So we know the wall of Jericho existed, and we can make a pretty good guess that it was the first walled city in the history of mankind, but is there any good proof that it was magically destroyed, or for that matter destroyed by people?

I checked on google but all i got were creationist sites saying "god did it"

So we know the wall of Jericho existed, and we can make a pretty good guess that it was the first walled city in the history of mankind, but is there any good proof that it was magically destroyed, or for that matter destroyed by people?

I checked on google but all i got were creationist sites saying "god did it"

Don't ask Me where, Maybe the discovery channel . Earthquake comes to mind

An earthquake makes very good sense actually, seeing as Jericho actually quite close to an 1100 km fault line. good thinking. thanks!

The veracity of the Biblical account is called into question by radio-dating, which indicates that at the time the battle took place according to Biblical chronology, Jericho was already deserted.

Well the bible doesn't say so much of a battle but more of a walking around in a square, but that's very interesting thank you. Do you have any idea how much before the supposed "battle" it had been deserted?

There is no evidence that Jericho was destroyed by the Gods. It was, perhaps, one of the earliest human settlements.

Could the Jews have yelled collectively and made the walls of Jericho fall? Or were the Jews staking out Jericho and took advantage of an earthquake. Or maybe they used poor concrete on their walls. I would like to see more debate on this topic-

I wasn't aware of good evidence that Jericho was a walled city at the time specified. IIRC the evidence is that it was not - that walls came later in its history.

How do we know the wall existed?

I think we have ruins of them.

Hebrews 11:30 - By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been encircled for seven days.



The book of joshua is not consistant withthe book of judges and hebrews doesn't give details more than I quoted above. It would appear that one of the canons is false, either judges or jushua.

The dead sea scrolls has a few mentions of jericho and it's city walls, but remember city's and walls in those times were constantl'y under siege (not every second ofcourse
So for us to guess exactly what era and which forces it will be tough to conclude in exacts.

We do know for a fact the wall existed, we do know the city was realand that it was sieged, but the dates and exactly who broke the wall are sketchy.

Joshua
Book of judges
Hebrews
(book of kings` maybe im checking now)



Peace.

I think we have ruins of them.
We do know for a fact the wall existed, we do know the city was realand that it was sieged, Not, as far as I recall, from the time involved in the story.

IIRC it was not a walled city then. http://dqhall59.com/old_jericho.htm

Not, as far as I recall, from the time involved in the story.

IIRC it was not a walled city then. http://dqhall59.com/old_jericho.htm



Areyou 100% positive there were no previous walls or smaller walls or rebuilt parts?, be reminded about the great wallof china and how manytimes it has been sieged part's torn down and rebuilt.

How are we to know exactly how many timesit has been rebuilt. I could make a wall and knock it down 450 times and later generations would be able to see all 450 accounts if i do a good job of cleaning away previous foundations and cleaning up before i start the next wall. I could also mix in bricks from older walls with newer bricks, you wouldn't be able to tellw hich stones were used in which rebuilding if mixed them up each time I remade the wall.

There was a wall around it dating back to 8000 B.C.

Could the Jews have yelled collectively and made the walls of Jericho fall?

Ockham's razor says why involve supernatural mystery when simple science might provide the answer. Archaeologists found that Jericho was a partly built-up city and its outer wall consisted of a standing wall on top of a revetment wall (http://bible-lands.net/cities/jericho/366-jericho-resources-revetment-wall-copy). Perhaps the walking/marching, shouting and charging by the Israelites (apparently one million people) created enough acoustic and seismic energy, to bring the walls down. Especially if they had marched around in formation. Plus, the Israelites' unusual behavior on the last day may have drawn the attention of the people in Jericho, who then climbed upon the walls to watch, thus further straining the walls.

Still not satisfied. I suppose the Israelites watched and waited and sprang forth when the walls fell... as you say, they were built on a shaky foundation.

