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The Fall of Jericho
According to the ancient Sumerian story "the 'Sea of the Waters of Death' serve[s] as a unique clue to the whereabouts of Gilgamesh on his second journey. Throughout the Near East, in all the lands of the ancient world, there is only one such body of water. It is so called to this very day: the Dead Sea. It is, indeed, a 'low-lying sea', being the lowest body of water on the face of Earth (1,300 feet below sea level). Its waters are so saturated with salts and minerals that it is totally devoid of all marine and plant life.
"The city that overlooked the Sea of the Waters of death was surrounded by a wall. Its temple was dedicated to Sin, the Moon-god. Outside the city there was an inn. The hostess took Gilgamesh in, extending to him hospitality, giving him information.
"The uncanny similarities to a known biblical tale cannot be missed. When the Israelite's forty years of wandering in the Wilderness had come to an end, it was time to enter Canaan. Coming from the Sinai peninsula, they circled the Dead Sea on its eastern side until they reached the place where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea. When Moses stood upon a hill overlooking the plain, he could see - as Gilgamesh had seen - the shimmering waters of the 'low-lying sea'. In the plain, on the other side of the Jordan, stood a city: Jericho. It blocked the Israelites' advance into Canaan, and they sent two spies to explore its defenses. A woman whose inn was at the city's walls extended to them hospitality, gave them information and guidance."
The Hebrew name for Jericho is Yeriho. It literally means 'Moon City' - the city dedicated to the Moon god, Sin..."
- Zecharia Sitchin, The Stairway to Heaven
"Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the Ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people...And it came to pass...as they that bare the Ark were come unto Jordan...[that] the waters which came from above stood and rose up upon an heap...and those that came down were cut off...and the priests that bare the Ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan...And...when the priests...were come up out of the midst of Jordan and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up onto the dry land...the waters of Jordan returned unto their place...And [Joshua] spake...saying...the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over."
- Joshua 3:6, 14-17, 4:10, 4:21, 4:23
"While the main mass of the people stood back as the obligatory distance of two thousand cubits (more than half a mile), a hand-picked group of priests blowing trumpets marched around the walls of the city bearing the Ark. This procedure was repeated every day for six days."
- Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal
"On the seventh day....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...and they took the city...and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city."
- Joshua 3:6
"Geological evidence suggests a possible explanation for the miraculous elements in the Jericho story. The tumbling of the city's walls was preceded, a few days earlier, by the crossing the Jordan on dry land. Exactly the same 'miracle' has been witnessed in modern times. The Jordan valley lies on a major geological rift, subject to frequent earthquakes. Quake-induced mudslips have been known to dam the river on a number of occasions, most recently in 1927. It seems reasonable to suppose that the same phase of earthquake activity dammed the Jordan and destroyed Jericho's walls."
- Great Events of Bible Times
"It is also possible that...Rahab played traitor to her people and opened the gates to Israel when she heard the great shout outside. Still another possibility is that in an earlier stage the tradition assumed that some of Israel's spies remained in Jericho and at the signal opened the gates of the city. An Egyptian text from the fifteenth century tells how Egyptians took Joppa by bringing in soldiers hidden in baskets, who later opened the city's gates."
"The Israelites completely destroy[ed] Jericho and its inhabitants except for Rahab's household. To destroy everything in a captured city, except perhaps the precious metals, was regarded as an act of high devotion to Yahweh. The Israelites were not alone in practicing this kind of piety. In a later century King Mesha of Moab declares on his commemorative stele that he slew all the Israelite inhabitants of Nebo because he had dedicated their city to his god Ashtar-Chemosh."
- Robert Houston Smith, "The Book of Joshua" in Old Testament History
(2) Dating the Fall
"The Early Bronze Age in Palestine lasted from about 3100 to 2100 B.C. This was the dawn of the historical period in Biblical lands. During all this time Jericho was thickly populated and strongly defended. The ancient city lay at the gateway to Palestine from the east. Every invader crossing the Jordan came face to face with it, as did the Israelites."
