Israel’s national destiny could be fulfilled only in the land of Canaan. The book of Joshua tells the story of a lightning military campaign during which the powerful kings of Canaan were defeated in battle and the Israelite tribes inherited their land. It is a story of the victory of God’s people over arrogant pagans, a timeless epic of new frontiers conquered and cities captured, in which the losers must suffer the ultimate punishments of dispossession and death. It is a stirring war saga, with heroism, cunning, and bitter vengeance, narrated with some of the most vivid stories in the Bible—the fall of the walls of Jericho, the sun standing still at Gibeon, and the burning of the great Canaanite city of Hazor. It is also a detailed geographical essay about the landscape of Canaan and a historical explanation of how each of the twelve Israelite tribes came into its traditional territorial inheritance within the promised land.
Yet if, as we have seen, the Israelite Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, what of the conquest itself? The problems are even greater. How could an army in rags, traveling with women, children, and the aged, emerging after decades from the desert, possibly mount an effective invasion? How could such a disorganized rabble overcome the great fortresses of Canaan, with their professional armies and well-trained corps of chariots?
Did the conquest of Canaan really happen? Is this central saga of the Bible—and of the subsequent history of Israel—history, or myth? Despite the fact that the ancient cities of Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Lachish, Hazor, and nearly all the others mentioned in the conquest story have been located and excavated, the evidence for a historical conquest of Canaan by the Israelites is, as we will see, weak. Here too, archaeological evidence can help disentangle the events of history from the powerful images of an enduring biblical tale.
The saga of the conquest begins with the last of the Five Books of Moses—the book of Deuteronomy—when we learn that Moses, the great leader, would not live to lead the children of Israel into Canaan. As a member of the generation that had personally experienced the bitterness of life in Egypt, he too had to die without entering the Promised Land. Before his death and burial on Mount Nebo in Moab, Moses stressed the importance of the observance of God’s laws as a key to the coming conquest and, according to God’s instructions, gave his long-time lieutenant Joshua command over the Israelites. After generations of slavery in Egypt and forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were now standing on the very border of Canaan, across the river from the land where their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived. God now commanded that the land be cleansed of all traces of idolatry—and that would entail a complete extermination of the Canaanites.
Led by Joshua—a brilliant general with a flair for tactical surprise—the Israelites soon marched from one victory to another in a stunning series of sieges and open field battles. Immediately across the Jordan lay the ancient city of Jericho, a place that would have to be taken if the Israelites were to establish a bridgehead. As the Israelites were preparing to cross the Jordan, Joshua sent two spies into Jericho to gain intelligence on the enemy preparations and the strength of the fortifications. The spies returned with the encouraging news (provided to them by a harlot named Rahab) that the inhabitants had already become fearful at the news of the Israelite approach. The people of Israel immediately crossed the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant leading the camp. The story of the subsequent conquest of Jericho is almost too familiar to bear recounting: the Israelites followed the command of God as conveyed to them by Joshua, marching solemnly around the high walls of city, and on the seventh day, with a deafening blast of the Israelites’ war trumpets, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down (Joshua 6).