Jericho Archaeology and the Debate Over Biblical History

With a Subtitle: Jericho's ruins became the test case for whether the Bible's Conquest account is history.

A brief Excerpt: A century of archaeology at Jericho has become a flashpoint in the long debate over whether Joshua's Conquest is history or legend.

The Author is: Zack Duncan

Editor’s note – Skeptics have long argued that the Bible was written centuries after the events it describes, shaped by later theology rather than eyewitness memory. I. M. Koen’s series traces how a stack of clay tablets from an Egyptian archive – and, in this installment, the ruins of Jericho itself – complicated that story. What follows is a fair look at both sides of a real scholarly fight, with the evidence still unfolding.

Biblical Criticism

Early movers in the field of Biblical criticism like Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes began to cast doubt on the historical accuracy of the Bible.

They saw stories in the Bible not as tales from eyewitness accounts, but the product of politically motivated writers who wrote hundreds of years after the events.

Into the 18th century, Enlightenment skeptics like the English theologian Thomas Woolston and Voltaire argued against any miraculous accounts in the Bible. Where the traditionalists saw historical reality, they saw allegory (Woolston) or ignorance (Voltaire).

In the 19th century, academic scholars at German universities became centers for analyzing the Bible using scientific and literary methods.

This “Higher Criticism” group viewed the Old Testament as Israelite national traditions shaped over centuries and first written down during the exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC.

At the supposed time of the Conquest during the 14th century BC, these scholars argued Canaan was nomadic, primitive, and functionally illiterate.

Editor’s note – It’s worth noticing that the “assured results” of higher criticism were never a matter of evidence alone. Wellhausen and his peers began with a conviction that miracles don’t happen and worked backward from there. That’s a philosophical starting point, not a neutral reading of the data – and it shaped what counted as plausible long before a single tablet was unearthed.

Amarna Impact

The discovery of the Amarna letters in the late 19th century was a surprising piece of new evidence for the historical-critical scholars.

One of the dramatic impacts was the simplest: writing coming from Canaan.

Critical scholars had considered extensive written composition unlikely to exist in Canaan at this time. Instead, they thought it was limited to imperial centers like Egypt and Mesopotamia.

For them, the lack of Canaanite literacy strengthened the case that the Hebrew Bible was not the product of someone documenting history as it unfolded.

Instead, many scholars held to the Documentary Hypothesis to articulate how the Bible came into being.

The View of the Conquest from the Documentary Hypothesis

According to the Documentary Hypothesis, the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible) was the product of various theological agendas spanning multiple eras.

Imagining that someone like Moses could have written down the first books of the Bible was a belief that rested on faith rather than reason.

Early proponents like Julius Wellhausen argued that Canaan was simply too primitive for the Bible’s poetry, written narratives, and intricate laws to have been written down during the mid-to-late second millennium BC.

But the Amarna tablets demonstrated Canaan was not only literate but also had a developed bureaucracy.

Even the smallest city-states had professional scribes corresponding with the Egyptian empire about the chaos in Canaan. The discovery required scholars to reassess assumptions about writing in Canaan hundreds of years before the 1st millennium BC.

The Habiru

There was another issue more significant than writing alone.

When the first partial translation of the letters emerged in 1888 scholars such as A.H. Sayce (who was also an Anglican priest) noticed the abundance of references to a people group that was pronounced “habiru.”

It was similar in both pronunciation and etymology to the Hebrew word for… “Hebrew.”

It was so surprising that scholars like Wellhausen apparently first rejected the Amarna letters as forgeries.

It would take the subsequent professional excavation of Tell el-Amarna under Sir Flinders Petrie in 1891 and 1892 and the discovery of more cuneiform correspondence in the imperial “Records Office” of Amarna to finally dispel the claims of forgeries.

Wellhausen never publicly conceded that he had been wrong or acknowledged changing his mind. He appears to have maintained complete silence and later shifted his academic focus to Arabic and early Islamic history.

But many others were quite focused on the habiru described in the Amarna letters.

To the theological conservatives this was vindication for the traditional view of the Bible.

But to many historical-critical scholars holding to a (now revised) Documentary Hypothesis, their interpretation meant the Habiru in the Amarna letters could not be synonymous with the Hebrews of the Bible. Because the term “habiru” appeared in texts from other empires, these scholars increasingly argued it was a sociological term and therefore the Amarna references could not refer exclusively to the Israelites in Joshua.

Neither side could move far from their core positions without admitting their own views were in error.

Editor’s note – Wellhausen’s quiet retreat into Arabic studies after the Habiru discovery is a small but telling detail. Evidence rarely settles an argument all at once; more often it just goes unanswered until the next generation asks the question again. That pattern shows up again and again in the history of ideas, not only in Biblical studies.

The Next Front of the Battle: Jericho

Suddenly, the other historical evidence from ancient Canaan was even more important than ever.

The story from those stones, bones, and pottery shards would help settle the real question underlying all the debate: was the Bible historically reliable or not?

And ever since that time there has been no Biblical archaeological site, save Jerusalem, that has been battled over more fiercely than Jericho.

The History of (re)Discovering Jericho

Twenty years before the Amarna tablets were discovered, Captain Charles Warren was the first to conduct any sort of documented excavations at Jericho.

Warren dug at the mound known as Tell es-Sultan. The 21-meter high mound of mudbrick ruins had been observed for hundreds of years before Warren’s dig.

He was able to identify it as Jericho in part because of the groundwork laid down by the field of Biblical geography.

The Bible Literalists: “Biblical Geography”

Taking a very different approach than the historical-critical scholars were the “Biblical geographers” or “Biblical archaeologists.”

They used the Bible to understand topographical descriptions and decode languages as they searched for ancient sites mentioned in the text.

