In this article we will take a close look at Kenneth Kitchen’s opinions on the historicity of Joshua Ben Nun and the Conquest of Canaan by the ancient Israelites, which are laid out in his book On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003).
Kitchen’s absolute chronology is, of course, conventional and therefore at odds with the Short Chronology, which I espouse. He regards 1210 BCE as the terminus ante quem—the latest possible date—for the Conquest. In the context of the archaeology of Canaan, this places the Conquest no later than the final phase of the Late Bronze Age (LB IIB and LB III), when Ramesses II was still on the Egyptian throne. (Kitchen 159). According to the Short Chronology, the Exodus and Conquest took place near the beginning of the 18th Dynasty—ie about two centuries before the death of Ramesses—around MB IIC (= MB III) and LB I, when the Middle Bronze Age was giving way to the Late Bronze Age.
Kitchen begins his study by summarizing the contents of the Book of Joshua in a table:
Thus, to sum up, the book of Joshua in reality simply records the Hebrew entry into Canaan, their base camp at Gilgal by the Jordan, their initial raids (without occupation!) against local rulers and subjects in south and north Canaan, followed by localized occupation (a) north from Gilgal as far as Shechem and Tirzah and (b) south to Hebron/Debir, and very little more. This is not the sweeping, instant conquest-with-occupation that some hasty scholars would foist upon the text of Joshua, without any factual justification. Insofar as only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were explicitly allowed to have been burned into nonoccupation, it is also pointless going looking for extensive conflagration levels at any other Late Bronze sites (of any phase) to identify them with any Israelite impact. (Kitchen 163)
Kitchen next notes that the circumstances in which the Israelites find themselves in the Book of Joshua were not unique in the Late Bronze Age of Canaan:
Reputedly fugitives from Egypt, and in rootless transit through Transjordan into Canaan, the tribal group “Israel” was not the only such population group troubling their neighbors (and sometimes, higher authorities) there ... The Amarna letters ... are full of reports about restless groups such as the Apiru, or displaced people. This much-discussed term cannot be readily equated linguistically with biblical “Hebrew” (‘ibri), as is often done. But there are clear behavioral analogies between these Apiru and the displaced Hebrews who had fled Egypt and (now rootless) sought to establish themselves in Canaan. The biblical Hebrews in Joshua-Judges sought to raid towns, and hopefully to seize control of them, occasionally burning them down (Jericho, Ai, Hazor). Of the Apiru we can read similar activities from the point of view of local city rulers in the Amarna letters. Time and again they are accused of trying to overcome cities and expel their petty kings ... and get control, as did the Hebrews. Seeing trouble, the people of Gibeon (Josh. 9) sought to make treaty-alliance with the Hebrew intruders. And in the Amarna letters, city rulers continually fear towns joining up with the Apiru. Or they go over to the Apiru and make agreement or treaty with them, as the Gibeonites later did with Joshua and his people. Local rulers might band together against a third party, just as the five kings of south Canaan did against Gibeon and Israel (Josh. 10) and the group in north Canaan (chap. 11) did against Joshua and his forces. (Kitchen 165)
In the Short Chronology, the Amarna Letters, which are contemporary with the late 18th Dynasty of Egypt, were written more than a century after the Conquest.
Kitchen then compares Joshua—who is not mentioned in any contemporary documents—to other military leaders in the region:
Other dynamic “Joshuas” also flourished in the Late Bronze Levant. The city-based Labayu of Shechem made a strong impression on his contemporaries in the Amarna age, as the Amarna letters show. But far more remarkable was Abdi-ashirta, who, aided and succeeded by his equally wily son Aziru, created from scratch a kingdom of Amurru based in the north Lebanon mountains and environs within the last ten or fifteen years of Akhenaten’s reign, the main period of the Amarna letters that evidence this feat. In this they made full use of Apiru fighting men and auxiliaries, to expand their control over neighboring towns, not least profitable trading ports on the Mediterranean coast ... Therefore there are no grounds whatsoever for denying reality or factuality to the Joshua narratives in terms of what they actually represent on the ground, when the rhetorical component is left aside. (Kitchen 166)
Crossing the Jordan
In the Book of Joshua, the crossing of the Jordan is facilitated by a “miracle” analogous to Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea or Yam Suph:
And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. (Joshua 3:14-16)
But was this actually a miracle?
