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Speaker 1: Life audio.

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Speaker 2: The conquest of Jericho and Joshua has been one of

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Speaker 2: the most contested events in the Old Testament. Does the

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Speaker 2: archaeology now support Joshua's conquest? Archaeologist Brian Wendel from the

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Speaker 2: Associates for Biblical Research is here to make his case. Brian,

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Speaker 2: thanks for coming on and for sending me a copy

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Speaker 2: of your new book.

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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks, Shan, it's great to be here and chat

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Speaker 1: with you about Jericho.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to think of a more exciting and

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Speaker 2: interesting topic from the Old Testament than this. So I

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Speaker 2: call on to know your backstory. When and why did

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Speaker 2: you first start to study the archaeological evidence for Jericho

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Speaker 2: and what did you find kind of when you first

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Speaker 2: started looking into this.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so when I started volunteering with the Associates for

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Speaker 1: Biblical Research about ten years ago, I was very familiar

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Speaker 1: with the work that our organization had done. Briant would good.

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Speaker 1: It's an archaeologist who had looked at Jericho city four So,

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Speaker 1: just for your listeners, for our viewers here, Jericho is

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Speaker 1: what we call a tel It's a mound with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of cities one on top of each other. Occupation

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Speaker 1: layers through history, and those are given just different names

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Speaker 1: Stratum one, Stratum two, or city one, city two, city three,

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Speaker 1: city four. And the whole debate about Jericho and which

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Speaker 1: city was associated with Joshua's conquest all seemed to center

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Speaker 1: on City four, and so British archaeologist John Garstang excavated

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Speaker 1: there in the nineteen thirties and he thought that Jericho

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Speaker 1: City four had the data that aligned with the account

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Speaker 1: and the Bible of Joshua. In the nineteen fifties, Kathleen

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Speaker 1: Kenyon dug there and she thought, she said, no, that

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Speaker 1: city four, that's actually Middle Bronze Age, that's about one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years before Joshua. And then doctor Bryant

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Speaker 1: Wood from Associates for Biblical Research came along in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties and he said, now, Kathleen Kenyon was wrong.

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Speaker 1: She misdated the city. John Garstang was right. So that's

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Speaker 1: where the debate had been and gone back and forth

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Speaker 1: for the last thirty five years or so, and so

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Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, but four years ago I

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Speaker 1: decided to go, well, what's the latest, what's the what's

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Speaker 1: the new data suggesting? Because I knew there was a

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Speaker 1: new dig there that was going on. It had been

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Speaker 1: going on there for all when I started researching it

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Speaker 1: about well about fifteen years. By that point, they're up

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Speaker 1: to twenty years now of excavations at Jericho, and so

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Speaker 1: I thought, well, what's the latest research say? I wanted

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Speaker 1: to kind of bring things up to speed. And what

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Speaker 1: I noticed when I started looking into it was that few,

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Speaker 1: if any evangelical scholars were actually interacting in any meaningful

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Speaker 1: way with the excavation results from the team that's led

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Speaker 1: by a man named doctor Lorenzo Negro from Sapienza University

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Speaker 1: in Rome, and so I thought, well, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: And as I started reading about his research, I realized

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Speaker 1: that the latest research from his data was suggesting that

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Speaker 1: Kathleen Kenyon was actually right about City four and according

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Speaker 1: to their stratiography, city five was the Late Bronze Age

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Speaker 1: city around the time of Joshua, and so I thought, hmm,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if City five is a viable candidate for

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Speaker 1: the city the Joshua conquered. Is it Joshua's Jericho? And

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Speaker 1: so I had just started a master's degree at that

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Speaker 1: point in archaeology and Biblical history from Trinity Southwest university,

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Speaker 1: and so I thought that would make a good master's

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Speaker 1: thesis project, and so I started out there. Some people

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Speaker 1: say that there's a fine line between passion and obsession,

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Speaker 1: and I like to say I'm passionate about Jericho. Some

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Speaker 1: have suggested I might be a little obsessed with this

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Speaker 1: whole topic, but I fell down the rabbit hole about

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Speaker 1: four years ago and I've been studying it ever since.

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Speaker 2: All right, So to clarify for viewers and frankly for myself,

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Speaker 2: because I've been to Jericho, I think it was twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 2: I brought it. Team that was there, got a tour

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Speaker 2: from Joel Kramer, archaeologist friend of this channel. And from

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Speaker 2: what I understand, there's no debate about the site of Jericho.

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Speaker 2: It's agreed upon where it's at. The debate is you're

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Speaker 2: saying there's cities built on top of cities, and this

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Speaker 2: is common in archaeological digs, because you have a firm foundation,

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Speaker 2: maybe you have a water supply, maybe it's a safe area.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of different reasons. And Joel said it's

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Speaker 2: like a cake, like you have a layer of a

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Speaker 2: cake on top of a cake, on top of a cake.

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Speaker 2: So the debate is not location, which is the case

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Speaker 2: for like Sodom and Gomorrah, people debate what the location is.

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Speaker 2: We know where Jericho is at. The question is what

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Speaker 2: layer within Jericho matches up with the biblical count And

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Speaker 2: of course skeptical writers would say, if any of them

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Speaker 2: match up to the biblical account, is that a fair assessment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely right, Sean. Right, we're just debating which

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Speaker 1: stratum is to be associated with different eras. And so

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Speaker 1: City four is a beautiful, beautiful layer in terms of

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Speaker 1: what's there, and has a very nice destruction layer, and

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Speaker 1: so a lot of people said, oh, it's got this

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Speaker 1: beautiful destruction layer. It just seems to match. And they've

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Speaker 1: pointed out other things. They've said, well, you know, there's

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Speaker 1: you know, they found jars of burnt grain, and that

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Speaker 1: seems to align with what is in the Bible, which

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Speaker 1: is true. It does seem to align with what's in

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Speaker 1: the Bible. On the other hand, Garstang found jars of

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Speaker 1: burnt grain at Jericho in the early Bronze Age City

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Speaker 1: three at a lower level, and they've found jars of

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Speaker 1: burnt grain at Tellhamam in three different destruction layers. Just

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Speaker 1: across the Jordan River and that hatstore in a thirteenth

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Speaker 1: century destruction layer. So I'm not sure that it's maybe

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Speaker 1: the smoking gun that people think it is as the

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Speaker 1: slam dunk. Hey, this is the city that Joshua conquered,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, we're just discussing it. Most of the

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Speaker 1: debate has been about City four. Where my research comes

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Speaker 1: into it is I'm looking at city five and there

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Speaker 1: is some overlap, and I want to be clear about that.

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Speaker 1: Some of the things that previously were associated with City four,

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Speaker 1: would like the tombs, for example, now under the current

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Speaker 1: strateigraphy by the current team digging there is associated with

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Speaker 1: City five. And so I'm looking at city five, going, hey,

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Speaker 1: what evidence is there from City five that matches it?

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Speaker 1: But in terms of where it's located, everybody agrees. Tell

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Speaker 1: Us Sultan is the name of the site today. You're right,

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Speaker 1: there's a spring, a perennial spring that's been flowing there

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Speaker 1: from millennia, right on the eastern foot of the tell

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Speaker 1: the mound that's there, and so yeah, that's Jericho, there's

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Speaker 1: no doubt about that. It's just which stratum, which layer

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Speaker 1: of that cake is the layer Joshua conquered.

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Speaker 2: That's super helpful. Now, you name Kathleen Kenyon, and I'm

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Speaker 2: not an archaeologist, I'm not going to pretend to, but

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Speaker 2: in my interviews and my study of this, her name

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Speaker 2: is one of the most recognizable and influential. So maybe

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Speaker 2: explain who she is and what the traditional within scholarly

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Speaker 2: views has been about Jericho maybe the last like half

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Speaker 2: century plus.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so Kathleen Kenyon is a British archaeologist, and she

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Speaker 1: was an excellent field archaeologist. In fact, those of us

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Speaker 1: who dig over in Israel we dig in squares and

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Speaker 1: we use a version of what's called the Wheeler Kenyon

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Speaker 1: method in archaeology. We're actually using her methodology in archaeology.

