1220 BC, arguing that “[t]he Yadin date of 1230 BC (Mycenaean wares near [the] end of Hazor) was based on [the work of Arne] Furumark (in [the]

ible (Douglas Petrovich, “Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 17:1 [Spr 2006], 87). The low chronology’s current popularity among many Egyptologists may prove to be nothing more than a mere trend.9. Sharon Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction: Crisis Architecture, Termination Rituals and the Fall of Canaanite Hazor” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20:1 (June 2007), 24.10. Amnon Ben-Tor, “The Fall of Canaanite Hazor—the ‘Who’ and ‘When’ Questions,” in Mediterranean Peoples in Transition (eds. Seymour Gitin, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1998), 465.11. Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction,” 24.12. Yadin, “Hazor,” in New Encyclopedia, 603; Amnon Ben-Tor and Maria Teresa Rubiato, “Excavating Hazor—Part Two: Did the Israelites Destroy the Canaanite City?” BAR 25:3 (May/June 1999), 22–39.13. Kitchen, “Hazor and Egypt,” 313.14. Yadin, “Hazor,” in New Encyclopedia, 603.15. Sharon Zuckerman, “Where is the Hazor Archive Buried?,” BAR 32:2 (Mar/Apr 2006), 37. Unlike the description in Joshua 11, the text of Judges 4 does not state that the Israelites burned—or even destroyed—Hazor, so neither Ben-Tor’s theory (Israelite destruction) nor Zuckerman’s theory (internal revolt) is at odds with the text, per se, if these two Israelite initiatives against Hazor were not one and the same event. However, certainly the burden of proof is upon Zuckerman to overturn the mound of evidence produced by Ben-Tor, which seems to make evident what the account in Judges 4 alludes to, though does not state explicitly. The fate of Hazor in the narrative of Judges 4 will be discussed in greater detail subsequently.16. Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction,” 25. Obviously one great weakness in Zuckerman’s dismissal of the conquest theory is that her argument is one derived completely from silence. It must be noted that only a minute fraction of Tel Hazor has been excavated, and thus the possibility of a mass-burial site cannot be overlooked, as well as that of skeletal remains existing only in areas as yet unexcavated. In a personal conversation between the present writer and Ben-Tor, the chief excavator ventured that 600 years would be needed to excavate the entire site. Moreover, clearly not all of Israel’s victories over Canaanite cities, which battles actually were fought by the divine “captain of the army of Yahweh” (Josh 5:14–15) both in the days of Joshua and well beyond, were won by conventional weaponry or included a direct, human assault on the city’s fortified defenses (e.g. Jericho [Josh 6], Ai [Josh 8], earlier Hazor [Josh 11], Bethel [Judg 1:23–25], and Jerusalem [2 Sam 5:6–9]). Thus Zuckerman’s expectation to find remnants of weapons allegedly used if the Israelites truly were the destroyers of Hazor, and to find them in the site’s scant few excavated areas, is presuppositionally flawed. Zuckerman also fails to explain why the lower class(es) would initiate an internal revolt that would lead to the irreparable devastation of their native city, which would have to be the case since Hazor was left uninhabited until the 11th century BC, forcing the revolters to evacuate and resettle in other cities throughout the Hula Valley such as Tel-Dan, as Zuckerman suggests. What motive could be strong enough to incite such a peasants’ revolt that would lead to complete, personal disenfranchisement?17. Hoffmeier, “What Is the Biblical Date?,” 245.18. Wood, “Rise and Fall,” 477.19. Hoffmeier, “What Is the Biblical Date?,” 244.20. In Amarna Letter (EA) 227, the ruler of Hazor, while writing to the Egyptian pharaoh, refers to himself as the “king of the city of Hazor,” a case unparalleled in all of the correspondence of the Canaanite cities mentioned in the el-Amarna archive. Furthermore, in EA 148, he is referred to the same way by the ruler of Tyre. Unfortunately, EA 227 is rather fragmentary, but in it the king of Hazor reassures pharaoh that he is safeguarding the cities of pharaoh until the Egyptian king’s arrival (The Amarna Letters, ed. William L. Moran [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992], 289, 235). As Yadin writes, “This indicates no doubt that the King of Hazor’s rule embraced more than the city itself,” which “is further corroborated by the letters of the rulers of Tyre and Ashtaroth” (Yadin, The Head, 8). It should be no surprise that in Judges 4, Jabin is referred to four times as the “king of Canaan,” while only once is he called the “king of Hazor.” In fact, he is called the “king of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor” (Judg 4:2).21. Keil and Delitzsch seem to agree, writing that the purpose of Joshua is to show how the faithful covenant-God of Israel fulfilled the promise that he made to the patriarchs, and how the Canaanites were destroyed and their land was given to the tribes of Israel for a hereditary possession through the medium of Joshua (C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, “Joshua,” in Commentary of the Old Testament, vol. 2 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989], 15).22. Wood, “The Biblical Date: 1446,” 256.23. Yigael Yadin, Hazor: The Rediscovery of a Great Citadel of the Bible (New York: Random House, 1975), 255. Elsewhere, the former chief excavator at Hazor notes that the destruction of the final Canaanite city undoubtedly is the one “related in the Book of Joshua” (Yadin, “Hazor,” in New Encyclopedia, 603).24. Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction,” 25.25. Rodger C. Young, “When Did Solomon Die? ” JETS 46:4 (Dec 2003), 601, 602. For a development of the argument that the jubilee cycles support a date of 1446 BC for the exodus, see idem, “The Talmud’s Two Jubilees and their Relevance to the Date of the Exodus,” WTJ 68 (2006) 71–83; idem, “Ezekiel 40:1 As a Corrective for Seven



Wrong Ideas in Biblical Interpretation
Three Verifications of Thiele’s Date for the Beginning of the Divided Kingdom,” AUSS 45 (2007) 173–179.26. Petrovich, “Amenhotep II”, 84, footnote 15. This article evaluates the candidacy of Amenhotep II as the exodus-pharaoh by examining this pharaoh’s biography against what must be true of the exodus-pharaoh historically. The conclusion drawn is that Amenhotep II is the only pharaoh of either the 18th or 19th Dynasty who sufficiently meets the necessary biographical requirements. To date, no late-exodus advocate has attempted to challenge the evidence that was presented, or the conclusion that was drawn.27. The commencement of the conquest can be dated exactly. With the exodus datable to 1446 BC, the conquest automatically is dated to 1406 BC, because for “40 years the sons of Israel walked in the wilderness” before entering Canaan (Josh 5:6). Since the crossing of the Jordan River transpired on the 10th day of the first month, a date of 28 April 1406 BC is filanguage learning