This phenomenon directly reflects known reality, and is not fantasy. Some sixteen miles (26 km) north of a crossing opposite Jericho, Adam is present-day Tell ed-Damieh. It is specifically in this district that the high banks of the Jordan have been liable to periodic collapses, sufficient to block the river for a time. Thus in December AD 1267 a high mound by the river collapsed into it, stopping its flow completely for sixteen hours. In 1906 a similar event occurred, and then during the earthquake in 1927. (Kitchen 167)
Spies, Decoys, Etc
Kitchen argues that Joshua’s use of spies and local informants is not anachronistic or unbelievable:
We are told that Joshua sent out two spies to observe Jericho and its approaches. In that town they took refuge with a woman Rahab who threw in her lot with them and concealed them, while disinforming the local king and his agents (Josh. 2). Use of spies and misinformation is found already and commonly ... in the vast Mari archives in northeast Syria. And ... at the notorious battle of Qadesh ... the Hittite king sent out decoys who duped Ramesses II of Egypt into making a rash advance on that city. Then Ramesses’ own spies caught some genuine Hittite spies, and beat the truth out of them. The role of Rahab has been debated: simple harlot or female tavern keeper? This latter role is attested in the biblical world ... As at Jericho the king demanded details of her visitors, so in Old Babylonian city-states the local ruler required tavern keepers to inform him of rogues; the matter features in the law codes of the epoch (Hammurabi, §109) (Kitchen 167).
Divine Sanction
Before the destruction of Jericho, Joshua is alleged to have received a divine visitation:
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)
This literary trope is actually common to many campaign documents of the time:
In Egypt, Tuthmosis IV ... prepared for his Nubian campaign by consulting the god Amun in Thebes, who gave him encouragement. After almost half a century without major wars, Merenptah had to face a major threat to Egypt from the Libyans and Sea Peoples. On the eve of the conflict the god Ptah of Memphis appeared to him in a dream, offering him the sword of victory and saying in effect, “Fear not.” In turn, in the scenes of his Libyan wars in his memorial temple in Western Thebes, Ramesses III had himself depicted as commissioned by, and receiving the sword of victory from, Amun, to be ready for battle ... the Hittite king Hattusil III and his queen had a variety of dreams, with commands from deity ... we find Assurbanipal (and even his army) receiving encouragement from deities in dreams before battles. (Kitchen 168)
Similarly, divine interventions at a critical point in a battle are not unique to the Old Testament. They are also found in many contemporary accounts of military campaigns (Kitchen 174-175).
Campaign Narratives
Joshua’s campaign narratives are remarkably similar to contemporary accounts of military conquests. The campaign annals of Tuthmosis III—about a century after the Conquest—are most striking in this regard (Kitchen 170). Two of the Amarna Letters (EA 185 and 186) give us a vivid and close literary parallel to Josh. 10 in particular (Kitchen 172).
