Tom Shipley
In Part 6A of this series, we considered the discovery of Joshua’s altar on Mount Ebal in the central highlands of Israel by archaeologist, Adam Zertal. (See also Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.) The biblical altar, Joshua’s altar, was actually found underneath a larger and later altar reverentially erected directly over Joshua’s altar, all in conformity with divine command, and findings of burnt sacrificial offerings of kosher animals.
The site was deliberately covered with a heap of stones in antiquity where it remained untouched by human hands until discovered more than 3,000 years later in 1980! This discovery on Mount Ebal is one of the most significant discoveries of biblical archaeology. It is where biblical Israel ceased being merely an ethnic clan and became founded formally as a covenantal nation. (See Josh 8:30–35.)
The Chronology of Joshua’s Altar
And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years… (Genesis 1:14)
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Up until now, I have not focused directly on chronology in this series, with the exception of bare assertions of dates. I wanted to focus our attention on the artefactual evidence corroborating the historicity of Genesis and Exodus. In one sense, this is somewhat of a detour from our central subject matter. However, chronology is an integral topic for anyone studying biblical history. Chronology is an issue that must be faced.
Chronology doesn’t have the inherent appeal that material culture and written communication from historical figures possess. The subject of chronology cannot compete with the sheer fascination of things like the pyramids or the Rosetta Stone. There is a parallel in paleontology: radiometric dating of rocks and fossils is a pivotal topic but it cannot compete in popularity or interest with dinosaurs. Everybody loves dinosaurs. Chronology is dry, drab, and unexciting in comparison, but it is a necessary issue to grapple with to acquire a firm understanding of biblical history.
We Must Go to the Moon
In the attempt to establish absolute calendar dates for biblical events, rather than simply relative dates, authoritative help comes from a most unexpected source: astronomy, especially solar eclipses. The motion of the moon in its orbit around the earth and when it will eclipse the sun can be precisely predicted virtually to infinity in time.
Eclipses can also be forecasted nearly to the millimeter of the geographical location where they can be observed. Also — this is the critical juncture — we can plot backward the exact course of all past eclipses and exactly where and when they were geographically visible. This is a lynchpin tool to date the exodus and the altar of Joshua (and much of the rest of biblical history).
The Assyrian Eponym Chronicle
Another highly important archaeological discovery, the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle, has enabled us to date the Exodus and much more biblical history with absolute dates including the date of the setting up of Joshua’s altar.
First, let us consider these passages of Scripture touching on the date of the Exodus and Joshua’s altar.
First, Judges 11:26:
Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, 300 years…
Virtually all biblical scholars date this statement of the judge, Jephthah, to about 1100 BC, putting the date of the Exodus at about 1440 BC. So we have a very close approximation given to us in this verse.
Secondly, 1 Kings 6:1:
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.
There was a solar eclipse visible in Nineveh, the capital city of the ancient empire of Assyria, on June 15, 763 BC recorded in the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle which provides an absolute date in antiquity, a solid chronological marker. The Assyrians chronicled a significant event every year for the 244-year period from 892 BC–648 BC, including a reference to this eclipse. Other events recorded in the Chronicle included references to Assyrian King Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 BC, which is also recorded in the Bible in 2 Kings 18:13 along with other commonly mentioned events.
In the volume, Five Views on The Exodus, editor Mark D. Janzen (PhD, University of Memphis, ancient Egyptian history) states:
“Absolute dates are few and far between, so nearly all ancient chronology is relative, with only a few lynchpin dates available. One is the eclipse recorded by the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle in 763 BC. Astronomers are able to pinpoint this to June 15, 763.” – pg 17
Scott Stripling, director of excavations at Shiloh and Khirbet el-Maqatir for Associates for Biblical Research, and one of the contributors to Five Views on the Exodus, observes:
“Synchronization with Assyrian records places this construction in 967 BC…To the known date of 967 BC, we add 479 years to arrive at the biblical date of 1446 BC.” – pg 29, (that is, the beginning of the construction of Solomon’s temple back to the Exodus)
This synchronization of the biblical record with the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle enables us to simply count backward in the biblical record of the kings of Israel and Judah to Solomon and the beginning of the building of Solomon’s Temple in 967 BC. Thus, we have a sure date for the beginning year of the building of Solomon’s temple referenced in 1 Kings 6:1 and also of the Exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt in 1446 BC.
This means Joshua built his altar to Yahweh on Mount Ebal in 1406 BC.
