Talk:Battle of Jericho

message: At various times this article has had an infobox. It was removed a little while ago on the basis that it was making a claim for historicity and was therefore non-neutral. I have restored it, since all the other articles at :Category:Hebrew Bible battles have an infobox. But what about it would be non-neutral? Should we remove or qualify the date? StAnselm (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: This battle is mythological (that doesn't mean I'm calling it fake) and according to most of the archaelogical findings this battle didn't even happened. I don't think the military infobox should be used for mythological battles. KahnJohn27 (talk) 19:59, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This came up before (see two sections up). Quite apart from the issue of historicity, what's wrong with having the infobox? Is it just that the same style is used for "historical" battles? StAnselm (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't we discuss this elsewhere? I've removed it until we can sort out the pov problem. Dougweller (talk) 12:26, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there's the infobox in the David article, which is still sitting with a neutrality tag. There was talk about creating a new sort of infobox for biblical characters, but that hasn't happened yet. StAnselm (talk) 19:47, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

text: Of course, with this particular article, the impression I get from reading the "Historicity" section is that the battle is completely historical. I would have thought that would concern you more than the infobox. StAnselm (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You do? Is that because there is so much there about Wood's views? I've added something to the lead, revised the section heading, and added an NPOV tag because of the infobox and because you think it's slanted towards suggesting it's historical, although I'd like you to clarify that. Dougweller (talk) 18:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of it is that it is purely about dates. There is only a reference to "generally accepted" dates; it would be easy for a reader to conclude that the conquest took place, as written, in 1550BC. Of course, "generally accepted" contradicts other articles; the Joshua articles says "The apparent setting of Joshua is the 13th century BCE". StAnselm (talk) 19:52, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military table 

message: Shortened the article - it was too much a "wall of text"; introduced a new para on textual history. PiCo (talk) 22:38, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revised article 

message: I tweaked... The Israelites marched around the walls once every day for 7 days with the 7 priests and the Ark of the Covenant. On the seventh day, they marched around the walls 7 times. Then the priests blew their 7 ram's horns (shofars), the Israelites raised a great shout, and the walls of the city fell. 2601:589:4700:2390:C129:9F7B:16E0:CDCC (talk) 14:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you referring to this? Raymond3023 (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joshua used the secret mystical combination of 7 & 4 

message: I've made two edits to the opening paragraph.
1. The actual text in Killebrew's article (the cited reference) is more nuanced.  It says (on page 152, last paragraph), "[The book of] Joshua continues the saga with the conquest of Canaan, initiated with the spectacular destruction of Jericho by the Israelite tribes united under the leadership of Joshua. Almost without exception, scholars agree that the account in Joshua holds little historical value vis-a-vis early Israel and most likely reflects much later historical times."
In other words, Killebrew doesn't say that almost all scholars agree that "the book of Joshua itself holds no historical value at all", but rather that the tale of the Battle of Jericho specifically does not tell us anything about the migration of early Israel.  And let's not forget the second part of that quote, namely that according to Killebrew the story of the Battle of Jericho "most likely reflects much later historical times", so it's far from useless as far as historical value is concerned.
The cited reference does not specifically mention the words "migration of", but there is a footnote directly after it which tells us that Killebrew is referring specifically to whether the book of Joshua is of any value to a study of the *migration* of early Israel.
2. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible does not say anything that can be interpreted as "Excavations at Tell es-Sultan, the biblical Jericho, have failed to produce data to substantiate the biblical story,".  The cited reference simply says "Attempts to identify archaelogical remains at Tell es-Sultân with Jericho depicted in Josh. 6 flounder on the absence of archaeological data" and it is contained in a section about attempts to identify the Biblical Jericho.
In other words, the cited reference says that there is no evidence that Tell es-Sultan is the Biblical Jericho.  It does not comment on evidence for or against a Biblical Jericho per se nor does it comment on the battle of Jericho.
3. So much of the debate about the Battle of Jericho is now grounded in the belief that Tell es-Sultan is the site of the Biblical Jericho that I think the article needs a section that points out why this belief exists.
As far as I know (but correct me if I'm wrong), Charles Warren was the first to dig at the site, in 1867, but he did not himself identify the site with Jericho.  The first to suggest that Tell es-Sultan might be the biblical Jericho was Sellin and Watzinger in 1909, but they later revised their dating.  The person who is most responsible for the belief that this was Jericho is Garstang (1936), but his belief is based on dating errors and circumstantial evidence.  The fact that there is no evidence that Tell es-Sultan itself is the Biblical Jericho does not mean that Joshua's battle of [some city the author chose to call "Jericho"] did not take place somewhere. leuce (talk) 15:16, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to opening paragraph 

