The archaeology of Jericho has often been cited as the classical example of the discrepancy between archaeology and the biblical account. Yes, it is said, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Jericho suffered a fate just as described in the book of Joshua. It was massively walled (2m thick and up to 8m in height). It was destroyed by fire, the walls have collapsed before the conflagration, just as the biblical account said it did. The city was not looted (in the biblical account Achan was stoned for stealing from Jericho). Jars were found full of grains, suggesting that destruction happened soon after the harvest was completed (the biblical account placed it soon after Passover, the season of barley and wheat harvest) and that the siege was short (biblical account a week plus). On the north side of the wall a hut was found built against the wall not unlike Rahab's. But the destruction of the city, it is asserted, occurred in the middle of the 16th Cent, not the 15th when the conquest under Joshua was supposed to have taken place.
This early date was the conclusion arrived at by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon (she was later knighted a Dame for her work) who worked on the site in the 1950's. Kenyon's conclusion, however, has not gone unchallenged. The time of destruction can only be ascertained by a careful study of the pottery. Kenyon never published a definitive study of the pottery evidences. Her comments about the time of destruction were almost off-handed remarks made in various publications.
Two decades before Kenyon, the site had been studied quite extensively by John Garstang. Garstang argues that the pottery points to a late 15th Cent date for the destruction, not 16th Cent as maintained by Kenyon. The date for the destruction of Jericho is therefore a matter of interpretation of the evidence, not of the nature of the evidence itself. Taken together, the evidence in fact provides great confidence for the veracity of the biblical account.
©ALBERITH
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