Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah – Part 60

Part 1

The Capture of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites

The sixth chapter of the Book of Joshua recounts one of the best-known events in the Old Testament: the destruction of the Canaanite city of Jericho. Who has not heard of the walls that came tumbling down when the Israelite priests blew their ram’s horns (yobelim) and the people let out a great shout?

Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the rams horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him ...

So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword ... And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord ... And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. So the Lord was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country. (Joshua 6)

Jericho was one of only three Canaanite cities that the Israelites burnt to the ground—Ai and Hazor were the other two. But what evidence is there that the miraculous event depicted in Joshua 6 ever happened?

Tell es-Sultan (Tel Jericho)

Chronology

In an earlier article in this series, we saw that chronology has a crucial role to play in answering this question. For example, the British scholar Kenneth A Kitchen, who accepts the historicity of Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan, dates the Conquest to the Late Bronze II Age, which was contemporaneous with the 19th Dynasty in Egypt:

Jericho: Of its location, at Tell es-Sultan, near the modern village (Er-Riha) that still bears its name, there is no doubt. And the town, though not at all large (about one acre), had a very long history, from before Neolithic times down to the late second millennium. It was obviously very prosperous in the Middle Bronze Age (early second millennium), as the spectacular finds from that period’s tombs bear witness. But only traces of this survive on the town mound itself—part of the city wall and its defensive basal slope (“glacis”), and some of its small, close-set houses fronting on narrow, cobbled lanes. But this all perished violently, including by fire, at roughly 1550 or soon after. And for about 200 years the ruins lay barren, before resettlement began in the fourteenth century. During that interval a great deal of the former Middle Bronze township was entirely removed by erosion (our fourth limiting factor); but for the tombs, its former substance would hardly have been suspected. But of the Late Bronze settlement from the mid-fourteenth century onward, almost nothing survives at all. Kenyon found the odd hearth or so (later fourteenth century), and the so-called middle building may have been built and used (as also tombs 5, 4,13) in the Late Bronze IB/IIA periods, at about 1425/1400 to 1275, in the light of Bienkowski’s careful analyses. Very little else of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries has been recovered—and probably never can be. If 200 years of erosion sufficed to remove most of later Middle Bronze Jericho, it is almost a miracle that anything on the mound has survived at all from the 400 years of erosion between 1275 and the time of Ahab (875-853), when we hear report of Jericho’s rebuilding (1 Kings 16:34) in Iron II—double the length of time that largely cleared away the Middle Bronze town. It is for this reason, and not mere harmonization, that this factor must be given its due weight. The slope of Jericho is such that most erosion would be eastward, and under the modern road, toward where now are found the spring, pools, and longstanding more modern occupation. There may well have been a Jericho during 1275-1220, but above the tiny remains of that of 1400-1275, so to speak, and all of this has long, long since gone. We will never find “Joshua’s Jericho” for that very simple reason. (Kitchen 187)

Kathleen Kenyon

Other historians who also place this period of Israel’s history in the Late Bronze Age are quite dismissive of the Biblical account of Joshua’s Conquest:

Spectacular evidence from its nearby tombs attests to the town’s great prosperity during the early Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 B.C.), but the mound itself shows only a few traces of that heyday. A violent conflagration (ca. 1550 B.C.) left the town a barren uninhabited ruin for two centuries, and erosion washed away all but a few traces of the Late Bronze occupation (fourteenth-thirteenth cent. B.C.).

The question is, Was Jericho inhabited during the next four centuries (thirteenth to ninth cent. B.C.) until its rebuilding during Ahab’s reign by Hiel (1 Kings 16:34)? The current scholarly consensus follows the conclusion of Kenyon: Except for a small, short-lived settlement (ca. 1400 B.C.), Jericho was completely uninhabited ca. 1550-1100 B.C. In other words, notwithstanding Joshua 6, there was no fortified city of Jericho for Joshua and Israel to conquer. This is true whether one opts for an “early” (fifteenth cent.) or “late” (thirteenth cent.) date for Israel’s arrival in Canaan. (Hubbard 203)

