Evidence for the Old Testament Miracles: The Jericho Wall

Evidence for Old Testament Miracles  ·  Post 6

When the Walls Came Down:
The Fall of Jericho

Archaeology, pottery, burned grain, and a section of wall still standing after 3,400 years

Old Testament Series · Apologetics · Biblical Archaeology

By Rajkumar Richard W.J.F

There is a story that every Christian child knows. For six days, the army of Israel marched silently around the city of Jericho -- once each day, saying nothing, blowing no horn, offering no threat. On the seventh day, they marched seven times. Then the priests blew their trumpets, the people shouted, and the walls of one of the most fortified cities in the ancient Near East collapsed. The army walked straight in. The city burned. Only one family survived -- a woman named Rahab, whose house was built into the city wall itself, and who had hidden Israel's spies and hung a scarlet cord from her window.

Skeptics have had a field day with this account. Walls do not fall because people march around them and shout. And for much of the twentieth century, the dominant scholarly view was that there was no walled city at Jericho at the time of Joshua at all -- making the whole account, in the words of archaeologist William Dever, a case of Joshua destroying a city that was not even there.

But archaeology tells a far more interesting story than that. When the evidence is examined carefully -- not through a single scholar's narrow trench, but across more than a century of excavation -- it becomes clear that Jericho was exactly the kind of city the Bible describes: heavily fortified, destroyed suddenly, burned completely, and deserted at a date that lines up with Joshua's campaigns. Every detail in the Joshua narrative that can be tested archaeologically has been confirmed. That is a remarkable thing. And it demands a serious look.

"So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city."

Joshua 6:20 (ESV)

The Hebrew phrase translated "fell down flat" carries the specific sense of the wall falling "beneath itself" -- collapsing downward and outward at its own base. That is a precise physical description. And it is precisely what the archaeological record shows.

Evidence 1

A Century of Excavations at Tell es-Sultan

Ancient Jericho has been dug up more times than almost any other site in the biblical world. What the archaeologists found -- and how they disagreed about what it means -- is the heart of the Jericho debate.

Ancient Jericho sits at a site called Tell es-Sultan, just west of the Jordan River near the Ein es-Sultan spring. No archaeologist disputes that this mound is biblical Jericho. The question has never been whether this is the right site -- it is. The question is how to date what was found there, and that question has driven one of the longest-running debates in the history of biblical archaeology.¹

Excavation	Period	Key Findings	Date of Destruction Proposed
Charles Warren	1868	First recorded excavation of the site; limited soundings	Not determined
Ernst Sellin & Carl Watzinger	1907-1909, 1911	Found mudbrick wall remains and houses built against the north wall; initially dated destruction to Late Bronze Age, later revised to Middle Bronze Age	Revised to ~1550 BC
John Garstang	1930-1936	Found fallen walls, massive burn layer, grain storage jars; dated destruction to ~1400 BC in line with biblical chronology	~1400 BC (Late Bronze Age)
Kathleen Kenyon	1952-1958	Confirmed fallen walls and burn layer; found grain in storage jars; redated destruction to ~1550 BC based on absence of Cypriot imported pottery	~1550 BC (Middle Bronze Age)
Bryant Wood (reanalysis)	1990	Reexamined Kenyon's own pottery evidence; argued local pottery, scarabs, and stratigraphy support a ~1400 BC date matching biblical timeline	~1400 BC (Late Bronze Age I)
Italian-Palestinian Expedition	1997-2000, 2009-2017	Confirmed mudbrick wall collapse outward; found revetment wall intact with collapsed bricks piled at its base; continued stratigraphic investigation	Ongoing research

The Physical Evidence Everyone Agrees On

Despite their disagreement over dating, every major excavator of Jericho has confirmed the same physical findings. Garstang found them. Kenyon confirmed them. The Italian-Palestinian expedition documented them again in the 1990s. The physical facts of the destruction of City IV at Tell es-Sultan are not in dispute:

A Heavily Fortified City

Jericho's defenses consisted of a stone revetment wall at the base of the mound, approximately 12-15 feet high, supporting a plastered earthen rampart. On top of the rampart sat a mudbrick city wall roughly 13-15 feet thick and 20-26 feet high. A second mudbrick wall higher up enclosed the inner city. Total height from ground level to the top of the inner wall reached an estimated 25-30 feet. This is exactly the kind of formidable fortification Joshua 6:1 describes.²

Walls That Fell Outward

The mudbrick wall did not fall inward as it would from a battering ram or undermining. It collapsed outward, down the slope of the rampart, piling up at the base of the stone revetment wall. Kenyon herself recorded "fallen red bricks piling nearly to the top of the revetment" on the west side of the tell. This outward collapse is rare in ancient sieges and formed a natural ramp directly into the city.³

A Massive Destruction by Fire

The entire city was burned completely. Kenyon's excavation report records: "The destruction was complete. Walls and floors were blackened or reddened by fire, and every room was filled with fallen bricks, timbers, and household utensils; in most rooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt." A burn layer in some areas reached nearly a meter deep.⁴

A Small City -- Right Size for Marching

The upper city of Jericho enclosed approximately 6 acres. Including the full fortification system, the total area was roughly 9 acres. An army could march around a 9-acre site seven times in a single day. Joshua 6:15 specifies that on the seventh day, Israel marched around the city seven times before the walls fell. The site dimensions match the narrative exactly.

Verdict: Every excavator agrees -- the city was heavily fortified, its walls fell outward, and it was destroyed by a massive fire. The physical facts of Joshua 6 are confirmed by archaeology.

Evidence 2

The Dating Debate: Kenyon vs. Wood

The entire controversy over Jericho comes down to one question: when did City IV burn? Kathleen Kenyon said 1550 BC. Bryant Wood said 1400 BC. And Wood's case, built from Kenyon's own evidence, has never been adequately refuted.

How Kenyon Dated the Destruction to 1550 BC

Kathleen Kenyon was one of the most skilled archaeologists of the twentieth century, and her development of stratigraphic excavation methods transformed the field. Her conclusion that Jericho was destroyed around 1550 BC was not careless. But it rested on a single, significant argument: the absence of a specific type of imported Cypriot pottery known to be common in Canaan around 1400 BC. She had not found any in her narrow excavation trenches. She concluded, therefore, that the city could not have survived into the Late Bronze Age when that pottery was in use.⁵

This is what logicians call an "argument from absence" -- reasoning from the fact that something was not found to the conclusion that it did not exist. It is one of the weakest forms of argument in archaeology, and for good reason: Kenyon dug in two narrow 8x8 meter squares out of a 9-acre site. The absence of expensive imported pottery in those two squares cannot establish its absence from the city as a whole.

