Page "Joshua" Paragraph 6

Although Egypt did not have its former grasp on Canaan, there was a strong presence into the twelfth century, and Philistia took greater control of the southern coastal plain then also ( mentions the Philistines ).

The first record of the name Israel occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BCE, " Israel is laid waste and his seed is not.

" William Dever sees this " Israel " in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, well enough established to be perceived by the Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony, but an ethnic group rather than an organised state.

The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I ( more and larger in the north ), with the settled population rising from 20, 000 in the twelfth century to 40, 000 in the eleventh.

The villagers probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left sufficient remains to determine their settlement patterns.

Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between these highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture ; certain features such as ceramic repertoire and agrarian settlement plans have been said to be distinctives of highland sites, and collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically " Israelite ," but have also been said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan.

While some archaeologists interpret the absence of pig bones from the highland sites as an indicator of ethnicity, this is not certain.

Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400, which lived by farming and herding and were largely self-sufficient ; economic interchange was prevalent.

According to Ann E. Killebrew, " Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality ".

Popular reviews of the Book of Joshua's sharp contrasts and internal conflicts arise from " an appreciable difference between defeating a king in battle, and gaining possession of his capital city " ( vs.,,, ); and because " the land was now within the grasp of the Israelites they did not avail themselves fully of that dominion which was within their reach " (,, vs., ).

The question of the degrees of conquest and / or assimilation may not be answered with certainty, as both sides cite a large body of archaeological and other evidence.