At the site of El Amarna in 1887, the first of 382 tablets inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform came to light in the ruins of the capital city of Akhenaten, Egypt's "heretic" pharaoh. This leader ruled in the mid-1300s BCE and is thought to have imposed a kind of monotheism on Egypt. After his death, his capital was abandoned as later pharaohs returned to traditional Egyptian capital cities. The tablets formed part of the archive of correspondence between the pharaoh and other great kings of the ancient Near East, as well as with vassal rulers in the Levant. Akkadian served as the universal diplomatic language, but letters from Canaan displayed linguistic features transparently drawn from the "Canaanite" dialect spoken in Canaan. At times Canaanite terms appear alongside their Akkadian counterparts.
The texts yield a wealth of information about how the great powers of the Late Bronze Age interacted with one another and especially how Egypt administered Canaan. In addition, the internal affairs of Canaan appear in bold relief as we "read their mail" and listen in on conspiracies, duplicities, protestations of loyalty, accusations of betrayal, and pleas for help against impending invasion. Cities such as Jerusalem, Gezer, and Shechem emerge as possessing scribes trained in cuneiform writing capable of conducting far-flung correspondence on a daily basis. In addition, the protestations and pleas of the city rulers inform us of how the pharaoh and the city rulers perceived their roles and responsibilities. As they discuss the threats faced, we learn of the practice of forced labor, of destabilizing groups such as the Apiru, and of hiring mercenaries. Descriptions include the theft of cattle and even of lowlanders held for ransom by highland peasants, the ransom ranging from thirty to one hundred shekels! These letters, dating as they do from a time prior to the Israelite settlement in Canaan, provide invaluable firsthand insights into life in the divided, violent, tempestuous territory that Israel claimed as its "promised land."
Confines Yahweh’s actions to the sphere of Egyptian hegemony. The latter point could imply a theological interest in the role of Egyptian domination, as though Yahweh’s quarrel was only with Egypt, not with Hatti.
Toward a History of Israel’s Possession of Canaan
Reviewing the diverse material bearing on the question of Israel’s appearance in Canaan yields two questions. First, what are the basic building blocks of any responsible scholarly position that takes seriously both the biblical and the extrabiblical materials? Second and more controversial, is a linear account possible, a narrative of how a distinct community self-identified as “Israel” was established in Canaan, with self-defined boundaries distinguishing itself from the other groups competing for control of Canaan (i. e., the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Philistines)? Put differently, does our evidence allow moving beyond analyzing facts and factors to permit a sketch of this momentous transition?
Elements of a Reconstruction
Several observations provide a set of basic elements for sketching an account of the Israelite settlement of Canaan. These “facts and factors” become the foundation for any reconstruction. They form the dots that need to be connected.
First, Israel consisted of elements already resident within Canaan. This point is not as revolutionary as it seemed when George Mendenhall first proposed it. According to the biblical narrative, the ancestors of the Israelite nation lived in Canaan for centuries prior to the Egyptian sojourn. Indeed, New Kingdom Egypt deported a great many farmers and tradesmen from Canaan to Egypt, and to the Egyptians no significant difference between Canaanites and the ancestors of Israel would be discernible. They would speak the same language, share the same physical features, and likely share much material culture. Moreover, as practitioners of mixed agriculture and pastoralism, many cultural affinities would link the Israelites and Canaanite peasantry. So in Israelite settlements we should not expect to see the kind of distinct material culture that characterizes early Philistine sites. There, a heterogenous group colonized a region of Canaan, planting their Aegean culture on Canaanite soil. Indeed, a major part of the formation of Israel could be a process such as Dever sketches, in which the economic crisis triggered by the LBA collapse caused the repressed, socially, and economically marginalized rural populace to seek a different kind of life in the space created by the slipping of Egypt’s grip and the infighting and confusion among the Canaanite city ruling elites.440
The book of Joshua surprisingly includes a number of stories implying that many in Israel derived from Canaan. The programmatic position of the Rahab story at the beginning of the Joshua narrative and the way the terminology used in her confession of faith (Josh. 2:9-11) reappears, with a different outcome, in the reports of how the kings of Canaan were conspiring against Israel (cf. 5:1; 9:1-3; 10:1-5; 11:1-5)—all this highlights the thematic importance of Rahab’s inclusion in Israel.441 Later biblical tradition names her in genealogical lists and identifies her as an ancestor of David and, ultimately, of Jesus. The story of the Gibeonite deception clearly describes the entry of an indigenous Canaanite group into the ranks of Israel (Josh. 9). “Foreigners” or “sojourners,” along with “native-born” Israelites, made up Israel in the ceremony at Gerizim and Ebal and thus indicate not just presence but also some status in the covenant community. Inclusion in a ritual community implies a degree of social acceptance.