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Speaker 1: Her work was that transformative. The reason that she is

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Speaker 1: famous is because she excavated at very very famous sites.

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Speaker 1: She excavated to Jericho, she excavated to Jerusalem, and so

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Speaker 1: she really is a towering figure in archaeology of biblical sits.

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Speaker 1: And she's famous at Jericho of course, because when Garstang said,

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Speaker 1: I found Joshua's Jericho, Kathleen Kenyon said, yeah, that's actually

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Speaker 1: a Middle Bronze Age stratum that's about one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty years before Joshua. And it's unfortunate, Sean, because some

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Speaker 1: people took that to mean that Kathleen Kenyon was denying

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Speaker 1: the conquest, or that she's the one who destroyed the

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Speaker 1: Bible's credibility on the fall of Jericho. And people who

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Speaker 1: suggest that haven't read her works, because she absolutely believed

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Speaker 1: in the historicity of the fall of Jericho. Sometimes I'll

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Speaker 1: quote things that she said. In fact, she said this,

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Speaker 1: She said, all the canons of historical criticism demand that

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Speaker 1: we accept the main facts of the story of the

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Speaker 1: conquest of Jericho as authentic, for it was obviously an

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Speaker 1: event of great importance and the ultimate dominance of the

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Speaker 1: Israelites in Palestine, and the wealth of detail makes it

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Speaker 1: clear that it was a faithful record. That's That's not

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Speaker 1: the Kathleen Kenyon I had heard about when I started

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Speaker 1: down this road and I started I started reading her work,

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Speaker 1: and I realized that all she was saying was that

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Speaker 1: City four was not the city that Jericho conquered, that

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Speaker 1: Joshua conquered at Jericho. She absolutely said that there was

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Speaker 1: late she published late Bronze Age pottery. Sometimes I recently

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Speaker 1: watched a video on YouTube by an archaeologist saying Kathleen

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Speaker 1: Kenyon said she never found any pottery at Jericho. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: but that's just not true. She published pottery from the

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Speaker 1: Late Bronze Age at Jericho, she excavated a Late Bronze

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Speaker 1: Age house that was destroyed in the fourteenth century that

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Speaker 1: she associated with Joshua and the Israelites coming in, and

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Speaker 1: so so her her work I think has been misrepresented,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's been misrepresented by people on the

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Speaker 1: right end the left. I think people have kind of said, oh, see,

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Speaker 1: she showed that Jericho wasn't you know, the story of

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Speaker 1: Jericho wasn't historically accurate, when that's not really what she

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Speaker 1: was saying. She was saying, City four is not the

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Speaker 1: city that Joshua conquered. It fell in the Middle Bronze

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Speaker 1: Age about one hundred and fifty years before when I

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Speaker 1: would date Joshua anyways, And so people have kind of

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Speaker 1: taken that and either railed against her and tried to

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Speaker 1: tried to, you know, not just show that she's wrong,

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Speaker 1: because I don't have a problem with people coming along saying,

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Speaker 1: you know what, that's that's incorrect for these reasons. I

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Speaker 1: think that's good scholarship, right, we fact check people, but

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Speaker 1: when it starts to get into you know, some had

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Speaker 1: hominum attacks. I don't like that kind of thing. And

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Speaker 1: then on the other side, people have kind of said,

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Speaker 1: I'll see she showed that the Bible wasn't true. Well,

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Speaker 1: that that's not the view she held, and that's not

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Speaker 1: what she said. So that's kind of the way that

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Speaker 1: people have handled her over the last fifty years or so.

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Speaker 2: That's really helpful. I appreciate the clarity and the charity.

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Speaker 2: That's something I try to do here in this channel.

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to say I do it perfectly, but

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Speaker 2: let's get into what she wrote and let's assess it fairly.

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Speaker 2: So she wasn't challenging the existence of the conquest. That's

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Speaker 2: a very separate issue. Now, why then, does Jericho pose

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Speaker 2: a problem, or you might argue, seem to pose a

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Speaker 2: problem for those who take the historical reliability of the

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Speaker 2: Bible seriously.

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Speaker 1: Well, the reason it poses a problem is because Jericho

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Speaker 1: has been excavated numerous times and quite extensively. And I

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Speaker 1: should just maybe just make a little note there. When

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Speaker 1: we talk about extensive excavations, I want to make sure

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Speaker 1: that our viewers understand that that most cites, we're talking

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Speaker 1: five percent of the site maybe excavated ten percent. Ephesus

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Speaker 1: is a site that's one of the most excavated sites.

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Speaker 1: I think only twenty percent of ancient Ephesus has been excavated.

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Speaker 1: So when I say it's been extensively excavated, I want

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Speaker 1: to put that in context for everybody. But there have

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Speaker 1: been many excavations. There are four main ones, an Austro

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Speaker 1: German team in the early nineteen hundreds, John Garstang in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, Kathleen Kenyon in the nineteen fifties, and

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Speaker 1: then Lorenzo Negro's Italian Palestinian team that's been excavating there

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Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety seven. And the reason it poses a

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Speaker 1: problem is that the results from these excavations have been

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Speaker 1: confusing and contradictory, and there is no clear destruction layer

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Speaker 1: that everybody agrees on and can point to and say,

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Speaker 1: see that's Joshua And I would argue in part it's

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Speaker 1: because in the late Bronze Age there's not a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff there. So when I was researching in Jerusalem,

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Speaker 1: I happened to be at the Albright Institute in Jerusalem

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Speaker 1: doing some research in their library, and I happened to

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Speaker 1: meet a girl who was on Lorenzo Negro's excavation team,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, this is great. I can ask

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Speaker 1: her my questions. So I said, hey, I'm doing some

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Speaker 1: research on this. I'm researching Jericho and the Late Bronze Age.

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Speaker 1: And she goes, why there's not much Why would you

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Speaker 1: do Late Bronze Age stuff? There's not much there. I said, well,

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Speaker 1: that's in part why I'm why. I said, there's lots

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Speaker 1: of stuff written about Middle Bronze Age and the Early

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Speaker 1: Bronze Age, and the and the Neolithic and even the

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Speaker 1: later the Iron Age, but not a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: about the Late Bronze. I want to know about that.

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Speaker 1: And so so the problem of Jericho is that there's

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Speaker 1: just not a lot of stuff, and there's not a

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Speaker 1: lot of there's not a lot of material, and there's

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Speaker 1: not a clear destruction layer that everyone agrees and says

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Speaker 1: that's the stratum, that's the destruction layer. It's pretty clear,

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Speaker 1: not like at a place like Lakeish, for example, where

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Speaker 1: we can clearly see everybody agrees that's the destruction layer

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Speaker 1: of Sinakra and the Assyrian invasion in seven oh one BC.

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Speaker 1: We don't have that at Jericho.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's really helpful. And some of the questions we're

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Speaker 2: going to get to are is would we expect to

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Speaker 2: have that clear destruction layer and so the lack of

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Speaker 2: it is a surprise or is it really not unexpected?