Bryant Wood's Reanalysis of Kenyon's Own Evidence

In 1990, Dr. Bryant Wood -- a specialist in Canaanite pottery of the Late Bronze Age -- published a landmark article in Biblical Archaeology Review titled "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?" that turned the Jericho debate on its head.⁶ Wood went back to the pottery, the scarabs, and the stratigraphy that Kenyon and Garstang had themselves excavated and published. His findings were striking.

Bryant Wood's Four Lines of Evidence for a 1400 BC Destruction

Local Pottery

Garstang found pottery in the City IV destruction layer that Wood identified as Late Bronze I in type -- that is, pottery consistent with a date around 1400 BC, not 1550 BC. Critically, this was locally produced pottery, not imported luxury ware. A border city like Jericho would naturally have less imported Cypriot pottery than coastal trading centres. Kenyon's argument from the absence of imports ignored the evidence of the local pottery that was present.⁷

Scarab Evidence

Garstang recovered Egyptian scarabs from the cemetery at Jericho -- small amulets bearing royal cartouches. The scarabs found included those of Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, and Amenhotep III -- pharaohs who reigned between approximately 1500 and 1352 BC. The series of scarabs ends with Amenhotep III, who reigned until around 1352 BC. As Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer observed, if the city had survived into the 13th century BC, one would expect to find scarabs from the many pharaohs who reigned after Amenhotep III -- but there are none. The cemetery was clearly abandoned around 1400 BC.⁸

Cypriot Pottery

Garstang actually recorded finding imitation Cypriot bichrome pottery in association with the City IV destruction layer. At the time of his excavation, the significance of this pottery type as a Late Bronze I indicator had not yet been recognized, so it was published without special emphasis. Wood identified it in Garstang's records and noted that this pottery type is precisely what one would expect in a Late Bronze I context -- that is, around 1400 BC. Kenyon ignored this evidence in her own analysis.⁹

Carbon-14 Dating

Wood reported that a charcoal sample from the City IV destruction layer had been carbon-14 dated by the British Museum to 1410 BC, plus or minus 40 years. It was later established that the British Museum's radiocarbon apparatus had calibration errors during that period, so this specific date is not reliable on its own. However, the first three lines of evidence -- pottery, scarabs, and imitation Cypriot ware -- remain intact and have never been adequately refuted by Kenyon's defenders.¹⁰

"When we compare the archaeological evidence at Jericho with the biblical narrative describing the Israelite destruction of Jericho, we find remarkable agreement. The correlation between the archaeological evidence and the biblical narrative is substantial."

-- Dr. Bryant G. Wood, Biblical Archaeology Review (1990); quoted in Deseret News, February 21, 1990

Kenyon was a more careful archaeologist than Garstang. Shouldn't her conclusions take priority?

Kenyon's stratigraphic methods were genuinely more advanced than Garstang's -- nobody disputes that. But Wood's argument is not that Kenyon's methods were wrong. His argument is that her conclusion was based on a logical error: reasoning from the absence of evidence in two small trenches to a conclusion about an entire city. More importantly, Wood's reanalysis used Kenyon's own published data -- the pottery reports she produced -- and showed that the evidence she herself uncovered was consistent with a Late Bronze I date of around 1400 BC. A better method does not automatically produce a better conclusion if the reasoning from the evidence is flawed.

Verdict: Wood's reanalysis of Kenyon's own evidence -- pottery, scarabs, and imitation Cypriot ware -- provides a strong case for dating the destruction of Jericho to approximately 1400 BC, consistent with the biblical timeline.

Evidence 3

The Burned Grain Jars: A Unique Find in the Annals of Archaeology

Both Garstang and Kenyon found large storage jars full of grain, caught in the fire that destroyed the city. Biblical Archaeology Review called it unique. The explanation comes directly from the Book of Joshua.

Of all the physical evidence for the fall of Jericho, the burned grain jars may be the most revealing. Both John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon -- excavators who disagreed sharply on the date of the city's destruction -- independently found the same thing in the ruins of City IV: large storage jars, full of grain, scorched and preserved in the ashes of the destruction fire. Kenyon reported recovering over six bushels of grain in a single excavation season alone.¹¹

Biblical Archaeology Review summarized the significance of this find directly: "The most abundant item found in the destruction, apart from pottery, was grain. This is unique in the annals of Palestinian archaeology. Perhaps a jar or two might be found, but to find such an extensive amount of grain is exceptional."¹²

Three Things the Grain Jars Prove

The Siege Was Short

A heavily fortified city with adequate food and water could hold out for months, sometimes years. Ancient sieges were designed to starve defenders into surrender. If the fall of Jericho had been a normal siege, the grain would have been consumed before the city fell. The jars were full. Joshua 6 describes a siege of seven days. Only a seven-day siege leaves the grain stores untouched -- and that is exactly what the archaeology shows.

The Attack Came at Harvest Time

The grain jars were full because the spring harvest had just been brought in. Three separate details in the biblical narrative independently confirm a spring attack: Rahab was drying freshly harvested flax on her roof (Joshua 2:6); the Jordan River was in flood at harvest time when Israel crossed it (Joshua 3:15); and Israel celebrated Passover just before attacking the city (Joshua 5:10). The full grain jars confirm all three details simultaneously.

The Grain Was Not Looted

Grain was one of the most valuable commodities in the ancient world. Any conquering army's first act after taking a city was to plunder its food stores. At Jericho, the grain was not plundered. It was left in the jars and burned. The Bible explains why. GOD commanded through Joshua that Jericho was to be entirely devoted to HIM -- a practice called herem, or the ban. No plunder was to be taken (Joshua 6:17-19). The burned, unplundered grain is an archaeological fingerprint of that specific divine command.¹³

A Combination Found Nowhere Else

No other excavated site in Palestinian archaeology has produced this combination: a city destroyed by sudden, catastrophic fire, with full grain jars left unplundered, at harvest time, after a very short siege. The combination is unique -- and it matches the Joshua 6 account in every detail simultaneously. The probability of this combination arising by coincidence is extraordinarily small.