The archaeological evidence that confirms the Biblical account is actually staring these historians in the face, but because of their chronological preconceptions they cannot see it. Hubbard regards a conventional date in the 15th century BCE (ie during the reigns of the 18th-Dynasty Pharaohs from Thutmose I to Amenhotep II) as “early”. But if you have been following my articles on this subject, you will know that I place the Exodus at the very beginning of the 18th Dynasty, when the founder of that dynasty, Ahmose I, expelled the Hyksos from Egypt. This event is conventionally dated to 1550 BCE, or thereabouts. I place Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan about two years later. So Hubbard’s “violent conflagration (ca. 1550 B.C.),” which left Jericho “a barren uninhabited ruin” is precisely what I am looking for and precisely where I am looking for it. At the very end of the Middle Bronze Age, Jericho was burnt to the ground and was not rebuilt for centuries:

And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein ... And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. (Joshua 6:24 ... 6:26)

And Jericho is not the only Canaanite city that left evidence of destruction from this era:

In 1995, Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht used high-precision radiocarbon dating for 18 samples from Jericho, including six samples of charred cereal grains from the burn layer, and overall dated the destruction to 1562 B.C.E. plus or minus 38 years. Kenyon’s date of around 1550 B.C.E. is more secure than ever. Notably, many other Canaanite cities were destroyed around this time. (New World Encyclopedia)

In the Short Chronology, which I espouse, Kenyon’s absolute date of 1550 BCE must be emended to 760 BCE, or thereabouts. In my opinion, the radiocarbon dating is not reliable.

The Fall of Jericho (Raphael)

The Destruction of MBA Jericho

If the conventional historians do not ascribe the destruction of Jericho at the end of the Middle Bronze Age to Joshua and the Israelites, to whom or to what do they ascribe it? There are three common suspects: the Egyptians, the Hyksos, and Mother Nature:

With the downfall of the Hyksos empire and the resurgence of native Egyptian dynasts, Egyptian power spread northwards through Palestine and brought destruction to many strongholds of the Hyksos forces—among the cities apparently Jericho. At least Jericho was destroyed at this time (about 1550 B.C.) and apparently never again rose to the heights of prosperity and power it had known. (Tushingham 48)

This final stage of the Jericho Middle Bronze Age town was destroyed by a violent fire. Walls and floors are hardened and blackened, burnt debris and beams from the upper storeys fill the rooms, and the whole is covered by a wash from burnt walls that accumulated during a period of abandonment. Since, as will be seen, the contents seem to go down to the end of the Middle Bronze Age and not beyond, it is probable that this destruction is connected with the disturbances caused by the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. (Kenyon 92-93)

Bronze Age Jericho fell in the 16th century around 1573 BCE when it was violently destroyed by an earthquake. Charred wood found at the site suggests that the remains of the city were burned. Buried food supplies also suggest that it was not captured following a siege. It remained unoccupied until the late 10th century or early 9th century BCE when it was rebuilt. (World History Encyclopedia)

There is some evidence that Jericho was subject to Hyksos rule in the latter part of the Middle Bronze Age—Hyksos seals were uncovered at Tell es-Sultan—but there is little evidence that it was ever a Hyksos stronghold. If it had been, it would surely have been targeted by Ahmose I. There is, however, no evidence that it was burnt to the ground by Ahmose:

The Egyptians did not usually burn cities, preferring to make them into profitable tax-paying vassals. (Kitchen 183)

We know from contemporary Egyptian records that Ahmose I pursued the Hyksos into Canaan and besieged them in the city of Sharuhen, somewhere in southern Palestine. After a siege that lasted several years, the Egyptians captured the town and razed it to the ground. There is one brief reference to another campaign against Zahi, an Egyptian name for Phoenicia (Breasted 10). Ahmose then turned his attention to Nubia (Breasted 5). There are no records from Ahmose’s reign of any Egyptian campaigns against Jericho, or against any of the other Canaanite cities mentioned in the Book of Joshua.

