About the middle of the nineteenth century there was a period when it was often maintained that writing was unknown in the time of Moses and the Judges and the earlier kings, and consequently that the narratives of these early periods could not be based upon authentic records. This disbelief in the antiquity of writing has been completely disproved by the discoveries of the last century. First of all, in 1852 and 1853 Henry Layard and his assistant Rassam discovered the libraries of the kings of Assyria at Nineveh, which contained hundreds of tablets of baked clay (the form of book used in Mesopotamia), including the chronicles of Sennacherib, Essarhaddon, and other rulers contemporary with the kings of Israel and Judah. Others contained the Babylonian narratives of the Creation and Deluge. Subsequent discoveries carried back proof of the early use of writing far beyond the time of Moses and even of Abraham (Sir Frederic Kenyon, The Story of the Bible, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967, p. 7).
Thus we see that one of the original contentions of higher critics - that writing did not exist during the early biblical period - has been thoroughly refuted by recent findings. This is another example of how higher critics refuse to consider in an honest way the Bible's own testimony as to its origin.
Was there a destruction at the hands of the Israelites? The correlation between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical narrative is substantial.
The city was strongly fortified (Joshua 2:5,7,15,6:5,20).
The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (Joshua 2:6, 3:15, 5:10).
The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their foodstuffs (Joshua 6:1).
The siege was short (Joshua 6:15).
The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (Joshua 6:20).
The city was not plundered (Joshua 6:17,18).
The city was burned (Joshua 6:24) (Bryant G. Wood, Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April, 1990, p. 57).
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