by
Damien F. Mackey
Dr. Norman Geisler:
“Patterns are really more important than
dates because dates kind of fluctuate and the argument about dates is still
going”.
Patterns
of Evidence. Exodus.
(Advertising flyer)
This is one of the most sensible statements
that I have read regarding the methodology required for attaining a proper biblico-historical
revision.
Those would-be historians obsessed with
dates, numbers, and charts, could take heed.
One might
expect that major biblical events, such as the Exodus and the Fall of Jericho,
and more especially the great Noachic Flood, would have had such a notable
impact on their environs as to have left some substantial evidential imprints,
thereby enabling for a better co-ordination of stratigraphical and
or/geological data. Even a conventional scholar such as professor Emmanuel
Anati had appreciated - what I also firmly hold - that the Joshuan Conquest must
have occurred during the Early Bronze III [EB III] era in Palestine. I
re-visited it in my:
Comparing a One Dimensional Biblico-Stratigraphical Model
with a Multi-Dimensional One
…. According to an intriguing detail of supporting
evidence as gleaned by Anati from the Book of Joshua, EBIII Jericho alone
qualifies for the city destroyed by the Israelites (Mountain of God,
p. 280, emphasis added):
With regard to the correspondence between archaeology and
biblical descriptions, if the latter is reliable in terms of historical
reconstruction, then the following passage may prove to be particularly
significant:
‘Rahab let them down from the window by a rope, for her
house was against the city wall itself’ (Jos 2:15). Which of the archaeological
layers that have been excavated might correspond to this description? ...
This ... description can only refer to a form of urban
planning and surrounding wall from the Early Bronze Age....
There were no windows that looked towards the outside of
the walls, during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, either at Jericho or at any
other site in the Syro-palestinian region.
[End
of quote]
However,
whilst it was fully apparent that EBIII satisfied the basic details here for
Jericho, that particular level of the Archaeological Ages does not appear to
have the capacity within it - at least as conventionally understood - to
satisfy all of the biblical Conquest
data. This has been made clear by the research of professor W. Stiebing.
Here
follows what I wrote about this anomaly in that same stratigraphical article:
The Exodus/Conquest Era
Everything changes (by way of contrast with the
conventional scenario) when the Conquest is located earlier, to the Canaanite
EBIII stage, with the conquerors being the MBI people whom, according to [Dr.
David] Down, more and more experts archaeological experts are calling the ‘Israelites’.
Even conventional scholar, Stiebing, who rejects an MBI conquest of EBIII as
the time of Joshua, admits that this version of the Conquest does have
arguments in its favour. Let us firstly, then, read about Stiebing’s
important distinctions between EBIII and MBI (“New Archaeological Dates for the Israelite Conquest”, C
and AH, Vol. X, pt.1, Jan., 1988, pp. 5-7):
Several scholars believe that agreement between
archaeology and the Bible can be achieved if the conquest is placed at the end
of the Early Bronze Age. The latter part of the Early Bronze Age was an era of
widespread urbanization in Palestine (including the Negev) and Transjordan. But
almost every one of the flourishing Palestinian cities was destroyed at the end
of the … EB III period. The succeeding era ... MBI was characterized by a
non-urban pastoral society. The change from EB III to MB I has often been seen
as a total cultural break. The urban culture of EB III was succeeded by an era
in which there were no true cities in Palestine, only small villages consisting
of a few flimsy, poorly built structures. Pottery types and other artifacts
were very different in the two periods.
The Early Bronze practice of multiple burials
in large caves was replaced by single or double burials in smaller tombs, and
the differences between the tomb styles and burial practices during the MB I
period might indicate that they belonged to non-sedentary groups with a tribal
social structure. This view that the EB III culture was almost totally
destroyed and replaced by that of invading semi-nomadic tribes has led some
scholars to place the Israelite conquest of Canaan at this point in the
archaeological history of Palestine.
[End
of quote]
Stiebing now points to what he considers to be certain
advantages of this interpretation:
An EB III exodus and conquest would solve
some problems. Both Ai and Jericho were large, walled cities during EB III and
were destroyed at the end of that era. And the widespread destruction of cities
and the changes in material culture which took place at the end of EB III could
be credited to the invading Israelites. The almost total cultural break between
EB III and MB I could indicate that the Israelites conquered virtually all of
Palestine and massacred most of the Canaanite population, just as the Bible
says.
[End
of quote]
Such a scenario, Stiebing goes on to tell, has recently
been strengthened by the testimony of experts.
Firstly by Dr. Cohen:
This view has been bolstered in recent years by Israeli archaeologist
Rudolph Cohen’s claim that the spread of the MB I culture into Palestine
follows the pattern which the Bible gives for the invading Israelites. Cohen
argues that the MB I culture first appeared in northern Sinai and the southern
Negev, spread through Transjordan, then across the Jordan into the southern
hill country, and finally into northern Palestine. ....
