Bible Archeology Discoveries

Walls of Jericho
Discovered: Jericho, Israel
From: (c. 1400 BC)

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The Battle of Jericho, as described in the Biblical Book of Joshua, was the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan.

In 1868, Charles Warren identified Tell es-Sultan as the site of biblical Jericho. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated the site between 1907 and 1909 and in 1911, finding the remains of two walls which they initially suggested supported the biblical account of the Battle of Jericho. They later revised this conclusion and dated their finds to the Middle Bronze Age (1950–1550 BCE). In 1930–1936, John Garstang conducted excavations there and discovered the remains of a network of collapsed walls which he dated to about 1400 BCE.

From 1952-58, Dame Kathleen Kenyon excavated at Jericho and dated the destruction of City IV to the end of the Middle Bronze Age, ca 1550 BC. While the Carbon-14 data is of no help in determining the date of the destruction of Jericho, the dating of from glyphic/inscriptional evidence and ceramic typology would indicate that Garstang’s original date of ca. 1400 BC is the correct date. This would support the biblical chronology of Joshua’s army destroying Jericho in what we now call the Late Bronze Age I.

"So the people shouted, and the priests blew the trumpets; and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword."
Joshua 6:20-21

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Notable Finds

Much of what is described in Bible text is lost to history, requiring readers to assume the historicity of the scriptures.

However, many of the places and events described in the Old and New Testaments are periodically corroborated by archeological finds.

Some finds simply help us to better understand things from the ancient world. However, others provide important evidence as to the truth of scripture regarding things about which there had previously been skepticism.

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