Historical Problems with the Hebrew Bible: The Conquest of Canaan – Jericho
6/10/2013
There are no references in any other ancient source to a massive destruction of the cities of Canaan. Archaeologists have discovered that few of the places mentioned were walled towns at the time. Many of the specific cities cited as places of conquest apparently did not even exist as cities at the time. This includes, most notably, Jericho, which was not inhabited in the late 13th century BCE, as archaeologists have decisively shown (see box 4.2). The same thing applies to Ai and Heshbon. These cities were neither occupied, nor conquered, nor re-inhabited in the days of Joshua. Moreover, there is no evidence of major shifts in cultural patterns taking place at the end of the 13th century in Canaan. There are, to be sure, some indications that some towns in Canaan were destroyed at about that time (two of the twenty places mentioned as being destroyed by Joshua were wiped out at about the right time: Hazor and Bethel) But that is true of virtually every time in antiquity: occasionally towns were destroyed by other towns or burned or otherwise abandoned.
We are left, then, with a very big problem. The accounts in Joshua appear to be non-historical in many respects. This creates a dilemma for historians, since two things are perfectly clear: (a) eventually there was a nation Israel living in the land of Canaan; but (b) there is no evidence that it got there by entering in from the East and destroying all the major cities in a series of violent military campaigns. Where then did Israel come from?
Bart
There should be archaeological evidence that the cities and towns mentioned actually were destroyed AT THE TIME, but it appears there is no archaeological evidence.
Steefen:
THERE IS ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF JERICHO’S DESTRUCTION. Hopefully, you will be able to edit your textbook to prevent teaching students inaccuracies. The archaeologists have been to Jericho, Bart. Your claim is false. Aren’t there ethics against willfully misleading students?
You say there is no archeological evidence for the destruction of Jericho. That is an error.
Jericho was excavated by Sellin and Watzinger 1907-1909 and later by Dame Kathleen Kenyon.
Ai (Khirbet el-Makatir) was excavated by Bryant Wood.
In between the upper and lower walls of the citadel of Jericho, there were houses representing one of the poor districts of the town, built onto the sloping rampart with narrow stepped streets. Some of these dwellings were not only between the walls but also built into the lower wall so that the fortress wall actually formed the outer, northernmost wall of the houses. This is just as is described in the Book of Joshua where Rahab the prostitute’s house was located “within the wall” of Jericho.
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I have named some of the archaeologists showing you are wrong to say there is no verification. Now, to go beyond, explaining why there is no verification at the time many expect the conquest to have followed upon the Wilderness Tradition which followed upon the Exodus. The Exodus was not from Ramesses the Great at Pi-Ramesses. The exodus was from an earlier incarnation of Pi-Ramesses: Avaris.
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Reply from Bart:
Sorry, that’s not right. Archaeologists have definitively shown that Jericho was not a major walled city at the time described in the book of Joshua. Kenyon simply got it wrong. There are massive publications on this.
Steefen
Archaeologists have definitively shown that Jericho was not a major walled city AT THE TIME DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. Correct: The time described in the book of Joshua is in ERROR.
The Exodus was not from Ramesses the Great at Pi-Ramesses. The exodus was from an earlier incarnation of Pi-Ramesses: Avaris.
The exodus occurred earlier in time, therefore the destruction of Jericho occurred earlier in time.
Steefen
My reply is that the description of the citadel is spot on. Second, sure there are massive publications that mistakenly assign the fall of Jericho after Ramesses the Great because the Bible explicitly says the Israelites were building a store house for Ramesses the Great, Pi-Ramesses. Your massive publications and any conclusions drawn from those publications are erroneous because Israelites did not have a big show down with Ramesses the Great. Third, there is a better candidate for the historical Moses than the one you and massive publications are using, and this moves the chronology back to 1455 BCE with the fall of Jericho happening at approximately 1415 BCE.
No, Kenyon is not wrong. What is wrong is to insist the Bible is accurate about Ramesses the Great is the Pharaoh of the Oppression.
Pi-Ramesses is a later incarnation of Avaris and the writers of the first chapter of Exodus were not specific about using the geographical name at the time when a Semitic quarter of Avaris abandoned their homes after a plague and left in exodus. The archaeological description of Jericho verifies the bible as stated: In between the upper and lower walls of the citadel of Jericho, there were houses representing one of the poor districts of the town, built onto the sloping rampart with narrow stepped streets. Some of these dwellings were not only between the walls but also built into the lower wall so that the fortress wall actually formed the outer, northernmost wall of the houses. This is just as is described in the Book of Joshua where Rahab the prostitute’s house was located “within the wall” of Jericho.
