He’s also served as research faculty at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel. He has excavated in Florida, Scotland, the West Bank, and Israel. His research focuses on regional settlements, historical geography, and computer applications in archaeology. He and his wife, Dr. Krystal Pierce, have two children, Victoria and George III.

He also contributed three chapters to A Bible Reader’s History of the Ancient World, which we are going to discuss today.

Welcome, George.

What we do see is, archaeologically, are two things: surveys both intensive as in how they’re carried out, on foot walking across the landscape, and extensive, throughout most of what is now considered the nation-state of Israel and the territories of the West Bank and the Golan Heights and partially Gaza as well. These intensive and extensive surveys have revealed a number of sites that seem to be established at the end of the late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, so somewhere in the 14th century BC through the 12th century BC. In addition to this, archaeological excavations have shown cities, such as Hazor or Lachish or other cities mentioned in the conquest narratives, which have identifiable, destroyed layers as part of the archaeological record.

We have Israel in the highlands of Judah and the highlands of Ephraim, or Ephraim, we have then the Philistines on the coastal plain, and we have the Canaanites then somewhere in the middle—either being dispossessed or abandoning territories or moving elsewhere or being subjugated. There’s just a whole host of things going on. If we were to say the big three, it’d be Canaanites, Israelites in the hill country, and then Philistines in the coastal plain.

Joshua and the Israelites are commanded to march around Jericho once each day for six days, and on the seventh day, they’re going to march around it seven times. And they’re doing it all in silence in plain view of the people living in Jericho. And then, they blow the trumpets and raise a shout after the seventh time around the city on the seventh day, and the walls fall down.

And then we have this ensuing bloodbath as recorded there in Joshua. The story goes on to talk about how the fact that everything that was in Jericho was supposed to be slain, nothing taken, no sort of spoils of war or anything else like that. We had the instance in which a member of the House of Israel does take things, and this doesn’t fair well for other campaigns such as the campaign at Ai in which Israel loses that battle and loses lives there. And that’s a setback. But as we go forward, we see that Ai is eventually conquered according to the text. We see that when we have the central part around Jerusalem or the central hill country there, after some campaigns there and some battles, we see that attention focuses northward.

There’s an initial central campaign and then there’s a northern campaign, which will take out most of the sites in the north, specifically Hazor, and then there’s a southern campaign to retake places like Hebron, which is important for them because it’s the burial place of the patriarchs.

Joshua 12 gives us the culmination of that in which it lists all these kings and cities that are defeated by the Israelites according to the record here and carries on quite this extensive list because that’s going to prefigure then the division of the territory into tribal territory starting in Joshua 13.

The mandate to wage this total warfare against Canaan comes in Deuteronomy 7 with these seven cultural groups, which include the Canaanites. And the word that’s used is herem, which means something that’s either devoted entirely or something that’s destroyed, and we can think about how those two things are related. It’s been interpreted as something of this sort of holy war of utter destruction and Jehovah is ordering them to go in and wipe out everything and to do this.

One of the things we can think about is that we have to understand what it means in terms of literature and what’s going on here literarily, and what it means in terms of actual conduct of warfare, and then how this works with the archaeological picture. As we look at herem, and we look at Bronze and Iron Age literature, we can see that they describe what’s going on with Joshua in the same sort of terms that we see other campaigns conducted by Assyrian kings or by other kings of the Amorites or those of Syria or other texts that we have, in the sense that language of conquest is similar.

Unfortunately, one of the other things we have to think about is as modern readers, especially within the context of North America, in Utah, or elsewhere, is that we’re far removed from the concept of warfare. Now, I know we have veterans who have been in 20th and 21st century conflicts, who are very familiar with that and can probably identify, but for most readers, we’re removed from it. So, it’s very shocking. For these ancient peoples, this is a part of life and this is just what was occurring.