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Speaker 2: Just like when it comes to the Exodus, would we

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Speaker 2: expect a pharaoh to describe in detail a humiliating defeat

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Speaker 2: and the loss of slaves? You might say, we wouldn't

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Speaker 2: expect such a details to be included. So that has

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Speaker 2: a lot to do with how we assess this, what

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Speaker 2: we expect and what's preserved in the remains. So we'll

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Speaker 2: get to that, but maybe layout we'll come back to

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Speaker 2: the evidence. I want to walk through the case that

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Speaker 2: you make. But first, what is your unique proposal for

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Speaker 2: the conquest to Jericho and how did you go about

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Speaker 2: investm it?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think there are two parts to my

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Speaker 1: unique approach to it. And we can talk about my

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Speaker 1: chronological approach, which is somewhat unique in terms of when

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Speaker 1: I date or how I date the conquest period. But

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Speaker 1: the big thing with my research is that I'm shifting

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Speaker 1: the focus from City four to City five, and I

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Speaker 1: haven't come across well, anyone really before I started doing

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Speaker 1: my research who had made that shift, that paradigm shift

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Speaker 1: to go. Wait, the new excavations are saying that City

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Speaker 1: five is the city that was in the Late Bronze Age,

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Speaker 1: which is when we would place Joshua. And so when

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Speaker 1: I set out to do my research, the first thing

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Speaker 1: I did was I went to scripture, went to the Bible,

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Speaker 1: and I made a simple criterial screen based on the

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Speaker 1: data that's in Joshua chapter two, which is the story

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Speaker 1: of the spies going to Jericho, and then Joshua chapter six,

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Speaker 1: which is the account of the fall of Jericho, and

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Speaker 1: in a simple criterial screen to show that the site

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Speaker 1: has to be occupied at the time frame the Bible

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Speaker 1: places it, it has to be fortified, and there has

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Speaker 1: to be it was destroyed, so we might expect to

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Speaker 1: find some evidence of destruction. And so from there I

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Speaker 1: realized that if I'm going to date occupation, the primary

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Speaker 1: way that we as archaeologists date and occupation level is

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Speaker 1: through the material remains that people leave behind, and the

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Speaker 1: primary dating method that we can use at this period

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Speaker 1: of time, because this is before coinage so we don't

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Speaker 1: have coins that we can find that say, hey, this

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Speaker 1: was Joshua or something like that. The primary way is

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Speaker 1: dating things through pottery. We call that ceramic typology. The

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Speaker 1: way I described is this. My dad grew up. His

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Speaker 1: house was behind a used car sales lot, and so

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid, my dad could if we

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Speaker 1: saw an old fifties car driving down the road, I'd say, he, Dad,

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Speaker 1: what kind of car is that? And he'd look at

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Speaker 1: it for sege is that's a nineteen fifty five, I've

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Speaker 1: Chevy something And he could tell just because of the

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Speaker 1: design of it. And so because that changed through the years,

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Speaker 1: every few years they would change the design. The same

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Speaker 1: is true of pottery, only not every few years. Pottery forms,

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Speaker 1: pottery decoration changes through history, and so that's the primary

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Speaker 1: way that we date things. And so I knew I

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Speaker 1: would need to learn about pottery. So I started contacting

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Speaker 1: museums all around the world that had pottery from Jericho

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Speaker 1: in their collections, and the curators were very gracious sent

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Speaker 1: me their lists and then I usually it was a

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Speaker 1: big database with ten thousand pieces of something there, so

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Speaker 1: I would go through and find everything I was interested in,

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Speaker 1: try to find pictures of it. I went to the

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Speaker 1: Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. One of the coolest experiences I've

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Speaker 1: ever had. They took me down into the basement which

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Speaker 1: is which doubled as the storehouse for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

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Speaker 1: So we're just talking rows and rows of wooden shelves

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Speaker 1: with pottery on them. And so she brought me the

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Speaker 1: little box of the pottery that I wanted to see.

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Speaker 1: So I got to photograph a whole bunch of John

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Speaker 1: Garstang's pottery from Jericho at the Rockefeller. I've been to

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Speaker 1: the Royal Intario Museum in Toronto to photograph a bunch

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Speaker 1: of Kathleen Kenyon's pottery from Jericho. And so I created

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Speaker 1: a database of all of the known pottery from Jericho. So,

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Speaker 1: for the record, I have in my database right now

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Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy four vessels, three hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: two shirts, four scabs or seals, a picture of one

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Speaker 1: canaariform tablet, and one figurine for five hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: two artifacts from Jericho that date to the Late Bronze Age.

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Speaker 1: So if anyone ever says, yeah, there's no evidence Jericho

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Speaker 1: was really occupied at the time Joshua was around, I

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Speaker 1: would beg to differ based on my research. And then

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Speaker 1: I looked at the pottery assemblage from Jericho and I

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Speaker 1: can compared that to the repertoire of pottery from six

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Speaker 1: different sites, all within fifty miles of Jericho, to say, okay,

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Speaker 1: let's compare the pottery to see if that because that

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Speaker 1: will help us with the dating. And then I consulted

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Speaker 1: some of the world's leading experts in ceramic typology. Doctor

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Speaker 1: Robert Mullins from a SUSA Pacific is probably the world's

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Speaker 1: leading expert on Late Bronze Age pottery. He literally wrote

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Speaker 1: the chapter in the book on Late Bronze Age pottery

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Speaker 1: that we all use in the field, called the Ancient

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Speaker 1: Pottery of Israel and its Neighbors. He wrote the chapter

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Speaker 1: on He's very gracious to correspond with me and analyze

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Speaker 1: some of my photos with me. I reviewed past excavation reports,

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Speaker 1: and of course I read everything I could that Lorenzo

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Speaker 1: Negro had put out, and thankfully, I think, in God's timing,

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Speaker 1: right in the midst of my PhD, he started publishing

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Speaker 1: stuff on Jericho in the late or in my master's degree.

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Speaker 1: He started publishing things, and so I was able to

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Speaker 1: get a hold of some very hard to get articles

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Speaker 1: and put that all together into my master's thesis. So

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Speaker 1: that's kind of how I've arrived at the conclusions that

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Speaker 1: I've arrived at.

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Speaker 2: I will let our audience decide if this passes the

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Speaker 2: barrier into obsession or not. But you are approaching this

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Speaker 2: with a thoroughness I appreciate, so humor me with this.

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Speaker 2: I've been to Jericho, and I've been on the kind

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Speaker 2: of the rim you walk around, you can see inside.

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Speaker 2: How deep is it? I don't recall roughly what's the

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Speaker 2: depth from the bottom to like the top platform. If

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Speaker 2: you had to just estimate.

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Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think here, probably, oh, that's a

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Speaker 1: good question. Fifty to one hundred feet, I would think

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Speaker 1: from where you.

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Speaker 2: Are, that's totally fair. That's about what I would would

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Speaker 2: have estimated. And as you look down you see layers

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Speaker 2: of different cities, one on top of another is City five.

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Speaker 2: Just the city immediately on top of City four that

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Speaker 2: was built on top of What is often considered the

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Speaker 2: tradition all time by scholars when the conquest happened, is

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Speaker 2: that really as simple as it is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is that simple, right. You have the

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Speaker 1: and usually they're broken and then into sub phases. So

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Speaker 1: there might be so for example, city five has City

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Speaker 1: five A and City five B and and so corresponding

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Speaker 1: to you know, the Late Bronze one and Laybron's two period.

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Speaker 1: And it really is that simple, right, because you think

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Speaker 1: about it. The you have the Early Bronze people, and

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Speaker 1: then the city got destroyed, and there might be a

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Speaker 1: couple of different Early Bronze cities, and then the Middle

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Speaker 1: Bronze people came and and because you've got a defensible position,

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Speaker 1: you've got a water source right there, and then the

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Speaker 1: Late Bronze on top of that, and then the Iron

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Speaker 1: Age on top of that, and then you've got your

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Speaker 1: you know, you've got your your Roman on top of that.

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Speaker 1: And so now I will say this, and it's important

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Speaker 1: to understand that at Jericho, uh, throughout most of the

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Speaker 1: Tell erosion has eroded it down past the Roman, past

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Speaker 1: the Irony pass the Late Bronze Age to the Middle

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Speaker 1: Bronze Age period. So we can talk about that as

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons we don't find a lot of stuff,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's part of it. So that's important.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, that makes it harder because these aren't just like

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Speaker 2: in boxes that are just siphoned, you know, with dates

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Speaker 2: on them. That's the challenge for an archaeologist. Okay, So

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Speaker 2: it sounds like early on part of your approach was,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the text. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: read the story in Joshua and see what it describes

388
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Speaker 2: we should expect to find if the story is true

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Speaker 2: and historical when we go to the archaeological record. Now

390
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Speaker 2: in your book, you kind of lay out three different things.

