101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

252
yth #89:
Joshua conquered Canaan.
The Myth: So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said
unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions
by their tribes. And the land rested from war. ( Josh. 11:23)
The Reality: The Israelites never conquered Canaan in the time of Joshua.
The earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of Israel appears on an
Egyptian stele erected in the fifth year of the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah, about
1235 B.C. to 1220 B.C. This stele makes reference to several powerful Canaanite peoples,
including Israel, but describes only Israel as a people without a land. The inscription
gives no hint that any of the other major Canaanite peoples mentioned were in
any way subject to Israelite domination. Consequently, the stele establishes a reasonable
time frame for dating either Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness after the Exodus
or for the entry of Israel into Canaan under Joshua’s leadership. Unfortunately, for the
next four hundred years or so the archaeological or historical record provides no further
direct contemporaneous evidence for the existence of Israel, a gap that encompasses
the reigns of Kings Saul, David, and Solomon. We can’t even be certain that the
Israel mentioned in the Merneptah stele is in fact the biblical Israel.
Nor does the archaeological evidence show the existence of a mass Israelite conquest
in the time of Joshua (late thirteenth to early twelfth century B.C.) If such an
event took place as described in the Bible, then we should expect to have some archaeological
and/or contemporaneous historical data supporting a strong Israelite presence
in the central highlands of Canaan where Joshua established his military
authority and where Joshua’s tribe, Ephraim, took control of the territory. Instead, we
find the central highlands at that time either relatively uninhabited or sparsely settled.
The evidence also shows that beginning more than a century after the Merneptah
inscription, well after the time of Joshua, there appeared a sudden and rapid emergence
of many new small peaceful communities in these highland territories. While none of