Verdict: The burned grain jars confirm the short siege, the spring timing, and the command not to plunder -- three independently verifiable details of the Joshua account confirmed by a single unique find.

Evidence 4

Rahab's House: A Section of Wall Still Standing

The walls of Jericho fell everywhere -- except in one specific location on the northern side of the city, where a section of mudbrick wall still stood eight feet high, with houses built against it.

The story of Rahab is one of the most beautiful in the entire Old Testament. A Canaanite woman living in Jericho -- a woman with a damaged reputation, an outsider in every sense -- heard what the GOD of Israel had done in Egypt and at the Jordan River, and she believed. She hid the Israelite spies sent by Joshua, helped them escape, and asked for one thing in return: that her family would be spared when the walls came down. The spies promised. The sign was a scarlet cord hung from her window (Joshua 2:18-19).

Joshua 2:15 describes Rahab's house as being built into the city wall itself -- literally against the wall, with the wall forming the rear of her dwelling. When every other section of Jericho's wall collapsed outward on the day of the great shout, her section of wall did not fall. her family survived. She was brought out safely and incorporated into the people of Israel (Joshua 6:22-25).

What makes this detail so remarkable is what the German excavation of 1907-1909 found at the northern end of the tell. Archaeologists Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger documented a specific section of the lower city wall that did not fall with the rest of the perimeter. A portion of mudbrick wall on the north side remained standing to a height of approximately eight feet. And against that standing section of wall, they found houses still intact.¹⁴

"At the north end of the tell of Jericho, archaeologists made some astounding discoveries that seem to relate to Rahab. The German excavation of 1907-1909 found that on the north a short stretch of the lower city wall did not fall as everywhere else. A portion of that mudbrick wall was still standing to a height of over two metres (eight feet). What is more, there were houses built against the wall!"

-- Dr. Bryant G. Wood, "The Walls of Jericho," Associates for Biblical Research, biblearchaeology.org

Wood notes that since the city wall formed the back wall of these houses -- exactly as Joshua 2:15 describes Rahab's house -- the spies could easily have let themselves down from the window by a rope, as the biblical account describes. The description in Joshua 2:15, translated literally, reads: "Her house was against the vertical surface of the city wall, and in the city wall she lived." The German excavation found precisely this: houses built against and into the standing wall on the north side of the city.¹⁵

If GOD used an earthquake to bring down the walls of Jericho -- a mechanism consistent with the geological record of seismic activity in the Jordan Valley -- the same earthquake could have protected one specific section of the northern wall while bringing down the rest. Whether the mechanism was seismic or purely miraculous, the result is the same: the wall fell everywhere except where HE had promised it would stand.

Verdict: A standing section of wall with houses built against it, found on the north side of Jericho by the 1907-1909 German excavation, corresponds precisely with the biblical description of Rahab's house location.

Evidence 5

Biblical and Theological Evidence

The fall of Jericho is treated as literal history by the New Testament, carries a specific theological message about GOD's sovereignty, and produced one of the most remarkable women in the lineage of Jesus HIMSELF.

Hebrews 11 -- Faith Hall of Fame

The author of Hebrews, in the great roll call of faith in Hebrews 11, devotes two specific verses to the fall of Jericho: "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace" (Hebrews 11:30-31). The author places this alongside Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, Moses' departure from Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea -- all treated as concrete historical events that demonstrate the nature of genuine faith in GOD.

If the fall of Jericho were legend or exaggeration, the author's theological argument would collapse. He is not offering Israel's legends as examples of faith. He is pointing to events that actually happened as demonstrations that GOD rewards those who trust HIM and obey HIM even when HIS instructions seem humanly absurd. An ordinary general would never march his army in silence around a city for a week. It made no military sense. It was an act of faith -- and the walls came down.

Rahab in the Lineage of Jesus Christ

The theological significance of Rahab does not end at Jericho. Matthew 1:5 records her name in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: "Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab." A Canaanite woman, a former prostitute from a city under divine judgment, who believed in the GOD of Israel on the basis of what she had heard -- she became an ancestor of JESUS HIMSELF. HER story is not a footnote. It is a preview of the Gospel: that salvation is available to anyone, of any background, any history, any nationality, who places genuine faith in the living GOD.

James 2:25 also cites Rahab as a demonstration that genuine faith produces action: "And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?" James is not saying she was saved by her works. He is saying her works proved her faith was real. She did not merely believe -- she acted on what she believed, at personal risk, in a way that changed history.

Joshua's Curse and Its Fulfillment

After the destruction of Jericho, Joshua pronounced a solemn curse over the site: "Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates" (Joshua 6:26). Archaeology confirms that Jericho was not rebuilt as a significant fortified city for an extended period after its destruction. And 1 Kings 16:34 records the precise fulfillment of this curse centuries later: "In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which HE spoke by Joshua the son of Nun." The fulfillment of a specific, named curse across centuries of history is not the stuff of legend. It is the fingerprint of a GOD who keeps HIS word.

The walls fell because of an earthquake, not because GOD made them fall. That removes the miracle.

Both Garstang and Kenyon found evidence of earthquake activity associated with the destruction of Jericho. An earthquake is the most likely natural mechanism for the kind of sudden, outward collapse documented by every excavator. But an earthquake that strikes at the precise moment seven trumpets sound and a vast crowd shouts -- after seven days of silent marching, on the seventh circuit of the seventh day -- is not a coincidence. It is GOD's sovereign use of a natural mechanism at the exact moment HE chose. The miracle is not diminished by the mechanism. It is heightened by the precision of its timing. And the one section of wall that was promised to survive -- Rahab's section on the north -- did survive the same earthquake that brought down the rest. That is not geology. That is GOD.

The biblical account is a nationalistic legend designed to justify Israel's conquest of Canaan. It should not be taken as history.

This objection proves too little and asks too much. The same argument could be applied to any ancient national narrative -- and it would disqualify most of ancient history from serious study. More importantly, the Joshua narrative does not behave like nationalist propaganda. Nationalist legends glorify the nation and its heroes. Joshua 6 glorifies GOD and goes out of its way to include a Canaanite prostitute as one of its central heroes. Rahab -- not a general, not a priest, not an Israelite -- is the human protagonist of the Jericho story. A narrative designed to justify conquest of Canaan would not elevate a Canaanite woman as its model of faith. The Jericho account has the texture of historical memory, not political invention.