Thus both the basic formulaic layout and its variations in Joshua reflect commonplace ancient Near Eastern usage as found in original and unitary works. This was how such military reports were customarily written, and these structures and others are the common coin ... long before Neo-Assyrian times. (Kitchen 173)
The style of Joshua’s campaign narratives is also remarkably similar to that found in contemporary reports. Particularly worthy of note is the hyperbolic rhetorical style, which is no more to be taken literally than the bombastic claims of Egyptian Pharaohs and petty tyrants:
The type of rhetoric in question was a regular feature of military reports in the second and first millennia, as others have made very clear ... Tuthmosis III could boast “the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) non-existent”—whereas, in fact, the forces of Mitanni lived to fight many another day ... Some centuries later ... Mesha king of Moab could boast that “Israel has utterly perished for always”—a rather premature judgment at that date, by over a century! And so on, ad libitum. It is in this frame of reference that the Joshua rhetoric must also be understood. (Kitchen 174)
The Book of Joshua records meticulously the names of peoples and places attacked by the Israelites as well as the names of their leaders:
Proper onomastic study demonstrates that these names were not “made up” freely by the biblical writers (as at least one unwise commentator has opined), but correspond almost entirely with actual names and name types ... (Kitchen 175)
Finally, Kitchen argues that the roll of Joshua’s conquests in Joshua 12 is entirely consistent with contemporary practice:
In Josh. 12:7-24 ... Joshua’s conquests are summed up in a full list of those he had defeated, forming a topographical list, in several coherent groups of place-names. Such an arrangement is almost a verbal equivalent of the partly pictorial topographical lists of vanquished places and peoples that the pharaohs often set out on the great pylon towers and outside walls of their temples during mainly the New Kingdom ... Like its Egyptian counterparts, the Hebrew list has sets of towns in geographical groupings, sometimes corresponding in part to routes used, but sometimes not. Nobody should imagine that the young Joshua in Egypt gazed up awed at such reliefs, and that old Joshua in Canaan therefore did a verbal list to parody Egyptian triumphs. But what we do have is the same broad concept of setting out the scale of the victory at the end of the record, in each. (Kitchen 178-179)
Allotment of Territory
In Joshua 14-19, much of the territory of Canaan is distributed among the Tribes of Israel. Kitchen notes, however, that this distribution does not accurately describe the pattern of Tribal occupation from any later era:
The envisioned allotments were never wholly taken up, even under David and Solomon. Thus, although these kings cowed the Philistines (e.g., 2 Sam. 8:1; 1 Kings 4:21), Philistia never had a Hebrew population of settlers, as projected in Josh. 15:45-47 for Judah (proposed occupation of Ekron, Ashdod, and Gaza). Except as an early projection, this at no time fits the conditions of any later epoch. A possible early attempt to fulfill that projection (cf. Judg. 1:18) soon failed. And so on. (Kitchen 179)
It could be argued that if this allotment of territory was unhistorical—fabricated by later rabbinical scholars—the Biblical narrative would have been carefully fashioned to fit the facts on the ground. Why would the authors have Joshua grant most of Philistia to the Tribe of Judah if the descendants of Judah never actually colonized those lands?
The model employed to describe each allotment of land is typical of the time:
Dealing now primarily with the grants for western Palestine (Canaan), we can readily perceive that the records in Josh. 14-19 fall into very dearly defined types, with but few variations. Each tribal record tends to be framed with a heading or preface, then gives boundary sequences (I) and/or groups of towns (II), ending with a brief colophon and/or other remark when appropriate; variations occur ... The boundary descriptions in Joshua are neither unparalleled nor in any way an innovation in antiquity ... the Near East has yielded all manner of town lists in administrative documents, with headings, subheadings, colophons, etc., often very reminiscent of what appears in the formats in Joshua ... The role of Josh. 21, provision for the support staff (Levites) of the central cult, is comparable with such provision throughout the ancient Near East. (Kitchen 179 ... 181 ... 182)
Archaeology
Having satisfied himself that most of the contents of the Book of Joshua could conceivably date back to the Late Bronze Age, Kitchen now turns to the archaeological evidence. In accordance with his belief that the Conquest was contemporary with the 19th Dynasty, he is interested in the archaeology of LB IIB and LB III. For proponents of the Short Chronology, who place the Conquest at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, it is the archaeology of MB IIC and LB I that is relevant.
Joshua is said to have burned three Canaanite cities: Jericho, Ai and Hazor. Does the archaeology supported this claim?
