Ancient Israel Origins
The Israelite Route from the Sea of Re(e)ds to Mt. Sinai.
(Courtesy of RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
From Sinai to Canaan
Welcome
This website is about the Bible. It is based on the content of the book The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel, Compelling New Archaeological Insights that Will Change the Way You Think About the Bible (forthcoming)—the outgrowth of my PhD dissertation. If you have a vested interest in the Bible as a believer, interested layman, or scholar, you should be aware of what it has taken me 40 years of archaeological, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern research to discover: That the Bible’s story of Israel’s origins appears to be historically accurate.
Menu Content
Israel’s Origins
Highlights of the evidence:
- My 40 Year Search
- Misdating the Exodus/Conquest
- Is Archaeology Reliable?
- Jericho: A Case Study
- The Bible/The Evidence
- Israel in the New Kingdom
- Objections to the 12th Century Dating
- The Merenptah Stele
- The Destruction of Greater Hazor
- Duration of the Judges
Hermeneutics
An introduction to principles of biblical interpretation: Listed are rules to apply to biblical texts to orient the reader to the historical context of Scripture and the author’s intended meaning. Application of these principles is vital to correctly interpreting the Bible’s story of Israel’s origins
Blog
Periodic articles illustrating hermeneutical principles that clarify difficult texts dealing with Israel’s origins—and sometimes other topics
Author
A brief bio
The Arabah: Looking north from the
Gulf of Aqaba
(Courtesy RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
Need to Know
Key points to know before exploring the content.
Findings
The articles here are not stand-alone discussions of the subject they address; they highlight the research but cannot fully develop the argument with documentation.
Documentation
For further information and for documentation of claims in these articles refer to the appropriate chapter in The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel or contact me for a copy of the bibliography.
Reading
It is best to read these articles in sequence since they build upon each other.
What the Israelites saw encamped before the Holy Mountain (er-Rahah Plain, Sinai)
(Courtesy of RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
The Bible’s Story of Ancient Israel’s Origins
The Bible’s story of Israel’s origins is an extended narrative from the time of Abram’s call to go to Canaan (Gen. 12) to the time Israel became a kingdom (1 Sam. 10), a period of about 700 years. Events or periods in this story include:
- Lives of the Patriarchs
- Israelite enslavement in Egypt
- Exodus
- The Law given at Mt. Sinai and in the Wilderness
- Wandering (40 years)
- Conquest (Transjordan and Canaan)
- Judges
A Record of Factual Events or a Product of Human Imagination?
The Bible story of Israel’s origins, as traditionally dated, is contradicted by a significant body of archaeological and other extrabiblical evidence that has been accumulating for the last fifty years. Because of this:
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- Many scholars have dismissed the Bible story as the product of human imagination and have devised other explanations for the appearance of the Israelites in ancient Canaan
- Conservative scholars committed to traditional dates of the Bible story deny, ignore, or qualify the archaeological evidence to shield biblical authority
- The average believer is unaware of this conflict between traditional reconstructions and the evidence and the problem this has created for biblical authority within academia since the 1970s
Biblical Authority: If the traditional dates of the Israelite Exodus and Conquest are correct, the Bible story cannot be historically accurate; it must be the product of human imagination—or an impossibly entangled account of some fact and much fiction. And if the Bible’s narrative of Israel’s origins is not historical, the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith traditions is in jeopardy.
The faith of more than two billion believers alive today (whether they are aware of it or not) rests upon the assumption that the Bible’s divine origins means its narratives are based on actual events. However, the disconnect between the traditional dating of the Exodus/Conquest and the archaeological evidence challenges this assumption. Unless there is some reconciliation of the story with the hard evidence, the story will remain historically unreliable in the minds of those who know the facts.
But there is a reconciliation.
A Remarkable Discovery: When the Israelite Conquest is dated to 1135 BC, in agreement with a single archaeological dating peg, the projected periods of all datable biblical events in the story of Israel’s origins align with the hard evidence. This solution resolves the most problematic issue that has plagued biblical and archaeological studies for the last half-century, which is: How did the Israelites come to be in ancient Canaan? When the events are correctly dated, it appears the Bible’s story is the best explanation after all.
For an in-depth and readable examination of any issue covered here and much more, check out the corresponding chapters in The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel, Compelling New Archaeological Insights That Will Change the Way You Think About the Bible (forthcoming).
The Bible’s Story and the Evidence Reconciled
The reconstruction that reconciles the Bible story of Israel’s origins with the archaeological evidence is called the 12th century chronology because it dates the Exodus (1175 BC) and Conquest (1135 BC) to the 12th century BC. Virtually all scholars have rejected this reconstruction for reasons described below (see “Objections”). These reasons have seemed so compelling and so deeply entrenched in academia, so seemingly self-attesting, that no one has attempted a comprehensive scholarly study of the 12th century chronology before.
It has taken me 40 years of research to discover that at least 80 events in the story of Israel’s origins share a common characteristic: Every one of them occurred at known and dated archaeological sites (or, in some cases, in narrowly bracketed historical periods identified in other extrabiblical sources). The correctly projected dates of these biblical events align with the empirical evidence in every instance, 80 out of 80 times! The statistical improbability of this alignment occurring by chance is too remote to be a factor. The most reasonable explanation for this alignment is that the events actually happened, and they happened at dates predicted in the 12th century BC chronology.
My 1988 PhD dissertation on this subject was nearly 500 pages long—this was completed before some very important discoveries were made that dramatically support the case for the 12th century chronology. Follow-on research has added another 500 pages. The challenge has been to reduce these findings to a manageable text easily understood by the average person. I hope I have done this and that you will find enough insights in the articles that follow to decide if this study is important for the Bible’s place in the world.
Without the Bible humanity would be adrift in a “vast enveloping darkness” without any insight into our origins, purpose, or destiny. Explore the remarkable implications that God has indeed communicated with us in The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel, Compelling New Archaeological Insights that will Change the Way You Think about the Bible (forthcoming).