//Ever read this chapter in the Bible? It’s the awe-inspiring story of the glorious construction of Solomon’s Temple. It takes 38 verses to describe this magnificent construction, ending with this final verse in the chapter:

He had spent seven years building it. –1 Kings 6:38

Then comes the seventh chapter, which begins with this dry comment:

It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace. –1 Kings 7:1

Now we embark on a description of Solomon’s palace, which turns out to be a hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty cubits high, totally dwarfing the sacred temple. Priorities, right?

I felt an immediate kinship with Mathenia and his main character because of the similarities of our religious upbringing. Both of us lay claim to what I describe as “intense” Christianianity. But while my childhood and early adulthood provides mostly wholesome memories, Paradise Earth delves into the stomach-wrenching side of overbearing religion: church correction, disfellowshipping, door-to-door evangelizing, and more. We must pardon the sensationalism, because Mathenia writes from experience, having been himself ritually shunned by family and friends as an apostate for questioning his faith. Of course, the jaded dark side makes for good storytelling, even as it’s downplayed into “normal” Bible-ordained church practice. That’s the gut-wrenching part.

//We continue our discussion from yesterday about whether Israel conquered the promised land. Archaeological evidence seems to tell a much messier story than the simple, sweeping genocide described by the Bible. Yet, the period immediately following the supposed conquest shows considerable growth in population. So what really happened, and how did Israel really happen to settle in the land of Canaan?

Four possibilities have been proposed by scholars, as described in The Meaning of the Bible, by Douglas A. Knight and Am-Jill Levine:

1. There is at least some evidence of combat in the period, though of course by far fewer troops than the 600,000 invading army described by the Bible. Could a much lesser invasion have occurred, which then grew into legend?

2. The territory seems to have been pretty much a political vacuum at the time, and some scholars consider “Israel’s” settling there to be more of a peaceful immigration of people from Southwest Asia.

3. Or did Israel rise up from within? Perhaps peasants from city-states in the valleys and coastal plains rebelled or escaped oppression, settling in the Canaanite highlands.

4. The scenario the authors find most likely is a cultural-evolution model. Population did increase dramatically in the 12th and 11th centuries BC, and there were numerous ethnic groups in the area. The Bible refers to Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. A peaceful convergence of farming and herding seems probable.

But is it not possible that all scenarios contain an element of truth, culminating eventually in cultural evolution? This question brings us to today’s verse, describing a “mixed multitude” of people among the Hebrews as they left Egypt. Israel’s legends of battle surely sprang from minor scuffles, and the legends also attempt to explain the merging of peoples. In reality, however, this convergence probably occurred in later centuries within the promised land rather than during the exodus.

If you find the stories of divinely sanctioned genocide in the Bible to be disturbing, at odds with the God of love you’ve come to know, then you can rest assured no such thing happened.

Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it; they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.

//We’re discussing the historicity of Joshua’s invasion of the promised land. Yesterday, we concluded that the most likely date of Israel’s entry into Canaan was the late 13th century. The problem is, the books of Numbers, Joshua, and Judges describe the destruction of sixteen different cities in Canaan, but only three or four of them (Hazor, Lachish, Bethel, and maybe Debir) show any evidence of destruction in this period. The Bible also describes Jerusalem and Dan as conquests (see today’s verse, and also 18:27-29, and Joshua 19:47), but these were very minor settlements in the thirteenth century and show no evidence of attack.

The Bible also reports that twelve cities were occupied by the Israelites without attack, but historians say only seven of the twelve had any inhabitants at the time. Curiously, three of the twelve (Beth-shemesh, Gezer, and Meggido) were razed to the ground in this time frame! Why does the Bible say their entry by Israel was peaceful? Another twelve cities, not even mentioned in Joshua and Judges, also show evidence of destruction, though several are near the coastline and were probably conquered by the Sea Peoples. So in many cases, the cities that the Bible says were destroyed were not; the ones that were, the Bible says were not.

It turns out that less than one third of the Bible’s claims of conquest can be confirmed by archaeology; and what’s worse, the archaeological evidence we have found contradicts the Bible. While there were battles during this period in history, they don’t seem to be where the Bible places them, and there was nothing close to the sweeping genocide described in the book of Joshua.

Is the conquest of Canaan all a fable, then? Or is the Bible exaggerating what really happened? Some possible explanations tomorrow.

//You may have heard that archaeological evidence contradicts the story in the book of Joshua about how Israel conquered the promised land. You may have seen me write about that right here on this blog. The most well-known contradiction is that the walls of Jericho seem to have been leveled hundreds of years before the famous battle of Jericho in the Bible could have occurred. So what’s the scoop? Let me give you the facts, and you can decide for yourself whether or not Joshua really obliterated the Canaanites as told in the Bible.

The story of Israel’s history begins with them growing into a nation as slaves in Egypt. So let’s start with dating a possible exodus out of Egypt. 1 Kings 6:1 states that the temple in Jerusalem was built 480 years after Israel escaped from Egypt, which would put the date of the exodus around 1450 BCE. However, archaeologists and Egyptologists consider this very unlikely. Exodus 1:11 tells how the Israelites, as slaves in Egypt, constructed the city of Ramesses; but that is an unlikely name for an early city, as no pharaoh by that name ruled until 1295. Thus most Bible scholars date the exodus to the latter part of the Bronze age, in the late 13th century. This date best fits the archaeological evidence of settlements in the land of Canaan, as well.

Exodus 1:8 tells of a new ruler over Egypt who “did not know Joseph.” Exodus does not identify who this king is, but he is usually thought to be Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great), who ruled from 1279-1212 BC. Like his father, Ramesses I, he conducted large-scale construction projects, such would require enormous slave labor, like that described in Exodus chapter 1. If the Biblical story of persecution and escape from Egypt is true, this dating is surely the best fit.

As we continue this topic tomorrow, then, we’ll assume a 13th century date for the exodus and entry into the land of Canaan.