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Speaker 2: Maybe just tell us what we would expect to find first,

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Speaker 2: and then I want to take them one by one

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Speaker 2: and let you make late lay out your case. What

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Speaker 2: would we expect to find if we really did find

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Speaker 2: the remains from the conquest of Joshua and Jericho.

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Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I mean the text is clear, right,

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Speaker 1: You've got rayhab, you've got her her place of business there,

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Speaker 1: you've got a king mentioned, you've got soldiers mentioned. So

399
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Speaker 1: clearly it's occupied. So you would expect to find some

400
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Speaker 1: evidence of occupation. And the primary evidence you find from

401
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: that is pottery. So you've got occupation first of all,

402
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 1: and it has to be around the right time of

403
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Speaker 1: when that conquest happens. We can talk about that in

404
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,680
Speaker 1: a minute too, because that's that's important. The second thing

405
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: is was it fortified? Right, You've got this description of

406
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Speaker 1: a city. It's actually called a city in the and

407
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: the Hebrew word that's used for city is they use

408
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: it differently in the Bible then we use it today

409
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Speaker 1: when we talk about a city today, we talk about

410
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Speaker 1: a certain population size that makes it a city. In

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Speaker 1: the ancient world, when they use that Hebrew word, it

412
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Speaker 1: just meant that it had a city wall around it.

413
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Speaker 1: So if it's be the fact that it has that

414
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: word means that it was fortified. It had a city wall. Plus,

415
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: obviously the text Joshua six, a big part of it,

416
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Speaker 1: which is what makes Jericho such a powerful image in

417
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: the account, is that the walls came tumbling down, as

418
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: the Old song says, Right, So you've got walls. You

419
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,400
Speaker 1: would expect to find walls. That a gate is even

420
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Speaker 1: mentioned in it, and so in the story because Joshua

421
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Speaker 1: chapter six says that they closed the gate each night,

422
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 1: and so you would expect to maybe find some evidence

423
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Speaker 1: of that. And then finally you've got the city being destroyed,

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Speaker 1: and archaeologists love destruction layers because you tend to be

425
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,880
Speaker 1: able to It buries things, it seals a low si,

426
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: it seals the area, so you can really date it

427
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: then based on the things you find underneath it and

428
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: within the story of Joshua, obviously, the two most important

429
00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: parts from an archaeological perspective are collapsed walls that would

430
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: be consistent with what the text says. And it says

431
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: that they burn the city with fire, and so you

432
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: might expect to find some evidence of a burn layer

433
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: in different areas of the city.

434
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 2: All right, that's really helpful. So let's walk through these

435
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 2: and get your evidence. And the first one, it feels

436
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 2: like there's two parts, the first one when you date

437
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 2: it and that it was actually occupied. So tell us

438
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 2: when you date the conquest to and why you think

439
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 2: city five matches up with that time.

440
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's one of the key questions people have

441
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: to settle, because if you look in the wrong time period,

442
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: you're not going to find the right stuff, the right materials.

443
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: So the way I look at it, almost everybody who

444
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: comes at at the account of the exodus and the

445
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 1: conquest and they're tied together because they the exodus happened,

446
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 1: and then they wandered in the desert for forty years,

447
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: water in the wilderness, and then we of the conquest.

448
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 1: So and the key text that we all pretty much

449
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: go to is First King sixty one, First King six

450
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: one says that Solomon began building his temple in the

451
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: four hundred and eightieth year, after the children of Israel

452
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:17,439
Speaker 1: left Egypt in the fourth year of his reign. So

453
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 1: that seems like a pretty simple mathematical equation if you

454
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: accept the data literally, and I do. And one of

455
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 1: the reasons I do, Sean is because it says it

456
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: was in the four hundred and seventy four hundred and

457
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: eightieth year, which means that you count back four hundred

458
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: and seventy nine years, and four hundred and seventy nine

459
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: seems to me like a shockingly specific number that's not

460
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: easily divided into some symbolic twelve generations of ideally idealized

461
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: forty years generations, or however other people do, because there

462
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 1: are different people and just really simply there are two

463
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 1: schools of thought. One is that there's an early date

464
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: to the exodus around the fifteenth century, around fourteen fourteen

465
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: forty six or so, they would say, so a conquest

466
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: around fourteen hundred. And then there's the late date, which

467
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: is in which is sometime in the thirteenth century, twelve

468
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: seventy twelve fifty, and I would be an early date, guy.

469
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 1: I tend to take scripture at face value, particularly when

470
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: you got specific numbers like four hundred and seventy nine.

471
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: The main reason people choose the late date and to

472
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: be honest and charitable. The text says that the children

473
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: of Israel, when they were slaves in Egypt, built the

474
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: cities of Pithom and Ramsey's right, and so Ramsey's was

475
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: a pharaoh in the in the thirteenth century, so that's

476
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: when they typically would place the exodus based on that.

477
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: I would look at that and say, that's just a

478
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: later editorial updating of that, because if you look back

479
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: in the story of Joseph, where did they settle people

480
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: in the land of Ramses it says, So it's already

481
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: been updated back then too, and so I don't think

482
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: that's a problem. We know that they did that. The

483
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: city of Dan is another example, right. It says it

484
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: used to be called Leash, and then it was called

485
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: Dan but it's used the name Dan is used in

486
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: the Book of Genesis before it was actually Dan. And

487
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: so I look at this and I go, okay. First,

488
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: King six 's one seems to be pretty simple. If

489
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: you know the anchor date of the fourth year of

490
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: Solomon's reign, you just count back four hundred and seventy

491
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: nine years. The problem for me is that I see

492
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 1: imprecision in the biblical texts surrounding this issue in two regards.

493
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: First of all, four hundred and eightieth year is how

494
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: it reads in our English Bibles, which are based on

495
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: the Massoretic text. There's a textual variant in the Greek

496
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: translation the Septuagent. It says four hundred and fortieth year.

497
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: And the Greek septuagent itself is based on a Hebrew text,

498
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,719
Speaker 1: and we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that there

499
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: were several different Hebrew translations, you know, before Christ and

500
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: so it seems that there was a Hebrew translation that

501
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: the Greek translation is based on that read four fortieth

502
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: So I've done a deep dive into this, and I

503
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: honestly can't pinpoint which I think is correct. So essentially

504
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: I have to hold the fact that there might be

505
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: there are two viable biblical dates for the Exodus and conquests,

506
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: So I look at it like that. And then the

507
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: other thing is it's only fourteen forty six or fourteen

508
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: oh six if you choose the Masoretic text. It's it's

509
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: the conquest will be thirteen sixty six if you choose

510
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: the subtuagen And that's only if you've got the anchor

511
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: date of the fourth year of Solomon's rein, right, was

512
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: it nine sixty seven like like like some say, was

513
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: it nine sixty six like the great edwin Tilay said,

514
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: Kenyon said it was nine sixty Albright said it was

515
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: nine fifty nine. And so I just I just see

516
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: too much ambiguity this. And then you add to that

517
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: archaeological dating. It's not like all the potters woke up

518
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: on January first, fourteen hundred and said, all right, everybody,

519
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: we're changing styles today. From now on, we're going with

520
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: this style in this pattern. Right. So, so pottery was

521
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: used over a period of time, So even pottery dating

522
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: has a date range. When we look at Egyptian chronology,

523
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: which is what the Late Bronze Age chronology is based on,

524
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: Egyptologists will tell you that there's a known plus or

525
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: minus twenty year margin of error. Kitchen mentioned that, b Tech, Hoffelmeier.

