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A look at the ancient city of Jericho including a review of its destruction as described in "The Book of Joshua." Archaeological expeditions conducted in Jericho in the 1930s and 1950s appear to both confirm and refute the biblical story.
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00:00This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
00:16The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
00:30According to the Bible, Joshua said unto the people, shout, for the Lord hath given you the city.
00:44So far as we know about Joshua as a historical figure, his role was that of a military leader.
00:51Symbolically, he becomes a second Moses.
00:54In the book of Joshua, when he crosses the Jordan River, he separates the waters the way Moses separated the waters in the Red Sea.
01:03But he becomes more than Moses.
01:05He is a military conqueror, and he becomes the agent of God in the minds of the Hebrew writers.
01:11The priests blew with the trumpets, and the walls fell down flat.
01:26Was it an ancient biblical story embellished from generation to generation?
01:31Or did the sensational events recorded in the Old Testament actually occur?
01:47The Bible relates that the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses in the great Exodus.
01:53The Hebrews were inspired by their belief in the one and only God, because they considered themselves his chosen people.
02:02But once they had escaped from Egypt, they were forced to wander the desert for over 40 years.
02:09It was prophesied that Moses would remain in the desert, that he would never reach the promised land.
02:15According to the Old Testament, Moses died on Mount Nebo.
02:25He was 120 years old.
02:29The leadership passed to Joshua, Moses' minister.
02:35The Old Testament records that the Lord spoke unto Joshua, saying,
02:39Moses, my servant is dead, now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people,
02:48into the land I promised to give to the children of Israel.
02:55Joshua, his army, priests, and fellow Israelites eventually arrived at the east bank of the Jordan.
03:03Across the river lies Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world.
03:09From the beginning, the people of Jericho built their homes in the traditional desert manner.
03:21Bricks are made of earth, straw, and water.
03:24It was understood that nature would wear away the material, but no matter.
03:28It was simple to rebuild their village.
03:32Beneath the dry sand of Jericho lies its most precious resource, water,
03:37a seemingly endless supply.
03:40For more than 90 centuries, tribes, bands of desert wanderers, took sanctuary here.
03:48They constructed their homes atop the mud-brick ruins of their predecessors.
03:54By 8,000 B.C., it had grown into a town of 2,000 people.
04:01Layer upon layer, they created a record of their time on earth,
04:04one city atop another.
04:09What we have left are abandoned ruins as the markers of their passing.
04:16It is possible to find in the rubble the pieces of pottery and charred remains of fireplaces
04:21that tell us the way of life of those who lived here.
04:25Today, this is all that remains of the walled city of Jericho.
04:31Yet among the stones, there is clear evidence that here was one of the first advances of civilization.
04:40Here, it seems, for the first time, man learned how to domesticate animals and grow crops.
04:46It was a major step forward in human development as a nomadic life of hunting and food gathering
04:54gave way to a settled life of farming.
04:59What was most significant about Jericho, however, was its important defense position
05:04as the guardian bastion to the land of Canaan, the promised land.
05:08Dr. Gerald LaRue, biblical scholar and lecturer.
05:16Jericho, as the gateway to the promised land, is the first city that a group of people, nomads
05:22or enemies, would encounter when they crossed the Jordan at that particular spot.
05:27And therefore, it was a defense city.
05:29To get into the holy land or the promised land or to Israel or Palestine,
05:34you would have to knock off this city, otherwise you would have enemies on your flank
05:38and behind you once you passed it by.
05:40So it was a very, very important center as a defense.
05:46According to the Bible, the people of Jericho were so wicked in their ways
05:50that God decided to evict them and to give the Israelites who fled out of Egypt a place to dwell.
05:57Joshua would lead the assault.
06:00Before him lay the problem of conquering the walled city.
06:04This account has been recreated based on the Old Testament.
06:08From his camp on the arid east bank, Joshua sent two men across the river Jordan
06:13to spy on the city's defenses.
06:18It would take them all night to cross the river and reach Jericho by morning when the gates open.
06:27Doing their best to remain unobtrusive, the spies made their way to the marketplace
06:32where they could mingle with the crowd.
06:36But to really get the information Joshua wanted about the inner city and its defenses,
06:41they needed an accomplice.
06:43Somebody who wouldn't be worried about being seen with strangers.
06:46They went to the house of a harlot named Rahab.
06:56They were made welcome in a manner customary to Rahab.
07:00Along the way, the spies had been recognized as Israelites.
07:07Within a few minutes, the authorities would be alerted.
07:10A remarkable series of events now takes place.
07:13Rahab realizes that her guests are Israelite spies.
07:23She does not turn them in.
07:24She says that she knew the Lord had promised the land.
07:33All of Jericho, she tells them, is filled with terror
07:36because of Joshua and the armed Israelites.
07:39The men behind the city walls had lost their courage.