By the same token, the final speech at Shechem in Joshua 24 contrasts with Joshua’s “Well Done, Mission Accomplished” speech in Joshua 23 by challenging the hearers to enter into covenant with Yahweh—to serve Yah-weh—and warning them to put away foreign gods from their midst. Given the severity with which any deviation from the covenant was punished in the book, the only persons who might be in possession of non-Israelite cultic images would be elements of the Canaanite population who have affiliated with Israel but have not been fully assimilated or identified as “Israel.” On this view, Joshua 24 becomes a revolutionary moment in which a new community is established. This community describes itself with the language of descent and kinship along with a shared narrative of the past. However, it is not composed of persons related by those ties, but rather united in covenant to the god Yahweh and to one another as fellow Israelites. The book of Joshua thus begins with the assimilation of a Canaanite prostitute and ends with a mass “Ellis Island” type of swearing-in ceremony in which many non-Israelites enter the covenant.
Second, the existence of certain distinctive features in the material culture of the new highland villages, even as they stand in continuity with the earlier Canaanite culture, points to an influence from outside the native Canaanite sphere. Something drives the differentiation. As Faust has argued, granting the similarity of the inventory of pottery forms in these villages to LBA Canaanite pottery, why then would Canaanite villagers suddenly begin to avoid painted and imported pottery? After all, if they are culturally continuous, why make any distinctions in pottery use? Even if a few collared-rim storage jars do appear in non-Israelite contexts, their overwhelming concentration appears in sites later emerging as Israel. If these are Canaanites, why do they evince this need for differentiation?442 The evidence for pork avoidance, particularly at the boundaries between the Israelite settlements and Canaanite or Philistine communities, likewise points to a need for differentiation. But if the Israelites were merely Canaanites, why draw a line of difference?443 Again, the pillared house, even if it did have some forerunners in LBA Canaan (which is not overwhelmingly clear), becomes strongly characteristic of communities that later constitute the Israelite and Judean states. What is the cultural energy that accounts for the need to differentiate these supposed “Canaanite” villages from Canaanite and Philistine neighbors?
Thus, the sharp increase in population in the highlands of Canaan in the early IA1 seems inadequately explained by appeals merely to prodigious reproductive activity or demographic shifts within Cisjordan (west of the Jordan). Nadav Na’aman, analyzing the Israelite settlement in the context of the end of the LBA in the eastern Mediterranean, noticed that all the documentary sources for the era indicate all the major regions witnessed a flux of different people groups moving through or to them. Speaking of the “unprecendented wave of migrations and profound demographic change in the entire region,” Na’aman concludes,
The overall picture emerging from the various sources does not corroborate the assumption that the Iron I settlement process was an internal Palestinian one, and that the inhabitants of the new settlements originated only from among the local Canaanite urban-rural-pastoral elements. . . . The scope and intensity of these events and the ensuing population movements do not fit reconstructions that separate a certain region from the entire Western Asiatic arena and isolate its micro-history from the overall historical developments of that time.444
Scholars such as Anson Rainey and Adam Zertal have argued for the entry of a new population element from the east.445 Many years ago Finkelstein observed that in the early stage of the settlement, the bulk of Israelite settlements clustered along the central watershed ridge and its slope eastward toward the Jordan.446 If these groups traced their origins back to the highlands of Canaan, and if they are returning with a new religious and social ideology, then both cultural continuity and sharp points of differentiation, especially at points of contact with potentially stronger competitors in Canaan, are not only tolerable, but to be predicted.