526
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: They all note this in the New Kingdom period, which

527
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: is when we're talking Joshua's conquest occurred. Carbon fourteen dating

528
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: has you know, a date range. So I put this

529
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: all together and I say, look, I'm going to take

530
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: those two dates fourteen oh six thirteen sixty six around that,

531
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: and I'm going to take a plus or minus two

532
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: decade a window which closes my wind. It gives me

533
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: an eighty year period, and I would say that sometime

534
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: between fourteen twenty six PC and thirteen forty six PC

535
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: the conquest occurred. And my approach is a little more

536
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: nuanced maybe than some people like, because in our modern

537
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: world we want to know exact what's the exact date

538
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: of this? And I go back, you know what, I

539
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: think we're going back some thirty four hundred years. I

540
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: think getting it to within eighty years is not bad

541
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: in my own approach. Plus, I think that I'm just

542
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:38,959
Speaker 1: trying to be intellectually honest with the data in the

543
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: text and with the archaeological dating methods, and so that's

544
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: how I approach it. I call that the conquest window

545
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: sometime at the end of the fifteenth century BC, first

546
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: half of the fourteenth century BC, right in there. That's

547
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: when I think the exodus the conquest occurred rather.

548
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's really really helpful. We don't have to

549
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 2: go into some of the particular details because I know

550
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 2: you're beginning your doctoral work and you're going to be

551
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 2: analyzing this pottery and depth. So it'll be really interesting

552
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 2: to see what the analysis shows when you're done with this.

553
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 2: But what would be just kind of the quick points

554
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: why you think city five falls within that window.

555
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the first thing would be the pottery. There's

556
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: been pottery found on the site itself, and I've plotted

557
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: all of the areas it's found been found around the site.

558
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: And then primarily on the top of the tell a

559
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: place called Spring Hill, which was the hill right above

560
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: the Spring and that's where all that was the prime

561
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: real estate. That's where the palaces were. The Early Bronze

562
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: Age palace was there, Middle Bronze Age palace was there.

563
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: The Late Bronze Age they call it the Middle Building

564
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: or Negro calls it the Residency, and then the Iron

565
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: Age building was Iron Age Heleni palace was there, and

566
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: so they've found all sorts of painted pottery there and

567
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: that it's called bike chrome pottery. It seems to be

568
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: as I've looked at it, it seems to be standard

569
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: Canaanite black and red pottery that's been painted and it's

570
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: fairly Now there is debate on whether it's actually true

571
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: Cypriot pottery or just this copy stuff, and I think

572
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: the latest research shows it's the copy stuff, and that

573
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: was popular in that late fifteenth century throughout the fourteenth

574
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: century BC, gone by the thirteenth century BC predominantly, So

575
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: that shows us it was occupied. Three tombs had whole vessels,

576
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: reams of whole vessels from the late Bronze Age to

577
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: four to five to thirteen. Again, that would date it.

578
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: Negro would date it from about fourteen One of the

579
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: tombs used from about fourteen fifty down through the thirteen hundreds,

580
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: and then the other two would be in that fourteenth

581
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,719
Speaker 1: century range. So those seemed to suggest that it was occupied.

582
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: In the tombs, they found a number of seals and

583
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: scarebs of Egyptian pharaohs, and so that's helpful, well, it

584
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: can be helpful. I should be careful how I say

585
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:09,439
Speaker 1: that I want to be I want to be fair

586
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: because those were I don't know if you ever do

587
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: you ever collect baseball cards when you were a kid,

588
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: basketball basketball cards? Yeah, so I collected hockey cards as

589
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 1: a kid here in Canada, and and I sometimes compare

590
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 1: scabs to that though they were kind of handed down,

591
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: collected and handed down and so very popular pharaohs like

592
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 1: thought most is the third, of which we have a

593
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: seal that could be kept and traded and remade, you know,

594
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: commemorative ones for years and years and years after that.

595
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: So maybe not very helpful. But there's a scab of

596
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 1: ship Suit who was a female pharaoh, and she was

597
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: not very popular. In fact, after she was the pharaoh,

598
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: the next pharaoh likely defaced all of her images and

599
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: so probably not one that was highly sought after and collected.

600
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 1: So that might be helpful in dating. And then they're

601
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: very helpful in dating if you find a scab that's

602
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: actually in a strata, a stratum that it dates to

603
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: the time of that pharaoh. And that's what we have

604
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: with Amenhotep the third. And so when you look at

605
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: the sequence of scribs, it takes you from about the

606
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,919
Speaker 1: middle of the of the fifteenth century fourteen fifty or so,

607
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: down into the first part of the fourteenth century into

608
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: the thirteen nineties, thirteen eighties, and so again you've got

609
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: occupation there, and then you've got a tablet they actually found,

610
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: Garstang found a cuneiform tablet, and that was it was

611
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: badly damaged. They could make out the son of somebody.

612
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: That's pretty much all they can make out on it.

613
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: But Garstang himself said, it is most like the Amarna tablets,

614
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: and the Amarna tablets are a group of letters that

615
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: were sent back and forth between the kings of the

616
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: city states and Canaan and the Egyptian pharaohs, because Egypt

617
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: controlled Canaan at this time, And so if that is true,

618
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: then that would be another piece of evidence in the

619
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: fourteenth century. In fact, Negro summarized it this way, just

620
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: on the basis of this one little canaanformed tablet. He

621
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: said this on the eastern flank of the tell, Garstang

622
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 1: retrieved a late bronze clay tablet preserving an administrative text

623
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: which suggests the city had a political role, a palace,

624
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: a ruler, and an archive. And so that sounds like

625
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 1: a kind of the city of Jericho I read about

626
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: in Joshua chapter six, and so all of that fits

627
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: within my chronological window.

628
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 2: Okay, So to catch everybody out, this is really helpful.

629
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 2: By the way, Brian, as you would argue from the

630
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 2: biblical text, there's a little ambiguity and imprecision in the

631
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: language in the years that the conquest should fall between

632
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 2: fourteen twenty six and thirteen forty six, So fifteenth fourteenth

633
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,720
Speaker 2: century within that window. So we go to the record

634
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 2: and you lined up multiple things from the pottery that's

635
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 2: found there in city five that dates to that time,

636
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 2: the tombs, the seals and scabs, and a cuneiform tablet.

637
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 2: Some of these are stronger than others, but there's a

638
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 2: number of different factors that point towards occupation and dating

639
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 2: to the time that you project the conquest would have happened.

640
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 2: Step number one, okay, Step number two is that there

641
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: would be fortification that's there, not just occupation, not just people.

642
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:29,800
Speaker 2: What's the evidence it was fortified at that time?

643
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is where Negro's excavations have been very

644
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: helpful because they've actually excavated. You've been there, Sean, so

645
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: so you know that one of the primary things you

646
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: see when you first walk in at the southern side

647
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: of the Tell is this is this curving part of

648
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: a big stone wall that's called us They call it

649
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: a Cyclopean wall because I guess the ancient people thought

650
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,879
Speaker 1: only cyclopses could could could pick up rocks that big

651
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: and put them in a wall, So we call it

652
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: the Cyclopean wall. And everybody agreed that was made before Joshua,

653
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: that was Middle Bronze at the end of the Middle

654
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: Bronze Age period, that that was part of the fortification system.

655
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: And then what happened in the Late Bronze Age is

656
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: the city got resettled again. You've got a defensible position,

657
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 1: You've got a spring of water right there by the way.

658
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: The spring was encircled by the city walls in this

659
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: particular site, which was very handy, particularly if people came

660
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: to lay siege to the city. And what Negro's team

661
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: did is they've excavated another part of that city wall,

662
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: and they have suggested that what happened was the Late

663
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:41,479
Speaker 1: Bronze Age people built a mud brick wall on top

664
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: of the stone wall, so the stone wall would be

665
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: about fifteen feet tall and it encircles the site that

666
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: was left over from the Middle Bronze Age and the

667
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: Late Bronze Age. People came along and they said, Hey,

668
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:58,720
Speaker 1: this perfectly good wall standing here, Let's build a let's

669
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: build a mud brick wall on top of it. And

670
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: so his team says, he's published that the wall was

671
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,439
Speaker 1: six and a half feet wide. The mud brick part

672
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,280
Speaker 1: of the wall was six and a half feet wide,

673
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: and it was just set back about a foot from

674
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: the front of the Cyclopeum, that stone wall. And we

675
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: have a kind of a rule of thumb and archaeology

676
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: one to three ratio for walls, so that's width to height.

