The Fall of Jericho As Earthquake Myth

THE FALL OF JERICHO AS EARTHQUAKE MYTH JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN The conquest of Canaan as presented in the Book of Joshua has long been the subject of debate. Negative archaeological evidence poses serious chal- lenges to the book’s portrayal of a military conquest.1 The fall of Jericho, in particular, has generated a variety of theories and conjectures that alternately support, dismiss, or reconcile the historicity of the biblical account. Among the possibilities is reading the fall of Jericho in the context of earthquake mythology. This perspective considers the theological, military, and ceremonial roles of the shofar in Israelite culture, and the belief that shofar blasts could signal or channel divine power, sometimes with ground-shaking results. Like other earthquake myths, which incorporate indigenous environmental and cultural elements, the Joshua account uses a familiar artifact to explain a seismic event. THE FALL OF JERICHO Joshua 6 begins with a summary of the conquest of Jericho, which is de- tailed in the rest of the chapter. The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I will deliver Jericho and her king [and her] warriors to your hands. Let all your troops march around the city and complete one circuit of the city. Do this six days, with seven priests carrying seven ram’s horns [shofarot] preceding the Ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blow- ing the horns. And when a long blast is sounded on the horn – as soon as you hear that sound of the horn – all the people shall give a mighty shout. There- upon the city wall will collapse, and the people shall advance, every man straight ahead (Josh. 6:2-5). The classical date of Jericho’s fall, derived from synchronisms with Egyp- tian absolute chronology, puts the event in the Late Bronze Age, perhaps around 1400 BCE. This was a period of Egyptian hegemony in Canaan. Skeptics observe that there are no Egyptian records of the conquest, and that the Book of Joshua fails to mention an Egyptian presence in the land. Fur- thermore, Canaanite cities were rarely fortified with walls during this period, Cantor Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D., is professor of Jewish music history and associate dean of the Master of Jewish Studies Program at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. 172 JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN due to Egypt’s control of the region.2 Archeological corroboration is similar- ly lacking for many of the other cities Joshua reportedly conquered (listed in Josh. 12:9-24).3 German archeologists Carl Watzinger and Ernst Sellin investigated the Jer- icho site in 1907-1909, expecting to validate the biblical chronology. Instead, they determined that the city was unoccupied during the purported time of Joshua’s conquest.4 A second excavation in the 1930s supported the classical dating of the conquest.5 Those findings were discredited by Kathleen Ken- yon’s excavations in the 1950s, which dated the destruction layer to around 1560 BCE.6 Radiocarbon dating of Kenyon’s site samples in the 1990s con- firmed her thesis.7 Others have tried to reconcile the biblical account with Egyptian history, either by advancing a later date (when Egypt’s control of the region was waning),8 proposing a peaceful takeover of Jericho around 1400 BCE,9 asserting that the Jericho settlement reused earlier fortifications,10 or arguing that incongruities between the classical and archaeological dates have resulted from examining the wrong set of walls.11 Complicating these conclusions are attempts to link the Joshua narrative with various earthquakes that have afflicted the city over the millennia. Jeri- cho is the one of the world’s oldest cities. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of more than twenty successive settlements in Jericho dating to roughly 9000 BCE, close to the beginning of the Holocene epoch.12 The site experienced many destructions and reconstructions, sometimes due to war- fare, but more often resulting from earthquakes. Yet, tectonic activity also helped make the low-lying city inhabitable. Even more important than its human made fortifications were natural barriers created by seismographic movement. The city is well protected by Mount Nebo to the east and the Cen- tral Mountains to the west—natural defenses that rise a mile above the city. A spring also emerged from the nearby Jericho Fault, which has provided fresh water for thousands of years. Local tradition identifies that water source as Elisha’s Spring, following the biblical story of the prophet purifying the spring (II Kgs. 2:18-22). Some hypothesize that earthquakes contributed to Joshua’s conquest. For example, according to the biblical account, the impassable waters of the Jor- dan River were suddenly cut off upon touching the feet of priests holding the Ark of the Covenant (Josh. 3:13). The stoppage may have been caused by a JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY THE FALL OF JERICHO AS EARTHQUAKE MYTH 173 landslide triggered by an earthquake, which interrupted the river’s flow. Six such landslides have been recorded