Problems Encountered and Solved
A close examination will reveal that the Sothic system of dating the twelfth dynasty is not nearly as secure an anchor as some Egyptologists still seem to believe. It rests upon many assumptions that have been disproved over the years. Perhaps the most obviously incorrect assumption is that the ancient Egyptians were aware of the Sothic period at all. “We have seen, earlier in this work, that the ancient discussions of Sothic periods are invariably quite late. Indeed, all of them are from Hellenistic and Roman times: there is no reference to Sothic periods in any document from earlier times” (Rose, 1999, p. 197).
Even if they weren’t aware of such a period, it is possible that the ancient Egyptians recorded the first annual appearance of the star Sirius. This might still be used to calculate dates. A close look at the inscription in Papyrus Berlin 10012, however, tells us that it wasn’t an observation at all but a prediction of when SPDT would first appear that was recorded. It is only if the prediction were accurate that the date for the heliacal rising of Sirius would fall between the years of 1873 to 1870 BC. This brings us to the question of how accurate the Egyptian priests were in making such predictions.
While comparing the dates for the new moons in the Egyptian civil calendar to determine which of the four possible years was the year mentioned in the papyrus, scientists found that the year which matched the closest agreed with the correct dates only two out of every three times. The other three years matched less than half the time. This lack of accuracy is justified by the claim that atmospheric conditions or inaccurate observations by the priests led to a mistake of a day or more on one out of every three observations. The moon is much bigger and easier to see in the sky than is Sirius. If the Egyptian priests were unable to accurately observe the new moon one out of three times, how were they able to predict the heliacal rising of Sirius with one hundred percent accuracy? So did Sirius rise heliacally on the predicted date? There is no known document to confirm or disprove the predicted rising of Sirius. Scientists who use the Sothic method of dating have simply assumed that they were accurate.
Another problem with the above mentioned method of trying to fit the dates of the lunar calendar to the civil dates, on which they occurred, is that these observations occurred during the reigns of two pharaohs, Senwosret III and his son Amenemhet III. Senwosret III is generally credited with a reign of 37 years, from 1878 to 1841 BC. A recently discovered inscription on his mortuary temple in Karnak has the regnal year thirty-nine. If Senwosret III reigned for thirty-nine or more years it throws off all the calculations. “All of the astronomical chronologies proposed by twentieth-century Egyptologists have less than thirty-nine years for Sesostris (Senwosret) III’s reign. Therefore, all their astronomical chronologies are nullified by this one fact alone” (Stewart, 2003, p. 317).
There is another possibility that needs to be examined. It is possible that the papyrus mentioned doesn’t refer to the star Sirius at all. During the eighteenth dynasty the major religious festival of the year was the Opet festival. During this festival the statues of the gods, Amun, Knum, and Khonsu were all removed from their shrines in the Karnak temple and taken in a great procession to the Luxor temple. After a period of celebration they were returned in another procession to the temple at Karnak. In inscriptions referring to these processions the ancient scribes described the procession as the “going forth” of Amun. In the papyrus predicting the rising of SPDT the words used are not rising but “going forth”. It is possible that the papyrus refers to a procession of the god SPDT and not the heliacal rising of the star Sirius. If so, then the entire Sothic dating scheme for the twelfth dynasty is based on a misinterpretation of the text.
Another of the critical assumptions made in Sothic dating, or any scheme of astronomical dating, is that the rotation and orbit of the Earth has proceeded in its current manner for the whole of recorded history. This is a basic tenet of modern cosmological religion. But how reasonable is this assumption? What would happen if the Earth were to be struck by an object from space? The laws of angular momentum state that if two bodies collide in space their angular momentum must be preserved. If the two bodies are of similar size the resulting orbit would be a composite of the original two orbits. If one body were much larger than the other, then the result would be that the new orbit would be close to the orbit of the larger body, yet still a composite of the two. If a large comet, asteroid, or meteor were to collide with the earth, then the orbit of the earth would be changed, however slightly, due to the conservation of the two bodies’ angular momentum.
Obviously such an event occurs rarely. In fact, for over one hundred years many scientists denied that it was possible at all. Today we know that the Earth has been struck by objects from space innumerable times in it’s past. Why then is the Earth not covered with craters such as we see on the moon? The answer is that the Earth has an atmosphere that is in constant motion. It also has a great deal of surface and atmospheric water. The action of wind and rain on the surface of our planet act to erase traces of meteorite impacts from the surface, nevertheless, we know that they have occurred and that they still continue to occur. “Today more than a hundred ancient craters have been located, with diameters as great as 50 miles. The old, nearly healed scars of past impacts are thus being brought slowly to light” (Chapman and Morrison, 1990, p. 24).
If such an event were to occur, then all the systems of astronomical dating would be invalid. Any impact large enough to have an effect on the orbital period or rotational velocity of the Earth would change, however slight, the observed positions of the planets and stars and make the retro-calculations of past events invalid. Is it possible that such an event may have occurred? Such an event was recorded around the year 710 BC. However, because it was recorded in the Bible it has been rejected by most modern scientists.
