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JERICHO - Part I:
Introduction
Jericho, "The City of the
Palms" of the Bible, lies some seven miles west of the River Jordan, 300
meters below sea level.
To the East of the Jordan was the great King's Highway which in antiquity was
the main inland route from Egypt to Damascus. The most convenient way to enter
Canaan from that direction would be a crossing of the Jordan near this ancient
city.
The mound that is the remains of that ancient city is now known as Tell es-Sultan.
It is located in the Jordan valley some mile and a half northwest of the modern
town of Jericho beside a spring known as Elisha's fountain. The location of that
spring is probably the reason why the first settlers camped there. Later its
location would dominate the pass through eastern Judea to Jerusalem. It is
inconceivable that one could hold Judea without holding Jericho, nor could one
conquer Judea from the east without first taking it as we see in the story of
Joshua and the conquest.
It is surely at this site that the Biblical story of the conquest and its
subsequent history would be etched into the archaeology. As we shall see in a
subsequent lecture this is far from the case and in fact from an orthodox
chronological point of view the site of Jericho DISPROVES the biblical account.
The first work on the site was done by the famous Captain (later
Major-General Sir) Charles Warren of the British Royal Engineers who were
surveying Palestine in 1867. He is of course better known for his work in
Jerusalem. He sunk a shaft into the Tell, and failed to find anything to
interest him, so moved on. In fact his shaft was driven into the core of an
early Bronze Age Town wall and was found nearly a hundred years later by
Kathleen Kenyon who later performed the most authoritative work on the site.
Between 1908 and 1911 an Austro-German expedition was led by L. Sellin and T.
Watzinger and their meticulous work was extensively published. Their problem
revolved around dating. As we have already seen because of the lack of inscribed
material in Biblical Archaeology almost all dates have to be obtained by pottery
typing and in the early part of the century such work was in its infancy
pioneered by the great British archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie.
In 1930 a major 6 year expedition was undertaken by Liverpool University
under the direction of one of the most accomplished archaeologists of his or any
other generation, Professor John Garstang. Pottery typing by then had become
much more sophisticated and Garstang created headlines throughout the world with
his startling claim that "Joshua's Walls Found At Last".
Garstang also found that that "one part of the outer wall was certainly
tilted bodily forward…" He was inclined to the view that the fall of the
walls was due to an earthquake and that the Israelites deliberately then
destroyed the city by fire. The evidence to him was overwhelming.
It was all there, the correct date, the tilted walls, the destruction by
fire. The Late Bronze Age city of Jericho had been destroyed by Joshua exactly
in accordance with the Biblical account.
And then along came Dame Kathleen Kenyon. Twenty years later with improved
techniques of digging and dating between the years 1952 and 1956 she totally
demolished Garstang's arguments.
Under the auspices of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and
supported by the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
she undertook a major excavation and re-evaluation of the site using new
techniques of soil removal and classification.
Amongst her many finding were that the walls that Garstang had identified as
Late Bronze Age and dated to 1600-1400 BC were in fact much earlier and belonged
to the Early Bronze Age which she dated as ENDING around 2100 BC. Thus the
evidence was 700 years too early for it to have been destroyed by Joshua and in
fact although there was a late Bronze Age city in the 14th century "NOTHING
SURVIVES TO ILLUSTRATE THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT.".
That was it, the most authoritative report about Jericho showed NO evidence
whatsoever of any of the Biblical account of the conquest and that was
re-affirmed for practically every other site linked to the Bible. Thus the
skeptics were proven correct, the Bible was just a hodge podge of myth and half
remembered stories.
Next week we will investigate exactly what the Biblical account states and in
subsequent weeks show how all was not lost.
Any Questions?
Ever
© Michael S. Sanders
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Whilst the small Arab town of al Riha is unprepossessing, there is no doubt that
the town of antiquity which commands the steep ascent to the highlands of the
interior was a place of strategic importance to those who occupied it.
It had been a favorite winter resort of Herod in Roman times but fortunately he
did not build upon the old tell so there is no question, unlike some sites, as
to it being Jericho of the Biblical account.
The above photograph was published in the British Daily Telegraph in the
mid-thirties. At that time of course it was commonly accepted that the Biblical
account was correct in that the Exodus took place 480 years before the building
of Solomon's Temple. Hence the conquest was generally agreed to have taken place
around 1400 BC.
