Did Joshua turn right and miss Jericho?

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 20

Did Joshua turn right and miss Jericho?

From ‘The Economist’, London

Joshua may never have fit the battle of Jericho.

Instead of turning left when he led the children of Israel across the Jordan, he probably turned right, to the north. This hypothesis emerges from piecing together , the latest findings of Israeli bible scholars and archaeologists. According to Deuteronomy, Joshua had no business in Jericho. Moses had ordered him to head for Mount Ebal, near Nablus in the north, on the very day of the crossing into the promised land, and there to build an altar (Deuteronomy 27). Did Joshua follow the script? The Book of Joshua says that he did not; instead, he first went south, and it was only after knocking down Jericho that he turned to building the altar on Mount Ebal and settling his people in their new homes.

But archaeologists have now discovered that in the early twelfth century 8.C., when the Israelites’ trumpets were supposed to have brought those walls tumbling down, there was no such place as Jericho. “Joshua’s altar” has been

complete with the remains of ritually purified sacrificial animals. It was in the right place, at Mount Ebal, and it has been dated to the right period, the twelfth century 8.C., by the pottery found nearby. The clincher, picked up among thealtar stones, is the Egyptian scarab which was fashioned during the second half of the reign of Rameses 11, the pharaoh who would not “let my people go.” Archaeologists are not calling it Joshua’s altar, because they say there is no proof that the son of Nun existed. But they admit that their findings on Mount Ebal match the descriptions in both Joshua and Deuteronomy. The new find has been hailed by proponents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a link in the transcendental thread which, in their eyes, leads eventually to modern Jewish settlement in this portion of the promised land.

Palestinians have protested against political exploitation of the find, particularly because Alon Moreh, which was the first Israeli village established in Samaria

under the Begin Government, is just behind Ebal.

But the angriest reaction has come from the Samaritans who believe themselves to be the true Israelites of the north.

For this almost vanished community, which still clings to the foot of its holy Mount Gerizim, there is a curse on Mount Ebal, across the biblical Valley of Shechem (modern Nablus). “Thou shall put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal,” says Deuteronomy. Ebal is indeed bald and bleak while Gerizim is lush with trees.

Never having been sent into Babylonian exile, as the sons of Judah in the south were, the Samaritans say they have offered up the paschal lamb at every Passover since the original Israelite settlement on what they claim to be Joshua’s original altar.

But scholars who have examined the Samaritans’ altar think it is a thousand years younger than the newly-discovered remains on Mount Ebal.

- ‘The Economist’