Jericho
The destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6 is one of the best known episodes in the Old Testament. The collapse of the city’s walls, which the Bible ascribes to the blowing of trumpets and the shouting of the Israelites, is sometimes attributed by modern scholars to an earthquake:
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. (Joshua 6:20-21 ... 24)
Jericho is especially interesting to proponents of the Short Chronology:
Jericho: Of its location, at Tell es-Sultan, near the modern village Jericho 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. (Kitchen 187)
Kitchen’s 1550 BCE is contemporary with the beginning of the 18th Dynasty—precisely the timeframe of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho according to the Short Chronology. Of the subsequent Late Bronze Age settlement little survives. Kitchen bewails the fact that thanks to erosion We will never find “Joshua’s Jericho”. But if Joshua’s campaign was contemporary with the early 18th Dynasty, then we do have Joshua’s Jericho, and it confirms spectacularly the Biblical account.
Ai
The capture and destruction of the city of Ai (העי) is described in Joshua 7 and 8. Initially, Joshua sends 2000-3000 men to take the city, but they are driven off by the city’s few defenders:
And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim ... (Joshua 7:5)
The following day, Joshua captures the city with a much larger force using a stratagem:
And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai ... And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. (Joshua 8:25 ... 28)
As to the location of Ai, we are told:
Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east of Bethel ... (Joshua 7:2)
This agrees with Genesis 12:
And [Abram] removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 12:8)
The location of the Biblical Bethel is still a matter of scholarly dispute. The village of Beitin (Baytin) is the most popular choice, but both Beit El and El Bireh have their supporters. According to Joshua 18:13 and Judges 1:23, the Canaanite name for Bethel was Luz. According to Joshua 16:2, however, Luz lay beyond Bethel.
The location and identity of both Bethaven and Shebarim are also unknown. If Bethel is identified with Beit El or El Bireh, this leaves open the possibility that Beitin is Bethaven.
Ai is most commonly identified with Et-Tell, a ruined settlement which lies just to the east of Beitin. There is no evidence, however, that Et-Tell was occupied during the Middle or Late Bronze Age:
Ai is enigmatic, even simply in the biblical text, before going anywhere else. It alone is given a locating phrase in the list of Josh. 12, there described as “near Bethel” (12:9). And also, when the men of Ai turned to pursue an apparently retreating Israel, we suddenly read: “not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not pursue Israel” (8:17). Why? Could not the Ai warriors manage on their own? Or were they (and their chief) in truth only a dependency of Bethel? The men of Ai are described as “few” in 7:3. The archaeology has merely underlined the enigma. Ha-‘ai (Ai) is commonly taken to mean “the ruin,” being compared with the noun ‘iy, plural ‘iyyim, “ruin(s).” And then this is compared with the modern name of a ruin mound a few miles from Bethel, Et-Tell in Arabic, meaning “ruin mound.” However, Kaufmann objected that Ai meant “(stone)heap,” not “ruin.” This Et-Tell has long been identified with ancient Ai. Excavation (so far) has failed to find any occupation there after the destruction of the strong, walled, Early Bronze Age town at about 2400, until a renewed settlement appears at about 1220/1200 or soon after. It is hard to believe that anybody founded a township and named it “Ruin,” so the original third-millennium settlement may have borne a different, proper name that was forgotten. Hence, later occupants called it “the Ruin” or (better?) “(Stone)heap.” Maybe! (Kitchen 188)
One theory that has been proposed is that Ai was mistaken for the nearby Canaanite city Luz, which later bore the Israelite name Bethel:
Bethel, ancient city of Palestine, located just north of Jerusalem. Originally called Luz and in modern times Baytin, Bethel was important in Old Testament times and was frequently associated with Abraham and Jacob. Excavations, carried out by the American School of Oriental Research and the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, suggest that Bethel may have been the actual scene of the events described in the Old Testament as having taken place at Ai during the Israelite conquest of Canaan. (Encyclopaedia Britannica Online)
That the authors of the Book of Joshua were unsure of the correct name of this settlement is supported by Joshua 16:2, which distinguishes between Bethel and Luz. Note also that they distinguish between Bethel and Bethaven (Joshua 7:2), whereas the Prophet Hosea seems to imply that Beth-Aven [House of Iniquity] was a derogatory name for Beth-El [House of God] after the introduction there of the golden calves:
BETH-AVEN: A city on the border of Benjamin in the wilderness (Josh, xviii. 12), east of Bethel (Josh. vii. 2) and west of Michmash (I Sam. xiii. 5). It was the scene of a battle between Saul and the Philistines, in which the latter were defeated (I Sam. xiv. 23).