9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?
10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.
11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
2 KINGS 20: 9-11
Many scientists have ridiculed these verses claiming that it is impossible for the sun to have gone backward ten degrees. They reason that if the Earth reversed it’s rotation in order to bring the sun backward ten degrees it would have resulted in the violent destruction of much of the planet itself. But a complete reversal of the planets rotation would not be required to bring about the recorded effect.
During the twentieth century geologists became aware that the Earth is not a solid body. The surface especially, is composed of a series of pieces, called tectonic plates, which float freely over a soft plastic layer called the aesthenosphere. There need be no change in the interior rotation of the Earth at all in order for a person on the surface to observe the sun moving backward. Nor would the observed phenomenon necessarily have been equally visible on all parts of the globe. It could have been more pronounced on the plate upon which it was observed by the people in Jerusalem, and less pronounced by observers on other plates.
Jerusalem does not lie on the equator. It lies north of the equator above 30 degrees latitude. It doesn’t require that the Earth rotated backward for an observer in Jerusalem to have seen the sun go backward. A twisting of the tectonic plate or a change in the inclination of the Earth’s axis with respect to the ecliptic would have the same effect. And any such change would mean that any astronomical dates calculated before this time would be inaccurate. We know that in the past changes have occurred in the Earth’s orbit and rotation. We know that it has been impacted by other bodies from space. We have an account of a change in the rotation of the Earth recorded in approximately 710 BC. If this event indeed occurred, then all astronomical dating systems before this date, eclipses as well as Sothic dates, are invalid.
There is one other assumption upon which Sothic dating is based that when examined will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of Sothic dating. This assumption is that the Egyptians used the same calendar throughout their history. If there were a period in time when they used a calendar with a different number of days, then the entire basis of Sothic dating would be undermined. As is happens there were two known times when a different calendar was in use. For a period of fifty years or so during the early part of the eighteenth dynasty the ancient Egyptians used a civil calendar of only 360 days. This calendar was apparently changed to a 365 day calendar in the days of Tuthmosis III, and changed back to 360 days during the reign of Amenhotep III. The 365 day calendar was permanently restored during the nineteenth dynasty.
The implications of this change in the civil calendar are devastating to Sothic dating. The entire basis of the Sothic dating system is the difference between the 365 days of the civil calendar and the actual 365.24 days in a year. As discussed previously this would have the effect of making the seasons rotate around the calendar by one day every four years. This would result in the seasons moving completely around the calendar once every 1460 years. But if, as in the eighteenth dynasty, the civil calendar had only 360 days, then this effect would be magnified twenty-one times. In other words, the calendar year would begin 5.24 days earlier every year and the seasons would rotate around the calendar every 70 years. If the exact date of the introduction of the 360 day calendar was known, and the exact date for the change back to the 365 day calendar was also known, and each was known for every time this occurred, then Sothic dates could still be estimated. Of course, if we had these kinds of records we wouldn’t need Sothic dates.
Since the introduction of Sothic dating, which “fixed” the dates of the twelfth dynasty, there have been a number or errors discovered in these calculations. “Egypt’s astronomically fixed and absolute chronology has never been fixed or absolute. Egypt’s chronology has already suffered four major revisions in the twentieth century” (Stewart, 2003, p. 319, emphasis in the original.). The whole concept of Sothic dating has been shown to be fatally flawed. It rests on a number of assumptions none of which have been proven correct, and several of which have been proven to be incorrect. This has cast loose the final anchor on which the chronology of Egypt, based on the dynasties of Manetho, has been fixed. If I am able to show that the eighteenth dynasty has been placed 500 years too early, I no longer need to stretch the time between the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties by the same 500 years. There is simply no fixed point left before 664 BC.
In fact, the problems with the Sothic dating system have become so pronounced in recent years that most chronologies printed since about the year 2000 have dropped the claim that the twelfth dynasty dates are absolute. Instead they are believed to be accurate to within about 20 years. And on what basis is this claim made? The answer, shockingly, is nothing except they fit the existing scheme, which was created with the help of Sothic dating. In an ironic reversal, the Egyptologists of today have changed places with the priests of the reformation. Today it is the scientists who doggedly stick to their old ideas in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Now that I have shown that the absolutely fixed chronology of Egypt is anything but, let me return to the Holy Land and see what the archaeological record really says. Using dates given by the faulty Egyptian chronology we have seen that most archaeologists have come to doubt the historical accuracy of the account in the Bible. But what happens if we are to free ourselves of this artificial constraint? Do the Bible and the archaeological record tell the same story when we leave out the dates imposed upon us by the Egyptologists?
