"An army of nomads emerges from the desert and destroys the walls of a heavily fortified city" "...not by force, but by faith." "The story of how Joshua fought the battle of Jericho using trumpets is amongst histories most memorable and most controversial." "For this wasn't Joshua's only victory." "The Bible claims his Israelite army went on to conquer Canaan and settle in their promised land." "There's no doubt ancient Israelites did occupy the region we now call Israel and the Palestinian territories." "Indeed their claim to the land still causes deep conflict there today." "But is the battle of Jericho really how it all began?" "Answering that question we'll draw on the latest archaeological and scientific research" "and lead to a conclusion more startling than anyone could ever imagined." "The Middle East, some three thousand years ago." "A region that -even then - faced violence and war." "In the mountains to the northeast of the Dead Sea, a soldier prepares to attack." "This is Joshua, successor to the great leader Moses." "And one of the Bible's most famous warriors." "From here, Joshua looks west... across the Jordan Valley to the Promised Land." "This was where his ancestor, Abraham once lived and Joshua believes he too must settle." "But there's a problem." "The land is already occupied." "By local people, known as Canaanites." "Joshua will have to fight for it." "He's not alone." "He leads some one hundred and fifty thousand people." "Children of the Hebrew slaves who fled bondage in Egypt." "They've spent 40 years trekking through the desert." "Now they are preparing for war." "And their first target?" "The Canaanite stronghold of Jericho." "This is a defining moment in the story of Ancient Israel." "According to Hebrew Bible scholar, Rachel Havrelock." "This is really a story about beginnings, about the origins of a nation, and this is in many ways, really, the, the birth story of Ancient Israel." "And the battle of Jericho is just the beginning." "The start of a Holy War in which Joshua and the Israelites rapidly defeat the Canaanites." "And put them to the sword." "The story is shocking and not yet over." "Joshua's war is still being waged today." "You've got the Palestinian's saying they're descendants of the Canaanites, you have the Israeli's saying that they're descendants of the Israelites and it's ongoing, they're both trying to claim the same land" "So what happened three thousand years ago is basically still going today." "But if Joshua cleanse Canaan of its inhabitants and occupy their land, surely he must have left some evidence behind?" "In fact, there's surprisingly little proof" "No archaeological evidence confirming Joshua's existence has ever been found." "All we have is the Bible, and the Book that bears Joshua's name." "But that was written down around 500 BC." "Some thousand years after Joshua's Conquest could have happened." "Despite this, surprisingly few scholars dismiss the story as fiction." "Many believe it could be based on fact." "As in most of these stories, there is a kernel of truth at the bottom of it, around which everything else is wrapped." "Just what the truth is behind Joshua's Conquest of Canaan has become one of the biggest puzzles of ancient history." "And the quest for the answer, a detective story of epic proportions." "It has intrigued scholars for decades." "Drawing many of them here." "To the site of Joshua's first battle." "This is modern Jericho, an oasis town in the Jordan Valley." "Archaeologist, Bill Dever is an expert on the history of the area." "Jericho's a unique site, it's the most important site anywhere south of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan valley." "Its history is due to the fact that there's a source of water." "The spring that supplies that water still serves the people of Jericho today." "Next to the spring, is what looks like a small hill." "But is something very different." "It's an occupation mound... or "tell"" "...where the inhabitants of ancient Jericho built their cities, one of top of each other for centuries." "Perhaps one could be Joshua's Jericho." "Among the first archaeologists to try to find out was John Garstang, a professor from Liverpool University." "His original field reports have been conserved by museum curator, Felicity Cobbing." "These photographs were taken from 1931 up to 1936." "Garstang's pictures document an amazing discovery." "What Garstang found, that he believed was connected directly to the biblical story of Joshua's conquest of Jericho, were two strong, defensive walls running in parallel on the crest of the hill of Jericho." "Mud brick, very, very deep and evidently very strong." "Using evidence from pottery fragments," "Garstang dated these mud-brick walls to 1,400 BC." "Exactly when the Bible suggests the Battle of Jericho took place." "What's more the scribes who wrote the story claimed the city Joshua attacked was heavily fortified." "And this is just what Garstang found." "He discovered