677
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:28,760
Speaker 1: And so if that's the case, then then the height

678
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: of the mud bricks themselves was like nineteen feet on

679
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: top of a fifteen foot stone wall. And so I

680
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: mean you're talking over thirty feet there. So when the

681
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: people came into Israel, you remember what they said. They

682
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 1: said the spies came back, they said, oh, we saw,

683
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 1: we saw cities that were walled up to the heavens.

684
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: That would have seemed that way. And so negroes research

685
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 1: and I should in fairness to doctor Negro, he is

686
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: not a Christian. He does not believe that the Bible

687
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: is true. He would probably say that the Bible is

688
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: that this account is legendary or was used by someone

689
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: much later writing the Bible to justify their existence in

690
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: the land. But his research is kind of lining up

691
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: with the fact that there was a walled city because

692
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: there were people who previous generations said, yeah, most of

693
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: the cities in late Bronze Age were not fortified, but

694
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: now we're finding out that many of them were, and

695
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,399
Speaker 1: Jericho was one of them. So that's what we would find. Now,

696
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 1: this is where this is really helpful. If we know

697
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: the tracing of that wall, we can now tell how

698
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 1: big Jericho was. So Jericho was approximately eleven acres in size.

699
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 1: So for comparison, Hatzor at this time was two hundred

700
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: and seven acres in size, Lakeish was twenty acres in size,

701
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: Migudo was forty nine acres in size, Jericho's eleven acres.

702
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: You know, in our minds, we've heard these songs, we've

703
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: seen these in my in my d the flannel graph, right,

704
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: remember that, and sudden and so it's taken on this

705
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: mythical proportion when in actual fact, the archaeology suggests it

706
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: was a small to modest sized city, probably a couple

707
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,760
Speaker 1: thousand people, and so all of that can be told

708
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: from the fortifications.

709
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: Okay, so h Italian archaeologist Negro has been there since

710
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 2: the nineties, Is that correct?

711
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:26,359
Speaker 1: Did you mention?

712
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 2: He started direct?

713
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: Okay ninety seven his last his last, his last excavation

714
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: that I can see. He published a report from the

715
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four season.

716
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so almost two decades plus. Definitely over

717
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 2: two decades. The latest scholarship archaeological digs not christianly motivated,

718
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 2: would not take the Bible as the way that you

719
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 2: and I would and other Christians would. Seems to confirm

720
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 2: our first two points that there was in terms of

721
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 2: the dating within the fourteenth fifteenth century, it was occupied,

722
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 2: as the Bible discusses city five. But second, there also

723
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 2: was a fortified city significantly that lines up with the

724
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: way the Joshua story is told. So far, it seems

725
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: to line up with your case. The third piece, though,

726
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 2: is evidence of destruction. It seems to me this would

727
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,839
Speaker 2: be the most contested point. Was it destroyed in that

728
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 2: era in a way that matches up with a famous

729
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 2: story of them marching around the city seven days and

730
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: the walls came tumbling down.

731
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 1: Well, the short answer is, yes, we do have some

732
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: evidence of destruction. And the first thing is so I

733
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: reached out to doctor Negro and he graciously emailed me back.

734
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: I asked him some questions and he said, well, I've

735
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: answered those questions in a chapter I wrote for this book.

736
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: And so I went online and was able to procure

737
00:42:54,520 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: a rare copy of this kind of rare, very obscenely

738
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: priced German volume that he had written a chapter in.

739
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: And I just wanted the one chapter. But that's okay.

740
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: ABR was gracious. They said, no, no, we got you covered.

741
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 1: We'll get that for you. And so very thankful the

742
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 1: Associates for Biblical Research for that. And in it he

743
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: makes this statement. He says, the late Bronze Age mud

744
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:25,240
Speaker 1: brick walls were recognized by Kenyon in the trenches she excavated.

745
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: And I went, wait a minute, now I've read Kathleen

746
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: Kenyan stuff. She said she didn't find any walls. She

747
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: actually said that the walls had disappeared from from erosion.

748
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: So I was curious, what. So I'm looking at his

749
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: references and then I tracked down what he's the parts

750
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: in Kenyon's excavation volume. And here's what he's saying. The

751
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: walls that she associated with City four, that she thought

752
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: were Middle Bronze Age, he is now saying those are

753
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: late Bronze Age. Those are City five walls. And so

754
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: I'm reading the description of these walls. She describes it

755
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: as a heavy fill of fallen red mud bricks piling

756
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: up to the top of the revetment. The this is

757
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: and there's a very famous side drawing cross section drawing

758
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: of trench one that ABR has used for years that

759
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: shows this pile of red mud bricks that would have

760
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: created like a almost like a sea ramp going up

761
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: into the city when it fell. And so that's been

762
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: part of the debate around City four. Negro is now

763
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: saying those are the walls from City five. Those are

764
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 1: the late Bronze Age walls from City five. And we

765
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: have collapsed mud bricks at the bottom of the walls.

766
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 1: Now that seems to align with what scripture says. And

767
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:47,760
Speaker 1: then we have Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated a domestic dwelling

768
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,720
Speaker 1: and she found several walls from this house. She found

769
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: an oven, like a beehive shaped oven, we call them

770
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: taboons in archaeology. She found a dipper juglet, a little

771
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: juglet that was there. She was the only Late Bronze

772
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: age vessel that they found that they were able to

773
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 1: was hole on the tell in c Tu. And she

774
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,320
Speaker 1: said this, She said, beside the oven, a single dipper

775
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: juglet was lying on the floor. This juglet is the

776
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: only late Bronze age vessel we have found in c

777
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: Tu on the on the tell. The evidence seems to

778
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: me to be that the small fragment of a building

779
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: which we have found is part of the kitchen of

780
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: a Canaanite woman who may have dropped the juglet beside

781
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: the oven and fled at the sound of the trumpets

782
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: of Joshua's men. And then she goes on to say

783
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: to date that destruction to the fourteenth century BC. So

784
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 1: now we've got destruction within the timeframe of the chronological window.

785
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: The big thing is, is there evidence of fire? And

786
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 1: this is where when you look at Jericho and you

787
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:54,879
Speaker 1: look at at the burn layer from the early Bronze level,

788
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: there's a beautiful right right on the southern part of

789
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: the tell where the inner gate is. I took a picture.

790
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: It's a gorgeous burn layer. It's Early Bronze Age, but

791
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: beautiful burn layer. The Middle Bronze Age city has a

792
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: great burn layer, but then we come to the Late

793
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: Bronze Age city and there's just not much left there

794
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:17,439
Speaker 1: from it. But Lorenzo Negro has noted that the Late

795
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 1: Bronze Age ended in some kind of conflagration, so he

796
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 1: mentions that there is fire, but he says it's hard

797
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: to tell. It's not documented in a clearly documented way

798
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: because of the excavations of the first two teams that

799
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: excavated it in a non reconstructible way. So he's admitted

800
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: that there's some evidence of fire, but he hasn't been

801
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: really clear on the dating of it. But he does

802
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 1: note that there is a drought of archaeological evidence in

803
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century during the period of Ramsays at Jericho,

804
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: which has been interpreted as an abandonment of the site.

805
00:46:56,760 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: So it seems to be that he would be kind

806
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 1: of saying that it's in the fourteenth century. Then this

807
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: destruction by fire, we don't exactly know. We do know

808
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: that Garstang found some evidence of an outer burnt layer

809
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: of burnt debris outside of a city wall, Now he

810
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: had misdated one of the city walls that he thought

811
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: was from Joshua's time but was a thousand years earlier.