since 1000 BCE, typically blocking the river for a day or two.13 That same earthquake may have also weakened or collapsed Jericho’s fortifications. Still, linking earthquake hypotheses with a definite date, whether 1400 BCE or another, is notoriously difficult. As Nicholas Ambraseys writes in Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: “The problem here is that archaeological evidence for an earthquake is rarely unambiguous, and its dating is frequently based on, or influenced by, literary sources, which often, as in this case, provide examples of how their assumed accuracy, coupled with occasional inaccurate commentaries, may influence archaeologists’ interpretations and dating. This then develops into a circular process in which the uncertain date of an earthquake is transformed into a fact and used to con- firm the dates of the proposed destruction strata.”14 More likely is that the fall of Jericho began as a recollection of an ancient earthquake, accumulated folk- loric details in the oral transmission, and was eventually incorporated into the conquest narrative.15 EARTHQUAKE MYTHS The fact that Joshua 6 does not explicitly mention an earthquake might raise doubts regarding its placement among earthquake myths.16 However, our modern scientific understanding of seismic activity only began to develop in the mid-1800s, and our current knowledge of plate tectonics did not emerge until the 1960s.17 Naturalistic descriptions and interpretations of environmental hazards, such as floods, fires, storms, and earthquakes, were non- existent in ancient times, as there was no clear division between supernatural- ism and the observation of nature.18 Different groups had culturally specific myths to explain these phenomena, drawing on features and objects of the physical and human landscapes. Such myths were prevalent around earthquakes, which, unlike other natural disasters, occurred without visible warn- ing signs. It is therefore possible that the biblical story of Jericho’s fall began as a supernatural explanation for a regional earthquake and gradually ex- panded into the story of a tribal hero. Specifically, it connected the earth’s violent movement with a belief in the divinely infused power of the shofar. Through this narrative overlay, the Israelites were able to appropriate and Vol. 48, No. 3, 2020 174 JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN insert themselves into the region’s folk history, whether or not they experienced the earthquake themselves or arrived there by conquest or some other means. Earthquake myths are found in virtually every earthquake-prone region, just as flood-prone regions generally produce tales of great deluges submerg- ing all or much of the world. The content of these myths is directly tied to the natural and cultural characteristics of the locations that produce them. In Japan, for instance, a giant and mischievous catfish named Namazu was believed to swim beneath the earth and cause earthquakes. In ancient Greece, Poseidon was thought to create earthquakes and other calamities with his trident. In China, an enormous frog was thought to carry the world on its back. Whenever the frog twitched, earthquakes resulted. Hindu mythology includes a story of eight mighty elephants holding the land in place. When an elephant grew tired and lowered its head, the earth would shake. A legend from Siberia tells of the world resting on a dog sled driven by the god Tull. When the dogs stopped to scratch at fleas, the world shook.19 These examples draw from indigenous beliefs, cultural elements, and natural features: catfish in the island of Japan; anthropomorphic theology in Greece; frogs in China; elephants in India; and dog sleds in Siberia. By using familiar story elements, these myths were accepted as reasonable depictions of cause and effect. The people of Israel would have likewise accepted the plausibility of powerful shofarot in the Jericho story. The shofar’s audible force was exploited in civic, ceremonial, and military contexts, where its ear-splitting tones and bone-rattling vibrations announced kings, signaled the divine presence, sounded warnings, and gathered soldiers to battle. The physiological impact on the human body was, perhaps, amplified and projected onto the walls of Jericho, which shook to the point of falling. But it was not the blast of the seven shofarot alone, nor the added cacophony of human shouts, that caused the earth to shake. Rather, these sounds channeled the destructive power of God. As Alfred Sendrey wrote in his classic text, Music in Ancient Israel: “In primitive religions the rule of invoking the deity was: the louder, the better! When the human voice was not powerful enough, one resorted to the use of musical instruments. Most of the Oriental peoples availed themselves of per- JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY THE FALL OF JERICHO AS EARTHQUAKE MYTH 175 cussion instruments for this purpose—the Jews used an instrument the sound of which was closest to the human shrieking voice, the shofar.”20 With this, the Jericho account stands apart from other earthquake myths.

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