After a prestigious reign of 67 years, Ramesses II dies at the exceptional age of 92. So, can you reply after checking with the British Museum, the Met Museum, or any other museum, that you have support for insisting that Ramesses II was the Pharaoh of the Oppression who drowned AND DIED chasing the Israelites because Exodus says the Israelites were building his storehouses?
Take Note:
John Noble Wilford’s Feb. 22, 1990 article in the New York Times
** you do not have permission to see this link **
”When we compare the archeological evidence at Jericho with the biblical narrative describing the Israelite destruction of Jericho, we find a quite remarkable agreement,” Dr. Bryant G. Wood, an archeologist at the University of Toronto, wrote in the March-April issue of Biblical Archeology Review.
The article goes on to speak about how the traditional and mistaken expectation that Joshua’s invasion happened after Ramesses the Great/Pi-Ramesses, but Ms. Kenyon could not find any pottery attributed to that period. “This led to her conclusion that the city had fallen and been abandoned from 1600 to 1550 BC. [The archaeologist, Rohl, dates it at 1515 BC.]
Stepping away from Rohl for a moment, I share that Dr. Bryant Wood, an archaeologist at the Univ. of Toronto concluded the pottery was missed by Kenyon.
Other lines of evidence converged to support his conclusion that there is verification, evidence of the biblical account of Jericho. There was a mud brick wall. It was incorrect to say there was no walled city.
Can you provide refutation against the Univ. of Toronto archaeologist 1990 interpretation shown above? If not, will you qualify your statement or make a correction?
David Rohl:
98% of the graves at Jericho are dated to the MB I (over 300 years), while at very most 2% date to the Late Bronze I (over 150 years). The conclusion must therefore be obvious that THERE WAS NO CITY AT JERICHO IN THE LATE BRONZE I because the population was less than 100 (represented by a maximum of 20 burials over 150 years).
Bart
You’ll note this NYT article was written 30 years ago in a *newspaper*.
Steefen
A newspaper reports the work and interpretation of an archaeologist associated with a university. It holds up until directly refuted.
That goes for “Biblical Archeology Review” also?
The description of Jericho is verified by archaeological descriptions matching biblical descriptions. We cannot say Jericho did not catch on fire as the Bible says because that is verified by archaeological evidence.
The burning of Jericho is not a fiction/an exaggeration, it is simply an earlier historical event. Similarly, given the question,
Did the guest eat dinner?
Eating at 7pm or 6pm does not change the fact that the guest ate dinner.
Moses is born approximately 1535 BCE.
Moses moves from the Northern Kingdom to the Southern Kingdom when his princess mother is married
to a Southern Kingdom pharaoh.
At age 40, he leaves the Southern Kingdom and goes into exile – 1495 BCE.
Moses is in exile for 40 years but returns to his people in the Northern Kingdom – 1455 BCE.
The Israelites are in the Sinai Wilderness for 40 years, then Moses dies and Joshua takes over – 1415 BCE.
After Joshua takes over Jericho is destroyed before he dies. Jericho is not destroyed 1230 to 1220 BCE.
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Biblical Archaeology Review 13:5, September/October 1987
Redating the Exodus
By John J. Bimson and David Livingston
Among Biblical scholars and archaeologists it is almost axiomatic that the Israelites entered Canaan about 1230–1220 B.C. In terms of archaeological periods, this would be towards the end of the Late Bronze Age, for which the Generally Accepted Date (GAD) is 1550–1200 B.C.
Yet there are enormous problems with this dating. In recent decades an increasing number of scholars have recognized that if we accept the GAD of 1230–1220 B.C. for the Israelite entry into Canaan, we must reject the Biblical account of Israel’s conquest of Canaanite cities. This is because the Biblical account conflicts so strongly with the archaeological record. The Bible describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan at length and refers to a number of cities encountered by Joshua and his armies. In almost every case the archaeological evidence is inconsistent with the Biblical evidence—if we date the Israelite entry into Canaan to the GAD of 1230–1220 B.C.
Jericho was the first city encountered by Joshua and the Israelites when they crossed the Jordan (Joshua 2 and 6). According to the Bible, the Israelites conquered and destroyed Jericho. But according to the archaeologists—and the site has been very extensively excavated—there was no city at Jericho in 1230–1220 B.C. for the Israelites to destroy.
In this thread, I will look at articles regarding pushing back the date of the destruction of Jericho from the generally accepted date, after the reign of Ramesses the Great had begun.