Secondly, by Professor Anati:
Emmanuel Anati, professor of paleo-ethnology at the
University of Lecce, in Italy, furthermore has found an EB III/MB I holy
mountain which he claims is Mount Sinai. Anati discovered a great concentration
of rock art (much of it with what seem to be religious themes) at Har Karkom, a
mountain in the southern Negev of Israel. He also found standing stones and
altars, suggesting that this mountain had been a place of religious pilgrimage.
All in all, he feels it fits the Bible's description of Mount Sinai quite well.
The largest number of habitation sites near Har Karkom and the greatest volume
of rock art there belong to the Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age I. There seems to have been little activity at
this site during the Middle Bronze II, Late Bronze, and Iron Ages.
.... So, if Har Karkom was Mount Sinai (as
Anati believes), then the Exodus must have begun during the Early Bronze Age
and the conquest must have taken place at the end of EB III.
[End
of quotes]
So far so
good.
But now
professor Stiebing proceeds to point out what he perceives to be the
inadequacies of this particular model (as espoused by the likes of Dr. D.
Courville and by Stan Vaninger).
My
article continues:
….
The general stratigraphical problem of the
Courville/Vaninger model - and indeed the complexities of stratigraphy - is/are
well explained by Stiebing (op. cit., pp. 11-12), who had previously noted this model’s
strong points:
This theory, however, contains a major inconsistency in
dealing with cultural breaks in Palestinian archaeology. On the one hand, the
break between EB III and MB I is seen as evidence for the invasion of a new
population group. But the equally complete and dramatic change from MB I to MB
IIA .... is supposedly due only to the Israelites' settling down and becoming
more urbane.
Vaninger tries to remove this inconsistency by minimizing
the cultural discontinuity between MB I and MB IIA and by arguing that
population growth, climatic change, new pottery-making techniques, and influence
from the north through trade account for the differences between the two
periods.
.... But he rejects the opinion of archaeologists who
have argued for continuity between EB III and MB I on much the same grounds -
that the changes reflect socio-cultural fluctuations between periods of urban
settlement and eras of pastoralism and small villages, rather than invasions by
new groups of people. .... Vaninger justifies his different treatment of the
two periods of cultural change by noting that major destructions mark the end
of EB III towns while no destruction levels delineate the end off MB I....
However, climatic changes and internal strife can lead to widespread
destruction, abandonment and urbanization, and a reversion to pastoral life.
The EB III destructions do not necessarily prove that an
invasion took place.
On the other hand, since during the MB I period there
were only small semi-nomadic encampments or villages in Palestine, rather than
cities, destruction levels should not be expected. If invaders had arrived in
strength at the end of MB I they would have had little reason to burn and
destroy the undefended villages they found, especially since most of the MB I
settlements were in the Negev, an area in which the MB IIA population chose not
to settle. So destruction layers at the end of EB III do not prove that an
invasion occurred then, nor does the lack of destruction levels at the end of
MB I prove there was no invasion at that time. The changes between MB I and MB
IIA are comparable to those between EB III and MB I. If such changes signal the
appearance of new population groups at the end of EB III, then the abrupt
change from MB I pastoralism to the new urban culture of MB IIA should also be
credited to invaders.
Stiebing
continues:
... excavations have shown that Beth-shean, Dor, and
Beth-shemesh were not occupied in EB III ..., and thus could not have survived
the Israelite conquest as the Book of Judges claims.
... Shiloh and Gaza present major
problems for theories of an EB III conquest. Shiloh was one of the centers of
Israelite activity during the period of the Judges (Joshua 18:1-10; Judges
21:12,19; etc.) and Gaza was a Philistine city which plays an important role in
the stories about Samson (Judges 13-16). Yet Shiloh (Khirbet Seilun) was
occupied for the first time in MB IIB (which begins just before the time of
Saul, according to the Courville/Vaninger chronology), while Gaza (Tell Harube)
was not occupied until the Late Bronze Age (which equals the Divided Monarchy
in their system)....
[End of quote]
The
conclusion that I would draw from all of this is that, due to the academic
obsession with simple linearity in
history, in palaeontology - when the actuality can often by more complex than
this - a conventional understanding of the Archaeological Ages has been arrived
at that is defective and artificial - a model that does not have within it the
capacity to cope with a scenario so eminently testable as is the Conquest. It
is clear from the above that we have two archaeological scenarios that fit, but
not fully within each one, the Conquest scenario.
It is
only by a combination of these that we begin to arrive at a complete picture.