Verdict: The fall of Jericho is treated as literal history by Hebrews 11 and James 2, produced a woman in the lineage of Jesus CHRIST, and includes the fulfillment of a specific prophetic curse recorded in 1 Kings 16:34.

An Honest Assessment

What Remains Genuinely Uncertain

The evidence for the fall of Jericho is strong. But honest engagement with the material requires acknowledging where the debate continues.

The Dating Debate Is Not Fully Resolved

Mainstream archaeology still largely follows Kenyon's 1550 BC date. Bryant Wood's reanalysis is compelling but has not achieved universal acceptance in the scholarly community. Piotr Bienkowski published a detailed response in Biblical Archaeology Review (September-October 1990) challenging Wood's pottery analysis on several specific points, arguing that the forms Wood cited have a long life spanning both Middle and Late Bronze periods. Wood replied robustly, but the exchange illustrates that the pottery evidence, while pointing toward 1400 BC, is not as simple as a single-sentence summary suggests. Christians who use this evidence should acknowledge the ongoing scholarly debate rather than presenting the 1400 BC date as if it were established consensus.

The Radiocarbon Date Should Not Be Cited

Bryant Wood originally cited a carbon-14 date of 1410 BC from a charcoal sample from the City IV destruction layer. It was subsequently established that the British Museum's radiocarbon apparatus had calibration errors during the period when this sample was tested. The first three lines of Wood's evidence -- local pottery, scarabs, and imitation Cypriot ware -- remain his strongest arguments. The radiocarbon date should not be cited as supporting evidence until reliable, recalibrated dating from the site is available.

Rahab's House Cannot Be Definitively Identified

The standing section of wall with adjacent houses found on the north side of Jericho by the 1907-1909 German excavation corresponds remarkably well with the biblical description of Rahab's house location. But it cannot be definitively identified as her house. The correspondence is suggestive and worth noting, but it should be presented as a plausible archaeological match rather than a confirmed identification.

Verdict: The physical evidence for the fall of Jericho -- fortified walls, outward collapse, massive burn, full grain jars, standing north wall -- is strong and uncontested. The dating debate continues, and that honest acknowledgment strengthens rather than weakens the overall apologetic case.

The Stones Cry Out

When Jesus said that if the people were silent, the stones would cry out (Luke 19:40), HE was speaking to a crowd outside Jericho. It is hard not to think of the stones of Tell es-Sultan when reading those words. Because the stones of Jericho have been crying out for over a century, to anyone willing to listen carefully enough.

The walls were there. They were heavily fortified, exactly as the Bible describes. They fell outward, exactly as the Hebrew phrase in Joshua 6:20 describes. The city was burned completely, exactly as Joshua commanded. The grain jars were full, exactly as a seven-day spring siege would produce. The north wall was standing in a specific location with houses built against it, exactly as Rahab's house was built. And the city lay largely unoccupied for a significant period afterwards, consistent with Joshua's curse.

Every aspect of the Jericho narrative that can possibly be tested by archaeology has been tested. And every one of them has been confirmed. The disagreement is not about the physical facts -- it is about how to date them. And when the dating evidence is examined honestly -- pottery, scarabs, and the imitation Cypriot ware that Kenyon herself overlooked -- the date that emerges is approximately 1400 BC, which is exactly when the biblical chronology places Joshua's conquest.

At the center of this story stands GOD HIMSELF -- not as a distant force manipulating history from afar, but as the GOD who gave a seemingly absurd battle plan to a general who trusted HIM, brought down the walls of the most fortified city in Canaan at the sound of a shout, spared one woman's house because she believed, and then placed that woman's name in the genealogy of HIS own SON. That is the GOD of Jericho. And the evidence says HE was there.

Core Apologetic Takeaway

"The walls fell outward. The grain was unplundered. The north wall still stood. The scarabs end at 1400 BC. Every detail that can be tested has been confirmed. Jericho is not a Bible problem. It is a Bible proof."

Discussion Questions

1. GOD's battle plan for Jericho -- seven days of silent marching followed by a shout -- made no military sense whatsoever. Why do you think GOD chose such a method? What does it reveal about what HE values in HIS people?
2. Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute -- an outsider by every measure -- who was saved by faith and became an ancestor of Jesus CHRIST. What does her story tell us about the scope of GOD's grace and the nature of genuine saving faith?
3. The dating of Jericho's destruction is still debated among scholars. How should a Christian handle archaeological evidence that is genuinely disputed? Does uncertainty about a detail undermine confidence in the overall account?
4. The burned grain jars are described as "unique in the annals of Palestinian archaeology." How does a unique archaeological find that matches a specific biblical detail affect your confidence in the historical reliability of Scripture?
5. Joshua 6:26 pronounced a curse on anyone who rebuilt Jericho -- and 1 Kings 16:34 records its precise fulfillment centuries later. What does the fulfillment of a specific prophetic curse tell you about the nature of the GOD of the Bible?

