GOD EXAMINEDBible← Back to The ProofDid the walls of Jericho fall? Did Joshua make the sun stand still? How do we honestly handle the conquest commands — both historically and morally? And what is the theological point under it all?
Joshua presents two challenges: (1) the historical question — did the conquest happen the way Joshua describes it, and (2) the moral question — how do we handle the command to put entire cities under herem (ban)? This document doesn't dodge either. The honest answer requires both historical and theological work.
Joshua opens with Israel poised on the east bank of the Jordan after 40 years in the wilderness. Moses is dead. Joshua leads. The Jordan parts. Jericho falls. Ai falls. Five kings are defeated. A long campaign distributes the land among twelve tribes. By the end of the book, "the Lord gave them rest on every side."
Two complications:
Kathleen Kenyon's excavations (1952-1958) revealed a Bronze Age city with massive collapsed mudbrick walls and a burned destruction layer. Her dating placed the destruction at ~1550 BC, which she argued was too early for Joshua (whom she dated to ~1250 BC under the late-date Exodus model).
Bryant Wood (1990, Biblical Archaeology Review) reanalyzed Kenyon's pottery and concluded the destruction was actually ~1400 BC — matching the early-date Exodus chronology (1 Kings 6:1) perfectly. Wood's analysis identified Cypriot bichrome pottery characteristic of Late Bronze Age I, not Middle Bronze Age. The dating debate remains open, but the case for a ~1400 BC Jericho destruction is strong.
What both agree on: the walls fell outward, the city was burned, and the grain stores were untouched — meaning the city was destroyed not for plunder but in a ritual destruction precisely matching Joshua's herem protocol. Conquerors normally loot food first; the Joshua narrative explicitly forbids it.
Hazor was the largest Canaanite city of the period (~200 acres, ~30,000 inhabitants). Joshua 11:10-11 records its destruction: "And Joshua... burned Hazor with fire." Yigael Yadin (1950s) and Amnon Ben-Tor (1990s-present) excavated and found exactly that: a massive destruction layer with extensive burning, mutilated cult statues (heads and hands cut off — a distinctive marker of Israelite ritual destruction), and dating consistent with the Joshua period.
Ben-Tor (a secular Israeli archaeologist) has argued that the destruction of Hazor matches no other historical candidate as well as it matches the biblical Joshua account.
The Amarna Letters are diplomatic correspondence (~1360-1330 BC) from Canaanite city-state rulers to the Pharaoh of Egypt. They contain repeated, desperate pleas:
"The Habiru have plundered all the lands of the king. If there are no archers here this year, all the lands of the king my lord are lost." — Letter from Abdi-Heba, ruler of Jerusalem
The Habiru (a term referring to displaced or invading outsider groups) are described as raiding, capturing cities, and overrunning the Canaanite city-state system. The dating fits the post-conquest period if we accept the early-date Exodus. While not every Habiru reference is to Israelites, the correlation of timing, geography, and disruption pattern is striking.
The traditional identification of biblical Ai is Et-Tell. Excavations show Et-Tell was unoccupied during the Late Bronze Age — making it impossible to be the Ai of Joshua 8. Solutions:
The Ai discrepancy is real but not damning — site identifications in the ancient Near East are routinely revised based on new excavation.
| Model | Description | Defenders | Honest Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Military Conquest | Joshua exactly as described — lightning campaign, multiple sieges, then tribal allotment | Albright, Wood, Petrovich, evangelicals | Best fit for some sites (Jericho, Hazor, Bethel); needs nuance for others |
| Gradual Infiltration | Semitic groups peacefully moved into Canaan over centuries, gradually displacing Canaanite culture | Alt, Noth | Cannot explain destruction layers or rapid emergence of Israelite material culture |
| Peasant Revolt | Indigenous Canaanites overthrew their city-state overlords; "Israel" is internally generated | Mendenhall, Gottwald | Speculative; minimizes the textual claim of outside origin and the distinct material culture (no pig bones, four-room houses) |
| Hybrid Model | Real military campaign destroyed key cities; assimilation and treaty-making integrated other populations; conquest unfolded over generations | Hoffmeier, Kitchen, many moderate scholars | Most consistent with both the biblical text (Judges 1-2 admits incomplete conquest) and archaeology |
This is the hardest material in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 20:16-18 and Joshua 6:21 record commands to "devote to destruction" entire Canaanite populations — men, women, and children. No honest reader can shrug this off.
Kenneth Kitchen, Lawson Younger, and others have shown that ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts routinely use hyperbolic language. The Merneptah Stele says "Israel is laid waste, his seed is not" — obviously false, since Israel survived. Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian war accounts repeatedly claim total annihilation of populations that demonstrably survived. The convention was understood by contemporary readers.
This is confirmed within the biblical text itself: Joshua 10:40 says "[Joshua] left none remaining... he devoted to destruction all that breathed." But Judges 1 and Joshua 13 immediately describe surviving Canaanite populations the Israelites had to deal with. The text is using hyperbolic conquest rhetoric standard to its era, not making literal population claims.
The cities under herem (Jericho, Hazor, Ai) were primarily fortified military installations — small, walled garrison cities housing combatants, royal officials, and dependents. Civilian populations largely lived in unwalled villages outside. The "men, women, and children" formula in conquest texts of the period refers to the inhabitants of the fortified compound, which would include the warrior class and their immediate households — not the entire Canaanite peasantry.
Genesis 15:16 records God's promise to Abraham that his descendants would inherit Canaan after 400 years, "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." The text explicitly frames the conquest as delayed judgment on the Canaanite city-state cultures (Phoenician, Amorite, Jebusite) whose practices included documented child sacrifice (to Molech), institutional temple prostitution, and ritual cruelty. The Canaanite city-state religious system is the most ethically degraded religious system documented in the ancient Near East.
God's command is not "wipe out an innocent population." It is judgment after generations of escalating moral degradation — the same kind of judgment Israel itself later faces when it adopts similar practices and is exiled to Babylon.
Rahab (Joshua 2) — a Canaanite prostitute — is spared and integrated into Israel, becoming an ancestor of David and ultimately of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The Gibeonites (Joshua 9) deceive Israel into a peace treaty and are spared, becoming part of Israel's life. Caleb the Kenizzite — a non-Israelite by ancestry — is fully integrated. The text consistently shows that Canaanites who turn from the existing system are received. Herem is not ethnic; it is religious-judicial.
One of the most famous and contested miracles. Joshua 10:12-13:
"Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."
Three possible readings:
Joshua's Hebrew name is Yehoshua — the same name later rendered as Yeshua, which in English is Jesus. Joshua is the Old Testament type of Jesus: