part0103

The Myth : So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war. (Josh. 11:23)

The Reality : The Israelites never conquered Canaan in the time of Joshua.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of Israel appears on an Egyptian stele erected in the fifth year of the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah, about 1235 B.C. to 1220 B.C. This stele makes reference to several powerful Canaanite peoples, including Israel, but describes only Israel as a people without a land. The inscription gives no hint that any of the other major Canaanite peoples mentioned were in any way subject to Israelite domination. Consequently, the stele establishes a reasonable time frame for dating either Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness after the Exodus or for the entry of Israel into Canaan under Joshua’s leadership. Unfortunately, for the next four hundred years or so the archaeological or historical record provides no further direct contemporaneous evidence for the existence of Israel, a gap that encompasses the reigns of Kings Saul, David, and Solomon. We can’t even be certain that the Israel mentioned in the Merneptah stele is in fact the biblical Israel.

Nor does the archaeological evidence show the existence of a mass Israelite conquest in the time of Joshua (late thirteenth to early twelfth century B.C.) If such an event took place as described in the Bible, then we should expect to have some archaeological and/or contemporaneous historical data supporting a strong Israelite presence in the central highlands of Canaan where Joshua established his military authority and where Joshuas tribe, Ephraim, took control of the territory. Instead, we find the central highlands at that time either relatively uninhabited or sparsely settled.

The evidence also shows that beginning more than a century after the Merneptah inscription, well after the time of Joshua, there appeared a sudden and rapid emergence of many new small peaceful communities in these highland territories. While none of the archaeological evidence recovered from these communities specifically connects them with Israel, the historical and biblical context suggests that the settlements signify a growing presence of Israel in the hills and surrounding areas. No evidence shows that these new communities arose in the wake of an alien invasion, indicating that Israel’s rise to power occurred over several centuries rather than through a sudden conquest early in the late thirteenth century.

Finally, not only does the historical data disprove the existence of a Canaanite conquest in the time of Joshua, the Bible itself says that such a conquest never occurred. The first chapter of Judges gives a very different picture of Joshua’s campaign, which was mostly a failure. None of the tribes succeeded in conquering their targeted territory and there were only a few limited successes. Judges presents in quick succession a litany of failure: Judah couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the plain; Benjamin couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of Jerusalem; Manasseh failed; Ephraim failed; Zebulun failed; Asher failed; Naphtali failed; Dan failed. And, in Judges 2 God condemns the Israelites for their failures, saying, “But you have not obeyed my command. What is this you have done? So now I say I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”

For the most part, Joshua was written several centuries after the time described. From both the archaeological and other biblical accounts, we can see that the author pieced the conquest stories together from a variety of myths and legends. It served as a propagandistic tool designed to portray the Hebrews as the beneficiary of the world’s most powerful god.