* * *

Endnotes

1. Titus M. Kennedy, "The Bronze Age Destruction of Jericho, Archaeology, and the Book of Joshua," Religions 14, no. 6 (2023): 796. MDPI. The identification of Tell es-Sultan as biblical Jericho is universal among archaeologists who have worked the site.
2. Bryant G. Wood, "The Walls of Jericho," Associates for Biblical Research, biblearchaeology.org. Wood summarizes the fortification system: outer revetment wall ~12-15 ft high, plastered rampart, mudbrick city wall 13-15 ft thick and 20-26 ft high. Total height from ground level approximately 25-30 ft. The area of the upper city was approximately 6 acres; the total including the fortification system was approximately 9 acres.
3. Kathleen M. Kenyon, Excavations at Jericho, Vol. III (London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1981), p. 110. Kenyon records "fallen red bricks piling nearly to the top of the revetment" on the west side of the tell. The Italian-Palestinian expedition of 1997-2000 confirmed the same outward collapse pattern: Marchetti et al. (1998), p. 143, as cited in Kennedy (2023).
4. Kathleen M. Kenyon, Excavations at Jericho, Vol. III, p. 370. The full quotation: "The destruction was complete. Walls and floors were blackened or reddened by fire, and every room was filled with fallen bricks, timbers, and household utensils; in most rooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt."
5. Bryant G. Wood, "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence," Biblical Archaeology Review 16, no. 2 (March-April 1990): 44-58. Wood explains Kenyon's argument from the absence of Cypriot imports: she excavated two 8x8 metre squares and found no imported Cypriote wares common in the Late Bronze I period, concluding the city was destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age.
6. Wood, "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?" BAR (1990), pp. 44-58. The article was published in the March-April 1990 issue. Piotr Bienkowski published a response, "Jericho Was Destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age," in the same journal (September-October 1990), to which Wood replied in "Dating Jericho's Destruction: Bienkowski is Wrong on All Counts," BAR (September-October 1990): 45-49, 68-69.
7. Wood, "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?" p. 49. Wood identified locally produced pottery forms in the City IV destruction layer consistent with Late Bronze I dating. He noted that Kenyon's argument "ignored the local pottery sequence in favour of imported wares not normally found at a site like Jericho."
8. Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994), pp. 263-264. Archer's observation on the scarabs: "It is impossible to explain why no scarabs bearing the cartouche of any later Pharaoh was ever found at that level if indeed the destruction of City IV took place in the mid-thirteenth century."
9. Wood, "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?" p. 52. On the imitation Cypriot bichrome pottery: "At the time of Garstang's excavation, the significance of this type of pottery was not recognized, so it was simply published along with all the other decorated pottery without being singled out for special notice." (Creation Wiki, Jericho Chronology Dispute, citing Wood, 1990.)
10. Creation Wiki, "Jericho Chronology Dispute." The article notes: "Wood correctly reported that the British Museum dated the wood sample from Jericho City IV at 1410 BC. However, it was later found that the calibration system and instrumentation of the British Museum's radiocarbon apparatus were giving wrong answers."
11. Kathleen M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho: The Results of the Jericho Excavations, 1952-1956 (London: Praeger & Benn, 1957), p. 280. Kenyon reported recovering over six bushels of grain in a single excavation season from the City IV destruction layer.
12. Biblical Archaeology Review, as cited in Bryant G. Wood, "The Walls of Jericho," biblearchaeology.org: "The most abundant item found in the destruction, apart from pottery, was grain. This is unique in the annals of Palestinian archaeology. Perhaps a jar or two might be found, but to find such an extensive amount of grain is exceptional."
13. Wood, "The Walls of Jericho," biblearchaeology.org. The herem or ban commanded by GOD in Joshua 6:17-19 prohibited Israel from plundering the city. Wood concludes: "The grain left at Jericho and found by archaeologists in modern times gives graphic testimony to the obedience of the Israelites nearly three and a half millennia ago."
14. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger, Jericho: Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1913), p. 58. The German excavation of 1907-1909 found a section of mudbrick wall on the north side of the tell still standing to a height of approximately eight feet (over two metres), with houses built against it.
15. Wood, "The Walls of Jericho," biblearchaeology.org. Wood cites Kenyon, Excavations at Jericho, Vol. III, p. 370, and Sellin and Watzinger (1973), p. 58, for the standing north wall section and adjacent houses.

Key Sources & Further Reading

• Wood, B.G. (1990). "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence." Biblical Archaeology Review 16(2): 44-58.
• Wood, B.G. (1990). "Dating Jericho's Destruction: Bienkowski is Wrong on All Counts." Biblical Archaeology Review 16(5): 45-49, 68-69.
• Wood, B.G. "The Walls of Jericho." Associates for Biblical Research. biblearchaeology.org.
• Wood, B.G. "Jericho: Does the Evidence Disprove or Prove the Bible?" Associates for Biblical Research. biblearchaeology.org.
• Kenyon, K.M. (1957). Digging Up Jericho: The Results of the Jericho Excavations, 1952-1956. Praeger & Benn, London.
• Kenyon, K.M. & Holland, T.A. (1981). Excavations at Jericho, Vol. III. British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
• Kenyon, K.M. & Holland, T.A. (1982). Excavations at Jericho, Vol. IV: The Pottery Type Series and Other Finds. British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
• Kennedy, T.M. (2023). "The Bronze Age Destruction of Jericho, Archaeology, and the Book of Joshua." Religions 14(6): 796. MDPI.
• Sellin, E. & Watzinger, C. (1913). Jericho: Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen. J.C. Hinrichs, Leipzig.
• Bienkowski, P. (1990). "Jericho Was Destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age." Biblical Archaeology Review 16(5): 45-46, 69.
• Archer, G.L. (1994). A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 3rd ed. Moody Press.
• Kitchen, K.A. (2003). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Eerdmans.
• Garstang, J. & Garstang, J.B.E. (1948). The Story of Jericho. Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London.
• Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology. "Jericho, Ai, Hazor: Investigating the Three Cities That Did Joshua Burn." armstronginstitute.org.
• Answers in Genesis. "The Walls of Jericho." answersingenesis.org (Updated July 8, 2025).

Evidence for Old Testament Miracles  ·  Post 6 of the Series  ·  The Fall of Jericho

By Rajkumar Richard W.J.F  ·  The Christian Case

Biblical Inerrancy & Historic Christianity

The Place of Biblical Inerrancy in Historic Christianity

A consolidated look at biblical inerrancy — what it is, why sincere Christians disagree on it, and why it need not shake your faith

Should our faith weaken if the Bible is proven to contain errors? Isn't the Bible the very core of Christianity? If the core of Christianity were erroneous, shouldn't Christianity itself crumble?

If these questions trouble you, you are not alone, and you are not off the mark to ask them. To relentlessly assault the Bible's trustworthiness is the fervent passion of many. To rattle the faith of Christians is, for some, a vocation. The full-blown wrath of Christianity's detractors, including the New Atheists, is aimed squarely at unsettling the faith of ordinary believers — those of us who are not trained in seminaries or steeped in academic theology. At the first sound of their relentless tirades, our faith can shake.

This post brings together three pieces I've written over the years on biblical inerrancy into a single, consolidated treatment. My aim is to walk through what the doctrine of inerrancy actually claims, why faithful, sincere Christians land in different places on it, and why — whichever side of this you land on — your faith in Christ does not need to hang by that thread.

What Is Biblical Inerrancy, and Why Do Christians Disagree About It?

Broadly, there are two categories of Christians on this question, and both remain within the bounds of Historic Christianity.

Unlimited (or total) inerrancy holds that the Bible is without error in everything it affirms — not just matters of redemption, but also history, geography, and science. Defenders of this view state plainly that they deny biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual or redemptive themes, and that the authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if total divine inerrancy is in any way limited.