the mud brick walls had been built on top of earlier, stone fortifications." "You see here what is very typical of a Middle Bronze Age, fortified system with a retaining wall that basically helped to hold in the sides of the "tell"." "That wall stood at least 15 feet high:" "on top of it was a first mud-brick rampart" "Then a steep slope, plastered with lime." "And finally the main, mud brick walls." "6 feet thick and at least 15 feet high." "To an invading army, ancient Jericho must have been a daunting sight." "Looming at least 50 foot above the valley floor." "Here -it seems" "Garstang had indeed discovered the city described in the Bible" "Garstang discovered, or thought he had discovered the very walls that Joshua brought tumbling down and that's what made headlines." "So archaeological evidence does suggest the story is no mere myth." "But that's not all, there are clues in the Bible itself." "The Book of Joshua contains a credible account of an ancient battle." "According to archaeologist, and military historian, Eric Cline." "In terms of the story, it's completely plausible that Joshua would want to attack Jericho." "The fact that Jericho was an oasis would have made it extremely valuable, food water supplies." "Also it's on the way to the Central Highlands." "If you want to go that route, you must attack Jericho." "There's no way around it." "And It's notjust the battlefield that's convincing." "It's how Joshua commanded the battle." "From the text, Joshua seems to be an excellent military leader." "He's a very good general." "I would compare him to Patten or to Montgomery." "Like those Second World War Generals, the story records that Joshua based his strategy on a key ingredient." "Military intelligence." "According to the Bible Joshua sent Israelite spies to scout out the city." "His soldiers infiltrated Jericho successfully." "But then did something unexpected." "Our very hard-working spies go immediately to an inn that's run by a prostitute (laughs)" "this may not be so strange." "Ancient inscriptions reveal that brothels were the boarding houses of the ancient world." "They were the ideal place to blend in ...and gather information about the enemy" "Who better to go to than a prostitute or hostess?" "And they found out very quickly what they needed to know." "So far, the Israelite's actions sound plausible." "Jericho was a strategic target." "And using spies, a textbook tactic." "But what about the people those spies saw inside?" "Given the size of Ancient Jericho there were probably twelve hundred inhabitants;" "men, women and children the story calls Canaanites." "Here again the Bible is in line with archaeological finds." "While digging on the outskirts of Jericho excavators found something extraordinary." "Tombs." "Containing three and a half-thousand year old skeletons." "Canaanite skeletons." "Buried with their grave goods." "Connecting the people of Jericho to a wider world." "To a real Canaanite culture whose cities once spread across modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan." "But there's much more to the historical Canaanites than the Bible reveals" " according to archaeologist, Jonathan Tubb." "I think that a lot of people who followed the biblical view, if you like, see the Canaanites as wicked, evil people" "They're not at all, they're very urbane sophisticated people and we know this from the examples ofjewellery, metalwork, even the, the very basic pots and pans of daily life which were often very refined." "They enjoyed the good things in life." "What's more archaeology has revealed that the Canaanites were the first people to use an alphabet." "A 40-letter system that replaced the ancient sign language known as cuneiform." "And led to the form of writing we use today." "The Canaanites were even great traders." "Influenced by other civilizations as far away as Greece and Egypt." "Some of the jewellery is very beautiful." "This one's interesting because it's in the form of a lotus bud, showing that strong Egyptian influence." "The story leaves out these positive details." "It's not surprising." "In the Bible, the Canaanites are the Israelites' sworn enemies." "Joshua's spies would have had much to report." "But -like many military operations - their mission was compromised." "The Bible records how Jericho's governor heard that the prostitute, called Rahab, was sheltering the spies." "The head of Jericho would try and find these spies wherever they might have been" "Why he knows or thinks that they're at Rahab's place, well, I imagine he had his own intelligence-gathering force." "According to the story, Rahab faced a stark choice." "To hand the spies over to torture and death:" "or turn traitor and protect them." "She tells the spies that she knows that they, that Israel will conquer the land." "She knows that God has promised the land to them." "And Rahab takes charge of the whole situation." "She hides the spies in the stocks of grain on her roof." "Moments later, Canaanite