Jericho why destroyed

It is merely tacked on at the end of the account without explanation or direct association with the narrative. While the offered text does not rationalize or justify the murder of the children and others of Jericho, this is of course a major concern for later readers.

Since the consensus of scholars is that these accounts are largely ahistorical, these ethical and moral questions are now often treated under the rubric of apologetics.

But readers still ask, Why did God command genocide? The text under consideration here offers no insight to these questions. I can't seem to locate the passage but if memory serves the Anchor Bible volume "Joshua" reported that archaeology showed that there was a wasting disease in the area. Skeletal remains were found distorted. My memory isn't what it used to be so take that with a grain of salt.

Imagine some of the nations today most ravaged by AIDS, but living more than three thousand years ago, with no access to even the most basic medical resources. It may be that infectious diseases were also ravaging the domestic animals in these cities, which would also explain why they were destroyed. It's horrible to contemplate that things were so bad that it was actually necessary for even the youngest members of that society to be killed in order to stop the generational cycle of degeneracy and disease.

But something along these lines seems likely to be the reason for God's order to leave alive nothing that breathed. They will be slaves there and will be oppressed for years.

Gen However, I will judge the nation that they serve, and later they will leave there with many possessions. Gen Now as for you, you'll die peacefully, join your ancestors, and be buried at a good old age.

Gen Your descendants will return here in the fourth generation, since the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet run its course. Although one of the oldest cities in the ancient world, Jericho was not continuously occupied up until Israelite times.

Whether or not the neolithic people who lived in Jericho were Semitic people related to the the Canaanite people of biblical times is indeterminate. Some time around BCE Jericho became abandoned. Archaeologists have found a number of layers, showing occupation and abandonment over the subsequent years of history. The pioneer of archaeology in Jericho, Kathleen Kenyon, found remains of the walls which had surrounded Jericho, but no evidence of any walls that had been destroyed during the 15th to 13th centuries BCE, the time ascribed to Joshua.

Another difficulty is that archaeologists find no evidence of a unified military conquest of Canaanite cities in the Late Bronze Age. Lawrence E.

Stager says in 'Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel', published in The Oxford History of the Biblical World , page 97, of the thirty-one cities said to be taken by Joshua and the Israelites, twenty have been plausibly identified with excavation sites; of these, only Bethel and Hazor show discontinuities consitent with invasion at approximately the same time, and it is even debated whether the destruction of Hazor XIII was as late as that of Late Bronze Age Bethel.

This means that the city-dwelling Canaanites were secure and prosperous, although there may have been minor skirmishes between the rulers of neighbouring cities. It also means that biblical stories of walled cities are not supported by the evidence. This date is rather later than the traditional conquest date of approximately BCE, but is suggested by Finkelstein and Silberman because of presumed references to Rammesside pharaohs in the Exodus narratives.

On page 82, Finkelstein and Silberman tell us that Jericho was entirely unoccupied, with no trace of a settlement of any type in the thirteenth century, so there is no answer to a question of who the inhabitants were at this time.

At the earlier period of around BCE, there was a small village, but again no walled city. These villagers were probably West Semitic, like the coastal Canaanites. Croatian Hrvatski. Dutch Nederlands. Finnish Suomi. German Deutsch. Hungarian Magyar. Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia. Italian Italiano. Norwegian Norsk. Polish Polski.

Swahili Kiswahili. Swedish Svenska. Back to Blog. What do we do with violence in the Bible Part 3 by Andy Patton 1 year ago. Table of Contents. Who Were the Canaanites, Really? Many Canaanites Were Spared Most often, even if a city or region was to be taken, its inhabitants were not to be destroyed.

Three Conventions of Ancient Battle Narratives The conquest accounts use extreme battle language to describe what Israel was doing in Canaan. Battle Idioms Ancient cultures had literary idioms—or figurative language that says one thing but means another—just like we do. Conventions of Exaggeration As modern people, we expect a level of journalistic accuracy when it comes to historical accounts, but ancient cultures had a different understanding of things.

Rhetorical Bravado Rhetoric often employs figurative language and conforms to the conventions of a literary tradition. Finding Jesus in the Conquest Though the conquest remains a difficult section of Scripture for many reasons, we hope a clearer picture of the context and the scope of the conquest helps ease some of the tension we all feel when reading these passages. In Christ, God himself suffered violence so that violence might be ended forever.

Joshua and Jesus Similar to Joshua, Jesus came to drive evil out of his creation. For more food for thought, check out our previous blog post on the conquest. Sources Walton, John. The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest. Inter-Varsity Press, US, Butler, Joshua Ryan. Thomas Nelson, The 19th century provided ample opportunity for Protestant theologians to prove their case.

The invention of the steamboat rendered travel to the Middle East faster and safer. His main feat was identifying biblical cities. He noticed that biblical names are preserved in Arabic with slight distortions.

For Example, A-Riha is Jericho. In a single day, he identified 17 biblical cities. Altogether, he identified more than Most are correct.

In the late 20th century, the archaeologists Carl Watzinger and Ernst Sellin brought spades to this venture. They excavated the city of Jericho, and sure enough, they discovered the ruins of the city walls.

The world was stunned. The walls of Jericho were discovered! They had proved the Catholics wrong. The Old Testament It is not prefiguration and oracle.

It was real history! In Watzinger himself cast some doubt on this discovery, gaining himself no glory. Then in the s, the British archaeologist John Garstang , the chairman of the Department of Antiquities in the Mandatory Palestine, re-excavated Jericho and declared Watzinger and Selin to have been correct after all: These were the walls almighty God destroyed. Meanwhile, Judith Krause Marquet, a young Jewish woman born in Ilaniya in the Galilee, came back from the Sorbonne with a degree in archaeology.

She and her husband Yves Marquet prepared to excavate Ai, the second city conquered by Joshua. Identifying Ai was no great challenge, based on the Bible, which repeatedly states that the city is in the region of Beth Aven and east of Beth El.

Unfortunately, she died of tuberculosis in Subsequently her husband published the results of the dig. His conclusion: The city of Ai did not exist at the time to which scholars date the period of Joshua, the late 13th century B. Scholars at that time preferred to ignore these finds. Later the Book of Joshua was explained as etiological story, meaning, a story that is told backward to explain an existing fact.

Thusly the author killed two birds with one stone, explaining why there is a mound and that stealing sacred property will be severely punished. The heap of stones in the muddy valley, according to the biblical narrative, marked the burial site of the thief Achan, the horned viper, for stealing from the revered booty, causing the first attempt against Ai to fail. Etiology is not literal reading and not all agree that e-Tell is the remains of Ai, not that anybody has postulated an alternative location.

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Recently Popular Pages x. Recently Popular Media x. The Bible tells what happened when the Israelites conquered Jericho: And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword Joshua We Must Understand The Historical Situation While the loss of innocent life is something that is to be deplored, the situation must be understood with the following background in mind.

Israel Was To Be A Witness Before Israel could establish itself in the region as a witness to the one true God, all remnants of the pagan culture had to be destroyed. The Apostle Paul spoke of these people: Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Summary The inhabitants of Canaan were neither ignorant nor innocent victims of an angry God. Donate Contact. Blue Letter Bible is a c 3 nonprofit organization.

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