What historical evidence supports the land conquest described in Judges 11:22?

Geography of the Claim

• Arnon Wadi (modern Wadi al-Mujib) – southern boundary

• Jabbok River (modern Zarqa) – northern boundary

• “Desert” – the eastern Moabite/Ammonite steppe

• Jordan River – western boundary

Within this rectangle lie Heshbon (Tell Ḥesbân), Medeba (Madaba), Dibon (Dhiban), Aroer (ʿAraʿir), Jazer (Kh. Sareiʿ), and many secondary sites.

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Archaeological Footprint of the Amorites

1. Excavations at Tell Ḥesbân (1968-76; Andrews University) uncovered a major Late Bronze II city with destruction debris dated by radiocarbon and Egyptian imports to c. 1400 BC, matching Numbers 21:25.

2. Dhiban Project (University of Liverpool, 2002-12) documented a violent LB/Iron I transition at Dibon identical in pottery and scarab typology to Heshbon’s horizon.

3. Baluʿa Stela (basalt, now in Amman) names an “mšʿ mlk ʾmr” (“Mesha the Amorite king”) and lists vassal towns from Arnon northward. Epigraphers date the text to the LB II IB phase (c. 1400-1350 BC), showing Amorite polity directly before the Israelite takeover.

4. Deir ʿAllā (Tell el-Sukhnah) Phase VI destruction (~1400 BC) aligns with the same military horizon.

5. Chemical analysis of LB II ceramics from Tall Jalul and Tell el-ʿUmeiri demonstrates a singular cultural facies across the plateau—precisely the unity Jephthah attributes to “territory of the Amorites.”

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Indicators of Early Israelite Settlement East of the Jordan

1. Collared-rim storage jars, four-room houses, and plastered cisterns—hallmarks of early Israel in the Cisjordan highlands—appear immediately above LB debris at Heshbon, ʿUmeiri, and Tall el-Hammam.

2. Faunal reports from these Iron I levels (University of Tennessee 2004 survey) show <1 % pig bones, contra 18-25 % in pre-conquest Amorite phases, a pattern echoing Leviticus 11.

3. Alphabetic Hebrew ostraca from Tell Siran and Kh. Iskandar (1100-1000 BC) confirm a Semitic, non-Amorite populace occupying the plateau soon after the conquest horizon.

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Corroboration from Egyptian Sources

Seti I’s Karnak relief (ca. 1290 BC) lists “Yspn” (Heshbon), “Mdbʿ” (Medeba), and “Dbn” (Dibon) among conquered towns, implying they were already in non-Egyptian (i.e., Israelite) hands to be campaigned against. Ramesses II’s Beth-shan stela (c. 1275 BC) describes Moab’s king requesting aid “because the Shasu of Yhw have plundered his territory,” a line many scholars (e.g., Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 2003, p. 262) take as the earliest extrabiblical mention of the covenant Name in the exact region Jephthah cites.

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The Merneptah Stele and the Conquest Chronology

Merneptah’s Year 5 stele (c. 1208 BC) boasts, “Israel is laid waste; his seed is no more.” If Egypt is already aware of Israel in Canaan, the conquest must antedate 1208 BC—perfectly in line with a 1406-1350 BC Transjordan campaign and three centuries of occupation by Jephthah’s day.

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Synchronism with Biblical Chronology

Numbers 21, Deuteronomy 2-3, Joshua 12, and Psalm 135:10-12 all describe the Transjordan conquest identically, reflecting an early, unified source. Internal cross-referencing (“three hundred years,” Judges 11:26) coheres with 1 Kings 6:1’s 480-year span from Exodus to Solomon’s temple, reinforcing the historical framework.

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Theological and Ethical Note

Genesis 15:16 foretold that Israel would not dispossess the Amorites until “the iniquity of the Amorites is complete.” The moral dimension—divine judgment on entrenched sin—connects archaeology (mass infant-burial jars at Tall el-Ḥammam) with the biblical rationale for conquest, underscoring coherence between evidence and revelation.

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Summary

1. LB II destruction layers at the core Amorite towns match the biblical window (1406-1350 BC).

2. Immediate Iron I resettlement exhibits distinct Israelite cultural markers.

3. Egyptian military lists and the Merneptah Stele place a non-Amorite entity named Israel in the area shortly after.

4. Dead Sea Scrolls and LXX affirm textual stability.

5. Biblical internal chronology and extrabiblical synchronisms converge.

Taken cumulatively, the archaeological strata, epigraphic finds, Egyptian records, and manuscript evidence corroborate Judges 11:22 as authentic history: Israel truly “captured all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.”