soldiers arrive." "But Rahab managed to convince them that the spies had already left." "And sent the soldiers off to find them." "Before she helped them escape," "Rahab made them promise to protect her and her family in the coming battle." "The spies agreed and returned to the Israelite camp." "Up to this point, archaeology and military strategy are remarkably consistent with the Bible's build-up to the battle." "But at the heart of the story is Joshua's advance on the Jericho and his use of trumpets to conquer the city." "According to the Bible Joshua's first tactic was to cross the River Jordan and establish a bridgehead on the west bank." "Within a mile of his target." "What he did next must have surprised everyone." "Rather than march towards Jericho he ordered his troops to march around it." "Once a day for six days, accompanied by priests blowing trumpets." "This is a strange tactic." "Perhaps here fact gives way to fiction, or maybe not." "History records how other armies used the same strategy." "We know the Romans upon occasion would tend to march up to a city and march away again." "They march up and away, and up and away, basically lull the inhabitants into a false sense of security, when they didn't know what was going to happen and all of a sudden, boom, and in they'd go." "So marching around Jericho may make sense" "But the purpose of the accompanying horns remains a mystery." "Unless a clue lies here." "In this synagogue." "The Jewish religion traces its roots back to the early Israelites" " and trumpets still feature in its rituals today." "But not the modern trumpet as we know it." "According to musician, Alan Friedman." "This would be the type of horn that the priests of Jericho would have blown." "This is the horn of a mountain goat, also known as 'a ram'." "The ram's horn trumpet is of particular interest to audio consultant, David Lubman" "He's an expert in the role of sound in ancient religion." "And especially interested in the Joshua story." "Today, he's working with Friedman to conduct a precise audio analysis of the trumpet;" "hopeful that it will shed light on its role in the battle." "Back at his lab, Lubman analyses his results." "He knows only too well that sound can have a military use." "During the Vietnam War, the American Army recruited Lubman to build an audio test chamber where they could recreate hi-intensity sound levels." "Once an experiment went wrong." "A seal on the test chamber failed." "Noise leaked out." "With dramatic consequences for one lab technician." "One of the technicians, perfectly sane and stable, upon hearing the sound, was set into flight, he ran away and in terror, and he didn't come back for hours that day." "We didn't want to say anything to him, but such was the power to frighten and create a sense of awe." "So perhaps the sound of the trumpet also had a psychological effect." "It's certainly loud." "We're getting about the 93 or 94 decibels of sound intensity when I measure 9 foot from one shofar and if we had seven shofars, then that would be 93 plus 8.5 decibels higher." "That's the sort of levels that you'd expect to hear at a rock concert." "So it could be that Joshua did use the trumpet, not as a musical instrument but as a weapon." "I think sound does play a prominent role in the Book of Joshua, to create a sense of shock and awe," "But, according to the Bible," "Joshua didn'tjust rely on trumpets to create 'shock and awe'." "A siege like this could drag on for years" "But, just one week into Joshua's attack, the battle reached its climax." "On the seventh day the Israelites circled the city, not once but seven times" "Then all 40,000 soldiers let out a deafening battle cry." "Think of it in terms of somebody inside Jericho." "You're watching these people for a week now, all of a sudden they're shrieking, they're shouting just at the time when you need to talk to your people, you know "watch out, here they come"," "you can't hear yourself think, let alone say anything." "The Israelites on the other hand knew exactly what they're doing and have no need to talk, so the din would have been just ear shattering." "It's at this point the Bible makes its most spectacular claim." "That the ever- increasing din brought the mud-brick walls of Jericho crashing down." "Allowing Joshua's troops to clamber up the fallen city walls." "To attack Canaanite soldiers." "And the Bible claims - to massacre everyone inside." "Apart from Rahab and her family, all of Jericho's inhabitants were killed." "And their once-mighty city set alight." "But while sound might have terrified and confused the inhabitants of Jericho" " it couldn't have demolished their walls." "Or could it?" "The possibility intrigues Professor Barry Gibb of Liverpool University's Audio Research Department." "Assisted by colleague Gary Siefert he is exploring the physical impact of sound on solid objects." "Sound can destroy structures, if you take as the, the premise that sound is a pressure, a pressure