Ockham's razor says why involve supernatural mystery when simple science might provide the answer. Archaeologists found that Jericho was a partly built-up city and its outer wall consisted of a standing wall on top of a revetment wall (http://bible-lands.net/cities/jericho/366-jericho-resources-revetment-wall-copy). Perhaps the walking/marching, shouting and charging by the Israelites (apparently one million people) created enough acoustic and seismic energy, to bring the walls down. Especially if they had marched around in formation. Plus, the Israelites' unusual behavior on the last day may have drawn the attention of the people in Jericho, who then climbed upon the walls to watch, thus further straining the walls.
Resonance could be a factor . It has happened in more resent times with buildings and bridges . Engineering is getting a handle on that one now a days . There are some pretty good theories out there on thew subject

here is a good link The Fall of the Wall (http://www.squidoo.com/walls-of-jericho)
it even include a mythbusters citation.

The veracity of the Biblical account is called into question by radio-dating, which indicates that at the time the battle took place according to Biblical chronology, Jericho was already deserted.

This guy is right, wether the collapse via resonance is possible or not is irrelevant to the fact that the Bible story is total fucking bullshit :P

So we know the wall of Jericho existed, and we can make a pretty good guess that it was the first walled city in the history of mankind, but is there any good proof that it was magically destroyed, or for that matter destroyed by people?

There were many walled cities.


The veracity of the Biblical account is called into question by radio-dating, which indicates that at the time the battle took place according to Biblical chronology, Jericho was already deserted.

A man named Albright was a US archeaology professor and rabidly fanatical christian who attempted to prove the veracity of the "bible" by locating the cities named in the Exodus Trilogy that were destroyed.

He failed. Terribly. Quite miserably.

Of the 16 cities the "bible" claims the Israelites destroyed, only three cities support the biblical accounts: Bethel, Lachish and Hazor

To make matters worse, there is no direct evidence the Israelites destroyed those three cities. In my opinion, there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to indicate the Israelites probably did destroy one of them.

Seven of the cities claimed to have been destroyed show absolutely no evidence of destruction, or were not occupied at the time of the "Exodus" and it doesn't matter if you pine for the early Exodus date or the late Exodus date (those seven cities include Jericho, Ai and Gibeon.

Six of the cities have not been located to date.

The "bible" also mentions 12 other cities that were not destroyed. Of those, five have been identified and show no signs of destruction. The others either have not been found or have not shown sufficient evidence to suggest that they were or were not destroyed.

During the search and excavations, 12 other cities from roughly the same timer period were located. Those 12 cities were not named in the "bible" (and a few have not been fully identified). Of those 12 unnamed cities, six of them are known to have been destroyed by either the Egyptians, or by various groups collectively known as the Sea Peoples.

The other six cities show evidence of destruction, but no definite time period has been established and there is no evidence to identify the invader.

One of the interesting things about these excavations is that it was discovered that it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between a city occupied by the Israelites and a city occupied by Canaanites.

Their cultures are so similar as to be indistinguishable. That, along with the "biblical" evidence leads me to conclude the "Exodus" never happened.


There was a wall around it dating back to 8000 B.C.

I'm not so sure about that. Jericho was originally a small trading post, before it began slowly expanding in size over the next several thousand years. The archaeology reviews I was reading made no mention of a wall.

There was a wall around it dating back to 8000 B.C. Jericho has been populated and abandoned several times - it is very old. There seem to have been older walls, and younger walls, but no Joshua era walls.

Radio Lab had an interesting episode on this topic. I seem to recall that the number of people playing the Shofar to create a high enough number of decibels was in the hundreds of thousands and that the people standing in the front would have been liquefied by the soundwaves.

Basically, it was physically impossible to generate a loud enough sound using people playing shofars to knock down a bronze era wall.

A professor proposed an alternative hypothesis and suggested that the shofar players merely served as a distraction while other Israelites tunneled under the walls to undermine the structure.

Check out the episode here: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/oct/04/walls-jericho/

There were many walled cities.


I said it is considered my many archaeologists to have been the first walled city in human history, not the only.

Anyway my hypothesis was correct the bible has no truth in this, just as in most of it.