07:42Rahab's little brother spots the authorities and runs ahead to warn his sister.
08:03She quickly takes the Israelites to the flat roof.
08:06She asks the Hebrews to swear by the Lord that since she has not betrayed them,
08:12they will spare her father's house and allow her family to live.
08:17The men answer, Rahab,
08:18our life for yours if you don't reveal our business.
08:22Rahab explains that the strangers had been with her,
08:37but that she had no idea who they were or where they had come from.
08:41They seemed anxious to get out of the city before the gates shut.
08:45If the authorities moved quickly,
08:51they might catch the men before they crossed the Jordan.
08:54They would have to hurry.
09:01As the day comes to a close and the city gates are shut for the night,
09:05Rahab keeps her bargain and brings the spies out of hiding.
09:08She lowers a cord through one of her windows.
09:19Rahab urges them to hide in the mountains for three days
09:22until the authorities returned to Jericho.
09:30They could then safely return to the Israelite camp across the water.
09:35Joshua awaits news of Jericho's defenses.
09:38By the 20th century,
09:52Jericho was reduced to mounds of dirt.
09:55For over 3,000 years,
09:57the evidence of its secrets had laid buried.
10:00The thing about ancient cities
10:02is that they were located always
10:05where there were a number of favorable factors.
10:07First, there had to be enough natural water to sustain life,
10:11either by wells or running streams or springs of water.
10:16It had to be in a position where it could be defended.
10:20There had to be arable land
10:22where they could grow things to sustain life
10:24or to nurture their flocks and their herds.
10:27And Jericho has all of these factors.
10:29In the 1930s,
10:31In the 1930s,
10:31an Englishman, Professor John Garstang,
10:34carried out an excavation
10:35which unearthed walls rising to nearly 16 feet,
10:39the defenses of a great city.
10:42He found that the city was destroyed by a fire,
10:45which he estimated occurred around 1400 B.C.
10:48This fits very well with the biblical dating of Joshua
10:53and seemed positive archaeological confirmation
10:56of the Bible's story.
10:58In the 1950s,
10:59a second excavation produced contradictory evidence.
11:03Archaeologist Alexandra Wilkinson.
11:06A bit of circumstantial evidence that was found
11:08was a snail shell.
11:11And that has been identified
11:13as the intermediate carrier of Bilharzia,
11:16which is a waterborne disease
11:19that gets in through the skin
11:23and ancient people
11:25would not have been able to get rid of it.
11:28And this has a gradual debilitating effect.
11:32And the theory is
11:33that when the enemy came and blew their trumpets,
11:36they couldn't do anything about it.
11:37They were just too exhausted.
11:41Was it disease or was it trumpets
11:43that opened the way for the conquest of Jericho?
11:47Did Joshua fight the battle of Jericho at all?
11:51So far as the biblical literature is concerned,
11:54it becomes symbolic.
11:56The story of Joshua, the book of Joshua,
11:59indicates that the Hebrews came in
12:01and in a massive wave swept across the whole of Palestine
12:04and practically killed everyone or enslaved everyone.
12:07But when you move into the book of Judges,
12:09you find that they did not conquer this place, that place.
12:13There's a whole listing of places
12:15that stood out against them
12:16or were simply not touched.
12:18So the book of Joshua becomes an idealized history,
12:22an idealized sweeping across the land,
12:25which never really happened.
12:27This idealized history was formed,
12:29we believe now,
12:31in the late 7th century,
12:33possibly the early 6th century.
12:35And this would be the time
12:36when the Hebrew people
12:37were taken into exile in Babylon.
12:39And they're looking back over their history
12:41and they're rewriting it
12:42in the context of their new experiences.
12:48Jericho lies in an earthquake zone
12:51which is never free from tremors.
12:54The remains of the walls
12:56contain evidence of repeated collapse.
12:58The stories from the Old Testament
13:02and the theories of archaeologists
13:04vary as to dates and type of calamity.
13:08Case in point,
13:09an excavation of the 1950s
13:11led by another British archaeologist,
13:14Dame Kathleen Kenyon.
13:17Employing an army of Palestinian workers,
13:20she dug deeper than Garstang,
13:22uncovering layer after layer of cities.
13:24One was built on top of the other,
13:27spanning a period of nearly 9,000 years,
13:30back to the beginning of civilization itself.
13:34At the bottom of her excavations,
13:36Kathleen Kenyon found military defenses
13:38that are remarkable for their period.
13:42A five-foot thick wall
13:43rose to 15 feet in stone
13:46before being topped by mud bricks.
13:49A great circular tower
13:50still stands 21 feet high.
13:53Curiously, it was built inside the city wall.
13:59Was this a lookout post
14:00against attack or flash flood?
14:07Dr. Kenyon realized
14:08that a great fire destroyed the city
14:11and the site lay abandoned
14:12until sometime later
14:14when a new people moved in from the north.
