By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days” (Hebrews 11:30).

One of the favorite stories to those raised with a Judeo-Christian heritage is the account of Joshua taking Jericho. After marching around the city seven times on the seventh day, the priests blew the trumpets, the people shouted, and the walls came tumbling down (Joshua 6:20).

John Garstang carried out extensive archaeological excavations at Jericho from 1929 to 1936. In the fourth level down (City D), Garstang found fallen walls and burnt and charred ash layers which fit the account in Joshua 6:24: “They burnt the city with fire and all that was therein.” Charred grain and foodstuffs (normally confiscated in battle) fit in with the curse that Joshua had put on the city (verses 17, 18) so that no one would take anything. After examining over 100,000 pottery fragments and vessels, he dated the fall of the city around 1400 B.C. when Israel had come into the land. Exercising great care, Garstang got three other top Palestinian archaeologists to examine and sign statements confirming the evidence for Joshua’s Jericho and the date of conquest.

In April of 2007, I took a tour of Israel. Leaving the Ben-Gurion Airport, we traveled south and down 1,300 feet below sea level to the Dead Sea, then to Jericho, and spent a few days up at Jerusalem. We also traveled north to Galilee, Mt. Hermon, and the Golan Heights.

Jericho today is under Palestinian control, so we went through a checkpoint of soldiers with machine guns to enter the city. A sign stated that Jericho is the oldest city in the world. We drove through the town to the “tell” (a hill containing the old city’s remains). Our group walked up the hill and looked down into a hole at a round “neolithic” stone tower that they dated to about 8350 B.C. By strict Biblical chronology this would be long before the worldwide Flood (about 4,200 years ago) and even Creation (about 6,000 years ago).

Today the Jericho story is about this ancient civilization and its achievements. One report says, “Most scholars agree that nothing of Joshua’s Jericho is evident.”

What has happened since Dr. Garstang’s excavations?

A Brief History of Archaeology

Until the early 1800s knowledge of mid-east history was obtained from the Bible. Travelers passing the dusty city hills in the Middle East never imagined the stories they could tell. Meanwhile, in Protestant circles, unbelief grew and “higher criticism” began to tear down the Bible. The Bible was degraded to a fallible human document full of folklore. Specific people, places, and events that were not found in secular history were considered myths. Accepting the Bible as fact by faith was considered foolish.

Then came the new science of archaeology spurred on by interest in Biblical events. Middle Eastern cities were rediscovered after thousands of years. Tens of thousands of clay tablets of information were found in libraries in city after city. One by one, the critics’ claims were refuted. There was a large Hittite Kingdom. There was a Belshazzar that reigned in Babylon and there was a Jericho that Joshua conquered on entering Canaan.

Beliefs and the Selection of Facts?

The big question at stake in discerning the past is: “Has God intervened in human history?” Has He provided salvation from man’s bondage to pride and hatred, and the resultant fear, suffering, and death it brings to the masses?

The secular evolutionary humanist says there is no God but “all things continue as they were” (2 Peter 3:4). By faith they believe that through slow gradual processes the infinitely complex biodiversity of our universe self-organized from inorganic elements. Today they find much to talk about in the archaeological remains of pagan kingdoms and cultures that rose and fell throughout history. They hope that all supernatural events can be explained naturally, if all the facts are known.

Bible believers see the evidence for a Creator God that also brought a Redeemer into this sin-cursed world. Cultures rise where Christian ethics restore God’s standard of righteousness.

The Second Battle for Jericho

The excavations at Jericho are a good example of people seeing only what they are looking for. The early archaeologists knew their Bible and looked for what it talked about. Secular archaeologists look for ancient pagan cultures. This also fits the current political interest of denying an Israeli presence in the land.

For twenty years after Mr. Garstang’s findings at Jericho, there was opposition to the “nice fit” he had found with the Bible account. Pressure was brought to have Jericho reexamined. Finally, in 1952, Kathleen Kenyon led a joint expedition of four organizations, including the Jordan Department of Antiquities. They spent five seasons excavating and found an early “Neolithic” town. It had a wall and watchtower 30 feet high and 28 feet in diameter, with an inner staircase. Carbon 14 dating gave varying ages from 5850 B.C. to 8350 B.C. The varying dates caused even Miss Kenyon to say that carbon dating has not yet been proved. But these early dates caused Jericho to claim to be “the world’s oldest city.” Garstang had also encountered these earlier Canaanite city levels, but he emphasized the Biblical record.

The people who would not accept Dr. Garstang’s work asked Miss Kenyon for her view of the fallen walls. She made the statement that the walls belonged to the early bronze age about 2300-2200 B.C. At once the news went out that Dr. Garstang was wrong and there was no city there to conquer when Israel came up from Egypt. Learned journalists and books almost everywhere accepted this, even though Miss Kenyon later said these walls could have been standing when Joshua came into the land.

This “second battle for Jericho” as it was called, continued on. A few decades later, another archaeologist, Dr. Bryant Wood, reviewed the ostraca (broken pottery shards used for dating). He found a certain bi-chrome pottery Kathleen Kenyon had overlooked that proved the city did exist in the 1400s B.C. when Joshua came into the land. This was accepted to the point that a New York Times headline declared, “The Believers Win One.”

Anti-God Influences

In archaeology, as well as the other sciences, a materialistic philosophy has won preeminence as the “politically correct” view. Two forces are working today in Israel to obscure the intervention of God in human affairs. The one is the secular archaeologist. The second is the present Palestinian effort to destroy all evidence of Israel’s right to the land.

When I went through the Western Wall Tunnel, I asked the Jewish girl guiding us about diggings under the Temple Mount. She said, “Yes, the Moslems are digging out a large area for a ‘prayer room’ to hold thousands of people. Some wood was found in Jerusalem dumpsters that dated to antiquity.” I asked why this was allowed. She said there is nothing they can do about it. The Temple Mount is under Palestinian control. Valuable historical artifacts are being trashed.

The Jericho Story Today

When I walked up on the “Tell es Sultan” (old Jericho) with our tour group there was just one thing shown to tourists. It is a trench cut across the mound by Miss Kenyon’s excavations exposing the ancient “neolithic” tower. I took my camera and quickly ran around photographing the eroded and fallen-in excavations of previous archaeologists. I could no longer discern Garstang’s excavations and “fallen walls” which are pictured in various archeology books. Posts were rusted off and guide fences and cables were lying around in general disrepair under Palestinian control.

Today a divide is seen between Jews and Palestinians. However, there is a greater divide between Christians and Jews who accept the Word of the One, Holy, Jehovah God as Truth, versus the secular, pagan, Moslem world that sees the Bible as just a corrupted product of man.

A songwriter says, “This world is not a friend to grace to help us on to God.” Many professing Christians fall into a trap when they venerate secular knowledge (now turned to propaganda) too highly. Western lifestyles are now more in harmony with ancient immoral cultures. The discerning mind sees a dark world rejecting righteousness and in need of salvation from itself. The Bible says, “The whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). But men love it “because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

In the midst of all this deception, Jesus still offers peace of heart to “whosoever will” believe in Him (Mark 8:35). “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

-by Elvin Stauffer

Sources:
Thompson’s Chain Reference Bible, 5th edition, expanded archeology section
Tells, Tombs, and Treasures by Robert T. Boyd