Some of the articles from the Biblical Archaeology Society / Biblical Archaeology Review are:
Redating the Exodus
by John Bimson and David Livingston
9 / 10 – 1987
Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed
by Baruch Halpern
11 / 12 – 1987
A reply to Baruch Halpern’s “Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed”
by John Bimson
7 / 8 – 1988
Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence
by Bryant Wood
3 / 4 – 1990
Jericho was destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age
by Piotr Bienkowski
9 / 10 – 1990
Exodus Itinerary Confirmed by Egyptian Evidence
by Charles Krahmalkov
9 / 10 – 1994
The Biblical Archaeology Society may have more current dates than shown due to updates to the articles.
The overwhelming evidence is that the Israelites were indigenous Canaanites that separated themselves out culturally at the end of the Bronze age. There was of course much Egyptian influence (look at a map) but the Exodus and Conquest described in the Bible are impossible. Re-dating simply won’t help. There are historical problems all down the line. Why not simply accept what seems to be the case, that during the Exile Jewish scribes took their literary traditions and fashioned a noble beginning for themselves. Theologized history.
Stephen said
The overwhelming evidence is that the Israelites were indigenous Canaanites that separated themselves out culturally at the end of the Bronze age. There was of course much Egyptian influence (look at a map) but the Exodus and Conquest described in the Bible are impossible. Re-dating simply won’t help. There are historical problems all down the line. Why not simply accept what seems to be the case, that during the Exile Jewish scribes took their literary traditions and fashioned a noble beginning for themselves. Theologized history.
Just because you are intellectually lazy does not mean everyone else should be intellectually lazy.
Not only are you lazy, but you are in error with errors, plural.
John Bimson and David Livingston
Move the date of the conquest back about 200 years, to shortly before 1400 B.C. Although this conflicts with the GAD for Israel’s emergence in Canaan, it is in fact the date implied by the Bible itself.
In 1 Kings 6:1, we are told that Solomon began building the Temple in the fourth year of his reign and that this was 480 years after the Exodus. Solomon’s reign can be dated with considerable confidence to about 971–931 B.C., so the fourth year of his reign would be 967 B.C. According to the Biblical chronology, this would place the Exodus 480 years earlier—about 1447 B.C., or say 1450 B.C. for convenience. If we allow 40 years for the desert wanderings before the Israelite conquest of Canaan, we arrive at a date of about 1410–1400 B.C. for the Israelite entry into Canaan. This is almost 200 years earlier than the GAD of 1230–1220 B.C.
Another Biblical text—Judges 11:26—indicates that the Israelites had been settled in Transjordan for 300 years by the time of Jephthah, one of the Judges. Jephthah, by common agreement, can be dated to about 1100 B.C. This would place Israelite settlement east of the Jordan 300 years earlier—about 1400 B.C., again, almost 200 years before the GAD.
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There is indeed evidence from Tell el-Maskhuta that some Semitic settlers were treated with brutality by the Hyksos. The MB II finds at Tell el-Maskhuta include the tomb of a woman and her dog, both killed by blows from a type of battle-axe used by the Hyksos. We suggest that these other Semitic settlers were (or at least included) the Israelites, whom the Hyksos treated as slaves—perhaps following an example already set by the Egyptians.
Note: The woman and her dog had both been killed by blows from a chisel-type, shaft-hole battle-axe, a type commonly associated with the Hyksos. King Seqenenre of the native 17th Dynasty (c. 1575–1550 B.C.) received fatal blows from the same kind of weapon. See Holladay, Tell el-Maskhuta, pp. 44–47 and figs. 73–74. For the suggestion that this find may be connected with the enslavement of the Hebrews by the Hyksos, see Ian Wilson, Exodus: The True Story Behind the Biblical Account (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 65–66.
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ONE BIG PROBLEM WITH THIS, then would be Hebrews needing to be freed from Hebrews, not Egyptians! ! !
Bimson / Livingston
The MB II period was characterized by strongly fortified cities.
In this respect it fits exactly the Biblical description of Canaan at the time of the conquest. The complaint of Moses’ spies was that the cities of Canaan were too well fortified to be conquered—“fortified and very large” (Numbers 13:28); “great and fortified up to heaven” (Deuteronomy 1:28). The narratives of the conquest provide further confirmation that the Israelites were confronted by cities with walls and gates (see Joshua 2:15, 6:1, 5, 7:5, 8:29, 10:20, 14:12, etc.). Because of these fortifications Joshua avoided straightforward siege warfare, which offered little hope of success, and employed a variety of other tactics instead.