Third, the archaeological data and even some of the biblical material point to the bulk of the earliest Israelite settlements appearing in the eastern zones of the tribal area designated for Manasseh.447 Zertal, tracking the distribution of pottery, has suggested an initial settlement on the slopes west of the Jordan, where pastoralism and cereal cultivation would be most easily practiced. Settlement density shifted westward, however, up and over the watershed ridge and down onto the western slopes of the hill country, where the cultivation of olives and grapes became possible.448 Rainey reviewed a range of cultural features, including linguistic data, also concluding that the earliest Israelite settlement came in the east, even in Transjordan, and moved west through the twelfth century BCE. This general consensus raises questions, however, for the biblical witness. As noted above, the inner biblical chronology suggests a mid - or late thirteenth century date for the military actions of the Israelites. It emphasizes actions in Benjamin first, then moves southward, and finally turns to the Galilee. Thus a historian interested in a dialogue between texts and archaeological research faces an intriguing challenge.
Fourth, despite current scholarly prejudice against “conquest” models, it is difficult to imagine any people group establishing a claim over Canaan, the scene of constant military clashes for the entire LBA, without any acts of warfare against the urban centers that controlled Canaan on behalf of Egypt. How could a group’s putative annihilation merit notice in the inscription of an Egyptian pharaoh, Merneptah, if this group posed no formidable threat? In fact, urban destruction wrought by unforeseen “barbarian” groups conspicuously characterizes the end of the LBA throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including the Levant. Pharaonic inscriptions repeatedly speak of marching against the Shasu, a pastoralist people in Canaan. The rise of the warlord Abdi-Ashirta in the high country around the Eleutheros Valley just north of Canaan, a region of mixed farming and pastoralism, provides a striking parallel. This man, without known status or portfolio, gathered up from the population a group composed of disenfranchised, desperate men, many of whom are known by the label ‘apiru, and carved out a kingdom and dynasty that became a vital swing vote in the shifting balance of power in the LBA Levant. Likewise, in the fourteenth century Shechem saw the rise of Labaya, another charismatic and conniving leader who forged a regional mini-empire before being assassinated by agents of Egypt. The end of the LBA featured such irregular or “outlaw” bands led by warlords, thugs, and tribal chieftains. In the firestorm that was the collapse of the LBA, is it really so unlikely that the Israelites did not toss a few brands into the burning?
Sketching a Narrative
Contemporary scholars have hesitated, understandably, to project a narrative of the process of Israel’s appearance and possession of Canaan. This goes beyond simply inserting the facts and factors noted above into an existing model. It seeks to tell a story, one that accounts for as much data as possible. The exclusive focus on urban destructions, however important, often obscures other equally important features in the military narratives of the book of Joshua and often skews the reader’s perspective. Several points about these “campaigns” typically escape serious notice.
First, the rhetoric of extreme destruction and annihilation of all life likely reflects the fixed idioms of ancient military jargon. K. Lawson Younger Jr., both in a monograph and in a focused study, has pointed out the pervasive use of a very stilted and stereotypical military language that should not be pressed in all its literal detail.449 In essence, any decisive victory finds expression in the most extreme language of annihilation, even if followed almost immediately by statements of the tributes to be levied on the (presumably dead!) population. The actual killing of every single person in any ancient town or region poses an absolute logistical impossibility. Ancient armies lacked the mobility, communications resources, and weaponry to accomplish actual genocide. Indeed, modern concerns about genocide in the biblical texts mistakenly read these passages through the lens of the modern experience of actual genocide as well as the presence of the technology of warfare that could accomplish such a terrible aim. But the ancients, for all their ferocity, possessed only knives, swords, arrows, spears, and rudimentary stone-hurling devices. They lacked the ability to slaughter all or even most of the occupants of a region. They also lacked the ability to prevent the escape of many Most of the urban centers destroyed in the LBA seem to have been abandoned before their final capture and destruction. To make archaeological traces of near-apocalyptic destructions the standard for demonstrating the historicity of the Joshua narratives is to misunderstand the texts from their literary, theological, and historical perspectives.