Even if this were the only evidence pointing to 1446 BC as the date of the Exodus, it would be solid. However, there is an additional line of evidence that concerns the Jubilee observance commanded in Leviticus 25:8–11:
You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you…
Douglas Petrovich (Ph.D. Syro-Palestinian archaeology) observes:
“One compelling argument for preferring 1446 BC, which derives from extra-biblical sources, is that the Jubilee cycles agree with this date exactly, yet are completely independent of the 479+ years of 1 Kgs 6:1 (Young 2006: 71–83). The Jubilee dates are precise only if the priests began counting years when they entered the land of Canaan in 1406 BC (See Lev 25:2–10). The Talmud (‘Arakin 12b) lists 17 cycles from Israel’s entry into Canaan until the last recorded Jubilee in 574 BC, if using the Tishri calendar, which is a date 14 years after Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians…
“Advocates of the late exodus view have yet to explain the remarkable coincidence of the Jubilee cycles, which align perfectly with the date of 1446 BC for the exodus.” — Origins of the Hebrews, pg 21-22
Scott Stripling notes:
“The Hebrew text of Ezek 40:1 indicates that it was Rosh Hoshanah (New Years Day) and also the tenth of the month when Ezekiel saw his vision in 574 BC. Rosh Hoshana was on the tenth of the month only at the start of a Jubilee year (Lev 25:9–10). Ezekiel, as a priest, would have known when Sabbatical and Jubilee Years were due. The Seder Olam, ch. 11, and the Babylonian Talmud record that Ezekiel’s vision was at the end of the seventeenth Jubilee cycle…another Jubilee was due in the eighteenth year of Josiah (623–622 by modern scholarship). Both figures place the start of the counting for the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years in 1406 BC, in agreement with the 1446 date for the exodus calculated from 1 Kgs 6:1 and the subsequent forty years in the wilderness.” — Five Views on the Exodus, pg 31
So, the Assyrian Eponym Chronicle has enabled us to obtain not one but two independent avenues to trace the chronology of the Exodus! This is no feeble case for the year 1446 BC. Two independent lines of evidence converging on the same date represent an exceedingly convincing conclusion. Indeed, the date of the Exodus at 1446 BC is one of the best-corroborated dates of ancient times.
“But Wait, there’s more…”
Belgian Priest, Valerius Coucke, also arrived at 1446 BC for the Exodus, independent of these other lines of evidence. “Coucke’s unique method was to deliberately set aside both the biblical and contemporary archaeological information and see if he could date the event strictly by using information from classical historians.” (See https://armstronginstitute.org/685-967-bce-how-the-lynchpin-date-for-solomons-temple-was-determined)
So, we have three independent lines of historical evidence, all of which bring us to 1446 BC for the date of the exodus! How much more evidence do we need to say that this question is virtually settled?
Digging a Little Deeper
Now let’s scrutinize the details of our two passages of Scripture:
“And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.” — 1 Kings 6:1
1 Kings 6:1 is straightforward. Solomon began to build the Temple of Yahweh 479 years and some months after the Exodus. Note the specificity of the chronological statements here:
- “the 480th year,” (that is, not 480 years but 479 years plus some months),
- “the fourth year of Solomon’s reign,”
- “the month of Zif,”
- “which is the second month.”
The concern with communicating precise chronology to the reader in this verse is striking and explicitly clear. It is difficult to imagine any other framing of the chronology which could express this precision more emphatically.
The dating of the Exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt (and therefore of Joshua’s altar 40 years later) is, in my view, unnecessarily debated amongst biblical scholars. There are many variations, but basically, there are two schools of thought, consisting of an early date camp and a late date camp. The early date camp places the Exodus in the mid-fifteenth century BC (i.e., mid-1400s BC), apparently during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, and the late date camp places the Exodus around the middle of the 13th century BC (i.e., 1200s BC), sometime around the reign of Pharaoh Rameses II. The late-date view was popularized by Cecil B. DeMille in the classic movie, The Ten Commandments.
The most significant and pivotal debate about the chronology of the Exodus concerns the meaning of 1 Kings 6:1, particularly whether or not it is to be understood literally or in some symbolic or idealized sense involving cryptic numerology. One’s understanding of this passage represents a fork in the road leading to either the early date camp or the late date camp.