While the Biblical picture conforms perfectly to the situation in MB II, it does not ring true at all as a description of the Late Bronze Age. (Remember that the currently prevailing scholarly view is that Israel entered Canaan at the end of the Late Bronze Age, that is 1230–1220 B.C.) A recent study by Rivka Gonen has revealed that, contrary to the assumption of many scholars, most Late Bronze Age cities were unwalled settlements, much smaller than their MB II predecessors.
Moreover, many of the walled cities
page 46
of Canaan were destroyed at the end of MB II.
Jericho was a large, fortified city during MB II, and was destroyed by fire at the end of that period (cf. Joshua 6:24).
… [T]he end of MB II has been fixed at about 1550 B.C. by its association with an event in Egyptian history. As we have seen, the end of MB II is marked by the widespread destruction and abandonment of major Canaanite cities. The destroyers of these cities have conventionally been identified as the Egyptians, pursuing their Hyksos overlords after driving them out of Egypt. The date for the expulsion of the Hyksos and the beginning of a new dynasty of native Egyptian kings (the 18th Dynasty) is fixed by Egyptologists at around 1550 B.C. Hence this has become the date for the fall of Canaan’s MB II cities, and therefore the date when the Middle Bronze Age ended and the Late Bronze Age began.
But recently scholars have become increasingly critical of attributing the destruction of all these sites to the Egyptians. We are now beginning to recognize that the evidence for an Egyptian destruction is very scanty—a few scraps of inscriptional evidence which are suggestive at best. Furthermore, the prominent Egyptologist Donald Redford has recently pointed out that at the start of the 18th Dynasty—the first Egyptian dynasty after the expulsion of the Hyksos—the Egyptians were simply not capable of besieging fortified cities throughout Canaan. Noting the lack of evidence for such Egyptian campaigns in Canaan, William H. Shea has also written of the need to find alternative destroyers for the Middle Bronze II cities.
If the Egyptians were not the destroyers of these cities at the end of the
page 52
Middle Bronze Age, their destruction may well have occurred later than 1550 B.C. And indeed there is now strong evidence for placing the end of MB II much later than the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt.
The evidence comes from recent excavations in Egypt. Manfred Bietak of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Vienna and the Austrian Archaeological Institute has been conducting excavations at a site called Tell el-Dab’a since 1966. This is a mound in the Khata’na-Qantir district, that is, the region of Biblical Raamses. Here Bietak found Middle Bronze Syro-Palestinian pottery associated with Egyptian finds of the Hyksos era. After analyzing this material, Bietak has suggested that the period known as Middle Bronze II B—one of three subdivisions of MB II—be lowered by roughly a century; instead of MB II B’s conventional dates of 1750–1650 B.C., he proposes dates of 1650–1570 B.C. This, in turn, displaces the final phase of Middle Bronze II, known as MB II C, which must now start about 1570 B.C. instead of about 1650 B.C. as was previously held. In light of this, the conventional end-date for MB II C, namely 1550 B.C., cannot be retained. Even the later end-date of about 1500 B.C., now favored by some archaeologists, is impossibly early. In light of the evidence from Tell el-Dab’a, we must lower the date for the end of MB II C (the last phase of MB II)—and the period of the destruction of the Canaanite cities—well into the 15th century B.C.
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Earlier in the article (at page 41):
This admittedly poor “fit” between Biblical tradition and archaeological evidence is universally recognized by scholars, the majority of whom nevertheless accept a date of 1230–1220 B.C. for Israel’s entry into Canaan.
How do they deal with the problem?
One approach, which has gained considerable support in mainstream scholarship, is to explain Israel’s emergence in Canaan by processes other than conquest—that is, by thoroughly rejecting the Biblical account. Among these alternative views is the “peaceful infiltration” theory, long favored by German scholars. Another, newer proposal is the “peasant revolt” theory
page 42
advocated by George E. Mendenhall and Norman K. Gottwald. According to this, what the Bible describes in terms of an Israelite conquest was in fact a revolt of local peasants against the urban centers that previously dominated them.
Back to where we were in the article, page 65:
We would not claim that our proposed 15th-century chronology for the Exodus and conquest is entirely without problems. What we do say is that our proposal presents far fewer problems than the conventional 13th-century chronology. As we noted earlier, James B. Pritchard wrote in the 1960s that scholarship had “reached an impasse on the question of supporting the traditional view of the conquest with archaeological undergirding.” The response to the impasse has been to
page 66
reconstruct Israel’s origins in ways that do not involve the Biblical picture of a conquest at all. But this will not do. As Abraham Malamat observed:
“A basic element of Israelite consciousness is that Canaan was ‘inherited’ by force. This tenet is like a leitmotif that runs through the Biblical sources.”
Consequently Malamat states that, even though some embellishment of the account may have occurred, “at the core, a military conquest remains.”