I have repeatedly made the claim that if the Bible is historically accurate, there should be physical evidence which confirms its accounts in the soil of Palestine. The story told by the findings of our modern archaeologists should match the story told by the Bible. In chapter two, I showed that the peoples and countries mentioned in the biblical account were real people and real nations. In chapter four, I showed how modern archaeologists dispute almost every account in the biblical record, claiming that none of them occurred at the time and in the manner described in the Bible.
I now make the claim that this is due to the dates forced upon Palestine by the chronology of Egypt. In the previous two chapters I showed that Egyptian chronology is not anchored to any solid dates before 664 BC. I also provided evidence that the period separating the eighteenth and twenty-fifth dynasties is much too long. Now I will compare the findings of archaeology with the stories contained in the Bible. This time, however, I will drop the chronology of the Egyptologists and look at what the Bible has to say compared with what has actually been dug up in Palestine.
I will begin once again with the flood in the days of Noah. This flood is dated to c. 2400 BC. If there was a universal flood in the days of Noah, then there is a very real time constraint on the civilizations of the world. The flood destroyed all of the peoples on the Earth. Therefore, any civilization which extended down into historical times must have begun after the flood. This claim isn’t often made since the vast majority of today’s archaeologists and historians reject the story of Noah’s flood as myth. Those who don’t reject it entirely, usually attribute the story to a local flood which destroyed the world only of the people who witnessed it.
Until the nineteenth century, naturalists believed that many of the displaced boulders, and gravel deposits found around Europe and North America were evidence of the biblical flood. Then a new theory was proposed to account for these deposits. It was proposed that tens of thousands of years ago the Earth had cooled dramatically. This led to a great expansion of the polar ice cap, and mountain glaciers. Geologists call this period the Ice Age. Evidence of the movement of vast sheets of ice were found throughout Europe and North America and despite the evidence that during this period Siberia and Eastern Alaska were much warmer, not colder, than they are today, the theory won general acceptance. “Consequently, reference to the Old Testament flood as a global phenomenon rapidly vanished from geology lectures and manuscripts” (Ryan and Pitman, 1998, p. 34-35.).
The introduction of the Ice Age theory had a dramatic effect on the accepted chronology of the Middle East. No longer confined by the approximately 2,400 BC date of the universal flood, the beginnings of civilization were pushed back thousands of years. “In the Nile valley the earliest Neolithic, settled, food-producing cultures are the Tasian and the Badarin (named for the sites at which they were first identified, as are those mentioned below), which may not in fact be separate (c. 4500 BC)” (Baines and Malek, 1991, p. 30.). Thus, over two millennia were added to the time in which historians could develop their chronologies. In Palestine it is even worse. Archaeologists now date the foundation of the city of Jericho to 9000 BC. There is a very real, though not very scientific, reason for dating finds as early as possible. Everyone would like to be remembered in the history books as the discoverer of the earliest civilization on Earth.
In my comparison, I will be using the archaeological ages in Palestine that I discussed in chapters two and three to date the archaeological finds. I will do this without using the dates which have been forced upon Palestine by the Egyptologists. The only dates I will use are those contained in the Bible as shown in the table in chapter one. My purpose in this chapter is simply to compare the biblical account with the material remains to see if they tell the same story. Once it has been shown that they do in fact agree, then I will attempt to date the archaeological ages in years BC. As previously mentioned, I will begin my comparison with the flood in the days of Noah.
“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man:”
GENESIS 7: 1
This was a worldwide catastrophe that destroyed every person save the eight on the ark. After the flood, the nations of the earth separated and began to build the great civilizations of antiquity. None of the civilizations of antiquity that we know of began before the flood.
The Bible tells us that the land of Canaan was settled by the descendants of Canaan, Noah’s grandson.
“And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.”
GENESIS 10:19
Sidon was a city of Phoenicia, Gerar and Gaza were cities of the Philistines, and Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim were in the plain of Jordan. In other words the Canaanites settled the land from Philistia in the south (today’s Gaza strip) to Phonicia in the north (today’s Lebanon), from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the plain of the Jordan River in the east.
These Canaanites were still there when Abraham entered the land.
“And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.”
GENESIS 12: 6
This tells us that the land was still populated by the Canaanites who settled there following the flood. When Abraham arrived in the Promised Land, these people had built small cities and surrounded them with walls.
“...and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom...”
GENESIS 19: 1
There would be no use for a gate without a city wall. Each of these cities has its own king and is an independent city state. Another reference to a city gate is made in the days of Israel, the father of the twelve tribes.
“And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city...”
GENESIS 34: 20
The archaeological remains show that the first people moved into the land of Canaan during the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age. They settled at Jericho and other centers. During the Neolithic (or New Stone Age) period the city of Jericho was one of the first true cities. “The dwellings of the inhabitants were surrounded by fairly massive walls, and enclosed a population of perhaps two thousand” (Grant, 1984, p. 9.). These people were the Canaanites described in the Bible.