is a force, and any force, if it's big enough, will move a body." "Gibb and Siefert are currently conducting experiments to understand the exact science behind the phenomenon." "What I'm doing here is to put some powder into the funnel." "The idea of this simple experiment is to see if sound energy alone can cause the powder to flow." "The experiment uses a fine powder -gypsum" " in the belief that if sound can move a powder, it may affect a solid object too." "The required level and pitch of sound is produced by a giant horn, situated in an adjoining room." "The two scientists sit at a remote monitoring station." "The experiment begins." "Reset for linear?" "Yes." "Happy with the shot?" "Yes." "OK." "When the horn is off the powder sits in the funnel." "When it is on, something incredible happens." "The powder flows like a fluid." "Why this happens is still a mystery, but Professor Gibb believes sound waves break the bonds between the powder particles." "The effect is dramatic." "And opens up the possibility that a solid object may also be affected." "This is a brick similar to the ones that would have been used to construct the walls of Jericho, and we intend now to replace the powder with the brick, and repeat the test." "The experiment is repeated." "If the brick disintegrates it will go a long way to explaining what made Jericho's walls fall down." "The sound levels produced in this test chamber are significantly higher than Joshua's trumpets." "If the brick does not respond here, it's unlikely to have been damaged at Jericho." "Well, the brick is unaffected by the sound in this preliminary experiment." "Also the surface particles seem to be unmoved." "From it I would have to say that the walls of Jericho may well have fallen down, but it wasn't sound that did it." "Of course the fact that the brick was unaffected in these tests doesn't mean Jericho's walls didn't crumble or indeed the city wasn't ransacked and set on fire." "Far from it." "As Garstang's excavations in the 1930's revealed." "The walls that Garstang thought were associated with Joshua's conquest had very clear signs of damage and destruction and you can see this in some of his photographs." "Archaeology also supports another of the Bible's claims, that Jericho had been set alight." "Probably the most sensational thing he found was the wholesale destruction by fire of the city walls, and the city gates and the shops and the residences inside, really quite dramatic evidence for destruction." "It's now clear the sound of the trumpets alone could not have caused that devastation." "Yet, many of the facts do fit:" "The archaeological record seems remarkably consistent with Jericho's fate as described in the Bible." "But if trumpets didn't bring Jericho's walls tumbling down, what did?" "Perhaps there's a clue earlier in the story." "According to the Bible when Israelite priests leading Joshua's army reached the River Jordan, something incredible happened." "The water level dropped." "The priests led the way across dry land." "It's a miraculous moment." "But not the only time it happened." "The Jordan also stopped flowing in July 1927 and these photographs from the time tell us why." "The Jordan Valley suffered an earthquake." "Causing landslides that dammed the river for two days." "Just like the story suggests." "What's more seismologists now believe an earthquake could also have been responsible for Jericho's destruction." "Exactly why becomes clearer at the Seismological Institute of Israel:" "Here, computers record the output of sensors across Israel, the West Bank and Jordan." "They monitor a major fault running the length of the Jordan Valley." "A fault that caused minor fractures one of which runs right under the east wall of Ancient Jericho." "Making it especially vulnerable to seismic activity." "And there is archaeological evidence suggesting earthquakes did indeed strike the city -not once but many times." "As, archaeologist John Garstang discovered." "Jericho was subjected more than once to significant earthquakes." "In the early levels, he found very, very distinctive cracks that split earlier burials ...here you can see the crack has severed the head of this individual here." "But if the damage to Jericho's walls was caused not by sound but by an earthquake, where does that leave Joshua and his advancing army?" "Perhaps the earthquake conveniently struck Jericho at the same time as the Israelites attacked the city?" "Remarkably -that's just what Garstang's evidence suggested." "Garstang found evidence of earthquake damage in the walls that he associated with the Joshua conquest." "Very, very clear evidence of earthquake damage, tumbles of bricks, re-patching and general disarray of masonry." "With the addition of earthquakes to the story," "Garstang's discoveries seem to confirm almost all details of the Bible writer's account." "it seems Joshua did conquer Canaan, just like the story says." "But there's a problem." "In the 1950's another