In the Biblical story, Joshua and the invading Israelites marched thirteen times around the ancient city of Jericho, and the walls fell down. But is this believable? Did it happen?
On this page we’ll look briefly at the history of Jericho, whether it was destroyed as described in the Bible, and if so, when.
The Bible story
In the Bible story, more than two million Israelites left Egypt under Moses’ leadership< and headed across the Sinai desert to Canaan (present day Israel), the land God had promised to them. But because they failed to trust God, they were forced to live in the desert for a generation. Moses died without ever reaching Canaan.
Now, a generation later, Joshua has taken over leadership, and they get their second chance. Joshua isn’t going to muck around. Under God’s instructions, the priests blowing trumpets supported by the army, march around the city each day for six days. Then on the seventh day they march around 7 times, blow the trumpets and shout ,,,, and the walls fall down. They enter the city, and under God’s instructions, kill very person there except for a family who collaborated with them, and every animal. They keep the gold, silver and metals, but burn everything to the ground.
You can read it for yourself in Joshua chapter 6.
Many questions
The story raises many questions, not least the morality of killing everyone in the city, including women, children, grandfathers and the disabled. These days it would be a war crime. Could a good God command that?
We’ll come back to that question, but first of all, what did actually happen?
The oldest city in the world?
Jericho, located close to the Jordan River in the Palestinian West Bank, was first settled before 9,000 BCE, making it one of the oldest presently inhabited cities in the world.
Excavations show that more than 20 successive settlements have been built on the site. It was occupied, destroyed (often by Egypt), and abandoned many times. An early settlement (about 8,000 BCE) had a stone wall and a population between several hundred and several thousand. Jericho was at its largest extent in about 2,600 BCE.
Around 1,700-1,550 BCE, Jericho was a prominent city of perhaps 1,000-2,000 inhabitants, with a 6-8m high mud brick wall constructed on top of a 4-5m rock retaining wall. Inside this wall was a second mud brick wall, up to 12m high. Jericho was destroyed and burnt sometime around this time, as it had been several times before, and was then either uninhabited or much smaller for several centuries.
Destruction as described in the Bible
This mid second millennium BCE destruction has been examined in detail by archaeologists. It has these interesting features:
- The outer mudbrick walls fell outwards around most of the city, effectively making a ramp that would have facilitated entry by the attackers. This is unusual in that invading armies would try to breach walls in only one location using a battering ram which would push the wall inwards. An earthquake has sometimes been proposed as a cause of this large collapse.
- A small section of the wall, with houses built in, did not fall.
- The city was destroyed by fierce burning, which isn’t that unusual.
- Quantities of barley were found among the burnt material. This is a little unusual – invading armies would usually take everything of value, including food, from the conquered city before burning it. The grain suggest the conquest was shortly after harvest in March-April, and was short duration.
- It appears that the city probably wasn’t later re-settled for many centuries. If it was re-settled, it was much smaller, hardly a city.
The interesting things is, all these details are similar to the Biblical account, where:
- Joshua’s attack took place shortly after Passover, i.e. March-April,
- there was only a short (1 week) siege and the walls fell without being attacked,
- Joshua’s army spared the lives of Rahab and her family because they had assisted Israelite spies, and it is recorded she lived in a house on the wall – and presumably she survived because her house was in part of the wall that didn’t collapse,
- only precious and other metals were taken from the city before it was burnt, following instructions attributed to God, and
- Joshua cursed anyone who would rebuild the city, suggesting it wasn’t rebuilt for some time.
Whether Joshua was involved or not, it seems the Bible is describing the actual siege which the archaeologists have been examining.
The date of the destruction
Archaeologists have tried to date the destruction of Jericho using a range of methods.
- Dating of pottery. This is somewhat subjective and much argued over. Some argue for a date around 1,550 BCE while others prefer about 1,400 BCE. The earlier date is probably most preferred.
- Egyptian scarabs. Some of these are inscribed with the names of kings suggest a date around 1,400 BCE. However some scarabs commemorating Amenhotep III (about 1387-1350 BCE) must be dated later than this, which throws some doubt on the use of these scarabs.
- Radiocarbon dating. You’d think this would be the most reliable dating method, but it turns out to also be doubtful for three reasons.
- Radiocarbon test results have to be calibrated to account for natural variations in atmospheric Carbon 14, and this calibration is still not fully certain.
- Carbon dating estimates the time when a vegetable material is cut down. For grains, this is likely to be shortly before it appears in the archaeology, but for timber, there could be a long gap.
- There is natural variation in results.
Nevertheless, the best radiocarbon evidence points to a date around 1,600 BCE.
The result of these attempts to date the destruction of Jericho is that various dates have been proposed, with 1,550 BCE being preferred, but many experts still support the 1,400 BCE date.
When was Joshua at Jericho?
The dating of Joshua’s conquest is as contentious as the dating of the destruction of Jericho. In fact some historians don’t believed it happened at all.
Again, there are three main views
The maximalists accept the Biblical acount as generally true. Accordingly they date Joshua’s conquest to about 1,400 BCE, the same date they believe Jericho was destroyed. It all ties together they say.
