JOSHUA - Week 3
Okay, the time has come to approach the matter of the historicity of the story of Joshua.
So, what do we know? Or perhaps what do we not know that is known by others?
Well, we know for sure that a people group known as the Israelites, or latterly known as the Jewish people, inhabited the land that is now called Israel/Palestine.
The earliest known reference to ‘Israel’ is the Merneptah Stele, dated to around 1208 BCE, which acknowledges Israel specifically as a people group in the land of Canaan, rather than a kingdom in and of itself. The earliest known reference to Israel as a Kingdom is the Mesha Stele, or the Moabite Stone, from around 840 BCE.
So the people were in the land at the end of the 13th Century BCE and there was a recognised Kingdom of Israel by the 9th Century BCE. What do we do, then, with a story like Joshua which many Christians believe to have taken place long before then?
The vast majority of historical and archaeological study has concluded that there are no data to support the biblical narrative as told in Joshua.
In other words, we’ve no objective reason to believe that the events described in Joshua actually took place as written.
That leaves us with a few more complicated questions
1) Do they know what did happen?
2) What about these other things I’ve heard…?
3) If Joshua isn’t a historical account, then what do we do with it?
That’s a lot to go through, so this week we’ll address the first two questions, and then we can think about the third question next week.
1) Do they know what did happen?
I’ve previously described the Joshua story as a ‘conquest narrative’. The biblical account suggests that the Israelites were promised the land, made it out of the desert and into the land and then took it by force (with God’s help). But the wider conversation posits that as one potential option, as well as offering other theories.
Helpfully, my second ever proper university essay was about exactly this question – Discuss the various theories regarding the Israelite settlement in Canaan, and whether the archaeological and textual evidence is conclusive.
Unhelpfully, fresh-faced, 18 year old Mike wasn’t so bold as to offer up any definitive answers, with my conclusion being this;
“The evidence and consequently the hypotheses are inconclusive as of yet, leading to a discussion of probability and likelihood. Whilst this does go some way in furthering understanding of the Israelite conquest, no definitive answer as to what happened can be reached.” (Mike Waine, 2011)
I think that’s probably a fair snapshot of what is a complicated scholarly discussion!
The leading theories that I learnt about then were these;
- Conquest
- Nomadic Infiltration
- Peasant’s revolt
The conquest theory acknowledges that despite some possible simplification in the Biblical account, the Israelites genuinely did escape Egypt, head for Canaan and then invade. Varying significance is placed upon Joshua, the Biblical leader of Israel at the time.
‘Nomadic Infiltration’ suggests that the account found in Joshua is largely, if not entirely, fictional and that there was a much slower, more gradual infiltration of Nomads who took over Canaan. This is supported mostly by some anthropologists and sociologists, namely Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth.
The idea of a Peasant’s revolt suggests that the evidence of destruction is due to a class based uprising against the elites in various cities, assisted significantly by the Israelite tribes.
No one theory is satisfactory – the conquest theory is not supported by the archaeological evidence from cities like Jericho and Ai. The infiltration theory does not account for the evidence of destroyed cities from the time period in question. The peasant’s revolt theory accounts for some historical evidence, but doesn’t account for how Israel came to be what it became.
I hadn’t spent much more time looking into these things in the fourteen years since I wrote that essay, but then doing some research now, I came across another possible explanation as to how things happened.
This theory would work alongside the theory of Nomadic Infiltration. It begins with the historical event described as the ‘Late Bronze Age Collapse’. The hypothesis is that this was caused by the arrival of a group known as the ‘Sea Peoples’, who landed along the coasts of Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BCE. These ‘peoples’ then invaded and destroyed coastal and nearby cities, including those in what would become Israel. In the wake of this destruction, the theory suggests that the people of Israel, who may have been based largely in the hills, then moved into the empty cities and began to establish themselves.
This would line up with the archaeological evidence of destroyed cities in the 13th century BCE, the Merneptah Stele and it’s recognition of Israel as a people group, and the eventual historical reality of Israel’s existence in the form of Judea.
There remains no conclusive theory, but we are able to put together ‘best guesses’ and most likely scenarios, which, based on available information, could be that last theory described.
2) What about these other things I’ve heard…?
I watched a video last week which described, with excitement, that archaeologists have found collapsed walls from the site of ancient Jericho, with the wall having collapsed ‘outwards’ at multiple points rather than inwards at one weak spot as might be expected from an invading attack or seige. This, for the apologist, was in support of the biblical narrative.
You may have heard similar claims made about places like Jericho, or indeed other stories across the Old Testament.
It can be really difficult to know when take something as presented and when to challenge what has been said. With claims presented like the example above, it would be reasonable to trust that someone citing archaeological research has done their own and is trustworthy. That, sadly, is not always the case.
In this particular instance, the video I was watching also included a scholar critiquing the first viewpoint, who pointed out that the archaeologists and seismologists have suggested that the most likely cause for the outward collapse of the walls was an earthquake, which is probable due to the geography of the area.
Second, the scholarly consensus is that the destruction of Jericho took place around 1550BCE (first dated by British Archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon), which doesn’t line up with the earlier Biblical dating of 1406 BCE (based on 1 Kings 6:1 and a view that Solomon’s reign began in 970BCE), and is well before a more likely, later dating of around 1250 BCE (based on Exodus 1:11, the construction of a particular city, and supported by evidence of other Canaanite cities being destroyed in this same time period).
Irrespective of how we date it, the city of Jericho might not even have been inhabited by anyone at the time the Israelites arrived.
This is just one example which demonstrates the importance of critical thinking, wide reading and an engagement with experts.
Biblical scholarship offers landscape altering perspectives in the biblical narrative, and as people who take the bible seriously, we ought to take their learnings seriously too!
Thankfully, with the growth in global digital platforms like YouTube, good and accessible scholarship is easier to find than ever.
That also means that the spread of biased or unhelpful teaching is also easier to find than ever…
So be careful out there!