14:18Various tribes inhabited Jericho
14:20for nearly 1,500 years.
14:23In places,
14:24no less than 26 plaster floors
14:26were found,
14:27one on top of the other.
14:30As the city grew,
14:31the defenses were extended.
14:33A slope was built
14:34along the base of the city walls
14:36and coated with a smooth plaster
14:38to make it slippery against attack.
14:41This was the city
14:42whose destruction
14:43Garstang attributed to Joshua
14:45in about 1,400 B.C.
14:47Kathleen Kenyon, however,
14:50was using a technique
14:51unknown in Garstang's day,
14:54radiocarbon dating.
14:56By using radiocarbon methods,
14:58Kathleen Kenyon found
14:59that these early walls
15:01were destroyed around 2100 B.C.,
15:03nearly 700 years too early for Joshua.
15:07And the second city
15:09was destroyed in about 1600 B.C.,
15:12still too early for Joshua.
15:14The biblical account
15:19of the fall of Jericho
15:21was probably written
15:22some 600 years
15:24after Joshua,
15:25at a time when the Israelites
15:27were threatened with slavery.
15:29Was it just history,
15:30or did it have some
15:32meaningful, symbolic purpose?
15:34It looks in a way
15:36like a rallying call
15:38at the last ditch
15:39to say,
15:40look, if you do
15:41what God tells you,
15:44nothing is impossible.
15:46And in fact,
15:47in the Joshua story,
15:50we're told
15:51what the purpose of it is
15:53so that all the earth's people
15:56might discover
15:57how strong
15:58the hand of God is.
16:00This is a story
16:01of God interacting
16:02with his people.
16:05And it's not history.
16:07It's not Joshua's diary.
16:10The Bible looks
16:11like history,
16:13but it's more history-like.
16:17In 1956,
16:19the last year of her dig,
16:21Kathleen Kenyon
16:22uncovered a most significant find,
16:24one square meter
16:25at the very top of the hill.
16:29Here she found
16:30a section of floor
16:31with a small clay oven.
16:34Beside the oven
16:35lay a small jug,
16:36apparently dropped
16:37and left where it lay.
16:40Confirmed by carbon dating,
16:42the date fits.
16:43There was a settlement here
16:44in the 13th century B.C.
16:48Joshua's story
16:49might be history.
16:51Imagine what it was like
16:53on the day Joshua rallied
16:55his people
16:56outside the fabled
16:57walls of Jericho.
16:58Joshua set about
17:00rousing his people,
17:01reminding them of God's promise
17:03not to fail them.
17:06The Ark of the Covenant,
17:08their sacred symbol of God,
17:09would be born before them
17:11and would guarantee
17:11their victory.
17:12After three days,
17:14Joshua gave the order
17:15to advance to the river.
17:19They that bore the Ark
17:20were come unto Jordan,
17:22and the feet of the priests
17:23that bore the Ark
17:24were dipped in the brim
17:25of the water.
17:27With Joshua's forces approaching,
17:29people within the city
17:31were filled with fear.
17:32Joshua ordered the Israelites
17:42to march around the walls
17:43for six days silent,
17:45except for the priests
17:46blowing ram's horns trumpets
17:48in front of the Ark
17:49of the Covenant.
17:57At dawn on the seventh day,
17:59the climax came.
18:00Seven times,
18:03the Israelites marched
18:04with trumpets blaring.
18:26On the seventh circuit,
18:29he ordered his people
18:30shout,
18:31for the Lord
18:31hath given you the city.
18:33The Lord hath given you the city.
19:00The Lord hath given you the city.
19:04bees'
19:05The Lord hath given you the city.
19:05The Lord hath given you the city.
19:53According to the Old Testament, so the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up unto the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
20:23Because of the cord identifying Rahab's house, she and her family were spared.
20:29The rest of the city was put to the torch.
20:33Whether legend or history, or a combination of both, it should be known that the story of the walls of Jericho is related in the book of Joshua, and can be found nowhere else.
20:54Could the biblical account of the fall of Jericho be true?
21:00The fall of the walls of Jericho, if they actually fell, and if this is not simply a legend to explain how the Hebrew people got past this fortress, would be to a group of people struggling in from the desert.
21:14A miraculous event.
21:16Miracles are simply those things that we can't explain by other means.
21:20And so people turn and say, well, God must have intervened to make this thing happen.
21:26In light of theological points of view and archaeological discoveries, there is considerable controversy to this day.
21:34A controversy of ancient beginnings that will perhaps continue until our sands of time run out.
21:42Coming up next, agents race against time to stop a rash of drug tampering on FBI The Untold Stories.
21:58Then history's crimes and trials goes on a nationwide manhunt for child killer Wayne Williams.
22:12Then history's crimes and trials goes on a nationwide manhunt for child killer Wayne Williams.
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