Limited inerrancy takes a more lenient position. It considers the Bible inerrant only in its redemptive teaching — matters pertaining to salvation — while allowing that the Bible may be susceptible to errors in non-salvific matters such as geography, history, or science. Proponents of this view hold that the central purpose of the Bible is spiritual transformation, to bring the lost into a saving relationship with God, and that if the Bible contains some errors or discrepancies that don't touch that transforming power, this is not a fatal problem. Interestingly, even bodies like the National Association of Evangelicals commit only to the Bible's infallibility — its inability to fail — in their statement of faith, without committing to unlimited inerrancy.

Christian evangelical scholars have studied, discussed, and debated this question at the highest academic levels for years, and they continue to hold contradictory positions on it. Yet they remain, on both sides, true and sincere Christians.

A Note on the Limits of Certainty

I should be upfront that this is a genuinely contested question even among careful, faithful evangelical scholars who love Scripture. I am not presenting one side as having won the argument. What follows is my own reasoning on why I don't believe this disagreement should be allowed to threaten anyone's faith — not an attempt to settle the debate itself.

The Case for Unlimited Inerrancy — and a Question Worth Asking

Those who hold to unlimited inerrancy argue from two strong premises:

A. God cannot lie, either intentionally or unintentionally. If the Bible is God's Word, and God cannot lie, then the Bible ought to be without error.

B. Christ Himself, God incarnate, proclaimed that God's Word cannot be broken (cf. John 10:35 & Matthew 5:18).

On the face of it, this reasoning looks airtight. But it is worth examining one premise more closely.

The argument typically runs:

Premise 1: God cannot err.
Premise 2: The Bible is God's Word.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible cannot err.

Premise 1 is correct. But Premise 2 deserves a second look. The term "God's Word" can carry two meanings — the spoken word of God, or the written word of God. If the Bible were simply a voice recording of God's spoken word, this conclusion would be very hard to resist. But that is not how the Bible came to us. Human agency and human authorship were involved in its writing. The Bible was not dictated word-for-word to its human authors; rather, those authors were inspired by God as they wrote, and the text was then transmitted across centuries by human scribes.

That presence of fallible human authors and copyists opens a window through which errors could, in principle, creep in — and textual criticism tells us that, at least at the level of manuscript transmission, they have. It is a well-documented finding that the New Testament text is about 99.5% accurate as preserved across the manuscript tradition, meaning roughly 0.5% of the text involves some kind of variation. Importantly, these variations do not affect any significant doctrine taught in the Bible. So at the very least, the Bible's transmission history contains some textual variants, which means the syllogism above — that the Bible cannot err simply because it is "God's Word" — is not as bulletproof as it first appears.

Why Biblical Inerrancy Is Not an Essential Doctrine of Historic Christianity

Historic Christianity rests on certain essential doctrines — doctrines that bear directly on one's salvation, such that unbelief in them jeopardizes salvation itself. Christ's bodily resurrection is one such doctrine. A person who denies it cannot rightly be called a Christian.

Is biblical inerrancy — specifically, the unlimited version of it — one of those essential doctrines? I don't believe it is.

The Nicene Creed lays out the essential doctrines of the historic Christian faith: belief in one God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth; in the one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father, who for our sake became incarnate, was crucified, died, was buried, and on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, from where He will come again to judge the living and the dead; belief in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who spoke through the prophets; and belief in one holy, universal, and apostolic church, one baptism for the remission of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. At a bare minimum, belief in what the Creed lays out is sufficient for salvation.

A Christian who believes wholeheartedly in the Triunity of God, the Lordship of Christ, His bodily resurrection, and the other essential doctrines of the faith — but who does not subscribe to unlimited inerrancy, holding instead that the Bible is fully trustworthy and authoritative without being inerrant in every non-redemptive detail — has not thereby forfeited salvation. This is an entirely different situation from someone who denies that the Bible is trustworthy in its entirety. Rejecting unlimited inerrancy does not require rejecting the essential doctrines of the faith; the two are logically separable. A Christian holding to limited inerrancy can affirm everything in the Creed while still maintaining that the Bible's inerrancy is confined to redemptive matters.

Christianity's truthfulness does not depend on the Bible being inerrant in this unlimited sense; it is anchored instead in events of history, which I get to below. For that reason, I don't think biblical inerrancy, in its unlimited form, can be elevated to the status of an essential doctrine of Historic Christianity.

So What If the Bible Were Proven to Contain Errors?

Here is the deeper and, I think, more important question: if the Bible were somehow proven to contain errors, would that bring Christianity crashing down?

Our response to that scenario depends heavily on whether we treat inerrancy as essential to the faith or not. If you treat unlimited inerrancy as essential, and the Bible were shown to err, your faith could be badly shaken. But if you regard the Bible as inerrant in its redemptive core while open to error elsewhere, an error of that kind would not touch your faith at all.

Easier said than done, of course. But consider the question from another angle entirely: would an erroneous Bible entail the non-existence of God? Not by any chance.

God exists necessarily. His existence is not predicated on, or intricately tied to, the veracity of the Bible. God would not cease to exist if the Bible were shown to be erroneous. In fact, God existed before the Bible was ever written. It was God who inspired human authors to write it; the Bible reveals God, but it is not the only means by which God reveals Himself (cf. Romans 1:19–20).

The Lord Jesus Christ, the means of mankind's salvation, existed independently of the Bible's veracity. History itself affirms Christ's existence and resurrection apart from any claim of biblical inerrancy. Dr. Gary Habermas has long argued that Jesus's death by crucifixion, His post-mortem appearances to His disciples, and Paul's encounter with the resurrected Christ are among the most widely affirmed historical facts, accepted by Christian and non-Christian scholars alike.

So even if the Bible were proven to contain errors, neither God nor Christ would cease to exist, and the historical case for Christ's resurrection would remain standing on its own footing. This is not an exercise in undermining the Bible's authority. It is simply an exercise in recognizing that God, Christ, and the salvation He offers exist independently of the question of biblical inerrancy.

