What is the historical order for conquest of Canaan or period of Judges or the United Monarchy?

Answer 1

From a biblical perspective, the Hebrew conquest and settlement of Canaan was followed by the period of the Judges, which in turn was followed by the United Monarchy. From a historical point of view things look very different, as apparently none of this actually happened!

The archaeological evidence clearly shows that the Canaanite hinterland was quite sparsely populated at the time when the great battles of Jericho and Ai were supposed to have taken place. The Amarna letters show that in the middle of the thirteenth century BCE, the entire Levant (Palestine and Syria) was still under the rule of petty Philistine and Canaanite kings, who in turn were under the firm control of Egypt. The respected Israeli archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein says that over 80 per cent of scholars believe that there never was a conquest of Canaan as described in The Bible.

Finkelstein says that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were always separate, with their own separate culture, pottery styles and even different dialects of the Hebrew language. He says that there never was a United Monarchy. Perhaps there were various tribal leaders prior to the development of centralised kingdoms in Israel and Judah, but these could not have been the "Judges" of biblical tradition.