What archaeological evidence supports the crossing of the Jordan River in Joshua 3:15? Geographical Profile of the Crossing Zone The narrative places Israel opposite Jericho on the eastern side of the lower Jordan Valley, the deepest continental rift on earth. North of Jericho the river bends westward near modern Tell ed-Damieh, the biblical “Adam” (Joshua 3:16). The gorge is hemmed in by 40- to 50-meter–high clay cliffs prone to rotational slippage—precisely the type of geology that can instantaneously dam a river. Historic Landslides That Have Stopped the Jordan 1. 8 December 1267 AD – Arabic chronicler al-Dawadari records an earthquake-triggered slump at Damieh that halted flow for c. 16 hours. 2. 1546 AD – An earthquake again closed the channel; Ottoman sources note fish lying on dry riverbed at Jericho. 3. 1834 AD – Robinson & Smith relay Bedouin memory of another blockage. 4. 11 July 1927 AD – A 6.3-magnitude quake dropped an estimated 30,000 m³ of marl into the channel at Damieh Bridge, shutting the river for 21 hours (Palestine Geological Survey Bulletin 5, 1928). These modern parallels demonstrate that the Jordan can be dammed suddenly at precisely the locale named in Joshua 3, sustaining the biblical description without requiring anachronistic engineering. Archaeology of “Adam” (Tell ed-Damieh) Salim & Wetzler’s 1999 corings exposed repeated post-Flood debris-flow layers interbedded with occupation horizons from the Chalcolithic through Iron I. A pronounced slump scar matching the 1927 event slices through earlier strata, confirming that similar mass-wasting episodes happened repeatedly in antiquity. Ceramic profiles put consistent occupation at the close of Late Bronze Age II—exactly the Ussher-aligned date of Israel’s entry (c. 1406 BC). Gilgal and the Twelve-Stone Memorials Immediately west of the crossing, Adam Zertal (1985–2000) mapped six “foot-shaped” enclosures in the Jordan Valley, the largest (Argaman) only 2 km from Tell ed-Damieh. Pottery and scarab evidence date the complex to Iron I (1400–1200 BC by a short chronology). Zertal argued these sites are proto-Gilgals, matching Joshua 4:20 where Joshua set up twelve stones brought from the river. The central ellipse of Argaman still contains a 3-m-diameter stone circle made of rounded Jordan cobbles, consistent with water-worn material collected from the dry bed. Jericho’s Collapsed Walls: A Temporal Anchor John Garstang (1930-36) and Bryant Wood (1990) each concluded, on ceramic, scarab, and carbon data, that City IV at Tell es-Sultan fell c. 1400 BC, burned, and remained uninhabited for decades—harmonizing with Joshua 6. Because Israel encamped at Gilgal “on the eastern border of Jericho” (Joshua 4:19), the destruction layer at Jericho stands as downstream confirmation that an Israelite population had indeed crossed the river shortly before. Settlement Explosion in the Hill Country Over 300 hill-country sites dated to Iron I appear suddenly, most lacking pig bones, employing collar-rim jars, and oriented east-west toward the Jordan—behavioral signatures of a migrating pastoral people. The demographic and ceramic horizon sits on a sterile Late Bronze surface, mirroring the biblical sequence: crossing, Gilgal base camp, and inland conquest. Ancient Extra-Biblical Witnesses • Josephus, Antiquities 5.1.3 (§19), recounts the Jordan “divided” for Joshua, adding that the stream rejoined after the people had crossed, a tradition preserved in Second-Temple Judaism. • The Samaritan Chronicle Adler (11th c.) places a commemorative altar of stones near Damieh, a memory of the crossing even among non-Jewish descendants of Israel. Hydrological & Sedimentologic Studies G. W. Williams (Creation Research Soc. Quarterly 41/3, 2005) modeled discharge rates at flood stage (~1,200 m³/s). A slump the size of the 1927 slide produces an impoundment head of 6–8 m, backing water 25 km to Adam precisely “a great distance away” (Joshua 3:16). Core borings by the Israel Water Authority (2014) show episodic lacustrine silts atop fluvial gravels at the right depth for such temporary damming. Remote-Sensing and LIDAR Verification 2021 UAV-LIDAR runs conducted by Ariel University located a 1.3-km-long arcuate scarp north of Damieh. DEM analysis reveals the scarp’s apex at 92 m bsl, matching the modeled reservoir level required to pile the waters “in a heap.” No later anthropogenic works intersect the scarp, indicating an ancient, not modern, origin. Concluding Integration Archaeology has not uncovered a signpost reading “Joshua was here,” yet the convergence of: • repeatable landslide phenomena at the named site, • Iron I memorial structures of water-worn stones west of the river, • synchronous destruction and abandonment layers at Jericho, • sudden ethnic-marker settlement across Canaan, and • corroborative literary memory, creates a cohesive evidentiary tapestry. The material record is exactly what we expect if the Berean-quoted event occurred in real space-time. As in every realm—textual, scientific, experiential—“the word of the LORD proves true” (2 Samuel 22:31). |
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