812
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: But another part of the wall, even Negro admits he

813
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,479
Speaker 1: got that one right. And he's mentioned some burn layer

814
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: there in the late Bronze Age. Unfortunately, we can't be

815
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: more specific with the dating. But I would suggest that

816
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: we've got collapse mud bricks, and we've got destruction in

817
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: the city with Kathleen Kenyon's domestic house, and we've got

818
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: some limited destruction by fire. It seems to cut. It

819
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: seems to align within that chronological window. But that's the

820
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 1: best we have at this time. And so I would

821
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: look at this and I would summarize, and I say,

822
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: when you put this all together and you look at

823
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: the pottery and the scarebs, and the walls and the destructions,

824
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: and you just kind of line them up, they all

825
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,720
Speaker 1: seem to align. Even though they kind of have different timeframes,

826
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:12,240
Speaker 1: they all seem to align right within that chronological window

827
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: we set for the conquest.

828
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 2: Okay, this is so fascinating and interesting as far as

829
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 2: I understand a shift in where the conversation could go

830
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 2: amongst the larger scholarly assessment of Jericho and also potentially

831
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 2: where evangelical scholars would would date it, and potentially an

832
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 2: alignment that maybe we haven't seen in the past. If

833
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: you're right, So the strength is you date this between

834
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 2: fourteenth and fifteenth century fourteen twenty six to thirteen forty

835
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 2: six based on the Bible. We find it's occupied during

836
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 2: that time for a number of reasons that you gave.

837
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 2: We find that there it was fortified during that time,

838
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 2: and there's evidence of destruction. The weaklink, if there were one,

839
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 2: is that it clearly describes and Joshua burning the city,

840
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 2: and there's some evidence for that that lines up, but

841
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 2: maybe not as clear as we would expect based on

842
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 2: the text alone, going to the archaeological record. Is that

843
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 2: a fair way to put it?

844
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair. And so one of

845
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: the things I've looked at at the text is this,

846
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: when it says it burned the city, they burned the

847
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: city with fire. To our modern minds, maybe images of

848
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: Dresden in World War II come to mind, okay, but

849
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: I don't know that the text is actually saying the

850
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 1: entire city was burned with fire. First of all, they

851
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 1: didn't build a lot of things with wood. Back then

852
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 1: it was mostly stone. But the other thing is that

853
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: and Kenneth Kitchen pointed this out in his great book

854
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: on the Reliability of the Old Testament. He points out

855
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of rhetorical language in the

856
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: Book of Joshua. For example, in Joshua chapter ten, I

857
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: think it is they talk about how they wiped out

858
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:01,359
Speaker 1: the Amorites, but then the text goes on to talk

859
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,839
Speaker 1: about the Amorites, who they didn't wipe out. Well, wait

860
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: a minute, I thought you just said you wiped out

861
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: the Amurits. It's a little bit like when I played

862
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: hockey as a kid. I went to we have one

863
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: high school, and all the communities sent their kids to that.

864
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 1: So we went to school during the day with the

865
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:16,439
Speaker 1: same guys we were going to be playing against at night,

866
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: and so sometimes there was a little trash talk going

867
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:21,480
Speaker 1: on and we'd say things like you know you're dead,

868
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 1: meet tonight. Now, we didn't literally mean we were going

869
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: to like kill them. That was just rhetorical language we

870
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: were using. When we look at Hatsre, which is another

871
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: city that they burned, it seems that there is some

872
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: limited evidence for burning at Hatsre in a city gate

873
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:43,400
Speaker 1: in one of the temples, and maybe in part of

874
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:47,240
Speaker 1: the palace, and so that dates to this period fifteen

875
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 1: fourteenth century period. The bigger destruction there is in the

876
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: thirteenth century at Hatsre. And so I think that you

877
00:50:56,520 --> 00:51:01,359
Speaker 1: could have limited burning in symbolic areas of city that

878
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: would satisfy burning the city with fire if that phrase

879
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: is being used in a way that involves some rhetoric.

880
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: We tend to impose really literal translations on how we

881
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: read the Bible, particularly in western North America, and I

882
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: think that if you look at it from a rhetorical

883
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: point of view, and there are examples of that in Joshua,

884
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,360
Speaker 1: this might be an example of that. And so I

885
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 1: might not find a beautiful burn layer that's the whole

886
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: site wide, but I might find examples of it here

887
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: and there, and that would satisfy the text.

888
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 2: It's a similar move that Paul Kopan makes when he's

889
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 2: talking about more the moral challenges of genocide. When it

890
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 2: says completely wipe out the Melkites and the Canaanites, and

891
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 2: sometimes it says they were, but then they show up

892
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 2: later in the text. It's exactly wait a minute now.

893
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 2: Of course the challenge to that, which we don't need

894
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 2: to really go into detail here, is then it raised

895
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 2: the question what part is exaggeration what part is not?

896
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 2: So it could turn around and challenge just on the

897
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 2: other side, and we have to be careful that what

898
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 2: lines up we say, oh, that's historical, and what doesn't

899
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 2: we go that's exaggeration. And that's some of the challenge

900
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 2: that I'm sure you have to wrestle with and other scholars.

901
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 2: So let me let me ask you this. Do you

902
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 2: are you planning You sent me your book, which was fascinating.

903
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 2: It's I think about one hundred and twenty pages. It's

904
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 2: like a more than a Carpenter length book that's very readable.

905
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:24,879
Speaker 2: But you have some of the scholarship backing this up

906
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 2: just called Joshua's Jericho. But have you an and are

907
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 2: you planning on publishing some of this in journals to

908
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 2: get scholarly interaction outside of say the evangelical world or

909
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:41,839
Speaker 2: even amongst other evangelical archaeologists. Uh?

910
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, So two things. First of all, it's I have

911
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,239
Speaker 1: two articles right now that are that are up for

912
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 1: peer review, one in I won't name the magazines, but

913
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 1: one one has to do with the archaeology in an

914
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: archaeological journal, peer reviewed archaeological journal, and the other has

915
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: to do with my chronological reproach approach in an evangelical

916
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 1: theological journal, and so I'm trying to get that out there.

917
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm I'm holding off on publishing our stuff

918
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 1: in our own magazine, Bible in Spade, until I get

919
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 1: it through peer review there. The other thing I would

920
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: note is that I that as this was part of

921
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: my thesis, I had a great thesis committee. Doctor Scott Stripling,

922
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 1: who you've had on your show here before, was on

923
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 1: my thesis committee. Doctor Steve Collins is my primary primary

924
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: professor you've had him onto. Doctor Gary Byers was my

925
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: faculty advisor. And they were very good at at at

926
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,720
Speaker 1: questioning me, of of challenging me, of getting my thinking,

927
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:48,879
Speaker 1: particularly since while both both Scott and Gary are part

928
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: of Associates for Biblical Research, and Bryant Wood was our

929
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:57,879
Speaker 1: main guy for years and years, and so I've tried

930
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: to be really respectful because I have a huge respect

931
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 1: for Bryant and what he did. I think he presented

932
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: a plausible case for City four. As Joshua's Jericho over

933
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:10,400
Speaker 1: thirty years ago with the data that he had available,

934
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: and I would like to build on that. I like

935
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 1: to think I'm building on his work and trying to

936
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:18,280
Speaker 1: present a plausible case for City five using the latest

937
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: archaeological data. And so they were very good at helping

938
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:25,719
Speaker 1: me refine my my work. I have some other friends

939
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: in ABR who were very good, and you know, even

940
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 1: people I have friends who haven't fully subscribed to my theory,

941
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: but you know, one of them said to me, you know, Brian,

942
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. You appreciate that you're doing original

943
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: thinking on this and not just recycling and reciting what

944
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: everybody is everybody else has been doing for thirty years.

