What are some of the indications that the settlement of Canaan occurred at a slower pace then the conquest stories of the Book of Joshua?

Answer 1

For centuries the historicity of these events stood without doubt, but in the past two or three hundred years, there are forces that be that strive hard to change all that! Beginning in the 19th century and after nearly 100 years of unprecedented campaigns to undermine this history, the Archaeologist's spade began to unearth some startling confirmations.

The city Gezar was one of the first of Joshua's cities to be excavated. It was excavated in 1902, and later in 1934. Ashod in ancient Assyria was discovered soon thereafter, and was later confirmed to be the city of Biblical fame by the discovery of Sargon's Palace which all previously appeared to be a myth according to the liberals with their so-called conventional chronology. Hatzor was also found, and apparently later rebuilt by King Solomon for commercial and military purposes just as revealed only in The Bible (1 Kings 9:15)! The records we now have for some of these cities go back as far as 2000 B.C. (see the Mari Archive). With the exception of Ashod, evidence indicates that the destruction of these cities all seems to have happened around the same time period, just as the Bible indicates. Furthermore, all these cities had been utterly destroyed by fire, sometime between 1500 and 1300 B.C., again exactly the period as revealed by the Book of Joshua. This being the time period that the Book of Joshua describes, many of the critical scholars then attempted to devise campaigns to post-date the man Joshua as a historical figure, so as to make it seem like he had not arrived on the scene until nearly two hundred years later. Let's look closer at one of these cities mentioned above shall we?

Hatzor, or Hazor, was excavated by the renowned Archaeologist Yigdal Yadin's prime pupil, and the results were later confirmed by the respected old scholar himself. He himself was a very meticulous scholarly Archaeologist named Ammon Ben-Tor. In it Ben-Tor found two small palaces within a wall 240 feet long and 12 feet thick, but still the entire city was ransacked. It had been entirely and utterly burned. The pottery, as well as the idols that they worshipped were all thoroughly smashed and burned. Dating showed the event to have taken place in the later Bronze age between 1400 and 1300 B.C.! Almost two hundred years earlier than expected if we follow the Critic's sense of alleged "conventional chronology". All the evidence from the digs in these Canaanite cities place the actual campaign of destruction around the time of Amenhotep III, i.e., Thutmoses IV!

This Archaeological prodigy saw only four possible groups as being responsible, or capable enough at the time, to have accomplished this. First, there is the group of people who have come to be known as "the sea peoples". Just exactly who these people were, we do not really know for sure. Some speculate they were early Greeks or Cretans, others believe them to be related to the people of Tyre, who were known for their seafaring capabilities.

However, Ben-Tor notes that none of the telltale ceramics of the "sea peoples " have been found in Hatzor (or for that matter, in any of the other cities). Secondly, other Canaanites may have been capable, only this does not make any sense, because their common Canaanite gods were smashed to pieces, so this is highly unlikely. In the Third instance, if the Pharaoh's armies were not destroyed as the Exodus story says, than the Egyptians could have accomplished such a feat. Only guess what? Who ever did this smashed all of their idols as well. Therefore, ruling them out that leaves only one other peoples capable at that time, and that was the Hapiru who were most likely the Hebrews! Rather apologetically, and left with no other options despite the assumptive conclusionism of the critical school's unfounded bias, Ben-Tor concluded with this statement. He says, "I can't help it if this is what is written in the Book of Joshua"!

Apparently, these were not the results he expected to find there either, but at least he is a scholar who wouldn't compromise his intellectual integrity. Now simply let the facts dictate the theory and not the other, less honest, way around. Ben-Tor, as well as Yadin, are now both believers in the Biblical time frame regarding Israel's history. You see folks, the spade does not lie, but men do! But one thing we do know for sure, a series of letters from the archives of Pharoah Akhnaton, describing transmissions from the Asiatic Kings of the time (around 1375 to 1325 B.C.) declare that these "Hapiru", that many believe to be the Hebrews, had elicited a number of serious conflicts in Canaan, and best of all these finds at Tel el-Amarna even describes the devastation of Hatzor.

Answer 2

On the contrary, both the Torah and the Book of Joshua make it clear that the Israelites did not settle throughout Canaan in a short period of time. See Exodus 23:22-30, Joshua ch.23, and Judges 1:27-35. See also:

More about Joshua

The accuracy of the Hebrew Bible

Answer 3

The Books of Joshua and Judges clearly point to a quite rapid conquest and settlement of the entire land of Canaan, however there is extra-biblical evidence to the contrary.

First, the literary evidence. It is now well established that the Books of Joshua and Judges were written during the seventh century BCE, quite a few centuries after the conquest and settlement is supposed to have occurred. This at the very least places the accuracy of the conquest narrative in doubt.

Second, the archaeological evidence. The conquest narrative is fatally flawed because the first two cities supposedly conquered, Jericho and `Ai were both abandoned centuries earlier, and because other cities show no evidence of a unified conquest. Nearly all historians now believe the Hebrew people were actually rural Canaanites who left the region of the rich coastal plains to settle peacefully in sparsely populated hinterland. Even the Hebrew language is actually a development from a dialect of Canaanite. Contrary to the biblical account, the coastal plains north of Philistia remained occupied by the Canaanites until Dor was conquered by King Omri of Israel and then by the Assyrians, who created the province of Dor on the Canaanite territory.

Modern archaeologists realise that the Israelites did not build large cities as soon as they arrived, but spread out in smaller towns and villages that supported the rural economies and would eventually spawn the Israelite cities. When they find evidence of a settlement, they set out to date the remains, using pottery and carbon dating. What they have found is that the earliest settlements likely to have been of Hebrew origin tended to start in the north of Israel and spread southwards into the more mountainous and arid area of Judah. Again contrary to the biblical record, Israel and Judah had relatively small populations until well into the first millennium BCE. Accounts written during the late monarchy, when Judah had a more substantial population, simply assumed that there had always been a large Israelite population.