Fall of Jericho

Biblical account

According to the Book of Joshua, when the Israelites were encamped at Shittim opposite Jericho, ready to cross the river, Joshua, as a final preparation, sent out two spies to Jericho. The spies stayed in the house of Rahab, a local prostitute. The king of Jericho sent soldiers who asked Rahab to bring out the spies. Instead, she hid them under bundles of flax on the roof. After escaping, the spies promised to spare Rahab and her family after taking the city, if she would mark her house by hanging a red cord out the window.

After the Israelites crossed the Jordan, the king of Jericho ordered that the gates of the walls be closed. God commanded Joshua to go around the walls of Jericho for six days, once every day, and seven times on the seventh day. God commanded the city to be attacked by seven priests blowing horns, with the Ark of the Covenant in front of them and all the people behind the Ark of the Covenant. They encircled the wall of Jericho once a day for the first six days, and then encircled the city seven times on the seventh day. After the shofar (horn) sounded a great blow, the Israelites shouted, and the city walls fell beneath them.

Following God's law, the Israelites killed every man and woman, the young and the old, as well as the oxen, sheep, and donkeys. Only Rahab, her parents, brothers and all "those who belonged to her" were spared. They were incorporated into Israel. Joshua then cursed anybody who rebuilt the foundations and gates, with the deaths of their firstborn and youngest child respectively. This was eventually fulfilled by Hiel the Bethelite under King Ahab's reign.

Origins and historicity

Excavations at Tell es-Sultan

In 1868, Charles Warren identified Tell es-Sultan as the site of biblical Jericho. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated the site between 1907 and 1909 and in 1911, finding the remains of two walls which they initially suggested supported the biblical account of the Battle of Jericho. They later revised this conclusion and dated their finds to the Middle Bronze Age (1950–1550 BCE). In 1930–1936, John Garstang conducted excavations there and discovered the remains of a network of collapsed walls which he dated to about 1400 BCE. Kathleen Kenyon re-excavated the site over 1952–1958 and demonstrated that the destruction occurred at an earlier time, during a well-attested Egyptian campaign against the Hyksos of that period, and that Jericho had been deserted throughout the mid-late 13th century BCE, the supposed time of Joshua's battle. Sources differ as to what date Kenyon instead proposed; either c. 1500 BCE or c. 1580 BCE. Kenyon's work was corroborated in 1995 by radiocarbon tests which dated the destruction level to the late 17th or 16th centuries BCE. Although this destruction is dated to 16th century by carbon dating, scholars propose that this destruction could be ascribed to either Ahmose I(1549-1524 BCE), whose royal signet was found in the necropolis in a slightly later LB I tomb, or Tuthmose III(1479-1425 BCE), whose scarab was recovered from a cemetery northwest of Jericho. A small unwalled settlement was rebuilt after the destruction, but it has been agreed that the tell was unoccupied until the 10th/9th centuries BCE.

More recently, Lorenzo Nigro from the Italian-Palestinian Expedition to Tell es-Sultan has argued that there was some sort of settlement at the site during the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. He states that the expedition has detected Late Bronze II layers in several parts of the tell, although its top layers were heavily cut by levelling operations during the Iron Age, which explains the scarcity of 13th century materials. Nigro says that the idea that the Biblical account should have a literal archaeological correspondence is erroneous, and "any attempt to seriously identify something on the ground with biblical personages and their acts" is hazardous.

In 2023, Nigro confirmed that Jericho was occupied in the Late Bronze Age (1400–1200 BCE). During this period, the previous Middle Bronze city wall was refurbished by adding a mudbrick wall on top of its emerging crest.

Academic consensus

A minority of scholars maintain that the biblical account is historical and that an Israelite conquest of Jericho may have occurred around the 13th century BCE, but the strong consensus among scholars is that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value. Its origin lies in a time far removed from the times that it depicts, and its intention is primarily theological in detailing how Israel and her leaders are judged by their obedience to the teachings and laws (the covenant) set down in the Book of Deuteronomy. The story of Jericho and the rest of the conquest represents the nationalist propaganda of the Kingdom of Judah and their claims to the territory of the Kingdom of Israel after 722 BCE; and that those chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua likely written late in the reign of King Josiah (reigned 640–609  BCE), and the book was revised and completed after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and possibly after the return from the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE.

According to Ann E. Killebrew, "Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality".

In popular culture

Rahab's story forms the heart of the 1968 fantasy novel Moondust by Thomas Burnett Swann.

References

Bibliography

• {{cite book | last = Jacobs | first = Paul F. | chapter = Jericho | editor1-last = Freedman | editor1-first = David Noel | editor2-last = Myers | editor2-first = Allen C. | title = Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible | year = 2000 | publisher = Eerdmans | isbn = 978-9053565032 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qRtUqxkB7wkC&pg=PA691 }}

References

1. {{bibleverse. Joshua. 4:13. KJV
2. Nigro, Lorenzo. (2023). "Durch die Zeiten - Through the Ages: Festschrift für Dieter Vieweger / Essays in Honour of Dieter Vieweger". Gütersloher Verlagshaus.
3. Nigro, Lorenzo. (2020). "Scientific Report of the Italian-Palestinian Expedition to Tell es-Sultan (2020), Palestine: XVI Campaign".
4. (2002). "Peerless images : Persian painting and its sources". New Haven : Yale University Press.
5. "Hermitage Museum".
6. (1979). ""Oriental Armour of the Near and Middle East from the Eighth to the Fifteenth Centuries as Shown in Works of Art", by Michael Gorelik, in: Islamic Arms and Armour, ed. Robert Elgood, London 1979.". Robert Elgood.
7. Hawkins, Ralph K.. (2013). "How Israel Became a People". Abingdon Press.
8. Firth, David G.. (2021). "Joshua: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary". Lexham Press.