British archaeologist followed Garstang to Jericho" "And that's when all the trouble began." "That archaeologist was the renowned expert, Kathleen Kenyon." "She became interested in Jericho when John Garstang asked her to re-examine his findings." "In 1952, Kenyon began her own epic excavation." "Kathleen Kenyon was able to examine in minute detail the very, very complex phases of occupation at Jericho, she was able to see an awful lot that Garstang had simply missed." "What Garstang missed was crucial evidence contradicting his date for Jericho's destruction - rather than the walls collapsing in 1400 BC - as Garstang believed" " Kenyon concluded they had finally fallen 150 years before in 1550 BC." "If she was right Jericho had been ruined long before Joshuacould have left Egypt." "An earthquake may have destroyed its walls but it didn't coincide with Joshua's attack as Garstang originally supposed." "And that's not the only problem facing the traditional version of Joshua's heroic conquest." "If the Israelites did reach Jericho at the traditional date of 1400 BC" " Kenyon's excavations revealed that the city they found would have looked very different to the one described in the Bible." "The defences had fallen into disuse, it was effectively undefended, very little population there, it wouldn't have been much of a conquest to be honest?" "But if a battle for Jericho was unnecessary, it does beg the question:" "why the Israelites' arrival is described as a Conquest at all." "Well, the Bible says Joshua's invasion didn'tjust involve Jericho." "He destroyed other cities as well." "But experts excavating those sites eventually hit similar problems." "The sites that are said to have been conquered by the Israelites, the archaeology shows that most of them weren't even inhabited at that time, and the sites that at which we do have destruction are not the ones" "mentioned in the biblical text." "The archaeological record -it seems - no longer supports Joshua's story." "And any lingering doubt was dispelled when historians realized that no Israelite army, however powerful, could have taken on the Canaanites." "By 1400 BC, Egyptian forces had made Canaan part of their mighty Golden Empire" "The Egyptians were unlikely to allow Joshua to invade their territory." "It is inconceivable that you could have had early Israel developing at the time when the Egyptian empire was at it's absolute peak." "It, it doesn't make any sense at all." "In fact almost all evidence unearthed since the 1950's has revealed a dramatic discrepancy between history and the bible" "In 1400 BC Jericho was a village not a walled city." "There are no clear signs of Joshua's battles elsewhere." "And Canaan was an Egyptian colony." "Historically and archeologically there is almost no evidence for a destruction and certainly not in the 15th century when biblical chronology would require it to be placed." "I think it's safe to say that almost no mainstream archaeologist or biblical scholar today takes the story in Joshua of the fall of Jericho literally" "Joshua's miraculous battle, it seems, is a myth after all." "But that raises a new and explosive question." "If Israelites didn't invade Canaan, then how did they get there?" "To answer this fundamental question, we need a benchmark" " the earliest firm date by which the Israelites were in Canaan." "Only then we can piece together what really happened." "That benchmark is provided by an intriguing discovery made in Egypt." "This is the Merneptah Stele." "The record of an Egyptian military campaign in Canaan -led by Merneptah, the son of the Pharaoh, Rameses the second." "The 'Merneptah Stele, otherwise known as 'the Israel Stellar' is the first mention of Israel outside The Bible." "It dates now we think, to about 1207 BC" "So if Israelites were living in Canaan by 1207 BC, then Joshua's conquest" " if there was one -must have begun some time before." "The question is when." "We've seen no evidence of a conquest back at 1400 BC -the traditional date." "However there are some tantalizing clues 150 years after." "If you move down a century and a half or so you reach a very good point in history in which it is much more feasible and the archaeological evidence may support it to a larger extent." "Archaeological evidence from around 1250 BC is striking." "It reveals a Canaanite world that did indeed collapse ...often in destruction and fire." "At first, the finds supported the idea that Joshua's conquest of Canaan did take place as the story records - only at a different date." "But those hopes were soon dashed when further excavations across the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean revealed something completely unexpected." "Whatever destroyed Canaanite society also struck every other civilization in the region." "Something else, something altogether more dramatic, was going on." "What was going on is really one of the major revolutions in the history of the world if you wish a complete