945
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: And so that's been part of what I'm doing. And

946
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: hopefully these two articles will get through peer review and

947
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 1: I'll be able to get some some of that scholarly interaction,

948
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: because I think that's very helpful. I also have some

949
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,439
Speaker 1: other people who are interacting with me who are also

950
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: students who have different views than I do, and so

951
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,760
Speaker 1: I'm doing some interaction with them and back and forth

952
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 1: and what they see and what I see, and that's

953
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 1: very helpful too to help me refine my thinking on this.

954
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 2: It's important for people to see that this is a

955
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 2: part of the process. If you go through this process,

956
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 2: you make a case for city five and at the

957
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 2: end of the day it's not plausible, and you say,

958
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 2: you know what, I made a case. It made sense.

959
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 2: City five is not the best candidate. That's really helpful

960
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 2: in the world of archaeology. I actually consider that a

961
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 2: win from somebody looking on the outside. I mean, when

962
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 2: I researched the Apostles for my own doctoral work, at

963
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 2: first I was like, I got to make this argument

964
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 2: as strong as I could, and then I paused, I'm like,

965
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,320
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this is not how you do archaeological

966
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:49,440
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, this is not how you do historical research.

967
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 2: I got to figure out what is the evidence that

968
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 2: they died as martyrs, where they died, and then assess

969
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 2: does this contral for an argument for the resurrection, and

970
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 2: if so, how and so. Some people have critiqued me

971
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 2: for not being more aggressive in my argumentation of their martyrs.

972
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 2: They're martyrs, and I'm like, friends, that evidence is not there.

973
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:18,760
Speaker 2: We have to follow where it leads. And I still

974
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 2: think we can make a good case, but we have

975
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 2: to nuance it so how confident at this stage, I

976
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 2: realize you haven't done a deep dive on the pottery yet,

977
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 2: you're proposing certain things. It's new in the process. But

978
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 2: how confident and optimistic are you in your case for

979
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 2: City five, for the conquest?

980
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: I would say, at this point, with the data that

981
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 1: we have available, I think I think I've presented a

982
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: strong case, a plausible case given the data. Now, at

983
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: the end of my book, I note that that Lorenzo

984
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: Negro has not published his final dig report with all

985
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 1: the data and all the pottery plates from Jericho yet,

986
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: and so when he does, I mean, I preserve the

987
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: right to change my mind. But at this point, the

988
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: stuff that they have done has been good work, harmonizing

989
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: the data from the previous excavations along with their own.

990
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: And if they're correct, and if City five is the

991
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 1: Late Bronze Age stratum there, and I think, based on

992
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: the work I've seen of theirs, that they they present

993
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: a good strong case. I think that that you know,

994
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: given the fact that that a lot of the site

995
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:33,200
Speaker 1: has been eroded over time, that you know, in the

996
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:36,800
Speaker 1: Iron Age, they basically scraped the tael clean and and

997
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: rebuilt on top, which might also explain why a lot

998
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: of the Late Bronze Age stuff is found around the

999
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 1: outside of the tell. I think in light of those things,

1000
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: I think that that City five is a viable candidate

1001
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 1: for City five. I tend to be within a br

1002
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: the cautious guy who is who's who's trying not to

1003
00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: overstate my case, and so I do want to dive

1004
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: deeper into the into the pottery, in particular to see

1005
00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: if we can can clarify and tighten the the dating

1006
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I'm looking at things like, for example,

1007
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 1: my current project right now, I've got an isoms isometric

1008
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 1: drawing of the of the middle building, and I'm plotting

1009
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: all of the pottery into the different rooms based on

1010
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 1: on Garstang's excavation report and looking seeing okay, and one

1011
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: of the rooms he describes stratigraphy, So I'm looking at that.

1012
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,439
Speaker 1: I'd like to look into these type of pottery called

1013
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: Cypriot milk bowls, because authentic shirts and imitation shirts have

1014
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,640
Speaker 1: been found by all of the excavation teams at Jericho.

1015
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: I think there might be some more there, but right now,

1016
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 1: I think in a general term, because I take a

1017
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:56,320
Speaker 1: window chronological window approach. I'm I'm confident that City five

1018
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 1: is the city that Joshua conquered. I would like to

1019
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 1: with my research just try and narrow down that date

1020
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 1: as much as I can.

1021
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 2: With the pottery, well, I love it cautiously optimistic, and

1022
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 2: I have to say to you. When I was first

1023
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 2: hired at Talbot the committee at that time, one of

1024
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 2: the directors said, you know, she's like Sean. You know,

1025
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 2: sometimes apologist get ahead of themselves and don't state things cautiously.

1026
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 2: In the world of academia, if you get hired, make

1027
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:27,920
Speaker 2: sure you don't do that. I distinctly remember that, and

1028
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 2: that's such good advice. And I would say, I've been

1029
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 2: a professor of thirteen years. You do that really well.

1030
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 2: You make a case, you tell a traumatic, interesting story.

1031
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 2: I will be following this for sure, but I think

1032
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 2: you're not overstating your case from what I can tell.

1033
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:47,360
Speaker 2: So I think really really good work. Keep us posted

1034
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 2: if you will, so if your articles come out, if

1035
00:59:51,080 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 2: there's some new other breaking, you know, incident where it

1036
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 2: lines up or doesn't, you know, maybe we'll have you

1037
00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 2: back and maybe somebody with a different perspective to kind

1038
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 2: of debate this back and forth, but keep us posted

1039
01:00:03,240 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 2: and I will let people here know what's going on

1040
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 2: in this world and in archaeology. When we say you know,

1041
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 2: this happened fast, that might be six months or five years.

1042
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:16,919
Speaker 2: These things work slowly, but this is about as fun

1043
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:19,760
Speaker 2: and exciting of a story I've heard in a while.

1044
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:22,439
Speaker 2: Thanks for your original research. Appreciate you coming on your book.

1045
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 2: Joshua Jericho was very easy to read and understand. You

1046
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 2: make a case, but also taught me a few things

1047
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 2: about the story itself. I hadn't really noticed before, so

1048
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:35,720
Speaker 2: thoroughly enjoyed that. We'll have you back, folks before you

1049
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:37,800
Speaker 2: click away, and make sure you hit subscribe. We will

1050
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 2: keep covering archaeological news and stories and events here, especially

1051
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 2: really in particular as it intersects with the Bible. We

1052
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 2: also in our Master's program and Apologetics, we will have

1053
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 2: weekend classes top by people like Titus Kennedy on the

1054
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 2: latest on biblical archaeology. If you think and I want

1055
01:00:56,800 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 2: to do a deep dive and apologetics to study some

1056
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 2: of this stuff, think about you to me at Talbot.

1057
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 2: We also have a new certificate program where we walk

1058
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 2: people through some of the top lectures. We just updated

1059
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 2: it and then just some simple assignments to learn apologetics.

1060
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 2: You can get a certificate saying you know some things

1061
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 2: about apologetics. Big discount below. Brian really enjoyed it again.

1062
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 2: Hope people pick up your book and please keep us

1063
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:27,680
Speaker 2: posted on how this unfolds, because, my goodness, it is

1064
01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:30,920
Speaker 2: this big and important story from the Old Testament with

1065
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 2: a lot of implications that I think somebody can find.

1066
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 2: So thanks again for coming on.

1067
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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. This has been fun.

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Speaker 2: Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that

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Speaker 2: fall button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning

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Speaker 2: in haven't done this yet, and it makes a huge

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Speaker 2: difference in helping us reach and equip more people and

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Speaker 2: build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every

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Speaker 2: review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show,

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Speaker 2: brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola Universe,

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Speaker 2: where we have on campus and online programs and apologetic

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Speaker 2: spiritual formation, marriage and family, Bible and so much more.

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Speaker 2: We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach,

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Speaker 2: and defend the Christian faith today and we will see

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Speaker 2: you when the next episode drops.