Many on this board claim the account of Jerico in the bible epitomizes a mean, murderous God, who killed women and babies
unjustly. Also, they claim the whole account is bogus.
Read this and see what you think.
"Jerico"...NOT a myth.
by gumby 5 Replies latest jw friends
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gumby
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gumby
Hey! Hey! Hey! Slooooow down there all you posters! I'm having trouble answereing ALL of you at one time. Take it easy!
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cellomould
The 'bogus' part is that God didn't knock the walls down. Of course we do expect that there were in fact walls there to begin with. So the first point, that yes, this was a fortified city, is moot.
How many cities of this age were not fortified?
The grain argument is really transparent.
Why would people fleeing a siege take with them large quantities of grain? As I recall, a bushel is a hell of a lot. You can't exactly carry that on your back.
Grain storage in those times was long-term. It had to be. (i.e. 7 years of famine... you'd better stock up!)
The grain argument is invoked again to show that the Israelites didn't take anything besides gold, etc...Again, if they did raid the food supply, would you expect them to take bushels or handfuls?
How can you tell what was taken? You can only tell what was NOT taken. It is a huge leap to say that ALL of the grain was left intact after the city was sacked, just because there was a large quantity. How do you know there wasn't twice as much before? Most likely, some grain was taken.
All the presence of grain really shows is that the city was not likely inhabited or used after it was sacked. How close was Jericho to the Israelite cities? Why transport it all if they had their own food supply?
Trust me, if the Israelites were starving, they would have remembered the supplies they abandoned at Jericho and forgotten 'God's commandments'.
Basically, the evidence shows that Jericho, a fortified city, was captured quickly and abandoned. Who was arguing against that?
cellomould
"In other words, your God is the warden of a prison where the only prisoner is your God." Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
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Abaddon
Once again an apologist takes the fact that something may have happened rougthly the way it says in the Bible as some kind of proof of the Bible's accuracy in other areas.
Did anyone say the Bible was a completely fictional account? No. It's a historical document of varying accuracy.
During the first ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Israelites they took a city called Jericho. Wow, a historical event. And?
BUT there's no proof the walls fell down by divine action.
As for justifying killing women and children, please, does it make sense to kill children to stop child sacrifices? It might work, but does it make sense? And killing people for what they do with their genitals? Please.
And this sentence is wonderful;
(d) Finally, it still is true that these Old Testament narratives illustrate the fact that innocent people (e.g., infants) frequently have to suffer the consequences of evil acts that others generate, due to the kind of world in which we live.
So, god, rather thn killing just the bad people (which he could do, he's god) kills innocent people as well, but it's not his fault, it's the bad people's fault. Eh? So if US troops machine-gunned children of defeated Taliban fighters, that's okay, as their parents are 'bad'. Ooooo. God has great morals!People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
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JanH
It is true that Biblical Archaeology Review is not a fundamentalist journal by far, but Bryant Wood himself is a conservative archeologist. While conservative journals typically refuse submissions contrary to their positions, mainstream journals accept submissions from conservative scholars as long as the basic methodology is sound (which does not necessarily mean the conclusions are).
Bryant Wood's conclusions were firmly contradicted by other archeologists in following issues of the journal. The mainstream position is still firmly behind Kathleen Kenyon on dating the destruction of Jericho to 1550BC, not 1400 as the Biblical account implies.
It is perhaps ironic that the grain stored in Jericho, which Wood used to support his position, should in time prove him wrong. Grain samples were radiocarbon dated in 1995 -- after Wood's article -- and they demonstrated that the 1550 BC date was correct. Thus we have two independent analyses, both confirming Kenyon and rejecting the claims of literalists.
See http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/qa/adb/bryantwood.htm for the details and references.
The other supporting "evidence" for the literal truth of the Joshua account is extremely weak, even if true. Invading armies almost always chose to attack when the food stores are full; otherwise they would starve themselves. That houses existed along the city wall, and that these were typically for the poor, would have been known by any author in the ancient world (few people were rich at that time anyway). Wood further seem ignorant about the logistical impossibility of refugees taking along vast amounts of grain in the case of an escape. That a sacked city was burned is extremely unremarkable.
- Jan
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The believer is happy. The doubter is wise. -
GinnyTosken
See also: "The walls of Jericho, where?"
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=3988&site=3#47995
Ginny
Edited to add: The link to the article by Ze'ev Herzog in the thread above is outdated. Here is a corrected link:
"Deconstructing the walls of Jericho" by Ze'ev Herzog
http://www.truthbeknown.com/biblemyth.htm