October 17, 2019
Exodus from a Historical Perspective
It has proved difficult for biblical scholars to establish when these events are to have taken place. The most common dating of the exodus event places it around 1250 BCE, for three reasons. … The exodus tradition was hugely important, as it became a kind of “founding legend” for the nation of Israel. It does not appear to be actual history.
QUESTION:
What do you and other biblical scholars say about Artapanus, the ancient historian, who wrote about Moses, even giving the name of his pharaoh-stepfather?
~ ~ ~
And Artapanus says, in his book Concerning the Jews…
~ ~ ~
Kha-nefer-re was the throne name for Sobek-hotep IV, circa 1535 BCE, not a pharaoh of the 18th or 19th Dynasty, circa 1250 BCE.
So the Exodus is pushed back in time away from Ramesses the Great for at least two reasons:
1) Moses was not the stepson of Ramesses the Great. He was the stepson of a much earlier pharaoh, Sobekhotep IV. Eusebius writes about this in Praeparatio Evangelica, Book IX, Chapter XXVII.
2) Archaeologists do not date the fall of Jericho during or after the time of Ramesses the Great.
Was Ramesses the Great still alive when Joshua beheld the fall of Jericho? [Pharaoh, Ramesses the Great did not drown in the Red Sea / Reed Sea.]
Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed
by Baruch Halpern
11 / 12 – 1987, p. 56
It is flawed because
1 The Late Bronze Age I now is compressed into 20 years.
2 The LB I city of Megiddo was destroyed in 1468 BC. LB1 began 1420-1400 LB I.
If LB I did not begin until 1420 BC and an LB I city could not be destroyed 50 years earlier in 1468 BC.
If the LB I city of Megiddo was destroyed in 1468 B.C., it must have been built much earlier; consequently LB I must have started much earlier, and certainly not in the period 1420–1400 B.C.
3 Halpern says the Hebrews built Pi Raamses about a generation before the Exodus, not hundreds of years earlier, as Bimson and Livingston claim.
4 B&L claim that Israel encountered Ammon, Moab and Edom in the MB II settlements of Transjordan. But no text mentions Ammon, Moab or Edom before the 13th century B.C. On what basis do B&L conclude that the MB II settlements in Transjordan represent those nations?
5
B&L suggest that the Israelites conquered Cisjordan in the 15th century B.C. and lived in symbiosis with the Canaanite fortified cities of the plains. Two internal difficulties beset this hypothesis.
First, the Biblical accounts claim that Israel supplanted the denizens of the hills (Joshua 10–11). Joshua 17:14–18 states that the Israelites first settled the hilly regions and could not move into the lowlands. But hill settlements are few until Iron I. Faced with this difficulty, B&L hypothesize an Israelite presence in the lowlands (where most of the LB cemeteries unconnected with settlements are found). But this conflicts with the Biblical tradition that Israel first settled the highlands. Again B&L’s treatment of the Biblical text is arbitrary: Did the Israelite conquerors remember a conquest, but simultaneously forget that they settled originally in the plains?
According to B&L, the chronology of 1 Kings 6:1 and the conquest story of Joshua 10–12, both of which conflict with the archaeological and historical data, are correct; but they discard the history of Israel’s settlement given in Joshua and Judges (with the Israelites settling first in the highlands), which matches the archaeological evidence precisely. This is a perverse approach to reconstructing the past.
The second internal problem that B&L evade is this: Biblical accounts preserve no record of Egyptian domination in Canaan, a domination that lasted from LB I to Iron I, as excavations and texts such as the Amarna letters make clear. How is it that the Bible can place the conquest in 1410 B.C., but suffer from amnesia about Egyptian domination in Canaan from 1410 to about 1140 B.C.?
6
The Transjordanian nations of Ammon, Moab and Edom had distinctive onomastica (repertoires of personal names). In the onomastic evidence from the 16th to the 12th centuries, there is not a single indication that Ammonite, Moabite or Edomite elements are present in the names. And there are no names compounded with theophoric elements mentioning the Transjordanian national gods,** you do not have permission to see this link ** such as Qaus or Chemosh, as we find in later periods.
The onomasticon in the area of Canaan occupied by the Israelites also gives B&L trouble. The Amarna archive (Late Bronze Age) contains hundreds of personal names, but not one includes as a theophoric element the name of the Hebrew God, YHWH. Even in exile in Babylon, a high percentage of Jews—probably half—had names with Yahwistic theophorics. Why are there no Yahwistic names in any of the many 13th-century B.C. sources? The indication is that Israel was probably absent from Canaan.
