It shows their flaws as well as their successes. The book of Judges focusses much more explicitly on those flaws. Sometimes the people are faithful. Sometimes they are not. The failures of the Hebrew tribes are highlighted.
By emphasizing the weaknesses of the time before the rise of kings in Israel, the book serves to prepare the reader for the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy that will follow in the books of Samuel. Archaeology has provided no credible evidence for the traditional fifteenth century BCE date of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan.
Some cities were violently destroyed in the mid- to late thirteenth century BCE Hazor, for example. Other sites appear to have been empty for some time before the arrival of the Hebrew tribes, and were reoccupied by the incoming forces. Sites in the hill country and the Judean Negev indicate that the migrating Hebrews settled on land that had been unoccupied for a good time. Still, there are puzzles which the archaeological evidence has not been able to solve. No evidence has been found, for example, that would indicate that Jericho was occupied at all during the 13th century BCE, and the conquest of Jericho is a significant feature of the early part of the book of Joshua.
The archaeological evidence does accord well with an understanding of the texts as complementary —that is, if we see Joshua and Judges as providing perspectives that balance each other and do not try to make them say the same thing. Under this view the settlement of the land was a complex event that took a long time. A core group of what would later become the nation of Israel came out of slavery in Egypt and moved into the land. They crossed over the Jordan into the western territories probably in the middle of the thirteenth century BCE.
Jericho is one of these city-states, so is Ai, so is Jerusalem, where Canaanite tribesmen called Jebusites dwell. Before they enter the land, the Jewish people send an envoy to the Canaanites with the message, "God, the Creator of the Universe has promised this land to our forefathers.
We are now here to claim our inheritance, and we ask you to leave peacefully. Meanwhile, Joshua has clear instructions from God that if the Canaanites don't get out, the Jews must wipe them out, because if they remain in the land they are going to corrupt the Jews. It is made clear that the Canaanites are extremely immoral and idolatrous people and the Jews cannot live with them as neighbors. This is like saying today that living in a bad neighborhood messes up your kids.
You have to always be careful about outside influences. The people go into the land and they fight a series of battles. The first is the battle of Jericho, the entrance to the heartland of Canaan. Some archeologists have suggested that the easy conquest of this heavily-fortified city was made possible by a well-timed earthquake. But isn't it remarkable that precisely when the Jewish people need the city to fall, there is an earthquake and it does? No matter how you explain it, it is still miraculous.
The waters of the Jordan miraculously stop flowing and they cross on dry land, then the Jordan refills with water. Next they march around the city walls, which crumble before their eyes. They conquer the city, taking no booty as commanded by God.
It must be clear by now that this is not the typical war of conquest such as we read about in human history of bloody warfare, of raping and pillaging. God has said, "Nothing like that here. And if you follow My instructions all will go well. But here things don't go so smoothly.
In fact, they meet with a terrible defeat with many of their number killed. Traumatized by the experience, they plead to know why God had abandoned them and quickly learn the terrible truth -- that one person, Achan, had stolen some items back in Jericho.
The fascinating thing here is that the Bible seems to be saying that obedience to God's commands is paramount and that as far as the Jews are concerned -- it is all for one and one for all. As an outgrowth of that lesson, Judaism teaches that there is such a thing as collective responsibility as well as individual responsibility -- no person is an island, each exists as part of the whole and is responsible for the actions of others as well as his or her own.
Just as in the story of the Golden Calf, every Jew is the guarantor for his fellow Jew. In today's world, the motto seems to be "Mind your own business," or "It's not my problem. Despite many difficulties on the way, the Israelites do finally lay claim to the Promised Land but their life there is far from calm, particularly after Joshua dies. The Bible relates that they had only themselves to blame:. From a simple reading of the text, one might assume that the entire Jewish people abandoned the Torah and started worshipping idols.
But this, in fact, was not true. As with the incident of the golden calf only a small percentage of the people sinned, yet the entire nation is held accountable. All Podcasts. Bible Reader. Croatian Hrvatski.
Dutch Nederlands. Finnish Suomi. German Deutsch. Hungarian Magyar. Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia. Italian Italiano. Norwegian Norsk. Polish Polski. Swahili Kiswahili. Swedish Svenska. Back to Blog. Judgment or Cruelty? Table of Contents. Divine Judgement, not Human Violence The ancient Israelite conquest of Canaan describes a limited event that was unrepeated in their history the relevant stories are in Numbers 21 and 31, Joshua 6—12, and 1 Samuel Divine Patience with Human Evil We must also recognize there is an untold story between God and the Canaanites that we only get hints of in the Old Testament.
Genesis Not Israel vs. Canaan, but God vs. Overtures of Peace Although the Canaanites as nations were subject to the judgment of God, they had decades of advance warning remember what happened to Pharaoh. Joshua in the Light of Jesus Not all of these reflections will be compelling to everyone and none of them should be taken in isolation.
Keep Exploring. Blog Post. Why is it touted as the period of the biblical Exodus and at the same time used as evidence against the Bible? Given this internal textual evidence, the foundation for a 13th-century Exodus has to be that the Bible is an inherently flawed, contradicting and unreliable text—hence the necessary dismissal of the above chronological material. Exodus ; Numbers Pharaohs named Ramesses came on the scene beginning the 13th century b. As such, the great Ramesses ii — b.
The even later 12th-century Ramesses iii is also sometimes offered as an alternative pharaoh for the Exodus. To go along with that, certain 13th-century b. We also start to see somewhat of a material change in the archaeological remains from this 13th century onward, in the lead-up to the later monarchical period.
Is there any logical biblical answer to these allegations? Is the Bible in conflict with the external evidence? An anachronism is a later, typically better-known name given to something from an earlier, lesser-known time period. It is used quite frequently in history books, ancient and modern.
The Bible contains many anachronisms, based on when the various books were compiled and also edited. Judges ; 1 Samuel ; 2 Samuel ; 1 Kings ; 2 Chronicles What about Rameses? Based simply on the above dating evidence, the case can easily be made that this geographical name was also anachronistic. But beyond that: Bible precedent reveals that the place-name Rameses clearly was being used as an anachronistic term.
Does this mean, then, that the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph must likewise be squeezed into the 13th or even 12th century b. Of course not. Are 13th-century city destructions in the Holy Land, and an apparent lack thereof during the earlier 15th century, evidence of a 13th-century invasion of Canaan?
There are a lot of assumptions about how the invasion of Canaan took place. Many appear to be false. Did you know that the biblical invasion of Canaan was not a city-by-city destruction?
In fact, the Bible specifies just three cities as being reduced to ashes by the Israelites Jericho, Ai and Hazor—more on this further down. The Bible actually takes pains to mention the preservation of Canaanite city structures, as opposed to destroying them. Instead the Bible describes numerous staged land battles with the Canaanites. City destructions are a good fit with the later, bloody Judges time period. Besides this, what about the general lack of definitive evidence of cultural change to a new population—change in dwellings, pottery, etc—something that did not start to become more noticeable until the 13th century and beyond?
The Bible itself preemptively states that this would be the case. In one respect, there would be somewhat of a cultural difference—the abstaining from non-kosher foods something unique from the Canaanites—as long as the Israelites adhered to those commands. And evidence of this—as well as certain other unique sacrificial peculiarities— has been found see here for more detail.
Further, the Bible reveals that the Israelites failed to drive out a bulk of the Canaanite population, and even turned to Canaanite paganism themselves Judges Judges 5—according to internal biblical chronology—is set around the 13th century b. The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased …. They chose new gods; Then was war in the gates; Was there a shield or spear seen Among forty thousand in Israel?
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