LIGHT ON THE BIBLE.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15127, 18 February 1922, Page 2

LIGHT ON THE BIBLE.

WHY THE WALLS OF JERICHO FELL. Dr A. T. Schofield, lecturing recently at the Royal United Service Institution, London, on “Recent Discoveries .in -Palestine,” said his object was to demonstrate the truth of the Bible narrative. The story of the Gadarene swine was attacked years ago by Professor Huxley, who said that it could not be true because nowhere around the lake of Galilee did the hills run directly down to the water. But Dr Schofield claimed that he had seen and photographed one steep place, the foot of which was actually in the water. How Joab captured the Jebusite stronghold of Zion in the time of David was explained by a recent dis-r eovery. This stronghold had held out for 400 years from the days of Joshua, and it was told that Joab got up a gutter and took it. Uo one knew what this gutter was until one of our Royal Engineers, bathing in a pool at the foot of the precipitous rock of the stronghold, discovered a tunnel which led up through the heart of the rock to the top of the hill. As to the story of the walls of Jericho falling down after Joshua’s host had Avalked round it for seven days, he said the top of the old wall had been in the ditch which formerly surrounded the city outside the walls. Dr Schofield’s explanation was that the walls, built only of sun-dried clay, were pushed outward by the pressure of people within the city rushing to learn the meaning of the mighty shout which the Israelites gave on the seventh day of their perambulation. A simple explanation of the drying up of the Jordan was afforded by the fact that a short distance above Jericho the river debouches from a narrow gorge where to ! this day there are frequent landslips which temporarily block the river and leave the bed dry down to the Dead Sea. Another question dealt with was, Where did Elijah get the water with which to flood the altar he built on Carmel when he confounded the priests of Baal? The answer was there was a spring of water on the top of the mount, which had never been known to run dry in the memory of man.