What went wrong at Ai?

Answer 1

A:The Book of Joshua, at chapter 8, says that Joshua and a small part of his army successfully ambushed the army of the king of Ai and conquered the city. From an ethical point of view what then went wrong is that the Israelites killed every civilian, man, woman and child in a total act of genocide. He then utterly destroyed the city.

What went wrong in this story is that there was no city of Ai at the time Joshua is supposed to have conquered it, the city having been abandoned in ruins as far back as 2250 BCE. In fact Aieven means "ruins', demonstrating that the Hebrew people had only ever known the site as a ruin and did not even know its former name. The Hebrews simply assumed that the ruins must have been the result of an invasion and that this invasion occurred under their legendary leader, Joshua.