7
One last point deserves mention. B&L suppose that Israel conquered MB II Canaan, but occupied the lowlands for 200 years, without enjoying any period of dominion or superiority. But the Late Bronze sites are generally smaller than those of MB II, and they suggest nothing like an influx of population (unlike the situation in Iron I—beginning about 1200 B.C.—with the founding of scores of new hill-country sites). So here is Israel, according to B&L, buying pots from, and assimilating to, local Canaanite culture—a culture they have vanquished and should be ruling. Their theory simply makes no sense. Where is this mighty ethnic group (the Israelites) in any text from the pre-Iron I period? Where are these conquerors archaeologically, who, in a fit of apparent masochism, made obeisance to the population they had just decimated? Where are Israel’s memories of this long period (200 years or more) of servile dormancy? B&L’s invisible Israelites, those stalwarts who so jammed the historical radar as to efface every trace of their presence for 200 years, are a vapor.
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Steefen
Don’t you love a good panel discussion?
My original interest was the dating of Jericho. Contextually, there is much more here.
6
The onomasticon (repertoires of personal names) in the area of Canaan occupied by the Israelites also gives B&L trouble. The Amarna archive (Late Bronze Age) contains hundreds of personal names, but not one includes as a theophoric element the name of the Hebrew God, YHWH. Even in exile in Babylon, a high percentage of Jews—probably half—had names with Yahwistic theophorics. Why are there no Yahwistic names in any of the many 13th-century B.C. sources? The indication is that Israel was probably absent from Canaan.
7
B&L suppose that Israel conquered MB II Canaan, but occupied the lowlands for 200 years, without enjoying any period of dominion or superiority. But the Late Bronze sites are generally smaller than those of MB II, and they suggest nothing like an influx of population (unlike the situation in Iron I—beginning about 1200 B.C.—with the founding of scores of new hill-country sites).
So here is Israel, according to B&L, buying pots from, and assimilating to, local Canaanite culture—a culture they have vanquished and should be ruling. Their theory simply makes no sense.
Where is this mighty ethnic group (the Israelites) in any text from the pre-Iron I period?
Where are these conquerors archaeologically, who, in a fit of apparent masochism, made obeisance to the population they had just decimated?
Where are Israel’s memories of this long period (200 years or more) of servile dormancy?
B&L’s invisible Israelites, those stalwarts who so jammed the historical radar as to efface every trace of their presence for 200 years, are a vapor.
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A reply to Baruch Halpern’s “Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed”
by John Bimson
7 / 8 – 1988
Halpern tries to fix the end of LB I at 1400 B.C. by arguing that the following period, LB II A, cannot have begun any later than that date. Here he appeals to the Amarna letters, correspondence written in the 14th century B.C. between Canaanite city-chiefs and the Egyptian administration. The earliest letter in this collection is probably one dating from the 32nd year of the pharaoh Amenophis III. If this pharaoh reigned 1405–1367 B.C., then Halpern is correct to state that the Amarna letters are from roughly 1375–1345 B.C. Now there is (as Halpern notes) sound stratigraphical evidence to show that LB II A was at least partly contemporary with the Amarna period. But Halpern is going beyond his evidence when he uses it to claim that LB II A “begins no later than 1400” (see his endnote 1). He seems to assume that the towns of LB II A were very different from those of LB I. He speaks of “the great citadels of the Late Bronze II A period,” and of LB II A as the period “during which Canaan developed to the state reflected in the Amarna archive.” Actually, walled towns of any size were rare in both LB I and LB II A, and there was no dramatic increase in the size of most towns in the latter period. In each case where a town mentioned in the Amarna letters has been firmly identified and adequately excavated, there is evidence of occupation in LB I as well as LB II A. In theory, therefore, there is no reason why LB I cannot extend to the very beginning of the Amarna period, or even overlap slightly with it.
Halpern cites only one set of dates (the highest) for Amenophis III and his successor Akhenaten. Lower dates for Egypt’s 18th Dynasty are now common currency, and such notable Egyptologists as Kenneth Kitchen are favoring the lowest dates possible. Thus Amenophis III can be dated as late as 1390–1352 B.C., or even (if he shared a coregency with Akhenaten) 1382–1344 B.C. These low dates would place the beginning of the period covered by the Amarna correspondence at around 1360 B.C. or even slightly later.
In short, there is much more flexibility in dating the end of LB I than Halpern seems to be aware of. It is possible to defend a date as low as about 1360 B.C. on the various grounds discussed above. If MB II ended around 1420 B.C., LB I could therefore have lasted up to 60 years, not the mere 20 assumed by Halpern.