"During the thousand years of the Early Bronze Age the city suffered many vicissitudes. Jericho's walls were repaired or completely rebuilt no fewer than 16 times! The earliest wall was undoubtedly destroyed by an earthquake; we found it lying flat, fallen forward on its face. Later walls probably suffered the same fate. Others may have been destroyed by enemies, as the latest 17 certainly was."
- Katleen M. Kenyon and A. Doulas Tushingham, "Jericho Gives Up Its Secrets", The National Geographic Magazine, December, 1953, page 865.
"Under any chronological system which can reasonably be advanced, the date of Israel's invasion and settlement falls within the period (1500-1000 before the present era) when the country was ruled by Egypt as an essential portion of its Syrian Empire."
- Garstang, The Foundations of Bible History
"The newest Middle Bronze Age city uncovered by our pick dates from about 1600 B.C. After this there is a tantalizing gap in our evidence. The invasion of the Israelites under Joshua must have taken place some where between about 1400 and 1250 B.C. Scholars cannot agree on the exact date; evidence from Jericho might solve the problem."
- Katleen M. Kenyon and A. Doulas Tushingham, "Jericho Gives Up Its Secrets", The National Geographic Magazine, December, 1953, page 865.
"In 1952 the English archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon....found that during the Early Iron Age [1300-1200 BC], the period which was the only possible time for the first Israelite settlements in Canaan, the city of Jericho had been largely deserted, having been in a state of ruin ever since the destruction of the last Bronze Age city 300 years before. Joshua and his Israelites would have found little more than a poor village atop an ancient hill when they arrived at Jericho, a state of affairs that has since been confirmed in excavations at other cities, which, the Bible tells us, were also visited by Joshua and his army."
- John Romer, Testament
"The Early Iron Age settlements of the central hill country of Palestine are not evidence of early Israelite settlement in the Promised Land but rather represent the refugee settlements from the Aramaean Supremacy which brought the Kingdom of Israel to crisis point towards the end of the ninth century BC [during the reigns of Jehu and Jehoahaz. Israel's 'savior' was Shoshenk I who campaigned in Transjordan and the Jezreel valley in order to put an end to the Aramaean incursions into the Egyptian sphere of influence."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 308
"The conventional dating of the conquest places the event around 1200 BC, when Jericho was an insignificant settlement with no trace of walls.
"However, a recent reassessment of the conquest, following traditional Biblical dates, places it around 1400 BC, arguing that Joshua confronted an earlier settlement. At this time, Jericho had mighty walls and its destruction reveals signs of earthquake as well as a thick layer of ashes from burning."
- Great Events of Bible Times
"Dr. John Bimson, a biblical scholar at Tyndale House, Cambridge, agrees...that Exodus took place in the middle decades of the 15th century. He has examined the biblical accounts of the sacking of the 12 Canaanite cities by the Israelites under Joshua. While the archaeological record is confusing for the late 13th century, he says, the record for the 15th century shows half of them as having been destroyed by burning - just the sort of evidence to be expected were they sacked by the Israelites."
- Jerome Burn, "Velikovsky Spawns More Controversy", New Scientist, April 20 1978
"...In the walls of the ancient city were found indications of earthquake and signs of fire, which the excavator referred to -1407 or thereabouts - the time of the el-Amarna correspondence [from Jerusalem to the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III]. This earthquake might have been the cause for the fall of the walls of Jericho when the Israelites, after crossing the Jordan, besieged the city."
- Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos
"...At the foot of the mound Kenyon found a thick deposits of red-brown earth which she interpreted as the remains of the great MB (Middle Bronze Age) city wall which had collapsed outwards and fallen down into the defensive ditch. The walls of MBA Jericho had indeed tumbled down, thus affording any attacker easy access into the city by filling up the ditch which protected the base of Jericho's elaborate defensive system.