Small walled cities such as Jericho are exactly what the Bible describes. And who were the inhabitants of these small cities during the Early Bronze Age? “The Chalcolithic ended mysteriously, with some of its principal sites simply abandoned and never resettled. But many of the elements of its culture continued to be used in the succeeding Early Bronze Age, suggesting continuity rather than disruption” (Coogan, 1998, p. 21.). The people in Palestine during the Early Bronze Age were the descendents of the people who had settled the land just as the Bible states. Were the cities walled? “During the Early Bronze Age II...Palestine contained several fortified towns” (Pitard, 1998, p. 40.). And what was the political structure of the land? “The presence of substantial temples and palaces in the various towns suggests that Palestine was divided into a number of small city-states, each controlling its adjacent lands and unfortified villages” (Pitard, 1998, p. 41.). The description of Early Bronze Age Palestine is exactly the same as the description of Canaan in the time of the patriarchs as recorded in the Bible.
Other cities mentioned in the time of the patriarchs as they traveled through the Promised Land include, Hebron, Ai and Gerar. By far the most important of these cities for our purposes is the city of Ai (GENESIS 13:3). The only time the city of Ai existed was during the Early Bronze Age. Unlike the Middle or Late Bronze Age discussed in chapter three, the archaeological finds from the Early Bronze Age I period perfectly match the description of the land contained in the stories of Abraham and the other patriarchs in the Bible. This is a time when there was no city of Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. It was also a time when the city of Bethel may have been the ruin of Luz and before there was a city of Shechem.
The Biblical narrative continues with the story of Joseph and how he was sold into Egypt by his brothers. He interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and became the ruler of the country. Later, due to a famine in Canaan, his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain. Eventually, the whole family moved to Egypt (GENESIS 37-50). After Joseph’s death, a new pharaoh enslaved the Israelites and put them in bondage. Moses, despite being an Israelite, had been raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Her father had ordered all male Israelite children killed. Moses killed an Egyptian taskmaster and was forced to flee the country under penalty of death. This pharaoh died just before Moses returned to Egypt at the age of 80, so he must have reigned at least 80 years. The Israelites were freed by the Lord through ten great miraculous plagues, which left the land of Egypt devastated. Led by Moses, the children of Israel left Egypt pursued by the armies of Pharaoh which were drowned in the Red Sea (EXODUS 1-14).
The land they left was devastated. Due to the plagues, Egypt had lost her crops to insects and fire, her livestock to disease and hail, and every family had lost their firstborn child. The pharaoh, along with the army, had been lost in the Red Sea in a vain attempt to recover her slave workforce. This pharaoh must have reigned no more than a few years. He began his reign just before Moses returned to Egypt and died in the exodus.
If Abraham lived during the Early Bronze Age I, then the exodus must have occurred at the end of the Old Kingdom. This is because the Early Bronze Age in Palestine was contemporary with the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom in Egypt. The Old Kingdom in Egypt was a time of prosperity and greatness. It was the time of the pyramid builders. The great pyramids of Giza, are but three of the many pyramids built during this period. The last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, Pepy II, is considered the king with the longest reign in history. He ruled Egypt for 94 years! He was succeeded by his son Nemtyemzaf II, a short reigned and little known pharaoh. He is little known because shortly after he began his reign the country collapsed. He ruled for such a short time before the collapse of the country that he wasn’t able to build a pyramid or tomb of his own and consequently, he isn’t even included on most lists of rulers of the sixth dynasty.
Why the sudden collapse? Scholars are unsure. They point to a lessening of central authority during the long reign of Pepy II and indications that the country was becoming poorer. “But even though we can point to details of this sort, nothing prepares for the eclipse of royal power and the poverty that come after Pepy II” (Baines and Malek, 1991, p. 35.). Could it have been the ten plagues which caused this collapse? “...it has been suggested that the political collapse was due primarily to a series of disastrous low inundations. This would explain why there is relatively little indication of decline before the catastrophe...” (Baines and Malek, 1991, p. 35.). The evidence indicates that a sudden, unforeseen catastrophe struck Egypt causing political and economic collapse and ending the Old Kingdom. There is no evidence before this collapse to indicate that such a catastrophic event is coming, nor is there any evidence that it was caused by an invasion or outside influence. This is exactly the situation the Bible describes for Egypt after the plagues and exodus. There is more evidence. “The reality of disaster is confirmed by an analysis of death rates in cemeteries, which show a marked increase at this time” (Baines and Malek, 1991, p. 35.). This is just what is to be expected when the firstborn in every family is lost and the crops have been destroyed by pests and fire. The sudden collapse of a prosperous, flourishing society is exactly the scene described in the Bible. In chapter three I demonstrated that most archaeologists believe the exodus to have gone almost unnoticed in Egypt since they failed to record it. This is not entirely correct. They did record the exodus, just not during the time of the New Kingdom.