What do I mean by that? Let’s just think about this logically. So, Joshua is in Jericho, which he’s commanded to conquer. Right? Everything is put to the sword, animals and the whole deal. I mean, nothing’s safe. Well, they’re commanded to walk around the city once each day for six days. Once they circumnavigate the city and they go back to the places where they’re camping, would not somebody in Jericho who thinks that an invasion is coming just leave?

One of the things we have to think about as modern readers is the fact that there’s always going to be this refugee population. Anthropological and literary studies in the Near East have shown us that these people have a built-in, what we call as anthropologists, hardiness structure. They’re living in cities, but they’re going out to their farms every day, and then coming back into the city. They’re very fluid, and they can move between a sedentary house-based lifestyle to a more nomadic tent-based lifestyle to living in caves quite rapidly.

Going back to Joshua, if he’s walking and having the people walk around the city once a day for six days, there’s plenty of time that people are going to be leaving Jericho and taking their tents and going out and living elsewhere where Joshua and the Israelites aren’t going to bother them. They’re going to go to caves in the region. They’re going to go across somewhere else and live until everything is said and done.

When we see the picture in Joshua of the conquest where he’s conquering, they’re killing everybody in Jericho, and they’re killing animals. They’re doing all this stuff. There’s always going to be this population that’s refugee that’s going to be out there somewhere. So total annihilation is not going to be possible.

Textually we see that there’s five times that Jerusalem is mentioned as either conquered or not conquered, and it keeps going back and forth. We see the final conquest of Jerusalem then under David in 2 Samuel 5. In fact, it’s like the last place that needs to be conquered, but we don’t know what the character of that warfare is.

Hopefully, that makes some sort of sense. We don’t know if conquering means taking the town or if it’s defeating the army in the field or if it’s just subjugating the king and they want to make some sort of alliance or treaty and it counts as conquest. We can definitely see it in some places like Hazor. In Joshua 11, it says Hazor was burned with fire. We can see that there’s an archaeological destruction layer at Hazor that is burned with fire.

I don’t know if that’s a comfort to the modern reader or not, but it’s one of the things that we should keep in mind.

The best scholarly opinion is that Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and we can also include Deuteronomy in with part of this, forms what is known as the Deuteronomistic History. As a literary unit, we see them in our Old Testament, and they are individual books: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. But as a literary unit, it’s all together in one big history. In fact, as you look at the books, it’s all structured that way. It’s all structured as one big history.

The date of writing has been sort of thrown back and forth, and I think scholarly consensus would estimate that the Deuteronomistic History was probably written in probably the late 7th century or early 6th century BC somewhere. We can see that there’s evidence of it being structured and parts of it being written during the reign of King Josiah of Judah and parts of it were written after King Josiah’s reign. By that, I mean this: when we look at the whole picture, we can see literarily how the conquest narratives can serve as Israel effectively trying to recreate creation if that makes sense.

In Joshua, we have the Israelites coming in, purifying the land by conquests or whatever else we want to see literarily, and at the end of this whole thing when they’ve taken the City of the Patriarchs, then the land has rest. We can see that parallel concept there.

The rest of this then, the rest of the history, is going to talk about, effectively, David. Believe it or not. It’s all leading us up to David, and it’s building up this Davidic ideal for a king. The fact that we have problems with other tribes, but not with Judah, and the fact that Judah and Benjamin have this row at the end of Judges, yet somehow are tied together, shows us that Benjamin isn’t supposed to have a king, but Judah should. It ties us right into 1 Samuel where we have Saul being proclaimed the first king of Israel, and to a reader 400–500 years down the line, they’re going to go, “Yeah. No. Benjamin shouldn’t have a king,” and clearly, right, it doesn’t work out.

