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Joshua
Conquest Theory Revisited |
The Merneptah Stele (c. 1208 BC)
recorded the Egyptian pharaoh's military campaign in Canaan. Merneptah
claimed victory over various towns and the people of Israel close to the
beginning of the Iron Age. Bible fundamentalists were seeking to prove
Joshua's invasion of Canaan happened during the Bronze Age. By the time
of the Iron Age, c. 1200 BC, Israel occupied Canaan where Semitic people
had lived for hundreds of years.
At one time Biblical scholars thought Joshua's invasion of Canaan
happened during the Late Bronze Age. More recent discoveries indicate
some of the towns supposed to have been destroyed or taken by Joshua
were not occupied during the Late Bronze Age or even the Middle Bronze
Age.
Israel was supposed to have conquered Arad in the Negev west of the Dead
Sea (Joshua 12:14). Arad was not occupied during the Middle and Late
Bronze Ages (2200-1200 BC). Yohannan Aharoni's excavations (1962-1969)
revealed an Iron Age fortress construction during the 10th century BC.
There was an ancient clay pottery bowl recovered from the ruins with the
name Arad inscribed in it seven times.
Photo September 2003 Arad Citadel - Negev Desert
Israel/Joshua was
supposed to have taken Dibon (Numbers 21:30). An inscription found at
Dhibon, Jordan refers to the ruler of Dibon as having taken this area
from the king of Israel during the Iron Age. This inscription was found
in 1868 on what is called the Moabite Stone. There was no Middle Bronze
Age or Late Bronze Age habitation found at Dibon. Tel Hesban was the
theoretical site of Biblical Heshbon (Numbers 21:25). Tel Hesban was
also unoccupied during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
Gibeon was described in the Biblical Book of Joshua as a royal city
(Joshua 10:2). According to Professor James B. Pritchard, the walled
city and water shaft were more likely under construction during the
tenth century BC. Before this Gibeon may not have fit the title "royal
city." At Al Jib, Pritchard found a cellar full of pottery wine jars
inscribed 'GBN', meaning Gibeon in Hebrew. The Iron Age people learned
to use much harder iron tools not available during the Bronze Age to dig
wells and cisterns in limestone bedrock. Iron tools did not dull as
easily as bronze tools. They also quarried building stones using iron
chisels. Iron point plow tips and iron pruning hooks were used to bring
forth greater food production. Villages sprang up across the land.
The Book of Joshua reported the people blew trumpets and the walls of
Jericho fell. They reported Joshua's army killed all the people there.
The area is near a major earthquake fault. The walled city of Jericho
was destroyed during the Middle Bronze Age c. 1550 BC according to
Kathleen Kenyon and more recent reports by the University of Rome who
dug trenches at Tel Sultan in Jericho during the 1990's and 2000's.
There was no walled city at Jericho after the 1550 BC destruction. Some
people do not believe God ordered all the people of Jericho killed by
the Israeli army, especially since the cities Joshua was credited with
destroying were not all occupied in the same generation. Some
theologians describe a God desiring mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6)
conflicting with the account in the Book of Joshua.
Photo
March 2008 Jericho
Mud brick walls of the Middle Bronze Age II, with a stone wall of the Middle Bronze Age III (1650 BC -1550 BC) in the background. Joshua was not believed to have been in this area at the time the city walls fell c. 1559 BC.