In a museum in the Netherlands, there is a papyrus which describes the events of the exodus in detail. This papyrus was translated by Alan Gardiner who called it The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden. This papyrus describes a land in chaos, with water too foul to drink and blood everywhere. It tells that the land is without food; both the stored food and the crops in the fields have been lost. Many people have died and there is no light. Slaves have risen against their masters and there is chaos everywhere. There is no authority; the entire social fabric of the country has been ripped apart. The pharaoh has disappeared into the place of the whirlpool. Finally, not as the cause but as a result of this devastation, foreigners have invaded the land.
The beginning and the end of the papyrus have unfortunately not been preserved; therefore the part which tells us who the pharaoh was is missing. Although the papyrus in the Leiden Museum was written during the nineteenth dynasty, scholars are convinced that it is a copy of a much earlier document. The language used is that of the Middle Kingdom and most scholars place it as early in the Middle Kingdom as possible. They believe that it relates to events that occurred during the First Intermediate Period. This is the period that followed the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
The exodus did not go unnoticed by the Egyptians; it destroyed their civilization and ended their way of life. It would take decades, if not centuries, to recover from this disaster. Not only were these events recorded, but they have been dated to exactly the period in which the Bible tells us they happened. So far the findings of archaeology and the biblical account agree in detail as to what happened. The conclusions to the contrary are simply the result of faulty Egyptian chronology.
After the Red Sea crossing, Moses led the Children of Israel to Mount Sinai where they received the Ten Commandments. He then led them to the Promised Land, but they rebelled when they learned of the strong walled cities and numerous inhabitants in the land. Because of their rebellion they spent the next 40 years wandering through the wilderness. A 40 year migration of a very large nomadic people in the wilderness would have left traces. A huge quantity of broken pottery shards should litter the wilderness from these 40 years of wandering. Has there been evidence discovered of a large migration of people through the wilderness of Sinai?
“Indeed, the archaeological record from the Sinai peninsula discloses evidence for pastoral activity in such eras as the [Early Bronze Age]...” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 63.). The Sinai wilderness is quite barren and was seldom occupied. In fact the only two times evidence exists of its occupation are during the end of the Early Bronze Age and during the Iron Age. “...Sinai shows little evidence of occupation...from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age to the beginning of the Iron Age or even later” (Redmount, 1998, p. 104.). The evidence is clear; the remains of a large number of people inhabiting the Sinai exist only from this period. And this is exactly where they have to be to match the patriarchs in Early Bronze Canaan, and an exodus at the end of the Old Kingdom. So far, the Bible and the material remains continue to tell exactly the same story.
During the 40 years of wandering the Israelites were attacked by king Arad, who took some of them captive. The Israelites responded by destroying Arad and his cities.
And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners.
2 And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then will I utterly destroy their cities.
3 And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah.
NUMBERS 21: 1-3
Tell-Arad, the remains of a large Early Bronze Age city, lies at the edge of the Negev desert between Kadesh-Barnea and Hebron. “Almost twenty years of intensive excavations at the site of Tel Arad east of Beersheba have revealed remains of a great Early Bronze Age city, about twenty-five acres in size, and an Iron Age fort, but no remains whatsoever from the Late Bronze Age” (Redmount, 1998, p. 64.). This was considered to be evidence against the story told in the Bible. But now with the dates imposed by Egyptian chronology removed, it is compelling evidence that the story as told in the Bible is exactly correct. These excavations revealed that at the site of the kingdom of Arad there was a fort during the Iron Age, but at no other time except during the Early Bronze Age was Arad a major city.
Shortly after the exodus, Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan. They returned with the following report.
27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
NUMBERS 13: 27-28
And what does archaeology tell us about the land of Canaan at the end of the Early Bronze Age? “Early Bronze Age Palestinian civilization reached its climax during the period designated as Early Bronze III, when the population increased, more cities were founded, fortifications reached new levels of size and sophistication, temples and palaces (probably influenced by northern culture) were built, and a northern-oriented trade developed” (Pitard, 1998, p. 40.). Once again the findings of the archaeologists match the biblical account in detail.
After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites began the conquest of the land promised to Abraham over 400 years earlier. While still under the direction of Moses they conquered the Amorite kingdom at Heshbon and the kingdom of Og at Bashan. These kingdoms were east of the Jordan River in the area of the modern country of Jordan (NUMBERS 21: 21-35). Then, before he died, Moses appointed Joshua as his successor. Joshua led the Israelites across the river Jordan and conquered Jericho (JOSHUA 1-6). What have the archaeologists found on the site of this ancient city?
“Two concentric rings of fortification were exposed, the inner ring surrounding the ridge of the hill...The outer ring of fortification runs along the foot of the hill...Professor John Garstang as leader of the expedition noted...”The space between the two walls is filled with fragments and rubble. There are clear traces of a tremendous fire, compact masses of blackened bricks, cracked stones, charred wood and ashes. Along the walls the houses have been burned to the ground and their roofs have crashed on top of them.” After Garstang had consulted the most knowledgeable experts, the outcome of the second archaeological battle was that the inner ring was the more recent, therefore the one which must have been destroyed by the Israelites” (Keller, 1981, p. 160-161.). It was obvious to these excavators that they were viewing the remains of the city destroyed by Joshua. The ruins they discovered matched the biblical account exactly. The idea that this was the city destroyed by Joshua was discarded when it was shown that this city had been destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age. Yet this is exactly where it must be if we continue to follow the biblical account. After years of being called wrong it seems that Professor Garstang was right all along.
