WALLS OF JERICHO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 119, 23 May 1932, Page 10

WALLS OF JERICHO

STORY OF THEIR FALL A GREAT EARTHQUAKE ACCURACY OF BIBLE. LONDON, April 7. Professor John Garstang has sent to Sir Charles Marston a special report on the completion of this season’s excavations. In this ho states that the walls of Jericho —a catastrophe 3000 years old—were destroyed by a great earthquake and not by any human agency. The Bible story will be found in Joshua VI. Sir C. Marston explains as follows in the Sunday Times the remarkable way in which Professor Garstang’s conclusions bear out the Biblical nar rati vc: “When Professor Garstang led the first Marston expedition to Jericho,” ho said, “three theories accounting for the collapse of the walls had to be examined. “The most spectacular was to accept without, reservation the account of the Book of Joshua, which attributes the fall of the walls to some mystic power in the sounding of the ram’s horn trumpets. It was considered that the effipct of rhythmatic vinotes or the tramping of armed men notes, or the trampling of armed men in step, could so loosen the mortar that the walls would collapse. “Professor Garstang very soon found, however, that walls of twenty-two-inch bricks cannot be made to vibrate in that way, nor is it possible to believe that, a promiscuous host of nomadic people like the Israelites were capable of marching round the walls with military precision.

“The alternatives were undermining, or an earthquake. At first it was thought that some evidence of undermining could bo traced, but further work proved the theory unsound and led the professor to roncontrate on the possibily of an earthquake. Crossing of the Jordan. “Study of the geological strata, in addition to archaeological work on the walls themselves, has now revealed undoubted evidence that this great catastrophe was caused by an earthquake. “The Jordan Valley, in which Jericho is situated, is very susceptible to earth tremors, and in 1927 there was an earthquake which dammed the River Jordan. Obviously, a similar occurrence was how the Israelites were able to cross.

“Evidence of an earthquake does not destroy belief in a 1 miracle. ’ Surely it was a miracle the earthquake taking place at the particular time when tho city was besieged by the Israelites?

“Nor is this discovery contrary to Bible narrative. Striking confirmation is found in Psalm 114: ‘When Israel went out of Egypt. . . the sea saw it, and fled. Jordan was driven back Tho mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs.’

“That is undoubtedly the story of an earthquake. Two further striking facts have also been proved conclusively. The walls did fall outward and so enabled the Israelites to clamber up into the city; further, the city was utterly destroyed by fire. Blackened timbers, storerooms with half-burnt sacks of wheat and burnt-out houses with daily food still scattered on the floor as it was left before the massacre, have all been found.

Accuracy of the Bible. “These excavations are a magnificent tribute to the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative. “Another important point is that Professor Percy E. Newberry, Professor of Egyptian Archaeology in Cairo University, the expert ou scarabs, has now examined those found in the Royal tombs of Jericho, and confirms Professor Garstang’s conclusion, based on the evidence of pottery, that Jericho was destroyed by Joshua during the reign of the Pharaoh Amenhotep 111. of Egypt, the suzerain of Palestine, which lasted from 1413 B.C. to 1377 B.C. “This dating fits exactly with Biblical chronology, and also with other evidence recently found in Egypt, which enables the date of the Exodus to be fixed immediately after the death of Thotmcs 111. in 1447 B.C. “These discoveries may mean a complete reconsideration of many phases of Bible history, and will have farreaching effects in disproving accepted beliefs based solely on theory.”