God is at the core of Christianity. Christ, and the salvation He offers mankind, are at the core of Christianity. But inerrancy of the Bible need not be at that core. If inerrancy were placed at the center of the faith, it would imply that inerrancy is more valuable than God, Christ, and salvation themselves. But since God is the source of the Bible, it is God who belongs at the center — not the inerrancy of the text that reveals Him. Inerrancy, where it holds, is the corollary of God's nature, not a substitute for it.

A Cautionary Example

Bart Ehrman, the well-known New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, lost his faith in Christ after he discovered what he regarded as a discrepancy in the Gospel of Mark. By his own account, his strong prior commitment to biblical inerrancy was the very thing that shattered when that discrepancy surfaced. He drifted first into a more liberal Christianity, and eventually into agnostic atheism, after he found himself unable to reconcile the philosophical problems of evil and suffering. Whatever one concludes about that particular passage, Ehrman's trajectory illustrates the real danger of placing inerrancy itself — rather than God, Christ, and the resurrection — at the very foundation of one's faith.

Faith Alone: How Billy Graham Weathered This Storm

This is not merely a hypothetical danger; it has played out in real lives. The renowned evangelist Billy Graham went through his own crisis of faith when his close friend and fellow evangelist Charles "Chuck" Templeton began questioning the Bible's veracity and ultimately abandoned the faith altogether.

Graham later recalled that period:

"The exact wording of my prayer is beyond recall, but it must have echoed my thoughts: 'O God! There are many things in this book I do not understand. … I can't answer some of the philosophical and psychological questions Chuck [Templeton] and others are raising.' I was trying to be on the level with God, but something remained unspoken. At last the Holy Spirit freed me to say it: 'Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—by faith!' … I sensed the presence and power of God as I had not sensed it in months."

Templeton's departure from the faith did not deter Graham. He survived that crisis and emerged a more deeply committed believer in Christ. How? Through simple faith. You and I will not be remiss if we, too, simply believe that the Bible is the Word of God, even while we hold open questions about the finer points of inerrancy.

Truth Alone: Christianity Doesn't Stand or Fall on Inerrancy

The deeper reason none of this needs to threaten anyone's faith is that the truthfulness of Christianity does not depend on the Bible being inerrant. As Christian apologist Frank Turek has put it, Christianity would still be true even if the Bible had never been written, because Christianity's truth rests on a historical event — the resurrection of Jesus — not on a perfectly transmitted text reporting that event.

It is a mistake to think that the Christian faith is a house of cards, ready to collapse if a single verse or reference in the New Testament turns out to be mistaken. Inerrancy, however well it may be defended, is an unnecessarily high bar to set for establishing the central event of the faith: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If Christ rose from the dead, Christianity is true; if He did not, then, as the first-century eyewitness Paul himself admitted, it is false. But establishing that the resurrection happened does not require inerrant sources, any more than establishing that a football game was played requires a perfectly accurate newspaper stat line.

In fact, the presence of minor discrepancies between eyewitness accounts is itself evidence that something real took place, not evidence against it. The very existence of a flawed stat line presupposes that a game was actually played; nobody bothers writing up, let alone disputing the details of, an event that never happened. The same logic holds for the New Testament's resurrection accounts. Even where the multiple narratives differ on minor details, such disagreement reflects independent eyewitnesses describing the same dramatic event from different vantage points, not collusion or fabrication, and certainly not evidence that the event didn't occur. Survivors of the Titanic disagreed about exactly how the ship went down, yet no one doubts that it sank. All the resurrection accounts agree that the resurrection happened; they differ only on incidental details, such as who arrived first at the tomb.

This matters all the more when we consider who wrote these accounts down. Nearly all the New Testament authors were observant Jews who had every reason to lose everything by proclaiming a resurrection. They were not protecting their reputations or their safety by writing what they wrote; they were risking both. There were, as the saying goes, thousands of Christians before a single line of the New Testament was written. Paul was already a Christian before he wrote a word of Scripture, and so were Matthew, John, James, and Peter. They did not invent the resurrection and then build a faith around it. They witnessed something, and the resurrection itself gave rise to the New Testament documents — not the other way around.

This is why the foundational beliefs of Christianity — what C. S. Lewis called Mere Christianity — remain true even if the reports contain some errors. Getting a detail wrong in reporting the resurrection does not undo the larger fact that the resurrection occurred. If every account agreed on every single detail, we would rightly suspect collusion rather than independent eyewitness testimony.

So whether or not one holds to an inerrant Bible in the unlimited sense, the resurrection we celebrate is a historical event that actually took place roughly two thousand years ago — and that means we can trust that those who put their faith in Christ will be raised as He was.

Where This Leaves Us

There is nothing wrong with simply believing, by faith, that the Bible is God's Word. Christianity is true whether or not the Bible turns out to contain errors in non-redemptive matters, because its truth rests on the historical reality of Christ's resurrection, not on a guarantee of total textual perfection. Without diluting the Bible's significance in the slightest, there is also nothing wrong with declining to treat unlimited biblical inerrancy as an essential doctrine of Historic Christianity.

God is at the core of Christianity. Christ, and the salvation He offers mankind, are at the core of Christianity. The Bible reveals our triune God, and Scripture cannot be broken. Let us continue to trust and study God and His Word with full confidence — not because every jot and tittle has been independently verified to our satisfaction, but because the God who inspired it, and the Christ to whom it points, stand firm regardless.

So, fear not.

---

This post draws on and consolidates three earlier articles of mine:

1. "The Bible Has Errors, What Do We Do?" (March 2016)

2. "Why Is Biblical Inerrancy Not An Essential Doctrine Of Historic Christianity?" (August 2019)

3. "Does The Bible Contain Errors Or Not? How Should A Simple Christian Think This Through?" (August 2019)

Sources referenced across these articles:

defendinginerrancy.com (on unlimited vs. limited inerrancy, and on why inerrancy matters)

National Association of Evangelicals, Statement of Faith — nae.net/statement-of-faith

Roger Olson, "Is the Bible Inerrant or Infallible?" — patheos.com

Dr. Gary Habermas, on the minimal facts of the resurrection — garyhabermas.com

Bart D. Ehrman — biographical note via Wikipedia

Billy Graham, on his crisis of faith with Chuck Templeton — billygraham.org and defendinginerrancy.com

Frank Turek, "Christianity Is True Even If Some Of The Bible Isn't" — crossexamined.org

Stand to Reason, "Is The New Testament Text Reliable?" — str.org

Guidance from An Early Christian Teaching on Living a Christ-Centered Life

The question of how Christians should live their lives resonates with every sincere believer.