We have a tale that while they’re traveling, they’re going to have to spend the night somewhere, and the Levite’s servant suggests that they should stop in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, at the time, was still the home of the Jebusites and had not been conquered by David, clearly. The Levite says, “No, we’re going to move on to Gibeah,” which is a city of Benjamin. The Levite consciously makes this decision, “We’re not going to go to a Jebusite town. We’re going to go to a town where Israelites live,” specifically Benjaminites. The assumption is that they’re going to be treated well and that they have this kinship because they’re all part of the House of Israel.

While he’s staying in this town in Benjamin, the men of Gibeah knock on the door, and they’re sort of demanding that the Levite be given to them for whatever sort of sexual assault is implied in the text. And instead, he puts out the concubine, and they assault her. And then in the morning, as she’s dragging herself up the steps, he takes her to their home in Ephraim, and then ends up killing her and sending parts of her all over Israel.

The 11 tribes who were gathered together then all decide, “Well, we need to go to war against Benjamin.” Then, we have the ensuing civil war between Benjamin and the rest of Israel. It is mostly Judah carrying out the attacks to the point where, I think, the text mentions that Benjamin has nearly been wiped out except for a handful of them, who are taking refuge at some place that’s either in a cave or on a hill somewhere.

Now the story as we look at it is awful. Right? So, there’s rape and there’s murder; there’s civil war; and there’s all kinds of things going on. But what it’s doing literarily is showing us a couple of things. First of all, here at the end of Judges, the phrase that keeps getting used over and over is, “There was no king in Israel and everyone did that which was right in their eyes.” It’s showing us that Israel needs a king. Israel is going crazy; they’re entering into these civil wars with each other; they’re having these problems; and they need a central leadership.

What it’s also doing is calling attention to the actions of the Benjaminites. The people who should have offered refuge, the people who should have offered this person help, the people who should have taken in a Levite from Ephraim and a concubine from Bethlehem and brought them into a house, fed them, clothed them, fed the donkeys or whatever, they’re the ones who acted most inhospitable, and that’s putting it mildly.

What the tale shows is that Israel needs a king. Benjamin is not a source of kingship, and there’s that hint there that the concubine is from Bethlehem and of the tribe of Judah. So, it’s kind of setting you up for what’s going to happen.

What the Deuteronomistic History does is set up David as this pillar of kingship and this model of a godly biblical king. Now, we’re going to look at it and go, “What about other things that David does?” That’s beside the point. David’s leadership and his kingship and his devotion to God is held up as an example. As you start reading in your personal studies mentioned in 1 and 2 Kings, you will notice that they are always compared to David. They either did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked after the ways of David their father, or they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not walk after the ways of David their father.

Deuteronomistic History sets us up for this big emphasis on David. And then there’s a big emphasis on King Josiah, who should be the second David. They’re always looking for the second David. Right? Who’s going to be the king that’s going to be just like David and do all these things? Josiah seems to be leading up to that point.

Solomon’s going to come in as well, I think, capitalizing on David’s charisma and having that building effort of fortifying cities and building the temple and all the rest of these things that Solomon does. The whole thing sort of dissolves, but they’re looking for a second David the whole time. That’s why you have to sort of look at the whole picture, which is a fairly large nutshell of the Deuteronomistic History.

What we really see in the conquest narrative is what it mentions in Joshua 12: here’s all the lists of these kings and their cities. It’s more of a conquest of people and not so much territory because there’s a lot of missing space in between, or there are instances in which cities like Megiddo and Taanach and Jerusalem and others are mentioned as conquered, but they’re not conquered later on.

The narratives of Joshua have to be juxtaposed against Judges 1, which as we look at Joshua we say, “Oh, look at the picture of conquests and what Joshua was able to accomplish,” and all the rest of these things, but Judges 1 says, “No, the conquest wasn’t finished and there are all these other places that need to be conquered, some of which are mentioned in Joshua.”

That’s one way we can sort of think about that because, again, when we look at the conquest narratives, we’re tempted to read it based on our experiences or our family’s experiences historically. We look at this in a very 20th century sort of way. And to be quite fair, it’s not like 20th century warfare. It’s not like the events of the 20th century like the Holocaust or something like that. It’s something different. We need to appreciate that if we can appreciate a violent text such as Joshua.

