There is no story in the Conquest narrative more impressive than the battle of the invading Israelites against the mighty fortified city of Jericho, with its large population and massive protecting walls (see Joshua chapter 6). Unfortunately, archaeologists who have excavated the site of Jericho have discovered that the description of the great battle cannot be brought into harmony with the realities of history.
In the story, the city of Jericho is so massive and powerful that the 40,000 Israelite warriors cannot simply attack it head-on. God gives them a miraculous victory by devising a plan to cause the walls to fall, ruining the powerful fortifications and giving the invaders direct access to the large city and its many inhabitants.
Modern excavations have shown that the story is almost certainly a legend without historical basis. The first truly scientific archaeological examination of the site was undertaken by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s, and her findings have been corroborated since. Archaeologists now know that there was indeed an inhabited site at ancient Jericho from prehistoric times (going back to the Neolithic period). The site was inhabited on and off periodically throughout history – until today. But there was no walled city there – let alone a very large and heavily fortified city – at the end of the thirteenth century, when the Battle of Jericho allegedly took place. At the time, Jericho was a sparsely populated little place, and there were no walls around the city at all.
Judging from the archaeological record, the biblical stories of Rahab the prostitute, the spies who scouted out the land, the attack of the Israelites, the miraculous fall of the walls, the slaughter of all the inhabitants – all of it appears to be the stuff of legend and not an account of real history as it actually happened.
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The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction by renowned biblical scholar and New York Times bestselling author Dr Bart D. Ehrman, p. 97.
Categories: Bible, Dr Jonathan Brown, History
Liberal archaeologist!!!
Science is indeed very important.
Maurice Bucaille was a physician and an eminent scientist in France.
He was so accomplished and respected that he was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences.
This is what he wrote at the end of his book
entitled The Bible, the Qur’an, and Science
“In view of the level of knowledge in Muhammad’s day, it is inconceivable that many of the statements in the Qur’an which are connected with science could have been the work of man. It is, moreover, perfectly legitimate, not only to regard the Qur’an as the expression of a Revelation, but also to award it a very special place, on account of the guarantee of authenticity it provides and the presence in it of scientific statement which, when studied today, appear as a challenge to explanation in human terms.”
The “scientific miracles” narrative has been trashed so many times that Muslims themselves reject it nowadays. Get with the times.
For example, when Hamza Tzortzis tried to push the embryology “miracle” in his “Scientific-Linguistic Analysis of Chapter 23”, the ex-Muslim CaptainDisguise absolutely OBLITERATED it to the point of forcing Tzortzis to take down the booklet and renounce the whole idea of scientifc miracles, calling it “problematic”, “incoherent” and an “intellectual embarrassment”.
http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/does-the-quran-contain-scientific-miracles-a-new-approach/
https://embryologyinthequran.blogspot.com/
Dr. Maurice Bucaille also did an analysis of verses in the Bible dealing with science.
“The comparison of several Biblical and Qur’anic narrations of the same subject shows the existence of fundamental differences between statements in the former, which are scientifically unacceptable, and declarations in the latter which are in perfect agreement with modern data: this was the case of the Creation and Flood, for example.”
This is wrong. Dame Kathleen Kenyon cited the lack of exotic wares such as Cypriot bichrome and chocolate on wine for her late dating, but it was found in her expedition reports, published posthumously.
A MDPI article concludes that “Thus, archaeological excavations and analysis at Jericho appear to place the destruction of the final Bronze Age city ca. 1400 BC in a manner consistent with the account in the book of Joshua.”
This is a peer reviewed journal btw.
Some of the things found:
1) Grain was burned, consistent with the Bible. There was no long siege, otherwise it would have been gobbled up
2) The city was burned, consistent with the Bible
3) A section of the wall was destroyed, forming a ramp that allowed the Israelis to conviently run into the city.
4) Furthermore, a miracle wrought by God was indeed present, as not only was there a section of the wall destroyed, but no signs of any destruction caused by siege weapons (catapults/battering rams).
Archaeologist are forced to conclude, of course, that it’s an earthquake. If an earthquake did occur, why didn’t it destroy the walls or damage the buildings nearby?
This is clear sign of God’s miracle.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/6/796#B38-religions-14-00796