In Hosea iv. 15, v. 8, x. 5, Beth-aven is probably a disguise for Beth-el, particularly in x. 5, .where calves of Beth-aven as objects of idolatry are mentioned. (Singer 119)
Unlike Et-Tell, Beitin has an abundance of archaeological remains from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and evidence of destruction by fire at the end of the Middle Bronze Age:
MB II B-C Beitin was a strong, well-fortified city with the NW gate area being occupied by a gate which led out toward the E. This gate was never rebuilt. There was some evidence of burning at the end of the MB II city (Pithom, citing William Foxwell Albright & Kelso’s The Excavation of Bethel).
An alternative solution to the problem is to seek both Bethel and Ai elsewhere. David Palmer Livingston of Andrews University has championed the view that Ai is to be found at Khirbet Nisya (Psagot), about 3 km SSW of Beitin. According to this hypothesis, Bethel is to be identified with El Bireh, 1 km NW of Khirbet Nisya. But while Bronze Age finds have been made on this site, no walls or buildings have been discovered, and there is no indication of burning or destruction (Livingston).
Another possible location for Ai is Khirbet el-Maqatir, which lies about 2 km SE of Beitin. Khirbet el-Maqatir lies to the east of El-Bireh. If the latter is Bethel, then this accords with Genesis 12:3, which places Ai to the east of Bethel. Bryant believes that he has found evidence of a conflagration on the site at the end of LB I, which he dates to 1406 BCE. He interprets this as confirmation of the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest.
The problem with all of these candidates for the Biblical Ai is that none of them remained an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day (Joshua 8:28). Beitin, Beit El and El Bireh are still occupied today. Et Tell was resettled in the Iron Age after having been abandoned at the end of the Early Bronze Age. Khirbet Nisya was occupied continually throughout the Biblical period.
Khirbet el-Maqatir comes closest to fitting the Biblical account. It appears to have been abandoned for a few centuries from the early part of the Late Bronze Age until the beginning of the Iron Age (IA). Although it was resettled in IA I, the archaeological evidence indicates that this was merely a squatter occupation. It is quite possible that the site was abandoned and desolate during the pre-Exilic era, when the Book of Joshua was written. Those who seek to place the Conquest near the end of LB I can certainly cite the archaeology of this settlement in support of their hypothesis.
Et Tell, too, was apparently unoccupied when the Book of Joshua was compiled. According to the conventional chronology, it was abandoned around 1050 BCE, more than four centuries before the composition of Joshua.
The Taking of Ai
The curious relationship between Ai and Bethel is not really taken into account by any of these different theories. Initially, the Biblical account simply locates Ai by telling us that it is beside Bethaven, on the east of Bethel (Joshua 7:2). When the Israelites first try to take Ai, the inhabitants—who are described as few (Joshua 7:3)—defeat them and chase them from before the gate even unto Shebarim (Joshua 7:5). The latter—השברים—literally means the ruins (Strong’s Hebrew 7671), which is exactly what Ai supposedly means (Strong’s Hebrew 5857 and 5856). The only significant difference in meaning is that shebarim is plural, while ‘ay is singular. Note that both Ai and shebarim are preceded by the definite article, ha (ה):
Let us accept that Ai does indeed mean the ruin or the stone heap. But who would bestow such a name on their city? Is it not more reasonable to conclude that this was the name a later generation gave to the ruins of a long-abandoned settlement, one whose real name had been forgotten? It is surely significant that every time this name occurs in the Book of Joshua, it is preceded by the definite article. I conclude that Ai (hai) is hashebarim, the stone heap or ruins towards which the defeated Israelites fled from Bethel (Beitin), which was the true object of their attack.