This approach allowed these Biblical explorers to find places like

• Anathoth, the hometown of Jeremiah at the Arabic village of ‘Anata
• Bethel, where Jacob famously dreamed of a ladder to Heaven, found at Beitin
• Jezreel, the ancient royal city, found at the village of Zerin

Here’s how Jericho matches up with the Bible.

Identification of Jericho Based on the Bible

There are 3 key geographic descriptors from the Bible that give geographic clues to the location of Jericho.

First, the Old Testament makes it clear that it was located in the Jordan River valley.

Joshua 3:16 tells of the parting of the Jordan when the Israelites enter the Promised Land and describe it as “opposite Jericho.”

After they cross the river, Joshua 4:19 says they make camp on the “eastern border of Jericho.” In other words, Jericho must be west of the Jordan.

Joshua 18:21 reiterates that Jericho was in a valley by referring to the “valley of Jericho.”

Second, the Bible establishes that it was within walking distance of Jerusalem and that it was at a lower elevation.

The parable Jesus tells of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30 describes a man walking “down” from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Jerusalem and Jericho are only a 34 km walk apart, yet there’s a massive 3,300-foot difference in elevation. Jerusalem is 2,500′ above and Jericho is 800′ below sea level.

Finally, the Bible indicates there must be a natural spring next to Jericho.

There’s a story in 2 Kings 2:19-22 of the prophet Elisha at the city of Jericho and going “out to the spring.”

Just as expected, Tell es-Sultan is located immediately next to a large natural spring.

Warren had indeed started his work at ancient Jericho. But he couldn’t prove it through what he found in his digging.

He located only pottery shards and mud brick, and he was running out of money. And so, he concluded the site was devoid of any interest and moved on.

Archaeological findings wouldn’t definitively confirm the city’s identity until later.

Editor’s note – There’s something quietly reassuring in watching three plain geographic details – a valley, a walk downhill from Jerusalem, a spring – line up exactly where Scripture said they would. The Bible was never written as a treasure map, but it keeps behaving like one.

Archaeological Advancement and More Jericho Digging

Charles Warren didn’t know about stratigraphic archaeology when he dug at Jericho.

The idea that different layers of soil (“strata”) connected to different historical periods was not a tool in his toolkit.

The reality we now know is that ancient cities were regularly built and rebuilt on top of their ruins over millennia. Archaeologists noticed that the style of pottery changed in different layers of the excavations, and this proved to be an important tool for dating ancient civilizations.

A man named Heinrich Schliemann recognized this “layer cake” concept of ancient tells in 1871 as he dug at the mound of Hisarlik (Turkey, today). He was searching for the ancient city of Troy and discovered nine distinct historical periods stacked on top of one another, each representing a different era.

Armed with this new archaeological knowledge, Ernst Sellin (a prominent historical-critical scholar) and Carl Watzinger (a secular archaeologist) undertook excavations at Jericho between 1907 and 1909.

The pair discovered a fortification system made up of a large lower retaining wall made of stone and a double mudbrick wall built on the upper rampart. The double mudbrick walls had almost entirely collapsed. It looked like it could be an urban center with massive walls that had apparently crashed down and then been consumed by a great fire.

It looked like the Jericho described in the Bible just as the traditionalists believed.

That would not be the end of the story.

A Pottery-based Pivot

Watzinger published updated findings in 1926 based on a subsequent pottery analysis.

He concluded that Jericho was abandoned and in ruins during the Late Bronze Age period of 1550-1200 BC. Two of his biggest reasons:

• He said the pottery styles didn’t match the period
• He believed the massive double mudbrick walls were built before 2,000 BC and would have been gone before the Late Bronze Age

The “burn layer” of ash and debris in the stratified layer cake was dated to around 1550 BC. Watzinger agreed with the account in Joshua that Jericho had been destroyed in a massive fire, but the timeline simply didn’t line up.

What Next?

It seemed like a major blow for the Bible literalists.

If Watzinger was right, there would have been no city of Jericho for Joshua and the Israelites to conquer at the time the Bible indicates.

But the 1926 update would not be the final word on Jericho.

We’ll continue with the story next week.

This article is one of several related to the Habiru, the Amarna letters, and the Conquest of Canaan. Also: “Who were the Habiru?” and “The Amarna Letters and the Conquest of Canaan.”

Don’t forget…Jesus is real. He saved the $uicideboys. He saved this Satanist. He saved DMX. He saved this atheist Uber driver. He saved me from gambling addiction despite my anger towards Him for it at the time…and He will save you if you humble yourself and come to Him.

1. Baruch Spinoza: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
2. The Higher Critics: An Annotated Chronology, 1710-1917: https://victorianweb.org/religion/higherchron.html
3. There are two schools of thought for the dating of the Conquest among scholars. I’m no scholar but am still persuaded that a conquest beginning in the late 15th century BC with a majority of activity in the 14th century BC is most reasonable given the evidence. This is based on an early date of the Exodus and is broadly consistent with the timing of the Amarna letters.
4. Documentary hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis
5. The 3,000-Year-Old Clay Tablets That Redefined Ancient Egypt’s Place in the World: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-hunt-amarna-letters-diplomacy-2709757
6. Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction: https://academic.oup.com/book/479/chapter-abstract/135251850?redirectedFrom=fulltext
7. Heinrich Schliemann: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann
8. Jericho: A Case Study: https://ancientisraelorigins.com/jericho/

A Word from the Editor
Whether Jericho’s walls fell in 1400 BC or centuries earlier is a question for archaeologists, and Koen promises more digging next week. But the deeper question this series puts before us is one every reader can weigh today: does the God who leveled those walls also keep His Word? “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). The dust of Tell es-Sultan gives up its secrets slowly. Scripture already gave us the promise.

---

---