not thought to be reoccupied to any great extent
until the 7th century BC."

Holland noted that a later restudy of some of the pottery excavated by the
Germans at the turn of the century, as well as Garstang's and Kenyon's
expeditions, revealed some Iron I and II forms suggesting some kind of a
presence. But, to date, identifiable building structures and walls are still
unattested until the 7th century BCE:

"The extensive 7th century Iron Age occupation was found by all three major
expeditions to Jericho...The pottery from even later phases on the mound
strongly suggests that the site remained inhabited until the period of the
Babylonian exile in 587 BC."
(Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pp.736-7, T.A. Holland, "Jericho," 1992)

All the best,

Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany
.