annihilation of the old world and the emergence of something completely different." "The cause of the catastrophe is a mystery." "But a controversial new idea explaining it may also reveal how the conquest of Canaan really took place." "The theory involves destruction." "Not inflicted by one military general, but by Mother Nature:" "Coincidentally, the idea involves earthquakes." "But with a big difference to the tremors that destroyed the walls of Jericho 300 years before." "This seismic activity shook the entire Eastern Mediterranean." "All ancient cities destroyed between 1225 and 1175 BC have been marked on this map." "Some of the sites are quite major ...we have Mycenae on the Greek mainland, we have Troy" " the famous Troy in Anatolia and then down here we have a cluster of sites in what is now modern day Israel" "Another map records all significant earthquake activity monitored in the same area during the 20th century." "With one map superimposed on the other, a remarkable pattern emerges." "There is almost a one-to one correlation." "Wherever we have a cluster of the ancient sites that were destroyed we have modern earthquakes of high intensity that have taken place in the same region." "Until recently it was inconceivable that earthquake activity could have caused so much destruction, in the same area, around the same time." "But now it can be explained, through a seismic phenomenon called an earthquake storm." "Over the last century, scholars observing seismic activity in Turkey realized that earthquakes were progressing west along the North Anatolian Fault." "In the last 4 years alone, tremors have killed some 18,000 people and left countless more homeless." "It seems that if you don't get a big earthquake releasing all the tension in the fault at once, what you sometimes get is a smaller earthquake releasing the tension in a part of the fault, which then puts the pressure on the next segment," "which will eventually go and basically, you get the fault unzipping along its line" "Cline suggests that 3000 years ago, an earthquake storm migrated across the faults that not only run up the Jordan Valley, but fracture the entire Eastern Mediterranean" "With catastrophic consequences." "I think trade routes would have been cut." "Eventually, you're going to get an internal rebellion, as people get hungry, and you will end up with a systems collapse, in which everything fails." "And it's the catastrophic collapse of the old world order" " including Canaanite civilization" " that could explain how Early Israelites settled in Canaan." "Not by conquest." "But through simple opportunism." "It was a time when new groups could appear, could establish themselves and the Israelites, these people we call Israelites or proto-lsraelites, took advantage" "I think of this upheaval to insinuate themselves into areas previously not densely settled" "This is a far cry from the Biblical account." "But if Joshua and the Israelites did enter the Promised Land this way, by infiltration rather than conquest, then tell-tale signs of a new and distinctive people should begin to appear in the archaeological record." "At first there was no such evidence." "Then, during the 1980's, archaeologists excavating the highlands of Israel and the West Bank began to find what they were looking for." "The remains of hundreds of small farming communities quite unlike the Canaanite buildings that had gone before." "Among the archaeologists who excavated them was Israel Finkelstein" "He took us to the village of lzbet Zartah 5 miles north east of Tel Aviv." "An small site he first excavated 25 years ago." "The site is now badly overgrown but it is still possible to make out some of the buildings." "In particular the outline of a new type of dwelling... a 4 room farmhouse." "Distinctly different from Canaanite architecture." "The building itself is over here with a central courtyard right in the middle, and the two aisles on the sides, and the building was surrounded by silos for storing grain, and then there were more buildings on the outskirts..." "Evidence supporting the idea that the new people who lived here were Israelites -not Canaanites - was in their diet." "During the period archaeologists call Iron Age One, there were no traces of bones from one animal -common in Canaan" " but banned in the Hebrew Bible." "Pigs." "We see something extremely interesting and new in the their food-ways in their culinary practices these people in the highlands, in the 'lron 1', do not eat pork." "This idea of a peaceful settlement of Canaan has now replaced the belief that the Israelites arrived in Canaan on the back of a military conquest." "But, in the wake of this conclusion, archaeologists began to ponder a new and even more remarkable scenario." "What if the early Israelites had never actually 'arrived' in Canaan at all?" "What if they had always lived there?" "Further excavations of the four-room farmhouses suggested this could be a strong possibility." "Distinct