Israelite Conquest of Canaan

[Dave Beatty]

Greetings,

Does anyone know of good non-Biblical sources for the Israelite conquest of Canaan?

[Patrick Waterson]

Dave, let me know what you have in mind: the armies, the campaigns or the archaeological record.  The latter is really all we have as a non-Biblical source.  Some years ago I knew one Alan Montgomery, who was making a special study of this and correlating the destruction strata with the Biblical account in a new model.  He reckoned it pretty much verified the Biblical account once you looked at the right strata - while this is helpful for the credibility of the Biblical account, it still does not give us much detail regarding non-Biblical sources.

Does anyone else know of any non-Biblical sources for the conquest?  Part of the problem is that the Israelites seem to have made a fairly clean sweep of their more resolute opponents, and so far no archives from these cultures have emerged (or at least none I am aware of, which may not be the same thing).  We do have a few poor non-Biblical sources, like Apion (quoted by Josephus) and Tacitus (more or less reiterating Apion), but their depiction of the Exodus as being merely the eviction of a leper colony from Egypt seems to be Greek malice rather than historical fact.

Patrick

[Dave Beatty]

Thanks Patrick!

I was thinking more along the line of a secondary source or two that would incorporate all of the primary sources you refer to.

Something more in depth than the Osprey style book, but less weighty than a technical dig report.

[Mark]

Decent starting point:

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_canaan_bimson.html

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Mark. 

David, reading through the various theories, interpretations and approaches can leave one feeling a bit bemused.  Nevertheless, I hope that site gives a good idea of the general trends in thinking and the underlying assumptions on which they are based.

I cannot think of a single volume that discusses the conquest broadly, impartially and informatively, let alone accurately.  Still, there may be one out there.

My own suggestion would be to look at an Exodus at the end of the Middle Kingdom, at the end of the reign of Dudimose II Djedneferre of the 13th Dynasty (what do you mean you have never heard of him? ), taking place c.1628 BC.  Given this, the widespread c.1550-1500 BC destructions look about right for an Israelite conquest getting moving a couple of generations after leaving Egypt, or at least a lot closer to what one might expect than if one tries to shuffle the whole process into the 13th century BC.

Although these destructions are generaly assumed to be the result of Egyptian (18th Dynasty) conquests, it is noteworthy that 18th Dynasty scarabs (Egyptian official seals and amulets) are invariably found in strata more recent than this particular destruction layer.

Patrick
P.S. - This snippet from a website that should remain decently anonymous is amusing:

"Gever" is the Hebrew for man, pronounced with the main accent on the first syllable, giving it an aggressive swing. The word also means a cock, or rooster.
But if heroism is purely masculine in Hebrew, weapons and fighting are even more explicitly so. While the sexual connotations of "gever" derive from the cock of the roost, those of weaponry derive directly from the penis.
The Hebrew for penis is "zayin," which is also the word for a weapon. The phrase for Israel's armed forces can thus translate as "an army equipped with penises,'' and the verb meaning "to take up arms" also means "to have sexual intercourse. '

I would not take this too seriously when deciding how the Israelite army was armed and equipped ...

[Sharur]

I didn't look too deeply into this when I was working on my "Transjordanian Tales" as it's rather peripheral to what I was concentrating on, though I do mention the Israelite invasion of Canaan in the forthcoming Part Two, and gave a few references there that might be useful to wargamers more interested in recreating the potential campaign(s) than establishing its(/their) possible historical reality. However, two of those were Ospreys - Kelle's "Ancient Israel at War 853-586 BC" (it does cover the invasion briefly, despite its dates, though it needs treating with a degree of caution in places - i.e. check the Bible actually says what it's claimed as doing in context!) and Rocca's "Fortifications of Ancient Israel and Judah 1200-586 BC". Another, Dougherty, Heskew, Jestice & Rice's "Battles of the Bible, 1400 BC-AD 73" is OK, but they have a tendency to go for radical reinterpretations in places, and don't always quote their biblical sources fully. Plus, they're not particularly interested in being comprehensive in their coverage.

As Patrick noted, finding a good, single, reliably useful secondary source is going to be the challenge. The only snag with the online Bimson article, for instance, is it was written in 1989, and I'd imagine you may need more recent references in case things have been changed by fresh discoveries in the interim.

Realistically Dave, I think you'd probably be better off starting with an up-to-date study edition of the Bible, something like the Grudem ESV cited in my Part One. While that won't cover everything you might want, I've found it sometimes does come up with obscure information and references to non-biblical sources, though you may need to work through a fair number of cross-references sometimes to spot these.

[Mark]

I should have mentioned, "Collapse of the Bronze Age", Robbins, discussed at length elsewhere in this forum, has quite a bit on this.

[Sharur]

Dave: I found this text in the public library today: Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?, by Lester L Grabbe, published by T & T Clark, 2007. It isn't a history as such, but a description and discussion of the sources for various elements about ancient Israel, including the Canaan invasion. Naturally, it's not an in-depth look at any specific aspect, and it only covers materials up to 2006 or so, but you may find it helpful in trying to trace sources generally.

However, you may also find it useful to see what the review comments are on, for instance, this Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Israel-What-Know-Clark/dp/056703254X

as it's clear there that the book isn't quite as comprehensive as one might hope.

[Dave Beatty]

Many thanks for all the advice!  I'll pick up a copy of Robbins', Rice's and Grabbe's books, and have a glance through my copy of Drews' book "The End of the Bronze Age" while I am at it. 

And yes Patrick, I actually have heard of Dedumose II although there seems to be some confusion whether he was 13th or 16th dynasty.  I recall from my days as a tour guide in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that the Egyptians were leaning toward identifying him with Thutmose II which would put him very close to one date given for the Exodus (1446 BC), but I never bought into that argument.

I can see that my little essay paper for school is turning into a book   .

The paper is due next week, when I get it back in the New Year I'll look at submitting to Slingshot!

Thanks again for all the great info.

PS It is still raining in Oregon.  We expect it to stop around the 4th of July 2013...

[Patrick Waterson]

Keep the fireworks dry! 

Dedumose or Dudimose seems to be exactly the same name as 'Thutmose' (or Tehutimes or Thothmes) used for four 18th Dynasty pharaohs.  It is differentiated as 'Dedumose' for Middle Kingdom pharaohs to avoid confusion with their New Kingdom namesakes - not wholly successfully, it would appear, but your instinct is right on this one.

Funnily enough the 'Tehutimes' pronunciation seems to have been used in the Middle Kingdom (13th Dynasty) - Manetho called him 'Tutimaeus' - and the 'Dedumose' or 'Dudimose' pronunciation is closer to 18th Dynasty usage.  The Turin Papyrus lists Dudimose in the 13th Dynasty and as the papyrus (or what is left of it) is generally reliable I for one see no reason to co-opt him into the 16th.

So you were a tour guide!  Feel free to chat any time.    For now, I shall let you get on with the essay.  Hope it goes well.

Patrick