It seems to me that the clear purpose of 1 Kings 6:1 is to communicate precise chronological information to the reader. If one wishs to assert the symbolic nature of the 480 years (or rather, 479 years and several months), then some common sense explanation must also be provided to explain:
- what is the symbolic meaning of the “fourth year” of Solomon’s reign?
- what is the symbolic meaning of the “month” of Ziv?
- and what is the symbolic meaning of the “second month”?
If the late date proponents of the Exodus are to be taken seriously, they must provide clear answers to these questions. But to my knowledge, not one scholar has ever addressed the symbolic meaning of the other three chronological markers even while they insist the 480 year date must be only symbolically significant. If there were no late date theory about the dating of the Exodus, no one would have ever suggested that 1 Kings 6:1 had some kind of symbolic meaning.
The Late Date Exodus Argument
It would not be fair to make this assessment of the late date theory without considering one of the premier scholars and leading advocates of the late date theory. James Hoffmeier is one such scholar. Hoffmeier certainly has a command of the archaeology and the historic and linguistic factors involved.
Hoffmeier puts forth his case in Five Views on the Exodus. Hoffmeier relies on two claims to negate the plain meaning of 1 Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26.
On page 53 of Five Views on the Exodus, responding to Scott Stripling, Hoffmeier states:
If one limits biblical chronology to 1 Kgs 6:1 (480 years from Solomon’s third year [967 BC] back to the exodus) and Judg 11:26 (300 years since arrival of Israelite settlers in Transjordan), then a fifteenth-century date seems obvious. Yet given the context of Jephthah’s claim about the Israelite’s taking control of a segment of Transjordan upon coming out of Egypt (Judg 11:13–16), the 300-occupation-year period (v. 26) could be a hyperbolic figure to strengthen Israel’s claim to the land.
In other words, Hoffmeier wants us to believe that Jephthah lied or exaggerated to the king of the Ammonites. As if the king would not know the history involved. This is not a textual or linguistic argument but an interpretive gloss. Hoffmeier must construe Jephthah’s 300 years as hyperbole or abandon his late-date Exodus theory. It is not the text of Scripture but the dogma of a late-date exodus that impels Hoffmeier to this interpretation.
Next, how does Hoffmeier handle 1 Kings 6:1?
I have suggested that the 480 is what Assyriologists call a Distanzangabe, which Julian Reade describes as ‘an approximation relating to the distant past.’ Assyrian rulers cite large numbers, like 720 years between the founding of a temple or temple renovations and some important past event. One such case is from the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta, who declared that 720 years stood between the building of the Ishtar Temple in Assur by Ilushumma and Tukulti-Ninurta’s rebuild. Reade doubts that the 720 years should be taken literally, suggesting it represents ‘an approximation relating to the distant past’ and that 720 derives from ’12 times 60’ (sixty is a special number in Sumerian).
“Similarly, the 400-Year Stela of Ramesses II apparently commemorated the dedication of the Temple of Baal/Seth and the restoration of the cult by Ramesses. I stand by my earlier proposal; ‘Could it be that the 480 years of 1 Kgs 6:1 is an Israelite Distanzangabe? If so, its purpose was not to provide a historical datum per se but rather to create a link between the building of Israel’s Temple and the event that led to YHWH becoming the God of Israel’. – Five Views on the Exodus, pg 57–58
To engage in understatement, I am not exactly impressed with Hoffmeier’s logic. It clearly is the purpose of 1 Kings 6:1 “to provide a historical datum.” Hoffmeier sees a mirage of the Exodus in 1260 BC, so with this as a major presupposed premise, Hoffmeier concludes that Judges 11:26 and 1 Kings 6:1 must be something other than literal or true assertions of chronology. Hoffmeier is engaged in a classic tautology here, a circular argument.
Hoffmeier is compelled to support his interpretation of Scripture from non-biblical sources: “The Assyrians did it this way, so this must be the way the writer of 1 Kings 6 did it.” This is a non-sequitur. Such an approach may be acceptable to secular scholars hostile to the biblical revelation but it hardly commends itself as a valid approach for those of us who believe in the principle of Sola Scriptura — or those who don’t, for that matter!
Note well, the scholars do not even know whether Tukulti-Ninurta himself intended an approximation or some sort of symbolic numerological meaning. The king could have been speaking quite literally. Hoffmeier indulges in assumption upon assumption, all in the effort to advocate for a late-date Exodus in the thirteenth century BC, around the time of Ramesses II. This is an exceedingly weak case.