Joshua then conquered the city of Ai (JOSHUA 7-8). “Between 1933 and 1935, the French-trained Jewish Palestinian archaeologist Judith Marquet-Krause carried out a large-scale excavation at et-Tell and found extensive remains of a huge Early Bronze Age city...” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 82.). Following the destruction of the Early Bronze Age city, Ai wasn’t resettled as many of the other cities were. It remained a ruin until the Iron Age. In fact, according to Smith’s Bible Dictionary the name Ai means “heap of ruins”.
The picture of Canaan that emerges from the conquest is that of a country consisting of a number of large urban centers. Each had its own king and ruled the surrounding territory as a city-state. These kings might cooperate in the event of danger as they sometimes did during battles with the Israelites, but otherwise were independent. What was the political situation in Early Bronze Age III Palestine? “...the Early Bronze Age – was characterized by fully developed urban life...the situation...suggests that the major cities served as capitals of city-states” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 319.).
Joshua led the united tribes for a period of several years until all the major centers of Canaanite power had been destroyed. The Bible tells us that these cities came to an abrupt end being destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites. “...the end of the Early Canaanite (Early Bronze) Age came upon the Syrian and Palestinian sites with devastating completeness. During the fourth and last phase of that Age almost every site in Palestine was either completely abandoned or settled on a greatly reduced scale” (Grant, 1984, p. 11.). And what was the cause of this devastation? “...there arrived waves of invaders, pastoral semi-nomads who, while destroying such settled, urban ways of life as still survived at that time, employed shaft graves...” (Grant, 1984, p. 11.). Who were these people? They were “...Semitic-speaking groups of invaders...” (Grant, 1984, p. 11.). Hebrew, the language of the ancient Israelites is a Semitic language. And how did the Israelites bury their dead? According to the book of Genesis, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in a cave in a field (GENESIS 23: 17-20). A shaft grave is a hole dug down through the soil to the underlying bedrock. A “cave” is then dug in the bedrock for a burial chamber. A cave in a field is a perfect way for someone to describe a shaft grave.
During this time the Israelites didn’t settle in the lands they conquered but remained together as an army. Even the tribes which were given the land on the east of Jordan left their wives and children and went with the rest of the Israelites until the land was conquered (JOSHUA 1: 12-16). They remained together until the last of the Canaanites had been defeated (JOSHUA 10: 40-43). It was only then that the land was divided among the tribes and they were released to settle the lands they had won. “Habitation of the fortified cities ceased, with many destroyed violently and others simply abandoned. This period is now most commonly called Early Bronze IV, although some scholars designate it Middle Bronze I or Intermediate Early Bronze-Middle Bronze. At this time most of the population of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, followed a pastoral existence, regularly migrating to various seasonal camps throughout the region” (Pitard, 1998, p. 44.). Once again we see correlation between the Bible and the archaeological record. They are telling us the same story.
Realizing that the former inhabitants of the land of Canaan were destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age and that they were replaced by new peoples, archaeologists had to come up with a name for these Early Bronze Age peoples. Since they had concluded that the Middle Bronze Age inhabitants of Canaan were the Biblical Canaanites, they invented the terms proto-Canaanites, or Canaaneans to describe the people the Bible calls Canaanites.
After the conquest, the Promised Land was divided among the twelve tribes. The Israelites settled mainly in the hills and they allowed the Canaanites to return to the lowlands, though on a greatly reduced scale. One of the reasons for this was the ability of the Canaanites to work iron (JUDGES 1: 19, 1 SAMUEL 13-19). Thus the Israelites replaced the Canaanite culture with that of their own in the highlands, but allowed the Canaanite culture to persist in the valleys. An example of this is Hazor. Located in the north of Galilee, Hazor was the chief city of the Canaanites. It was destroyed by Joshua as described in Joshua 11: 10-11. Not much later, in the days of the Judges, Hazor was the capital of the king of Canaan, Jabin. Jabin enslaved the Israelites for twenty years before being defeated by Deborah and Barak (JUDGES 4).
During the Middle Bronze I, the cities of Canaan had lost much of their importance. All of them had been destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age, and though some of them were rebuilt, they were not the impressive sites they had been. Hazor is a good example. It was destroyed and rebuilt over a dozen times during the Bronze Age. Not all of the former cities of Canaan were resettled by their former inhabitants. Megiddo was also destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age. “The succeeding city... has radical changes in its architecture, which may indicate that it was now occupied by new people...” (Cline, 2000, p. 31.). Again the archaeological record and the Bible agree.