There’s a lot of violence going on. And that doesn’t excuse anything, but I think it helps us to put into context the violence from the flood through the second coming; it’s part of the human experience.

Now, this model has had to be adapted because as archaeologists looked at sites like Jericho. The original excavator, John Garstang, thought that the walls that he found collapsed around the city were late Bronze Age walls, and this was evidence of Joshua. Later, excavators like Kathleen Kenyon re-dated that wall and that set of walls to the early Bronze Age based on the pottery—predating Joshua by at least 1500 years.

Archaeologists and biblical historians had to rethink the conquest model and have proposed something a little bit more modified more recently. They call it a modified conquest model in that the cities that show archaeological destruction, such as Hazor and others, that are mentioned in the Bible as being burned with fire, these we can cautiously link to a conquest done by the Israelites.

Other scholars in the 20th century started to come up with other pictures because as they looked at the archaeological evidence and as they looked at the texts, they said, “Well, conquest may not be what’s actually happening here,” and so we have a couple other theories.

First of all, gradual infiltration. The fact that Israel is in Transjordan, across the Jordan River, for a while and they kind of move in accounts for a lot of the survey evidence. The archaeological surveys find sites that suddenly crop up at the end of the late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, which scholars would identify with some sort of new settlement group coming in. It’s not done by destruction. Nobody’s destroying the site because it wasn’t there before. It’s simply newly founded.

It’s not as plausible because it doesn’t take into account some of the archaeological evidence or the sort of rapid rise that we see in settlement patterns in the Iron Age. If it were more gradual, we’d expect a more gradual rise in these things, but they all kind of come in at the same time. There’s also the Peasant Revolt Theory in which two scholars, particularly Norman Gottwald but also George Mendenhall, proposed, independently, that Israel had come out from Canaan. All right? So, they were originally Canaanites; they were the peasants of the Canaanites; they were coalescing around this idea of the worship of Jehovah; and that they revolted against their Canaanite overlords.

This theory does account for the rise in settlement during the end of the late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, but there’s no evidence for population decline elsewhere or other types of villages that show up. And so, it hasn’t gotten as much traction as other theories.

The final theory is that of ruralization. The fact that there’s plenty of land available, and those who didn’t have land and would not inherit land through their family structures would eventually become this Israelites population with the various villages that are settled. But it doesn’t account for what’s going on with the worship of Jehovah or the evidence of such within the Iron age.

As we look at the different theories of Israelite settlement, there’s not one that completely fits all the material that’s in front of us. To be able to take the text and the archaeology together, we have to have a combination of conquest, of gradual infiltration and peaceful settlement, a theory that involves a people who are nomadic and eventually settle down, a theory that involves Canaanites who may be moving to a rural situation or who may be dissatisfied with their social status joining in with Israel, which is what we see in the biblical text happening as well.

There’s not one main theory that fits. We kind of have to take all of it and mash it together and come up with something that would be acceptable and would make sense in our minds.

The main thrust of Deuteronomy 7 is to not have Israel interact with the people around them. They have this divine instruction. Don’t interact with the Canaanites. Don’t intermarry them. Don’t worship their deities. And instead, what we see is Israel doing everything opposite. They’re not able to dislodge the Canaanites. They do start to intermarry with the Canaanites. They do start to worship other deities. We can see that it’s difficult to understand the Canaanite narratives in terms of archaeology and marrying that with the text and looking at the material culture and everything else that’s there.

To try and get one thing out or just to try and shorten it all down to Joshua 24 and saying, “As for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord,” I think misses the rest of the complexity and the richness that’s there in this tale of Israel’s emergence and their settlement in the Holy Land and understanding what that means in terms of obedience and what that means in terms of longevity in the land.