In the following chapter, Joshua leads a much stronger force against Ai and devises a stratagem to draw the defenders away from the city, while thirty thousand men of valour ambush the undefended city from the west:
Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night ... Joshua therefore sent them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. (Joshua 8:3 ... 9)
The following morning, Joshua and the rest of his forces approach the city:
And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai. (Joshua 8:11)
At this point, the text contradicts itself:
And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. (Joshua 8:12)
Clearly, the compilers of the Book of Joshua had two different accounts of the ambush. In one, 30,000 men lie in ambush overnight. In the other, Joshua sends 5,000 men to lie in ambush on the morning of the attack. The former figure is highly questionable:
Thirty thousand men, an impossible number for an ambush, possibly means “thirty, a man from each contingent,” or “thirty contingents.” The word translated “thousand” [אלף = ’eleph] can also denote a small military unit, ranging from five to fifteen men per contingent. (Berlin & Brettler 476)
In an earlier article in this series, Numbers and the Exodus, we came across a similar case of this word being possibly mistranslated as thousand.
Joshua’s ruse works. The King of Ai and his forces sally forth to engage the main force of Israelites, which draws them away from the city, leaving it undefended. But then we are told:
And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel. (Joshua 8:17)
This is the first indication we are given that troops from Bethel were involved in the engagement, although only one city is left open to attack. Bethel is not mentioned again in this chapter.
In the summary list of thirty-one petty kings defeated by Joshua (Joshua 12), the second item in the list is:
the king of Ai, which is beside Bethel, one; (Joshua 12:9)
But the sixteenth item in the list is:
the king of Bethel (Joshua 12:16)
The account of the capture and destruction of Ai is confused and in places self-contradictory. A case could be made that Bethel was the city Joshua attacked, and that somehow the nearby ruins—known as hashebarim (the ruins) or hai (the ruin)—came to be mistaken for the true target. As we have seen, there is evidence of a conflagration at Beitin at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, which fits the timeframe of the Short Chronology.
Admittedly, this is all highly speculative, but it is the best I have.
Hazor
In Chapter 11, Joshua’s northern campaign is described. Jabin the King of Hazor heads a coalition of petty kings who engage Joshua’s forces in the Battle of the Waters of Merom. After routing the Canaanites in a surprise attack, Joshua captures Hazor, executes Jabin, slaughters the inhabitants, and burns the city to the ground. We are explicitly told that Hazor alone of all the northern cities is burnt down.
Hazor is another site whose archaeology supports the Short Chronology’s placement of Joshua’s Conquest at the end of the Middle Bronze Age or the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The ruins of this ancient city are confidently identified with Tel Hazor, which lies about 10 km north of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. The settlement comprised an Upper and a Lower City, and has been extensively excavated by John Garstang (1926, 1928), Yigael Yadin (1955-58) and Amnon Ben-Tor (since 1990).
Stratum 3 of the Lower City, which is dated to the end of the Middle Bronze Age, was destroyed by fire (Jewish Virtual Library). The Upper City also preserves evidence of destruction at the end of the Middle Bronze Age:
The Late Bronze Age strata (upper city: Strata XV–XIII; lower city: Strata 2–1A) were separated from the preceding Middle Bronze Age city by a substantial destruction layer (Stratum post-XVI) (Jewish Virtual Library).