message: I plan to contribute a few edits to this article, but I am not sure how I change specific pieces without losing the parts I am not changing and inadvertently vandalizing the article.  I copied the whole article into my sandbox, made my edits, and previewed.  Everything looked great, but do I really have to submit even the parts that do not change?  My summary will be, "Expanded the POV in the final paragraph to improve its neutrality, put the Bruins & van der Plicht reference in alphabetical order in the bibliography section, corrected the casing for the Dutch name, and fixed the broken link to the Tell Es-Sultan article."
ThomasJamesGodfrey (talk) 02:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Changes can be made in a certain section, using the [Edit] option after the header of the section in the article, and will only affect that section. Making changes in the lead paragraphs will need to use the [Edit] option on the top of the page, and the changes will potentially affect the whole article. To ascertain that the changes won't affect other parts, use [Show preview] button below the editing box. If you are still not sure, you can put your suggested changes in this Talk page first, so other users can review and advise how you can place them safely in the article. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   Thanks for your help with this.  For now, I am done making changes to this article.  Five of my edits are now listed in the revision history.  Please review them. ThomasJamesGodfrey (talk) 05:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   The edits look fine. The community will review the content. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 06:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   Yet another question.  Jytdog added a reference to a book by Wagemakers (17:59, 17 June 2018), citing it only in the Reference section, so it does not appear in the Bibliography section.  This is inconsistent with the pattern that has been set for other references, but is this a problem?  I would have asked Jytdog for a reason to do it that way, but that editor is evidently no longer active.  New as I am, I know how to fix it, if switching to the established pattern is not a problem. ThomasJamesGodfrey (talk) 02:44, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   Although it looks inconsistent, it is not incorrect to display the reference that way. Nonetheless, it is neater to place it in the Bibliography. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 06:40, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   Thanks for all three of your recent edits, including especially one to fix my issue.  It does look much neater now.  I hope you don't mind that I just now contributed a little bit to your bibliography edit. ThomasJamesGodfrey (talk) 13:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   Thank you for your edits. The article is the result of collaborative works of many users. Let's contribute more. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 14:16, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  did you look into who Aardsma is? He's clearly not a reliable source nor are his ideas taken seriously in the scientific community. Doug Weller talk 13:08, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I checked that links work (to real articles, not blogs) and the reputation of the journal ('Radiocarbon'); could not find any references rejecting Aardsma as a reliable source, so I wrote (above) I left the review of the content to the community. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 17:59, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Aardsma didn't get anything accepted as a stand-alone article, it was part of the proceedings of a whole conference. One of the papers has Institute of Creation Research at the top, presumably his place of work. If you think that's a reliable source that's disappointing. Doug Weller talk 18:23, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question from new editor 

message: IP and newbie are WP:PROFRINGE edit warring. Passing your religious beliefs for mainstream historiography is not done. tgeorgescu (talk)  15:59, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit warring 

message: This whole article is written in a very biased fashion, as if it is dedicated to refuting the historicity of the Bible. These arguments should remain, but not in the introductory paragraph. Everything should be restructured. 2607:FB60:1011:2006:B954:CD69:B022:A33F (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: "as if it is dedicated to refuting the historicity of the Bible." At least in the case of the Book of Joshua, there is no historicity. Per the main article: 
**"The strong consensus among scholars is that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and most likely reflects a much later period. The earliest parts of the book are possibly chapters 2–11, the story of the conquest; these chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua likely written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BCE), but the book was not completed until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and possibly not until after the return from the Babylonian exile in 539 BCE." 
** "The prevailing scholarly view is that Joshua is not a factual account of historical events. The apparent setting of Joshua in the 13th century BCE corroborates with the Bronze Age Collapse, which was indeed a time of widespread city-destruction. However, with a few exceptions (Hazor, Lachish), the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time. The archaeological evidence shows that Jericho and Ai were not occupied in the Near Eastern Late Bronze Age. Ai was first excavated by Judith Marquet-Krause. According to some scholars, the story of the conquest represents the nationalist propaganda of the 8th century BCE kings of Judah and their claims to the territory of the Kingdom of Israel; incorporated into an early form of Joshua written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BCE). The book was probably revised and completed after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and possibly after the return from the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE."
**Basically some 6th century or 5th century BCE writers invented a propaganda narrative about the distant past of their nation. The book never resembles the archaeological record. Dimadick (talk) 07:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Author bias 

message: Wood is a WP:FRINGE archaeologist, cannot be trusted. Besides, it's remarkably old news: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/22/world/believers-score-in-battle-over-the-battle-of-jericho.html (roughly 35 years old claim, so the WP:RS/AC had all the time to either approve or disapprove of it). But, of course, according to Wood, mainstream archaeology is a Satanic plot. Maybe he does not say it loudly, but the argument was articulated by his fellow creationist apologist Henry M. Morris:  Also quoted at https://www.galaxie.com/article/bspade02-1-06  He shares Morris's assumptions, so it's hard to admit that his take greatly differs from Morris's. I would be greatly amazed if he doesn't think that mainstream archaeologists send innocent souls to hell. I was part of a similar sect, and our pastors preached the same line.
To cut a long story short, there were some corrections made to Kenyon's findings (e.g. new findings by the Italian-Palestinian expedition), but archaeologists still agree that Jericho debunks the Israelite conquest. tgeorgescu (talk)  02:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Tgeorgescu: That is not true. As this source notes, Kathleen Kenyon did find a LB destruction layer at Jericho. Potatín5 (talk) 13:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  What is not true? There are plenty of WP:RS that Jericho debunks the Israelite conquest. E.g.  and  and . Also, your RS makes a WP:RS/AC claim. tgeorgescu (talk)  14:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The Book of Joshua does not reflect any historical military campaign. I would not count on any of its information to be accurately reflecting the actual conditions of Bronze Age Palestine. Dimadick (talk) 17:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

text: @Tgeorgescu: My WP:RS notes that the popular claim that there is no evidence of a LB conquest of Jericho is based on a misunderstanding of the archaeology of the site and the actual findings of Kenyon's excavations. And Hawkins is not the only scholar who defends the historicity of the Israelite conquest. This source also argues in detail for its existence. Potatín5 (talk) 17:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the writers of your source is Richard Hess. He is a biblical scholar, not an archaeologist.Dimadick (talk) 17:37, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudohistory