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1. The Hapiru. Were they Hebrews? I’ve heard many scholars answer “no,” claiming that the Hapiru instead were a group of outlaws that attracted different ethnic groups. But what’s the basis for that claim?
Today, in the Face of Old Testament Studies, I read K. Lawson Younger’s essay, “Early Israel in Recent Biblical Scholarship.” Younger referred to a 1500 B.C.E. prism (I think that’s what it was called) from King Tunip-Tessep of Tininani. It referred to 438 men as Hapiru, and they had different kinds of ethnic names—some Hurrian, some Semitic. Younger says that all of them appeared to be slaves or servants of this king.
At least that addresses why many scholars don’t think the Hapiru were a specific ethnic group.
2. In addition to Younger’s article, I read the chapter by Mark Chavalas and Murray Adamthwaite on “Archaeological Light on the Old Testament.” Younger and these gentlemen wrestle with a question: if the Israelites indeed conquered the Canaanites, then why is there no evidence that many of the Canaanite cities were destroyed?
In a footnore, Chavalas and Adamthwaite echo evangelical scholar James Hoffmeier, who refers to Deuteronomy 6:10-11, which states that the Israelites will dwell in cities and houses that they did not build. According to Hoffmeier, this shows that the Israelites didn’t destroy every city that they conquered; rather, they preserved a number of cities and dwelt in them themselves.
Younger argues that the Book of Joshua doesn’t present a wholesale destruction. After all, many battles back then were fought and won in the open field, and so the Israelites could have triumphed without destroying Canaanite cities.
I looked up “burned” on my BibleWorks to see if the Book of Joshua says that the Israelites burned Canaanite cities. What I found was that, according to the Book of Joshua, Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were burned in the fire, but other cities were not burned (Joshua 11:13). The Anchor Bible Dictionary article on Hazor by Jeffries Hamilton says that the city of Hazor (identified as Tell el-Qedah) was destroyed in the thirteenth century B.C.E. Joseph Callaway, however, in the Anchor Bible Dictionary on Ai, says that there is a discrepancy between the biblical account of Ai’s conquest and what archaeology tells us (regardless of whether one dates that conquest to the fifteenth or the thirteenth century B.C.E.).
Regarding Jericho, large parts of it were burned in the Middle Bronze Age (1950-1550 B.C.E.), and archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon concluded that (in the words of T.A. Holland’s Anchor Bible Dictionary article) ”The heavy tilting of the Area H walls to the E…may indicate earthquake activity which may have resulted in sulfrous gases, fire, and possibily even some form of early plague, thus causing the total abandonment of the site at the end of the [Middle Bronze].” Kenyon thought that disease wiped out many people in Jericho in the Middle Bronze Period because entire families were buried together. In the Late Bronze Period (1550-1200 B.C.E.), which is when people like to date the Exodus and Conquest (whether one prefers an early or late date), Jericho is weakened and doesn’t even have walls. So Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the non-existent walls came tumbling down!
This is why some conservative scholars have posited that Jericho’s Middle Bronze walls survived into the Late Bronze Age, when the Israelites would have come. Some have even tried to re-date the Middle Bronze Period!