differences between this new culture and the Canaanites do exist." "But there are also startling similarities" "When archaeologists began to compare the pottery of the highland farmers to the old Canaanite population, they found something surprising." "Early Israelite society is, in many respects, it's a poorer reflection of Canaanite society." "But it's not as fancy; it's not as sophisticated, but it's exactly the same." "Further parallels between Israelites and Canaanite cultures were found on the coast of Syria." "Archaeologists excavating here at Ugarit uncovered an archive of clay tablets, revealing details about Canaanite religion" "One tablet contains the tale of a Canaanite King called Keret and his military conquests." "One of his methods of disposing of a city was to walk around it and blow trumpets at it... and, you know, lo and behold the walls come falling down?" "All these parallels point towards a radical new theory, that Canaanites and Israelites were notjust similar." "They were identical." "It's a controversial idea but one seemingly supported by breakthroughs in genetic testing." "Cultural anthropologist, Yossi Nagar has been studying ancient Canaanite skeletons" "By comparing their DNA with the DNA of the region's current population, he has concluded that many of today's Jews," "Israeli Arabs and Palestinians share a common racial heritage." "Suggesting that their ancestors - the Israelites and Canaanites" " were once one and the same people." "The Israelis and the Canaanites are the same, only that they are separated." "They are separated because of theology, not because of biology." "They are the same." "If this controversial new theory gains acceptance, the history behind Joshua and his Conquest will have to be completely revised." "Joshua and his Israelite army did not march in and kill Canaanites." "They were Canaanites." "They were not military invaders, they did not strike a blow at the great city-states of Canaan, annihilate the Canaanite population." "I think most of us believe that the Israelites had been largely Canaanite's perhaps peasant farmers who were thrown off their land by their Canaanite overlords, people escaping the collapsing Canaanite city-states." "Fleeing from conscription, from taxes, finding a foothold somewhere in the highland frontier which was sparsely occupied." "If this is what happened, the origin of Early Israel is not what is portrayed in the Bible." "No miraculous battles." "No military conquest." "No mass infiltration." "Just a group of Canaanite peasants and nomads re-settling the hills of" " what they would later call - their Promised Land." "But if the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho is, at heart, a product of the imagination of Hebrew scribes how did they get so many of their geographical, military and historical details right." "One explanation is that the arrival in Canaan was the experience" " not of all Israelites - but a handful of Hebrew people." "In my judgement the stories came to be told by a small group who had made their way across the desert, who entered Canaan in some way or another who had been involved in conflicts with Canaanites." "And when they came to write their story 100's of years later they told their story as though it was the story of all Israelites but in fact most Israelites had never been in Egypt." "In writing that story, its authors seem to have embellished it" " with other elements:" "Canaanite myths like Keret, dramatic memories of catastrophic death and destruction ...and detailed knowledge of ancient Jericho." "My guess is they drew on a number of separate traditions, which come together, they put them together." "You have the recognition that Jericho was a place of seismic activity and therefore the walls kept falling down" "There may also have been a historical character;" "and we might as well call him Joshua, otherwise we would have to invent somebody with the same name." "You put these ingredients together and you have the story of Joshua capturing Jericho." "Here, at last, we begin to glimpse the reality behind the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho." "It's not one true story, but many." "Woven together to make a point - not about history -but freedom and faith" "If we press the story too far and try to prove that everything in it is historically true" "I think we lose the point the biblical writers wanted to make it was a point about liberation." "The liberation of a people who had nothing going for them whatsoever but became in time a mighty nation, and I think the story can be read still in that way metaphorically." "A story about a new land, a new beginning a new way of viewing human destiny." "Perhaps this is the legacy and tragedy of Joshua's battle at Jericho." "That one mans' liberation is another mans' oppression." "That the fictional battle became a real and terrible conflict and two and a half thousand years after the writers described it, the bloodshed is not yet over."