Jericho: Is the Biblical Story Fact or Fiction?

The ancient city of Jericho was located 6 miles from the Jordan River and about 10 miles northwest of the Dead Sea. Jericho was a very prosperous city with a large spring inside of its walls and a fertile plain surrounding it. A major east-west road ran next to the city and then intersected with the Jordan River, “making Jericho a strategic crossroads.”
The city was humanly impregnable. It had massive inner and outer walls surrounding about nine acres of land. The outer stone retaining wall of the city was about 12-15 feet high with a mud brick wall on top of it. The mud brick wall was 6 feet thick and about 20-26 feet high, resulting in a retaining wall that was roughly 6 feet wide and 32-41 feet high.
The main dwelling area was inside the second wall, similar to the first mud brick wall but higher. What made this wall seem so much larger was that it was on top of an embankment. Jericho was basically built on top of a huge mound or “tell”. This all loomed over the Israelites during their march around Jericho.
There were about 200 people per acre inside of the second wall, which surrounded 6 acres. This means that there were about 1,200 people living inside the second wall. There were also many people living between the first and second wall. They were substantially poorer however. We know this because the homes inside the second wall were more expensive since they were the safest from enemy attack. But in time of war, these people would flee to the inner city for sanctuary. So there were several thousand people inside of Jericho when the Israelites began their 7-day siege.
Jericho was very well prepared for a siege. They had a spring inside their walls and they had just harvested their crops. They could have lasted a siege for perhaps several years. But the siege that resulted in the destruction of the “world’s safest city” lasted only seven days, as the Bible tells us.
An archeologist by the name of John Garstang carried out excavations in the 1930’s. He discovered two very important things.
1) The Bible tells us in Joshua 3:15 that the Canaanites had just harvested their crops. This was backed up by Garstang’s discovery of entirely full jars of carbonized grain, meaning that the siege of Jericho was a very, very short one. Also why was the grain still present? Grain was very valuable and was always plundered by the conquering army. The Bible gives us the answer in Joshua 6:24. God commanded the Israelites to take nothing from the city except the valuable metals, gold, etc., and dedicate them to the Lord.
2) The Bible tells us in Joshua 6:20 that the walls “fell down flat”. He also discovered that the walls of the city had fallen outward, not inward as should have happened if under siege or under the decaying influence of time.
And what about Rahab’s home? Did any archeologists discover something to prove her existence? The answer is yes.
A German archeologist team carried out an excavation in 1907-1909. They discovered that a portion of the lower city wall did NOT fall down when the rest of the walls did. That portion was still standing to a height of over eight feet. What is even more fascinating is that there were houses built against that portion of wall. It is highly likely that that is where Rahab’s house was. The city wall formed the back wall to these homes and the portion of the wall was very close to the hills of Judean wilderness where the Bible tells us the spies hid for three days in Joshua 2:16, 22.
What about the destruction of the city by fire? Did archeologists also discover proof of this? And again, yes.
An archeologist named Kathleen Kenyon carried out an excavation in 1952-1958. What she discovered entirely backed up the Bible’s story:
“The destruction was complete. Walls and floors were blackened or reddened by fire, and every room was filled with fallen bricks, timbers, and household utensils; and in most rooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt, BUT the collapse of the walls of the eastern rooms seems to have taken place BEFORE they were affected by fire.”
On a final note, Kathleen Kenyon claimed that Jericho fell around 1550 B.C. Her study has had a huge effect on the scholarly world. BUT, Dr, Bryant Wood discovered that “Kenyon’s analysis was based on what was NOT found at Jericho rather than what was found.” She looked for a certain type of imported pottery from that time period and when she didn’t find it, she assumed. However, Dr. Bryant discovered two things.
1) He found that Kenyon excavated in a poor section of town where they could not have afforded such imported pottery to begin with.
2) Also, he discovered that she HAD found indigenous pottery that dates precisely to the time of the biblical conquest of the city but had inexplicably ignored it. She also overlooked the fact that other predecessors had found such pottery and also Egyptian amulets that date to the time of the destruction of Jericho by the Israelites.
Therefore, archeologists have yet to find and prove anything that speaks against the biblical timeline of Jericho’s fall. When archeology is looked at objectively, everything in conjunction to the biblical story of Jericho’s demise that can be proved archeologically has been proved. The Bible remains the speaker of facts when Jericho is the subject.