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 304
"The destruction of this last wall marks a great catastrophe for Bronze Age Jericho, as indeed it must have for the whole of Palestine. Its predecessor had collapsed, possibly because of an earthquake. While still in ruins there was an urgent threat, for the last wall was hurriedly built of rough and broken materials. Before it was finished, disaster overtook Jericho."
"The wall as we found it was destroyed so completely that the very stones of its foundations were split and blackened by fire. Brickwork was burnt bright red, and ashes of the conflagration, in striking shades of red, white, and pastel blue, were piled against the remains.
- Katleen M. Kenyon and A. Doulas Tushingham, "Jericho Gives Up Its Secrets", The National Geographic Magazine, December, 1953, page 865.
"Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house."
- Joshua 6:24
"Within MBA city itself all the houses and civic buildings had been blackened by a severe conflagration. In some places the ash and debris was a meter in depth."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 304
"Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest."
- Joshua 3:15a
"According to Joshua 3:15 the assault upon Jericho took place during the harvest season in the Jordan valley. When Garstang uncovered the floors of the houses of the MBA city he found large storage jars filled to the brim with carbonized grain."
"Biblical Jericho, destroyed by Joshua's forces, is to be identified with the Middle Bronze Age city at Tell es-Sultan which was devastated by fire and remained a desolate ruin for several centuries thereafter."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 304, 305
"From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites-Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai-descendants of Anak."
- Joshua 15:14
"Another interesting find from the excavation of Jericho and other sites in Palestine are numerous scarabs with the name of the Anakite king Sheshai' who ruled in the Middle Bronze Age. Joshua 15:14 and Judges 1:10 both record that Caleb defeated King Sheshi of Hebron during the conquest."
"In 1992, the joint Israeli/Spanish mission were digging at the ruins of Hazor, the largest city of Palestine in the Middle Bronze Age. They found a tablet on which was recorded the name of the powerful king of the city. That name was Jabin, the same as the king of Hazor who Joshua defeated as recorded in Joshua 11:1,10! Again, Hazor was found to have been completely destroyed during the Middle Bronze Age as recorded in the biblical account of the conquest."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
"Without doubt this destruction marks the invasion of Palestine by a wave of nomads from the desert, which brought the Early Bronze Age civilization to an end. The invaders, probably the Amorites, brought with them to Jericho an entirely different way of life. They cared nothing for the city architecture which had grown up in the thousand years of the Early Bronze Age; their houses were simple and flimsy. Their pottery was unlike that of the older inhabitants; their burial customs were austere. For 200 years progress in Palestine halted."
"Where ever we dug, Late Bronze Age levels had disappeared. This is due partly to abandonment of the town for long periods, when the topsoil levels tended to wash away during successive rainy seasons. We know from the Bible that Jericho lay unoccupied for several hundred years after Joshua's conquest. Partly, too, soil had been stripped from the mound for brickmaking and gardens until all the later areas were removed. Perhaps before the end of the dig, we shall discover an answer to our questions about Jericho's most famous destruction."
- Katleen M. Kenyon and A. Doulas Tushingham, "Jericho Gives Up Its Secrets", The National Geographic Magazine, December, 1953, page 865.
"Archaeology at Shechem, one of the most prominent sites in the early biblical history of Israel, has revealed a remarkable consistency with the biblical account. Here Abraham rested under the Oak of Moreh (Genesis 12:6), here Jacob erected an altar to El, the God of Israel' (Genesis 33:18-20). Joshua set up a large stone here as a memorial to the covenant God made with Israel (Joshua 24:25,26). Abimelech, son of Gideon, burned the people of Shechem alive in punishment for their rebellion against him, as they sheltered in their massive temple-fortress (Judges 9:46-49)."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
"On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws. And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD."
- Joshua 24:25-26
"The standing stone which was discovered in front of the great MB fortress-temple at Shechem is to be identified with the cultic stone of the Covenant erected by Joshua. During the era of the early Judges the stone was established in front of the Temple of Baal-Berith which is now recognized as the MB IIB temple."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 323
(3) Destroying "All That Breathed"
"Stretch out the spear that is in they hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand"
- Joshua 8:18
"Ai, the Book of Joshua tells us, was the first town that the Israelites took as they advanced into their Promised Land after their destruction of Jericho....First Joshua tricked the militia into leaving their ramparts, then he turned upon the defenseless city, slaughtering its population of 12,000 people. The army was then destroyed, the king of Ai captured and hung for a day upon a tree before being cut down and buried in front of the ruined city gates."