Second, the book of Joshua actually stresses the killing of the “kings” far more strongly than the destruction of the cities themselves. The book does not report the Israelites attacking any Canaanite peasant villages or settlements or any encampments of pastoralists, an odd omission if the text really sought to report annihilation of the entire population. Only three cities are actually said to have been destroyed: Jericho, Ai, and Hazor (cf. Josh. 11:13). The list of towns in Joshua 12 does not claim that the towns were destroyed, or even assaulted. Reports of capture, not destruction, of Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir do appear in Joshua 10:29-39. These emphasize the killing of the city rulers. The list notwithstanding, Joshua 10 devotes its primary attention to the conspiracy of the five kings, their flight, imprisonment, and execution. Joshua 12 claims that “one king” in each town was killed. The kings of Canaan appear as the principal targets.
As the Amarna correspondence graphically illustrates, the city rulers served as the executive agents of Egypt in the administration of Canaan. Through a long process, as noted above, Ramesses II had finally settled his dispute with the Hittite Empire over their respective spheres of influence in the Levant. Relations between the pharaoh and Hatti remained warm. Thus Ramesses II sent physicians and medicines to the Hittite king and warmly invited Hat-tusili to visit Egypt. The pharaoh welcomed a second Hittite princess into his harem.450 Certainly the pharaoh assumed Egypt’s continued control over Canaan, reaching back at least to the time of Thutmose III, two centuries earlier. The killing of thirty-one city rulers in Canaan would have disrupted Egypt’s system of command and control and drawn the attention of the pharaoh. Following the chronology above, the last city, Hazor, fell in about 1235 BCE. This was the forty-fourth year of Ramesses II, who invested the final years of his rule exploiting the peace attained with the Hittites to establish his cultural legacy within Egypt. In the last years of his reign, he increasingly delegated the major responsibilities to his heir designate, Merneptah. The latter ruler was already in his sixties and suffering from both crippling arthritis and severe dental problems.451 Ultimately it fell to Merneptah to deal with any disruption of the Egyptian order in Canaan. The campaign reported in the Israel Stela may represent exactly such an action. The decimation of Egypt’s administrative force in Canaan, not the actual securing of lands for direct settlement, could explain why Merneptah found it necessary to declare his annihilation of “Israel,” an entity not yet even associated with a city or territory In fact, if he dealt Israel a severe blow, the setback to the settlement process could be mirrored in the sudden decline noted in the book of Judges “after the death of Joshua” (cf. Judg. 1:1-3:6). The actions narrated in Judges 1 could point to Israelite attempts to regain what they had lost and to reestablish themselves.
Third, after the taking of Jericho and Ai, the book of Joshua reports two “campaigns.” Quite apart from historical and archaeological concerns, these campaigns raise questions about the connection between the “conquest” and the actual Israelite settlement. A southern campaign, prompted by the attack of a conspiracy of kings against Israel’s treaty partner, Gibeon, led to a sweep that captured important segments and intersections of the southern road system in Canaan (Josh. 9-10; esp. 10:29-43).
The northern campaign (Josh. 11) involved a rapid move through the central hill country and across the Jezreel Valley to attack the Canaanites at the Waters of Merom. The traditional location of Merom, the modern village of Meron in the Upper Galilee, seems an unlikely place for Canaanite war leaders to amass chariotry, which receives emphasis in the narrative (Josh. 11:4, 6, 9). The abrupt, precipitous hills and gullies of the region make a poor place for the mustering of large chariot forces. By contrast, the other locations in the story, such as Dor, Achsaph, Shimron, and Hazor, command access points between hills and valleys and make fit locales for chariots. So where might the Waters of Merom be located? Van Bekkum has compiled the evidence and options, concluding that “the ‘waters of Merom’ could be identfied with the rich spring of Nabi Shu’eib at the foothill of Tel Qarney Hittin, and Tel Qarney Hittin itself turns out to be Maron.”452 This location, the “Horns of Hittin,” west of the Sea of Galilee, is a strategic one conducive to the use of chariots. On its southern shoulder are remains of an LBA fortress, destroyed in the thirteenth century BCE. Likewise, the text mentions Chinneroth, which probably denotes not the general region associated with the Sea of Galilee but rather the site of Tel Kinrot. The tel possesses LBA and even more extensive IA1 Canaanite remains.453 The towns of the northern campaign thus form a kind of fence that stretches from Dor across the western end of the Jezreel Valley to Achsaph (Tel Keisan). It continues eastward to Shimron, past the Horns of Hittin to Tel Kinroth, and thence to Hazor. This chain of cities formed a natural line with the Jezreel Valley, and with the Jordan Valley and Sea of Galilee to the east.