The minimalists are sceptical about the Biblical story, believing it be legendary rather than factual. They draw this conclusion because the archaeological evidence doesn’t appear to support it – not just at Jericho, but in the Bible’s stories of the conquest of other Canaanite cities.
But there is a middle view, which is perhaps the majority, which believes there is evidence that a smaller band of people did travel from Egypt to Canaan, probably about 1,250 BCE. They didn’t destroy Jericho because it probably wasn’t settled at that time, they say.
There are significant problems with the accuracy of the Biblical story of the exodus. The numbers of people seem impossible, both in how 2 million people could move across the desert, and the birthrates required to produce such a large number in so short a time, and grossly exaggerated. And the Biblical account is difficult if not impossible to fit into known history. For example:
- It is difficult to identify who was the Pharaoh at the time of the exodus.
- Egypt is estimated to have had a population of 2-4 million and a powerful army. It continued to be a major power right through this period, which would be difficult if it had lost 2 million slaves and a large part of its army (in the Red Sea).
- Egypt occupied and controlled Canaan up until about 1,300-1,200 BCE – there are letters from Egyptian officials in Canaan in the middle 1,300’s BCE to prove this. These “Amarna Letters” show that Egypt still occupied Canaan at this time, but its power was waning. If the exodus occurred in 1,450-1,400 BCE, the Israelites would have remained under Egyptian control, but would have been free of Egyptian control at the later date of 1,250 BCE.
- Archaeological evidence suggests that some Canaanite cities that are claimed in the Bible to have been destroyed by Joshua were not destroyed at that time, and some may not even have existed at that time.
Therefore it seems more likely that if “Joshua” did travel with a much smaller band of refugees from Egypt, it was at a later date than the destruction of Jericho. But the Biblical account conforms to the archaeological evidence in many ways, even if the dates aren’t correct.
So while that may be the majority view, a strong minority of Biblical scholars holds to the general accuracy of the account and the destruction of Jericho by Joshua around 1,400 BCE.
A possible scenario?
It seems most likely that the Biblical account is based on historical facts that have been embellished and exaggerated to present theological or nationalistic views. Old Testament scholar Pete Enns calls it “mythicised history”.
So Jericho really was destroyed, perhaps by an earthquake and an opportunistic invader, much as described in the Bible, and the event was remembered. We can each decide whether we think God had anything to do with it or not. Several centuries later, a band of refugees from Egypt passed throught the area, finding Jericho uninhabited and in ruins. Or maybe there was a small settlement or a military outpost there. The two stories were both handed down, and when the Bible account was finally written and edited, both were included and used to tell the story of Israel as God’s chosen people.
The walls of Jericho did fall, even if Joshua wasn’t there at the time.
But I can’t help feeling there will likely be changes in some of these conclusions as more archaeological information is found. For example, how do we explain the discovery of scarabs dated later than either of the main date estimates? We can embrace uncertainty by holding lightly to the best evidence we have.
Can we trust the Bible?
Trust is a matter of expectation. If our expectation is that the Bible must be totally accurate history, then the evidence will challenge us. We’ll feel we have to make the evidence fit the Bible, or else give up believing the Bible.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The ancient Israelites didn’t view history and fact the way we do. They selected and modified the stories handed down to them to get across their message. They were willing to allow different versions of an event to sit side by side in the text.
So what I believe we have in the Old Testament is a record of what people believed at that time, a record of how God interacted with them as they were taken from pagan beliefs and practices towards God’s truth. So what we have contains beliefs they had to let go as well as beliefs they needed to take up.
So we don’t need to believe that God ordered wholesale slaughter at Jericho. That’s how they understood God back then, but later prophets and Jesus taught them, and us, a different way.
I think it is best to accept the Bible for what it is, not for what we think it ought to be. It isn’t a homogenous book, but a collection of very disparate writings.
The Old Testament includes history, mythicised history, folk tales, poetry, prophecy and more, written from different perpectives. Thje New Testament is much more historical, containing history, historical biographies, letters and more.
On the basis of good scholarship, I can believe we know the truth about Jesus at the same time as we have far less certainty about the exodus. I feel good about that.
References
- Jericho, Wikipedia.
- Tell es-Sultan (Jericho): Radiocarbon Results of Short-Lived Cereal and Multiyear Charcoal Samples from the End of the Middle Bronze Age. HJ Bruins & J van der Plight, University of Arizona, 1995.
- The Bronze Age Destruction of Jericho, Archaeology, and the Book of Joshua. Titus Kennedy, MDPI.
- Biblical Sites: Three Ways to Date the Destruction at Jericho. Bible Archaeology Report.
- Carbon 14 Dating at Jericho. Dr Bryant Wood, Associates for Biblical Research.
- A Reassesment of Scientific Evidence for the Exodus and Conquest. Alan Dickin, CPOSAT, 2024.
Top photo: An ancient residence discovered in Tel Al-Sultan in the city of Jericho. A. Sobkowski, Wikipedia. Bottom photo: Remains of ancient rock wall (Biblical eLearning. Amarna letter was donated to Wikimedia Commons by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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