So how is it that a brilliant scholar of Hoffmeier’s stature can embrace this idea? I have often said that it takes a brilliant mind to take a ridiculous idea and make it believable while those of us of lesser intelligence are consigned to staring reality in the face. A brilliant mind can be a liability in this regard.
Dating Joshua’s Altar
Scott Stripling asks:
How can we ascertain the correct date for the older altar and why is it venerated (‘in the exact center’) by enclosure within the rectangular altar? – pg 47, Five Views of the Exodus
Stripling asks crucial archaeological questions. The fact that the older circular altar underneath the later rectangular altar was preserved rather than destroyed is proof that the older altar was not a Canaanite altar, else it would have been torn down. Indicating the older version was an Israelite altar.
More than this, the older, round altar could not have been just some random altar erected by some random devout Israelite. It seems far more plausible that it was preserved because it was important and significant to the builders of the second altar. There can be little doubt that this older altar was preserved because it is the very altar of Joshua. This fact, combined with the chronology we have already established, gives us a date for the earlier altar.
Does the Archaeology Agree?
So, what about the archaeological evidence on Ebal? Does it concur with the biblical chronology, or give us a different picture? And if it appears to conflict, to which should we give the greater weight? To an interpretation of material culture? Or to the well-established timeline explicitly and provided by the written testimony of Scripture?
But to continue, Stripling notes:
“On the surface, this altar seems to support the late date” [i.e., the thirteenth century BC date]. “However, an earlier altar lies beneath the thirteenth-century altar. Scholars have largely ignored this fact.” —pg. 46–47, Five Views of the Exodus
I would like to add that the presence and use of the later altar during the thirteenth century BC (i.e., the 1200s), does not, in my opinion, rule out the possibility that the later altar could have been constructed earlier, perhaps as early as about 1360 BC after the death of Joshua.
Stripling continues:
“Zertal does document a biconical jug, a shallow bowl, and a carinated bowl which best fit in the late Bronze I-II transition…
“(T)here was a small amount of Late Bronze 1B pottery beneath the Iron Age I pottery and bone matrix. I believe that this pottery, a late Bronze pumice chalice from Pit 250, a small amount of animal bone from inside the round altar, and the Thutmose III scarab all point to fifteenth–century date for the round altar.”- Five views on the Exodus pg 48
The scarab of Pharaoh Thutmose III is particularly compelling regarding the date of the original altar. This Pharaoh had a 54-year reign, much of which was in the mid-15th century BC no matter which version of his dates one selects. Somehow this royal Egyptian scarab came into possession by the Israelites and made its way from Egypt to Mount Ebal in the East-Central region of Israel. It could very well have made its way out of Egypt during the exodus in 1446 BC.
Late-date Exodus advocates contend that the Thutmose III scarab was commemorative, manufactured long after Thutmose III died. They have to. If not, their theory is called into question. This strikes me as being merely another arbitrary claim.
Stripling observes:
This is nothing new. The identification of Eighteenth Dynasty scarabs from sites like Mount Ebal, Shiloh, and Jericho are often judged to be commemorative because they challenge the dominant late-date theory. The theory now drives interpretation. The criteria for determining which Eighteenth Dynasty scarabs derive from the time of the pharaoh they portray and the ones that do not, if any, are subjective. —pg 47–48, Five Views on the Exodus
Conclusion
Dating Joshua’s Altar becomes easy with the previous chronological points established.
- Moses was 80 when he led Israel out of Egypt and 120 when he died and Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan.
- Joshua erected the altar on Mount Ebal very shortly after this.
- The cities of Jericho and Ai were taken by the Israelites in short order, upon which Joshua went up onto Ebal and built the altar.
The date of Joshua’s altar, therefore, is 1406 BC. The original round altar on Mount Ebal underneath the later rectangular altar is Joshua’s altar and has been there, as of the writing of this article, for 3,470 years!
We will continue our examination of Joshua’s Altar in Part 6C.
Other Resources relating to Joshua’s altar:
“How we KNOW the dates for the Old Testament!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DJtVlLRMGw&t=1338s
“Archaeological find upends secular academia” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWlKg9g1IXs
“Bible Evidence Unearthed at Nineveh!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34XBkm4QiLo
https://armstronginstitute.org/679-mount-ebal-and-the-tale-of-two-altars
https://armstronginstitute.org/762-the-480-years-of-1-kings-6-1-just-a-symbolic-number