A difficulty arises with the observation that neither of the regions involved in these two campaigns evidences early Israelite settlement. The earliest, concentrated, and distinctive Israelite settlements appear in the hill country along the watershed ridge running through the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh. Paradoxically, the book of Joshua offers no narrative of conquest for the very region that saw the earliest and heaviest Israelite settlement. Twice Joshua and the Israelites travel in this region unimpeded, once to Mount Ebal in the area of Shechem, and then through the region on their way to the battle at the Waters of Merom. The Israelites have easy access to Shiloh, which serves as an administrative center, and also to Shechem, for the final covenant ceremony. No sign of resistance or danger arises in the narrative. So the text presents a “conquest” of regions not settled, and a settlement of regions not conquered. Joshua 17:14-18 is instructive on this point. When the Joseph tribes complain that they have insufficient space, Joshua does not censure their lack of faith or urge them simply to fight more enemies, but rather to clear the forests, which they did with a vengeance.454 Joshua seems to accept the presence of Canaanite “chariots of iron” in the Jezreel and Beth Shean as an understandable deterrent to immediate expansion (v. 18b), though ultimately this challenge must be faced. In addition, the battles of the conquest come to an end at Hazor, which fell in about 1235 BCE, while the earliest settlements in the highlands appear to come somewhat later, closer to 1200 BCE. They are attested even later still for the more southerly and northerly regions. This very tension could almost serve as a sign of the debate surrounding the Israelite settlement. One set of data points to military action, another points to more peaceful settlement. Might these two phenomena be interrelated?
One possible scenario is to reconsider whether the battle narratives in Joshua actually intend to constitute a “conquest” at all. “Conquest” is not a term used in the biblical narrative, but rather is of modern manufacture. If the objective of the military action was to kill the city rulers, thus breaking up
Egypt’s administration of Canaan and possibly preventing reprisals from those cities at Egypt’s behest, then it is impressive that most of the cities engaged form two “belts,” one to the south and one to the north, of the main area of Israelite settlement, in which no fighting is reported. The possibility exists that the battles in the book of Joshua were aimed at creating militarily neutralized zones to the north and south of the main areas in which the Israelites initially settled. The main bulk of the Israelites could indeed have entered the land in the vicinity of the eastern entrance of the Wadi Far’ah, moving into the eastern slopes of the hill country of Ephraim and Manasseh, where the earliest settlement sites appear. The farmers and pastoralists built small, unwalled, and thus defenseless villages. If the local Canaanite peasantry in general were in sympathy with Israel, and if the hill country in fact was only thinly settled, then the entry of the tribes would have been a “peaceful infiltration.” But they would remain vulnerable to attack and oppression by the same city rulers who had presided over Canaan’s troubles for centuries and had depleted the highland regions through conscription. The battles reported in Joshua could be seen as two campaigns aimed primarily at neutralizing the ability of the city rulers to act against the new settlers. Certainly the book of Joshua reports the opposition to Israelite presence (cf. 5:1; 9:1; 10:1-5; 11:1-5, 19). The two campaigns in effect created a ring of fire, or firewall, protecting the new hill-country settlements. With the capture of Jericho and Ai, and with the alliance with Gibeon, these campaigns gave Israel control over important segments of the highway network in Canaan.
In addition, the neutralization of the Canaanite towns disrupted Egypt’s administration of the area. This opened the way for expanding Israelite settlements beyond the hill country, where excavation and survey has revealed that Israelite settlement indeed came later. Though only a suggestion, this does cohere reasonably well with the text and what is known of the archaeological record.
World History