During the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900-1550 B.C.E.) Hazor became one of the great Canaanite cities, comparable in size to important centers of the day including Qatna, Ebla, and Mari. MB IIB (1800/1750-1650 B.C.E.) shows a substantial buildup, with massive fortifications in the upper and lower city. Also, its king, Ibni-Addu (meaning “Son of Hadad,” the Canaanite storm god and perhaps the patron deity of Hazor), played an important role in the politics of the Fertile Crescent. Inhabited for the first time, the lower city increased the settled area by tenfold. While Garstang interpreted the lower city as an enclosed infantry or chariot camp, Yadin’s excavations demonstrated that it was a proper city with temples, public buildings and domestic structures. The foundation of the lower city at Hazor around 1800 B.C.E. was one of the most important phenomena of this period. Hazor is a superb example of grand-scale town planning. Its total area (Upper and Lower City), almost two hundred acres [~81 hectares], was unrivaled in the history of Palestine, and it was to remain the largest city in the country until the thirteenth century B.C.E. Four gates of “Syrian” direct axis style allowed access to the city. In MB IIC (1660-1550) strata were found a wealth of buildings, most noteworthy those of a cultic nature. Hazor, along with many other cities in Palestine, was destroyed in a fire ending its MB occupation (ca. 1550). (Thompson 27-28)
The royal names Ibni and Ibni-Addu were found on cuneiform tablets dating to the Middle Bronze Age which were recovered respectively from Hazor and Mari. They recall that of Jabin [יבין] in the Book of Joshua. Could the latter be a corruption of the former (Finkelstein 81)?
Kitchen, who places the Conquest in the late 13th century (conventional), also finds support for his thesis in the archaeology of Hazor:
In the second millennium Hazor consisted of an upper citadel (on a high mound) which dominated a large “lower city” on its north side—a vast site, certainly then “head of all [Canaan’s] kingdoms.” Both areas were destroyed along with a massive conflagration in the thirteenth century, probably toward its end (citadel, stratum XIII; lower city, stratum Ia). Insofar as the results of Yadin’s work are confirmed by the new excavations under Ben-Tor, then it will seem very probable (as it did to Yadin, long ago) that the massive destruction of greater Hazor was that wrought by Joshua. (Kitchen 185)
It should be noted that another account of the defeat of a King of Hazor called Jabin is narrated in Judges 4, during the Judgeship of Deborah. The city, however, is not burned in that account. It is possible that this is the same King Jabin and that one of these stories is a doublet of the other.
Other Sites
Kitchen lists twenty-four cities that feature in Joshua’s campaign narratives. With the three exceptions that we have already discussed, none of these cities is said to have been destroyed by the Israelites:
Of these twenty-four entries, only four can be regarded as deficient in background finds for LB II, and in those cases there are factors that account for the deficiency. The rest show very clearly that Joshua and his raiders moved among (and against) towns that existed and which in several cases exhibit destructions at this period, even though there is no absolute proof of Israelite involvement—short of a victory inscription, there could hardly be any! This review shows up the far greater deficiencies in some critiques of the Joshua narratives and list that are now already out-of-date and distinctly misleading. On top of all this, the following should be noted: (1) Usually less than about 5 or 10 percent of any given mound is ever dug down to Late Bronze (or any other) levels; hence between 85 and 95 percent of our potential source of evidence is never seen. (2) The principal Hebrew policy under Joshua was to kill leaders and inhabitants, not to destroy the cities, but eventually to occupy them (cf. Deut. 6:10-11), destroying only the alien cult places (Deut. 12:2-3). (3) Conquests, even historically well-known examples, often do not leave behind the sort of traces that modern scholars overconfidently expect, as Isserlin has cogently pointed out. And, at the end of the day, we should speak of an Israelite entry into Canaan, and settlement: neither only a conquest (although raids and attacks were made), nor simply an infiltration (although some tribes moved in alongside Canaanites), nor just re-formation of local Canaanites into a new society “Israel” (although others, as at Shechem, may have joined the Hebrew nucleus; cf. Gibeon). But elements of several processes can be seen in the biblical narratives. (Kitchen 189-190)
Transjordan
According to the Biblical account, the areas to the east of the Jordan, which were occupied in historical times by the Tribes of Reuben, Gad and East Manasseh, were conquered by Moses before the Israelites crossed the Jordan under his successor Joshua (Numbers 21). Later (Numbers 32), Moses allotted this territory to these three tribes.