In fact, the evidence argues against a close relationship between Jericho and Egypt:

One further point is very striking. Provision is made only for the purely material needs in the after-life. Not a single object suggests the necessity of helping the soul of the dead person by placating any deity. There are no images or representations of any deities (with the exception of those on scarabs, which are hardly relevant) and no cult objects. The contrast with contemporary Egypt is most striking, and is strong evidence that any contacts with Egypt, even at the time of Hyksos domination there, had only a superficial effect. (Kenyon 96)

Walls and Buildings of Jericho (Middle Bronze II)

Bryant G Wood

At least one modern archaeologist identifies the Jericho that was supposedly destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age with Joshua’s Jericho. Biblical scholar Bryant G Wood can hardly be called conventional: he is a Young Earth Creationist. Nevertheless, he received a PhD in Syro-Palestinian archaeology from the University of Toronto in 1985, so he has some experience in the field. In 1990, he argued that the Jericho referred to as City IV, whose destruction Kathleen Kenyon dated to 1550 BCE, was actually destroyed around 1400 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age. This redating has not been endorsed by any of his colleagues.

Note that Wood is not simply claiming that the conventional dating of the Bronze Age is incorrect and ought to be adjusted. That is what I and other proponents of the Short Chronology are saying: City IV was destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, but in Canaan the Middle Bronze Age ended around 760 BCE, not 1550 BCE. Wood claims that the conventional dating of the Bronze Age is correct, but that City IV was destroyed at the end of Late Bronze I.

What interests me, however, is Wood’s argument that the archaeological evidence for the destruction of City IV matches precisely what is recorded in Joshua 6:

The correlation between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical narrative is substantial:

The city was strongly fortified (Joshua 2:5,7,15, 6:5,20).

The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (Joshua 2:6, 3:15, 5:10).

The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their foodstuffs (Joshua 6:1).

The siege was short (Joshua 6:15).

The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (Joshua 6:20).

The city was not plundered (Joshua 6:17-18).

The city was burned (Joshua 6:20).
(Wood 44-58)

Although it is not explicitly stated in Joshua 6:17-18, the fallen city was declared anathema or accursed—thus sparing it from plunder—because it fell on the Sabbath:

Joshua’s first victory was the wonderful capture of Jericho. The whole of the city was declared anathema, because it had been conquered on the Sabbath day. Joshua reasoned that as the Sabbath is holy, so also that which is conquered on the Sabbath should be holy. (Ginzberg 7-8)

An Artist’s Impression of Jericho (City IV)

Earthquake or Ram’s Horns?

It has long been surmised that the collapse of Jericho’s walls as depicted in the Book of Joshua is a mythologized version of a natural event: the walls were not razed by trumpet blasts or loud shouts but by an earthquake:

The narrative does not state that the blowing of the rams’ horns of themselves effected the falling of the walls. It was simply said that at a specified juncture on the 7th day the walls would fall, and that they actually fell at that juncture. The miracle may, therefore, be regarded as either that of prophecy, in which the Creator by foretelling the course of things to Joshua, secured the junction of Divine and human activities which constitutes a true miracle, or we may regard the movements which brought down the walls to be the result of direct Divine action, such as is exerted by man when he produces an explosion of dynamite at a particular time and place. The phenomena are just such as occurred in the earthquake of San Francisco in 1906, where, according to the report of the scientific commission appointed by the state, “the most violent destruction of buildings was on the made ground. This ground seems to have behaved during the earthquake very much in the same way as jelly in a bowl, or as a semi-liquid in a tank.” Santa Rosa, situated on the valley floor, “underlain to a considerable depth by loose or slightly coherent geological formations 20 miles from the rift, was the most severely shaken town in the state and suffered the greatest disaster relatively to its population and extent” (Report, 13 and 15). Thus an earthquake, such as is easily provided for along the margin of this great Jordan crevasse, would produce exactly the phenomena here described, and its occurrence at the time and place foretold to Joshua constitutes it a miracle of the first magnitude. (Orr 1592)

As we saw in an earlier article, the stopping of the River Jordan (Joshua 3) may have been caused by an earthquake. Many catastrophists, such as Immanuel Velikovsky, believe that the Exodus from Egypt and the Conquest of Canaan took place against a backdrop of natural disasters, including frequent earthquakes.

As noted by Wood, the archaeological evidence also supports this interpretation.

Blowing the Shofar or Ram’s Horn

The Resettlement of Jericho

When interpreted in the light of conventional chronology, the archaeology of Jericho provides little support for the Biblical story of Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan:

MB II Tell es-Sulṭân ended in destruction, probably at the hands of Egyptian forces ...

