Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
shown in recent excavations to have consisted of at least twenty successive layers, each indicating a differ-
ent period of settlement. The earliest of these has been dated to approximately twelve thousand years ago.
The original site of Jericho is a mound near modern Jericho called Tell es-Sultan, built on an oasis on the
desert's edge. Mud-brick houses there were surrounded by a stone wall, parts of which have been recently
excavated.
Of course, most people recall Jericho for another reason: the familiar biblical tale of Joshua, the suc-
cessor to Moses as leader of the wandering tribes of Israel. At this point in history—estimated to be around
1100-1200
BC
—Jericho was a town belonging to the Canaanites, the people living in the land promised to
Moses and the Israelites by God. In the biblical version, Joshua commands his priests to blow their trum-
pets, the children of Israel issue “a great shout,” and the walls of Jericho “fell down flat,” allowing the
Israelites to enter victorious and butcher everyone in Jericho, “both men and women, young and old, oxen,
sheep and asses, with the edge of the sword”—except for a harlot with a heart of gold named Rahab who
had sheltered two Israelite spies in her home.
It makes a great story, but more likely an earthquake caused those walls to come tumbling down. At
least that is what one researcher has determined. A Stanford University geophysicist who has been study-
ing the ten-thousand-year-long historical record of earthquakes in the Holy Land, Amos Nur, says that
quakes have repeatedly destroyed Jericho, most recently in 1927. The town lies on the Jordan Fault, divid-
ing the Arabian plate from the Sinai plate. Nur's theory is supported by archeologists who have learned
that Jericho's walls often collapsed in a single direction, as they would in a quake, not in all directions as if
an army had destroyed them. The topic of Joshua also says the Jordan River stopped flowing, allowing the
Israelites to cross. This typically happens as a result of quakes in the Dead Sea Fault Zone, as the Jordan's
banks collapse and briefly dam it.
Did Moses Part the Red Sea?
Of course, to treat biblical events with an objective scientific or historical eye is to tread on thin ice. The
risk of being called a heretic is still real. Although the consequences are far less serious than might have
been the case, say, around 1492, when a fellow named Tomás de Torquemada was throwing the Jews out
of Spain, burning people at the stake, and stretching them on the rack for much less heresy than this.
Despite the risks, science presses on. One example came with the report of a team of oceanographers
who had found a way to explain the biblical parting of the waters by Moses, described in Exodus and im-
mortalized by Cecil B. DeMille in
The Ten Commandments
with Charlton Heston raising his staff to part
the Red Sea. A theory proposed in 1992 by Dr. Doron Nof, an oceanographer, and Dr. Nathan Paldor, an
expert in atmospheric sciences, offers the possibility that strong winds blowing along the narrow, shallow
Gulf of Suez could account for the phenomenon.
The salient passage is from Exodus and tells how Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage in
Egypt, the most important event in Jewish history. According to the biblical version, “the Lord caused the
sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall
unto them on their right hand and on their left.”
When the Israelites had safely passed, according to the account, the water closed in on the pursuing
chariots of the pharaoh. The Jews kept going, wandering in the wilderness for forty years, during which
time Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Part of the problem for historians and scholars interested in this question has been identifying exactly
where and when Moses parted these waters. Dating is difficult, but most scholars accept a date somewhere