Until recent times the area in Transjordan from the Mishor plain north to Bashan seemed to show very little dear evidence of any history of settlement in Late Bronze/Iron I of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, the theater and period of the initial settlement there by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh as seen in Num. 32, Deut. 3:12-20, and Josh. 12:1-6,13:8-32. But now intensive survey and study has provided a clearer picture of the situation. First, a series of sites in this overall area show Late Bronze II into Iron IA phases of occupation ... In due time, old rivalries and new between Moab, the Israelites, and Ammon broke out, especially over who should have the Mishor area [= Reuben’s Territory]. Sihon had taken it from Moab (who earlier had it, as Ramesses II’s scenes prove, including Dibon with Butartu in Moab). Then Israel took it from Sihon, and Moab later took it back, and the seesaw went on. Scarce wonder that some Iron IA sites ended up being destroyed and burned, some never to rise again, either permanently or else not until well into Iron II times. Thus, whatever minor gaps currently appear in our total documentation (so for Heshbon, as at Jericho!), the overall picture in Numbers/Deuteronomy/Joshua makes very good sense, and fits well the known archaeological and related context. (Kitchen 198-199)
If the Short Chronology is correct, and Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan took place at the end of the Middle Bronze Age or the very beginning of the Late Bronze Age, then this archaeological evidence suggests that the areas of Transjordan were only properly conquered and settled by the Israelites after the Conquest of Canaan_ was complete. This actually makes more sense to me. Canaan was always the Promised Land that the House of Israel was trying to reach, not Transjordan.
Conclusion
Kenneth Kitchen makes a strong case for the historicity of Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan. Although he finds much to support his placement of the Conquest at the end of the Late Bronze Age, there is also an abundance of evidence to support my thesis—the Short Chronology—that it belongs near the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, at the interface between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
And that’s a good place to stop.
To be continued ...
References
- Adele Berlin & Marc Zvi Brettler (editors), The Jewish Study Bible, Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1999)
- Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Touchstone, Simon and Schuster, New York (2002)
- Kenneth A Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI (2003)
- David Palmer Livingston, Khirbet Nisya 1979-1986: A Report on Six Seasons of Excavation, Dissertations 85, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI (1989)
- Isidore Singer (editor), The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 3, Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York (1902)
- James Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Eaton & Mains, New York (1890)
- John J T Thompson, Biblical Archaeology: Past, Present, and Future, Honors Theses 158, Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, AR (2003)
- Yigael Yadin, Hazor, Schweich Lectures, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1972)
Image Credits
- Kenneth A Kitchen: © Eerdmans Publishing, Fair Use
- Joshua Destroys the Giants (Tissot): James Jacques Joseph Tissot (artist), Jewish Museum, New York, Public Domain
- The Ark Passes Over the Jordan: James Jacques Joseph Tissot (artist), Jewish Museum, New York, Public Domain
- Adam (Tell ed-Damieh): © Miguel Nicolaevsky, Fair Use
- Joshua and the Angel Before Jericho (Tissot): James Jacques Joseph Tissot (artist), Jewish Museum, New York, Public Domain
- Amarna Letter EA 252: © Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, Creative Commons License
- Joshua and the Five Kings (Tissot): James Jacques Joseph Tissot (artist), Jewish Museum, New York, Public Domain
- The Twelve Tribes (Joshua): © Janz, Creative Commons License
- Tell es-Sultan (Jericho): © Tamar Hayardeni, Creative Commons License
- Ai is Taken by Joshua (Tissot): James Jacques Joseph Tissot (artist), Jewish Museum, New York, Public Domain
- Map of the Environs of Bethel and Ai: © Survey of Israel, Fair Use
- Bethel: Daniel B Shepp, The Photographs of the Holy Land, p 72, Globe Bible Publishing Company, Chicago (1894), Public Domain
- Et Tell and Deir Dibwan: © Bukvoed, Creative Commons License
- Tel Hatzor (Hazor): אסף.צ (photographer), Public Domain
- Cuneiform Tablets from Tel Hazor: Wayne Horowitz, Hazor: A Cuneiform City in the West, Near Eastern Archaeology, Volume 76, Number 2 (June 2013), p 98, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2013), Fair Use
- Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan: © 1996-2012 ISV.org, The Holy Bible: International Standard Version, Fair Use
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