John Bimson
We do believe, however, that there was contact between the seminomadic highlanders and the lowland cities, and our evidence for this is the continuity between LBA culture and that of the Iron Age settlements that flowered in the highlands after 1200 B.C. As Volkmar Fritz remarks: “The results of archaeological research indicate that early Iron Age Culture was highly dependent upon Late Bronze Age Culture. … ”
In case we did not make our position clear in our article, it is that the breakdown of the Late Bronze Age city-states led to a redistribution of settlement and to the Israelites abandoning a seminomadic lifestyle. Our view is actually very close to that recently argued by Fritz. In proposing what he calls the “symbiosis hypothesis” of Israel’s origins, Fritz provides an answer to another of Halpern’s criticisms. Halpern says that our theory requires “invisible Israelites” in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age, since he sees no evidence for their presence until the start of the Iron Age. Fritz, on the other hand, notes that the character of Iron Age settlements points to “intensive, prolonged contact” between seminomadic Israelites and Canaanite culture before the start of the Iron Age; “This contact must have already occurred in the Late Bronze Age before the beginnings of sedentary life.” In other words, Fritz sees the evidence demanding an Israelite presence in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age.
Finally, Halpern tries to ridicule our reconstruction by contrasting a picture of Israel as a “mighty ethnic group,” victorious over Canaan, with our view of Israel borrowing from and assimilating to Canaanite culture. But surely the Book of Judges (and even parts of Joshua) shows that Israel did not totally vanquish the Canaanites, and that Israelites did assimilate to Canaanite culture. When Halpern asks: “Where are Israel’s memories of this long period (200 years or more) of servile dormancy?” the answer is: “In the Book of Judges.” There Israel is anything but a “mighty ethnic group,” but is frequently weak, idolatrous, servile and internally divided.
Steefen
Our view is actually very close to that recently argued by Volkmar Fritz (“symbiosis hypothesis” of Israel’s origins).
Fritz notes that the character of Iron Age settlements points to “intensive, prolonged contact” between seminomadic Israelites and Canaanite culture before the start of the Iron Age; “This contact must have already occurred in the Late Bronze Age before the beginnings of sedentary life.” In other words, Fritz sees the evidence demanding an Israelite presence in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age.
Finally, Halpern tries to ridicule our reconstruction by contrasting a picture of Israel as a “mighty ethnic group,” victorious over Canaan, with our view of Israel borrowing from and assimilating to Canaanite culture. But surely the Book of Judges (and even parts of Joshua) shows that Israel did not totally vanquish the Canaanites, and that Israelites did assimilate to Canaanite culture.
When Halpern asks: “Where are Israel’s memories of this long period (200 years or more) of servile dormancy?” the answer is: “In the Book of Judges.” There Israel is anything but a “mighty ethnic group,” but is frequently weak, idolatrous, servile and internally divided.
= = =
El was the head of the Canaanite pantheon of gods.
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John J. Bimson was a lecturer in Old Testament at Trinity College, Bristol, England and the author of
Redating the Exodus (Almond Press, 1981).
Let’s double check the list because I want to add another article:
Some of the articles from the Biblical Archaeology Society / Biblical Archaeology Review are:
Redating the Exodus
by John Bimson and David Livingston
9 / 10 – 1987
Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed
by Baruch Halpern
11 / 12 – 1987
A reply to Baruch Halpern’s “Radical Exodus Redating Fatally Flawed”
by John Bimson
7 / 8 – 1988
Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence
by Bryant Wood
3 / 4 – 1990
Jericho was destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age
by Piotr Bienkowski
9 / 10 – 1990
Dating Jericho’s Destruction: Bienkowski Is Wrong on All Counts
by Bryant G. Wood
9 / 10 – 1990
The Philistines Enter Canaan: Were they Egyptian lackeys or invading conquerors?
by Bryant G. Wood
11 / 12 – 1991
How Did the Philistines Enter Canaan? A Rejoinder
by Itamar Singer
11 / 12 – 1992
Exodus Itinerary Confirmed by Egyptian Evidence
by Charles Krahmalkov
9 / 10 – 1994
Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence
by Bryant Wood
3 / 4 – 1990
This article along with a New York Times article of 2/22/1990, “Believers Score in Battle Over the Battle of Jericho” by John Noble Wilford explains why Jericho’s destruction happened
after 1600 to 1550 BCE
and
before the Bible’s theoretical Exodus from Ramesses the Great.
[The article to follow says the above article is claiming Jericho was destroyed in the Late Bronze Age.]
Jericho, current-day Tell es-Sultan
1907-1909 and 1911, excavation by Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger / Conclusion:
Jericho was unoccupied and unfortified 1550 – 1200 BCE — the Late Bronze Age.