The Late Bronze settlement ... appears to have been restricted to a nonfortified village in the 15-14th centuries ... Attempts to identify archaeological remains at Tell es-Sulṭân with Jericho depicted in Josh. 6 flounder on the absence of archaeological data ...

From the end of the 15th to the 10th-9th centuries Tell es-Sulṭân lay unoccupied, at which time it was rebuilt by Hiel of Bethel (1 Kgs. 16:34). (Freedman 691)

According to the conventional chronology (Hubbard 203), Jericho was destroyed around 1550 BCE, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age and beginning of the 18th Dynasty (Ahmose I). Except for a short-lived Late Bronze Age settlement around 1400 BCE, during the reign of Amenhotep II, it lay abandoned for approximately half a millennium. It was rebuilt shortly after 900, during the Iron Age, in the reign of Pharaoh Osorkon II of the 22nd Dynasty. Conventional historians who accept the historicity of Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan are compelled to identify the brief Late Bronze Age settlement with Joshua’s Jericho, though it makes for a rather poor fit.

In the Old Testament, the first mention of the rebuilding of Jericho after its sack by Joshua—I Kings 16:34—places the resettlement in the reign of Ahab King of Israel, and states explicitly that it fulfilled the prophesy made by Joshua (quoted above in Joshua 6:26):

And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years ... In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun. (I Kings 16:34)

In the conventional chronology, Ahab reigned 874-853 BCE, more than two hundred years after Amenhotep II, when Jericho was resettled according to conventional chronology (Thiele 184). According to the Short Chronology, however, Ahab’s reign began almost three centuries later than this. In Emmet Sweeney’s model, Ahab began his reign shortly before 600 BCE (Sweeney 18). In Charles Ginenthal and Lynn E Rose’s model, however, Ahab’s reign is dated 600-579 BCE.

It might be argued that if we have identified the city of 1550 BCE with Joshua’s Jericho, and Hiel’s Jericho with the resettled Jericho, then the Late Bronze Age Jericho should not exist. But even the archaeologists do not claim that the city was rebuilt in the Late Bronze Age. The ruined site was simply reoccupied, remaining without walls until Hiel’s rebuilding project several centuries later.

In the Short Chronology, the rebuilding of Jericho occurred less than two centuries after Joshua’s Conquest:

BCE	Event	Egyptian Synchronism
760	Destruction of City IV	Ahmose I
590	Hiel Rebuilds Jericho	Seti I or Ramesses II

And that’s a good place to stop.

References

James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Volume 2, The Eighteenth Dynasty, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1906)
David Noel Freedman (editor), Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI (2000)
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 4, Translated from the German by Henrietta Szold, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia (1913)
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 6, Translated from the German by Henrietta Szold, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia (1928)
Robert L Hubbard Jr, The NIV Application Commentary: Joshua, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (2009)
Kathleen M Kenyon, Palestine in the Middle Bronze Age, in I E S Edwards et al (editors), The Cambridge Ancient History, Third Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c 1800-1380 BC, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2008)
Kenneth A Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI (2003)
James Orr (General Editor), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 3, The Howard-Severance Company, Chicago (1915)
James Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Eaton & Mains, New York (1890)
Emmet John Sweeney, Empire of Thebes, or Ages In Chaos Revisited, Ages in Alignment, Volume 3, Algora Publishing, New York (2006)
Edwin R Thiele, The Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 3, Number 3 (July 1944), pp 137-186, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1944)
A Douglas Tushingham, Excavations at Old Testament Jericho, The Biblical Archaeologist, Volume 16, Number 3 (Sep 1953), pp 47-67, The American Schools of Oriental Research, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1953)
Bryant G Wood, Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence, Biblical Archaeology Review, Volume 16, Number 2 (March/April 1990), pp 44-58, Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington, DC (1990)

Image Credits

The Capture of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites: Hans III Jordaens (artist), Public Domain
Tell es-Sultan (Tel Jericho): Fullo88, Public Domain
The Fall of Jericho (Raphael): Raffaello Sanzio (artist), Vatican, Logge di Raffaello, Public Domain