- John Romer, Testament
"And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day."
- Joshua 8:28
"Archaeologists have dug up the gates of Ai but they did not find a hanged king in a stony grave. They did discover, however, that the huge city had been deserted for more than a thousand years before the beginning of the Iron Age: that is, a thousand years before the biblical Israelites appear in Canaan."
- John Romer, Testament
"...The people of Gibeon artfully saved their skins (Joshua 9:26); Lachish was 'put to the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein' (Joshua 10:32); Dabir was similarly treated, and it was all extremely pious: Joshua 'destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded' (10:40). Hazor was then taken, slaughtered and burned, together with the cities of its allied kings. These conquests culminate in a great score-card of violence (Joshua 12) which takes the Israelites on a pious slaughter far and wide."
These "and several other sites in Palestine which are named in the books of Joshua and Judges either...show no signs of walled, urban settlement at the preferred date for Joshua or they show no signs of a single wave of common destruction."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"In Hazor, temples were found defaced and statues beheaded, as one would expect from the Israelites abhorrence of pagan images."
- "Great Mysteries of the Bible (A&E)
"At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword. (Hazor had been the head of all these kingdoms.)"
"Cereal grains from the Biblical town of Jericho form the centrepiece of an intriguing hypothesis linking archaeological evidence and environmental events with Old-Testament events. According to radiocarbon estimates by Bruins and van der Plicht, cereal grains from an archaeological layer corresponding to the Bronze-age destruction of Jericho are around 3,311 years old [1315 BCE]. Interestingly, recent work suggests that the volcanic eruption at Santorini in the Mediterranean, which spread debris throughout the region, happened 3,356 years ago [1360 BCE], 45 years before the destruction of Jericho. If the Santorini eruption accounts for the Mosaic plague of 'darkness that can be felt' immediately prior to the exodus from Egypt, then the time between the exodus and the destruction of Jericho is close to the 40 years that the Hebrews were supposed to have wandered in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land."
For more on establishing a timeline for the Exodus and its aftermath, see:
"In the more densely populated areas of Syro-Palestine, there is no marked break in continuity between the Bronze and Iron Ages [thirteenth to twelfth centuries BC]. There is, however, a significant change in the pattern of settlement. With the beginning of the Iron Age, numerous unfortified villages appear in hitherto unsettled areas, particularly the central and southern hill country and parts of Galilee. There are a few villages on abandoned mounds such as Arad and Ai, and villages supersede the Bronze Age cities of Hazor and Megiddo. These villages had an economy based on agriculture and stock breeding. It is tempting to equate the new settlement with the Israelites, but so far nothing definite can be said of the origin of these settlers."
There is "archaeological evidence that some Hebrews remained in Palestine and never settled in Egypt at all, and that these were later joined in an association with a common religious and historical tradition with those who had escaped from Egypt in the solemn assembly of the tribes at Shechem call by Joshua after the re-entry into the Promised Land (Joshua 24)."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 317
- Joshua 11:10
- H J Bruins & J van der Plicht, "The Exodus Enigma", Nature 382, 213-214 (July 18,1996)
Dating the Exodus.
"Contrary to what the Biblical account implies, the tribes almost certainly came into being after the settlement in Canaan. Some tribal names apparently came from the names of regions where the people settled, such as 'mountain of Naphthali', and 'desert of Judah'. The Joshua account, which in fact refers almost exclusively to the small territory of the tribe of Benjamin, was probably used by the later writers as the basis of an idealized, rather than an actual pan-Israelite conquest."
- Great Events of Bible Times
- David Daiches, Moses - Man in the Wilderness
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