Bryant Wood, Jericho, and the Book of Joshua

In a recent post, James McGrath takes on “individuals like Bryant Wood” because of the way Wood makes historical sense out of the book of Joshua. Like McGrath, I’m not convinced by Wood’s hypotheses, but it bothers me that no one is linking to and discussing Wood’s approach per se. That is scholarly foul play. In this post, I remedy the situation ever so slightly.

Key essays by Bryant Wood are readily available:

Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? (originally published in BAR 16 [1990])

The Philistines Enter Canaan (originally published in BAR 17 [1991])

The Wikipedia article on Bryant Wood seems fair enough: go here. The article notes the archaeological difficulties of Wood’s approach to the finds of Garstang and Kenyon at Tell es-Sultan (as an aside, I note that it cannot be taken as certain that Tell es-Sultan is the site referred to in Joshua and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as Jericho). The website of Wood’s organization and the periodical he edits, Bible and Spade, is currently down, but here is the link.

A strength of Wood’s approach is his demonstration that many of the details in the conquest of Jericho narrative are not necessarily fantastic. His discussion reminds me of the famous discussion of “The Plagues of Egypt” by Greta Hort in ZAW 69 (1957) 84-103; ZAW 70 (1958) 48-59. If one does a crackerjack job of discussing what phenomena would be alluded to in a biblical narrative, if in fact natural phenomena are in question, with a sufficient review of previous scholarly analysis, the discussion can and will be published by a peer-reviewed journal in the field. Here’s hoping that Wood will take his discussion to the next level and get it published in one of the premier journals in the field.

A weakness of Wood’s approach, beyond those noted in previous posts with respect to the questions of when and on the basis of what sources the book of Joshua was written, is that, at least in the article about Jericho for BAR, no mention is made of the difficulties a dating of the Conquest to 1400 bce creates with respect to other data sets and other traditions contained in the Bible, which seem to point to a date two or more centuries later for the entrance into and settlement of the highlands of Canaan by a previously non-autochthonous group referred to as “Israel” in the Merneptah Stele.

Let the debate continue, without anyone pretending that they have a lock on the truth, however "truth" is defined.

Comments

[Mike Heiser]

Note on the Merenptah Stela - it doesn't say anything about Israelites entering Canaan, so it is false to assume or assert that the Stela means Israel is entering circa 1200 to align with Merenptah's reign. That is a total non-argument on the basis of the Stela.

[JohnFH]

That's true, Mike. I only meant to imply that the Merneptah Stele is evidence that by that time, a previously non-autochthonous group named “Israel” was now on the scene. When it came onto the scene is another question.

That "Israel" or an equivalent does not appear in earlier Ramesside inscriptions, whereas the Philistines do, is not much to go on, and the significance of the fact can easily be overblown. However, it strikes me as almost a fatal blow to Wood's hypothesis that "Israel" or an equivalent is not known from late 18th Dynasty evidence, the Amarna letters in particular.

[Blake Reas]

John,

In the edited volume "Giving the Sense" I believe Wood answers many of the objections that you have noted. There are also numerous other essays that agree with Wood's dating for the Exodus, Conquest, and etc. I will try to post a summary this evening.

Blake

[JohnFH]

Blake,

Thanks for that. I look forward to more.

[ochesnut]

I think that is the major problem of Wood's work. He knows his pottery and it is possible to down date the corpus from MBIIC to LBIA. However, I still think that taking the corpus as a whole it should be dated to the Middle Bronze. Even if the pottery could be dated to the LBI, the point is moot if the settlement process happened around the 13th century.

So, in the end I would still say that Wood is attempting to make "literal"-historical sense out of Joshua, and skewing his archaeological interpretations because of it.

[JohnFH]

Owen,

Thanks for taking a moment of time away from Jack David to comment here. I note your two blogs for the benefit of readers:

http://ochesnut.wordpress.com/

http://jalul.wordpress.com/

You've posed the problems with Wood's approach with admirable brevity and clarity. Thanks again.

[ochesnut]

I appreciate the kind words John, and thanks for linking to the blogs. Jack is as cute as ever, and growing so fast.

Ralph Hawkins (who got his PhD in archaeology from Andrews University recently) carries on a debate with Wood in the pages of JETS over the dating of the settlement. Its well worth reading.