After the period of the judges, the twelve tribes were united for approximately a century under the kings Saul, David, and Solomon. It was a time of unprecedented prosperity for the Israelites. Saul established the kingdom and destroyed the Amalekites. David extended the boundaries of the kingdom from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, subjecting the Phillistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians. He captured Jerusalem and made it the capital of the kingdom. Other major centers included Hebron, Bethel, Shiloh and Shechem. Under Solomon the kingdom reached its zenith. It was Solomon who built the temple in Jerusalem making it the center of Israelite religion replacing Shechem where the Ark of the Covenant had been kept. He built two large trading fleets, one in the Mediterranean and the other in the Red Sea. Profits from this enterprise flowed into Jerusalem transforming it into the richest, most cosmopolitan center in Palestine. Solomon established cordial relations with Egypt, marrying Pharaoh’s daughter and making her his queen (1 KINGS 3:1).
The Middle Bronze Age was the political and cultural zenith in the land of Palestine. “Many of the major, fortified centers of this period – Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem – would become important centers at the time of the Israelites” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 114). As for Jerusalem, “...excavations in the city of David revealed impressive finds from the Middle Bronze Age...” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 133.). The Middle Bronze Age inhabitants of Palestine “...launched major economic and cutural advances. Indeed, this was an unprecedentedly flourishing period in the history of the two countries” (Grant, 1984, p. 13.). Writing appears from this time in Palestine, and what language was used? “...a north-western Semitic tongue...developing subsequently into Phoenician, Hebrew and Moabite” (Grant, 1984, p. 13.). Or in other words, this language was an early form of Hebrew, the language of the Israelites. “Complex relationships united the land of Canaan and Egypt during this period, with cultural influences flowing in both directions” (Pitard, 1998, p. 55.). Once again the archaeological record agrees with the Biblical account in even the minutest detail. The sequences of events in both are identical.
The great kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon came to an end with the division of the land into two separate kingdoms following the death of Solomon. The ten northern tribes formed their own country called Israel under Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s lieutenants (1 KINGS 12). For the first time since the exodus, Egypt reentered the story as the pharaoh Shishak invaded the kingdom of Judah and took the treasures accumulated by Solomon to Egypt. Judah and Israel fought among themselves and with their former subjects in Syria and Moab. It was a time of decline ending in the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and near conquest of Judah.
“Egypt’s emergence as a new imperial power was one of the major forces that brought the Middle Bronze Age to a close in Canaan” (Pitard, 1998, p. 58.). The following period, the Late Bronze Age in Palestine is marked by a decline in culture and material prosperity. “Late Bronze Age Canaan was a mere shadow of the prosperous society that it had been several centuries before, in the Middle Bronze Age” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 78.). This decline began with an invasion from Egypt. The pharaoh Tuthmosis III had invaded Palestine and captured many of its most impressive treasures. On the walls of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Tuthmosis III had a representation of these treasures carved in bas-relief. “Piece by piece the altars and vessels of Solomon’s temple can be identified on the wall of Karnak” (Velikovsky, 1952, p. 151.).
As for the northern kingdom of Israel, what were its borders? “Jeroboam, meanwhile, asserted his rule in the north from points that had defined the Late Bronze Age city-state of Shechem, straddling the boundary between the tribal territories of Ephraim and Manasseh;” (Campbell, 1998, p. 281.). The boundaries for Jeroboam’s kingdom as given in the Bible match the boundaries of the Late Bronze Age city-state of Shechem as determined by archaeology exactly. And they should, as they are the same kingdom with the same capital at the same time. The only difference is that the boundaries of the one come from archaeology and the other from the Bible.
The people in Late Bronze Age Canaan also spoke Hebrew, the language of the Israelites. In the archives of the Egyptian city of Akhetaton, capital of the pharaoh Akhenaton, letters written to the pharaoh by the rulers from Canaan were found. “Several detailed studies of the grammars of the various letters have shed light on the prehistory of biblical Hebrew, itself a Canaanite dialect that developed directly out of the language reflected in many of these texts” (Pitard, 1998, p. 65.). In other words the language these people spoke was Hebrew. Rather than just say that these people spoke an early form of Hebrew, archaeologists simply say that Hebrew was a later development of Canaanite.
The northern kingdom of Israel came to an end through military defeat at the hands of the Assyrians. The Late Bronze Age likewise ended with the destruction of many sites in the land of Palestine. “As for the destruction of Bethel, Lachish, Hazor, and other Canaanite cities, evidence from other parts of the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean suggests that the destroyers were not necessarily Israelites” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 83.). Then who were the people who destroyed these cities? Every one of these cities is known from the Assyrian annals to have been destroyed by the Assyrians. Once again, the Bible and the archaeological record are in complete accord.