1930 – 1960 British archaeologist John Garstang excavated
and later dated Jericho (City IV) to the late 15th century to the early 14th century — the Late Bronze Age.
The early boundary is 1300, not 1200 BCE.
Garstang concluded City IV came to an end about 1400 BCE, destroyed by Israelites or by earthquake and fire.
[Ramesses II / Ramesses the Great [1279 – 1213 BCE]
Garstang asked an up-and-coming Kathleen Kenyon to review and update his findings, but she came to the conclusion of Sellin and Watzinger.
Kenyon went back to Tell es-Sultan from 1952 to 1958. Kenyon concluded that her field work confirmed her earlier review of Garstang’s work: the double city wall Garstang associated with the Israelite invasion in about 1400 BCE in fact dated to the Early Bronze Age some 1,000 years earlier. Instead of a destruction at 1400 BCE, the destruction occurred about 1550 BCE.
Megiddo was situated on major trade routes far from Jericho. Megiddo-level luxury to include imported pottery could not be expected at Jericho. Therefore, the absence of imported pottery in Jericho cannot be a dating criterion.
Kenyon associated the destruction with either the expulsion of the Hyksos or the Egyptians who chased them.
There is no evidence that the Egyptians battled the Hyksos as far north as Jericho. However, Egypt did have influence as far north as Syria–but likely more westward than the Jordan Valley.
Egyptian military would mount a campaign prior to harvest, not after harvest. City IV had many post-harvest store jars full of grain.
A strongly fortified city would be besieged, taking months to do, if not years. People at Jericho had not reduced their store of food.
SO, we cannot agree with Sellin/Watzinger/Kenyon. We have to turn to Garstang’s conclusion that City IV was destroyed about 1400 BCE.
Garstang HAD found a considerable quantity of pottery decorated with red and black paint, indicating imported Cypriot bichrome ware (the type of pottery Kenyon said she did not find). Kenyon’s area of excavation was north of where Garstang’s area was.
Garstang found scarabs 13th Dynasty to 18th Dynasty
Charcoal in the destruction debris was Carbon-14 dated to 1410, +/- 40 years.
All this evidence demonstrates that Jericho was destroyed earlier than 1550 BCE as Kenyon maintained. It was destroyed approximately in 1410 BCE.
So, without the Hyksos or Egyptians destroying the earthquake ravaged Jericho by fire, maybe the Israelites DID set Jericho afire.
Was this destruction at the hands of the Israelites? The correlation between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical narrative is substantial:
• The city was strongly fortified (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their foodstuffs (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The siege was short (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The city was not plundered (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
• The city was burned (** you do not have permission to see this link **).
One major problem remains: the date, 1400 B.C.E. Most scholars will reject the possibility that the Israelites destroyed Jericho in about 1400 B.C.E. because of their belief that Israel did not emerge in Canaan until about 150 to 200 years later (1250 – 1200 with them escaping from Ramesses the Great), at the end of the Late Bronze II period.
Interviewing Bimson: “John Bimson specialized in this area … He dealt extensively with this issue in his pioneering book, Redating the Exodus and Conquest. I asked Bimson, ‘Does what happened according to the Bible fit the archaeology?’ He clarified, ‘It fits the archaeology if you look for the archaeological evidence in the right time period … There was a major collapse of urban civilization at the end of what’s called the Middle Bronze Age.’ According to Bimson, near the end of the Middle Bronze Age the cities mentioned in the Bible’s Conquest story were all occupied and were guarded by high walls. And, amazingly, the archaeology shows that most of these cities suffered major destructions … Bimson nodded. ‘.. if we go to this earlier date, we have a very good fit, with a whole list of sites, a good fit between the biblical narrative and the archaeological evidence.’ I could see why the evidence from the earlier Middle Bronze Age is so significant. It matches the Conquest story very well, whereas the archaeology from the Late Bronze Age does not. Once again, dating is the key … dating is the main reason why the archaeology does not match the early history recorded in the Bible.” ( – Patterns of Evidence: Exodus, 2015, pages 251-3; by Tim Mahoney, filmmaker; interviewing John Bimson)
Bimson continues: “ ‘When we look at the right period, I think we have enough destroyed and abandoned cities to say this fits the sequence of events the Bible is describing in the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. There’s a high probability that we’re looking here at Joshua’s Conquest.’ If scholars have been looking at the wrong time for the Conquest, it is understandable that they don’t find any evidence.” ( – Patterns of Evidence: Exodus, 2015, page 254; by Tim Mahoney, filmmaker; interviewing John Bimson)
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