Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT xsinet.co.za>]

Walter wrote:

> Jericho's Middle Bronze Age walls were destroyed ca. 1540 BCE by the
> Egyptians. 

The certainty of your statement suggests that you should be
able to answer the following questions: Which Pharaoh
conquered Jericho?  Which 18th dynasty Pharaoh campaigned
anywhere near Jericho?  Why didn't he leave a record of the
conquest?  Why did the Egyptians deliberately burn the vast
quantities of grain stored at Jericho instead of taking it
as spoil?  Why did they depart from their usual practice and
attack Jericho after the harvest instead of before, so they
could harvest the grain themselves and deprive the
inhabitants of their food supply?  What accounts for such a
remarkably short seige, and the great efforts they went to
to burn every house in the city, dragging in wood from the
forests to burn all the houses - all of which effort surely
would have been commemorated in the monuments!

How do you explain that all of these archaeologically
correct details of the conquest of Jericho are preserved not
in the Egyptian monuments (or anywhere else) but in Joshua
6?

If Jericho fell ca. 1540 BC, how do you explain all of the
Late Bronze I pottery found in the ruins of City IV by
Garstang and Kenyon, as recently confirmed by Bryant Wood, a
specialist in Late Bronze age pottery; in particular,
pottery specimens found elsewhere only in the 15th century
BC?


You also wrote:
> I made an error in my last posting on Jericho's walls, stating that a 7th
> century BCE "wall" existed, it doesn't (my apologies), there was only "an
> occupation" of the Tell in that period. The *last wall* was of the Middle
> Bronze Age (destroyed ca. 1540 BCE):
> 
> "F. Iron Age. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF A WALLED IRON AGE CITY OF JERICHO. A
> number of buildings datable to the eighth-seventh centuries B.C. were
> excavated by the Austro-German expedition and seventh century B.C.
> structures were found in the latest excavations. Pottery and structures were
> found on the lower slopes of the mound indicating that the settlement was
> extensive and unfortified. This occupation probably continued until the
> Babylonian captivity in 587 B.C."
> (p. 307, "Jericho, Old Testament," Charles F. Pfeiffer, Editor, The Biblical
> World, A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, Nashville, Broadman Press,
> 1966, ISBN 0-8054-1130-5)
> 


I can also cite sources:

re. Jericho in the time of Ahab, "Kenyon discovered some
buildings which might belong to this period, but no sign of
Hiel's gates has been discovered.  If there was a wall, it
was probably of mud brick, or perhaps of wood, long since
disintegrated."
(John Bartlett, Jericho [Cities of the Biblical World],
1982, p. 109)

Bartlett goes on to explain the strategic importance of
Jericho in the reign of Ahab due to Israel's subjugation of
Moab as the reason for its fortification (Bartlett is no
biblical apologist).  Hiel's gate may still be buried under
the Tell, which is only fractionally excavated.

> John Ronning stated that evidence of an occupation by Eglon in the period of
> the Judges had been confirmed by the archaeological data, his statement is
> in contradiction to the understanding of the data by Kelso:
> 
> Kelso, contra Ronning:
> 
> "Furthermore, not only is the city which Joshua conquered largely missing,
> but the next two cities that succeeded it, according to scripture, do not
> appear anywhere on the mound ! The CITY OF PALM TREES WHICH EGLON CAPTURED
> and where he received tribute from Israel (Judg. 3:13) must have been
> Jericho, BUT NO SIGNS OF THIS CITY HAVE YET BEEN FOUND IN THE EXCAVATIONS.

Kelso is probably assuming the period of the Judges didn't
start until the 12th century, in which case he would be
correct re. Judges.  But according to Garstang and Kenyon
there was a small occupation of Jericho in the late 14th
century (the so-called middle building possibly being
Eglon's headquarters where he received tribute from Ehud, as
suggested by Garstang), which fits well with the 1400 BC
date for Joshua's conquest.


> David's ambasadors, who had been insulted by the king of the Ammonites,
> stopped at Jericho until their beards were grown (2 Samuel 10:5); but again
> the mound furnishes no remains of this town."
> (Vol.2, p.837, J.L. Kelso, "Jericho," George Arthur Buttrick, et al., The
> Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, An Illustrated Encyclopedia.
> Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1962, ISBN 0-687-19271-4)
> 

To the contrary:
"M. and H. Weippert ... argue that the Iron Age pottery
discovered on the Quellhu"gel ranges from the 11th to the
early 6th century BC, and that the quality of this pottery
makes it likely that we are to think of a continuous
settlement here throughout this period."
(Bartlett, p. 99)

Regards,

John Ronning