For over a century, after the conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah endured. The people taken from the area of Israel were replaced by others imported by the Assyrians. These peoples mixed with the remaining locals and became the Samaritans. They even adopted some of the Israelites religious beliefs (2 KINGS 17: 24-33). The finds of the archaeologists show that “...the city-state system of Canaan suffered a series of catastrophically destructive upheavals at the end of the Late Bronze Age” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 160.). The area of Israel was depopulated for a time. “After a few decades of abandonment even the major sites were reoccupied, apparently by the same population...” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 160.). The new peoples brought into the area of Israel adopted the religion and material culture of the Israelites. Thus there would be little in the archaeological record to distinguish them from the ten tribes deported by the Assyrians. Thus the cities of the northern kingdom of Israel were repopulated “apparently by the same population”.
After the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by Assyria, the southern kingdom of Judah continued to exist for another 130 years. As the power of Assyria declined, Josiah king of Judah expanded the borders of his kingdom until he ruled nearly the entire area the Israelites had occupied during the time of the judges and Saul the first king. The Samaritans were included in the kingdom of Judah. Then the Babylonians arrived on the scene. Having defeated their former masters in Assyria, the Babylonians set out to conquer the territories which Assyria had once ruled. This included the kingdom of Judah. In 587 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, captured the city of Jerusalem, completed his conquest of the kingdom of Judah and exported its people to Mesopotamia.
The archaeological record shows that, after the waves of destruction during the Late Bronze Age, the land of Canaan once again became prosperous. The cities were rebuilt and re-inhabited and for a brief period they prospered. “But this late blooming of Canaan was not to last long. The northern cities would be destroyed by violence and fire. The devastation was so overwhelming that they never recovered from the shock” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 161.). With this last conquest, the Late Bronze Age and the kingdom of Judah come to a close.
The Late Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age. During The Iron Age I period the highlands of Israel grew remarkably in population. “This extraordinary increase in occupation during the Iron Age I cannot be explained only by natural population growth of the few Late Bronze Age city-states in the region: there must have been a major influx of people into the highlands...” (Stager, 1998, p. 134.). Although there was an influx in population, the new villages seem to have kept the same culture as the indigenous inhabitants. This was true not only for the former kingdom of Israel but also for her former client states in Moab, Edom, and Ammon. “The material culture of Iron Age I in the areas of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and the southern Jordan Valley was like that on the west side of the Jordan River: small settlements growing in number throughout the period” (Hackett, 1998, p. 204.).
As I mentioned in chapter three, at the beginning of the Iron Age I period, Jerusalem appears to have been nearly abandoned. This fits perfectly with the story in the Bible which tells us that the people were carried into captivity by the Babylonians. Although the Assyrians had replaced the northern ten tribes with people from other areas of their empire, the Babylonians simply deported the majority of the population leaving the land empty. Naturally peoples from Moab and Edom migrated into the area. These peoples had been ruled by the Israelites and Judahites for a long time and possessed a similar material culture and spoke a dialect of Hebrew.
Fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews were allowed by Cyrus, king of Persia, to return and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The return actually began twenty years later. The story of this return and reconstruction completes the history told in the Old Testament (See the books of EZRA and NEHEMIAH). Most of the returnees settled in the city of Jerusalem itself.
And what have archaeologists discovered about Jerusalem during the Iron Age II? “...Jerusalem underwent an unprecedented population explosion, with its residential areas expanding from its former narrow ridge – the city of David – to cover the entire western hill. A formidable defensive wall was constructed to include the new suburbs. In a matter of a few decades – surely within a single generation – Jerusalem was transformed from a modest highland town of about ten or twelve acres to a huge urban area of 150 acres of closely packed houses, workshops, and public buildings. In demographic terms, the city’s population may have increased as much as fifteen times, from about one thousand to fifteen thousand inhabitants” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 243.).
This population explosion occurred during the Iron Age IIA period. This is the time of Persian rule. I have shown that for the entire Middle Bronze Age period the people in Palestine spoke an early form of Hebrew. During the Iron Age this came to an end. “This is indicated by the fact that in almost every major Iron Age II site in the region, excavations yielded ostraca written in Aramaic” (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2001, p. 205.).
According to the interpretations of the archaeologists, the Canaanites spoke an early form of Hebrew, which the archaeologists call Canaanite. Then when the Hebrew speaking Israelites gained their independence and forged their own kingdom they chose to use Aramaic. If the Canaanite speakers were replaced by people who spoke Aramaic, who was it that spoke Hebrew? And why was the Bible written in this unused language? By showing that the Middle and Late Bronze Age peoples were the Israelites I have solved this problem. This also explains why there is no Persian layer in Palestine. It has simply been mislabeled. It is known that during the time of the Persians, Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the most commonly spoken language in Palestine. Once again the archaeology of Jerusalem and the Holy Land provides striking confirmation of the Biblical story.
With the return of the Jews to Palestine and Jerusalem the history contained in the Old Testament comes to an end. It is continued in the books of the Apocrypha such as the two books of Maccabees, but that is outside the scope of my revision. I will leave the continuing of this account to the interested reader. Suffice it to say that the remainder of the archaeological record from this time is still compatible with the known history of Palestine following the return of the Jews.