The early Christian apologetic text, The Letter to Diognetus, provides a profound and compelling teaching from which every Christian can learn.

CompellingTruth.org describes this letter as follows:

"The Letter to Diognetus, also sometimes referred to as The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, is a letter defending the Christian faith. Believed to have been written between AD 130 and AD 180, this letter is possibly the earliest example of Christian apologetics, which is the exercise of using reasoned arguments to defend Christian belief and practice. The letter was found in a thirteenth-century codex ascribed to Justin Martyr and first published in 1592. Because of its reasoned defense of Christianity, many transcripts of the letter were made, which is fortunate because the original was destroyed in a fire in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.

The Greek writer and recipient are unknown. Mathetes means 'student' or 'disciple,' and Diognetus means 'God-born.' The writer claims to be a disciple of the apostles and uses language consistent with an ancient Christian community known as Johannine Christians, who emphasized the apostle John's teachings. The recipient being addressed as 'God-born' is also consistent with John's teaching that those who believe are 'born of God' (John 1:12–13; 1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18)."*

Source: CompellingTruth.org

 May God bless you as you read this wonderful teaching from the second century. May our lives be shaped to reflect Christ in all that we do. You can read the full text here: Christian-History.org

 

Chapter Five

Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity. The course of conduct they follow has not been devised by the speculation and deliberation of inquisitive men. The do not, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of merely human doctrines.

Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life.

They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers.

They marry, like everyone else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring.

They share a common table, but not a common bed.

They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives.

They love all men and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned. They are put to death and restored to life.

They are poor, yet make many rich. They lack everything, yet they overflow in everything.

They are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor they are glorified; they are spoken ill of and yet are justified; they are reviled but bless; they are insulted and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if raised from the dead. They are assailed by the Jews as barbarians; they are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to give any reason for their hatred.

Chapter Six

To sum it all up in one word, what the soul is in the body, that is what Christians are in the world.

The soul is dispersed through all the parts of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul lives in the body, yet is not of the body; Christians live in the world, yet are not of the world.

Why Did Paul Quote Pagan Philosophers?

            There is a common argument that the Old Testament is reliable because the New Testament affirms the Old Testament. If this is the case, would Paul’s quote of pagan (non-christian/unbelievers) philosophers affirm the reliability of the pagan works? Alternatively, would the inclusion of pagan work in the Bible undermine the reliability of the Bible?

            Did Paul quote pagan philosophers? Yes, here’s an excerpt from CARM:¹

Paul quoted Menander in the book of Acts and in 1 Corinthians.  He quoted Epimenides in the book of Titus.  Let's take a look.

·  Acts 17:28, "for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.'"

o "The first part of verse 28 comes from Cretica by Epimenides, and the second part of the verse from Hymn to Zeus, written by the Cilician poet Aratus. To be sure, both of these lines were directed at Zeus in Greek literature, but Paul applied them to the Creator of whom he spoke."1

o Paul quoted "the first half of the fifth line, word for word, of an astronomical poem of Aratus, a Greek countryman of the apostle, and his predecessor by about three centuries. But, as he hints, the same sentiment is to be found in other Greek poets. They meant it doubtless in a pantheistic sense; but the truth which it expresses the apostle turns to his own purpose—to teach a pure, personal, spiritual Theism."2

·  1 Cor. 15:33, "Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.'”

o"a current saying, forming a verse in MENANDER, the comic poet, who probably took it from Euripides [SOCRATES, Ecclesiastical History, 3.16]."3

o "The words “Bad company ruins good morals” are found in a play by Menander (4th-3rd century B. C.) but may well have become a common saying by Paul’s time."4

o "Evil communications corrupt good manners. An iambic line from the ‘Thais’ of Menander, and perhaps taken by Menander from a play of Euripides. More accurately it means “evil associations corrupt excellent morals."5

· Titus 1:12, "One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."

o "Epimenides of Phaestus, or Gnossus, in Crete, about 600. He was sent for to purify Athens from its pollution occasioned by Cylon. He was regarded as a diviner and prophet. The words here are taken probably from his treatise “concerning oracles.” Paul also quotes from two other heathen writers, ARATUS (Ac 17:28) and MENANDER (1 Co 15:33), but he does not honor them so far as even to mention their names.6

o "A prophet of their own; viz. Epimenides, a native either of Phæstus or of Cnossus in Crete, the original author of this line, which is also quoted by Callimachus. Epimenides is here called a prophet, not simply as a poet, but from his peculiar character as priest, bard, and seer; called by Plato θεῖος ἀνήρ and coupled by Cicero with Bacis the Boeotian prophet, and the sibyl (Bishop Ellicott); described by other ancient writers as a prophet (Alford)."7

            Would these quotations affirm the reliability of the works of pagan philosophers?

            Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, in their work The Big Book of Bible Difficulties respond to this question (p.507-508):²

TITUS 1:12—DOESN’T PAUL PRONOUNCE THIS PAGAN POET INSPIRED BY MAKING HIM PART OF SCRIPTURE?

PROBLEM: Christians believe that only the Bible is the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet the Apostle Paul quotes pagan poets on at least three occasions. But in so doing he seems to give assent to the sources he quotes as inspired, just as when he quotes OT Scripture as the Word of God (cf. Matt. 4:4, 7, 10).

SOLUTION: Paul is not quoting this non-Christian source as inspired, but simply as true. All truth is God’s truth, no matter who said it. Caiaphas the Jewish high priest uttered a truth about Christ (John 11:49). The Bible often uses non-inspired sources (cf. Num. 21:14; Josh. 10:13; 1 Kings 15:31). Three times Paul cites non-Christian thinkers (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33; Titus 1:12). Jude alludes to truths found in two non-canonical books (Jude 9, 14). But never does the Bible cite them as divinely authoritative, but simply as containing the truth quoted. The usual phrases, such as, “thus saith the Lord” (cf. Isa. 7:7; Jer. 2:5, kjv) or “it is written” (cf. Matt. 4:4, 7, 10) are never found when these non-inspired sources are cited. Nonetheless, truth is truth wherever it is found. And there is no reason, therefore, that a biblical author, by direction of the Holy Spirit, cannot utilize truth from whatever source he may find it.

            Here’s another response from Phillip J. Long, the Chair / Professor of Biblical Studies at the Grace Christian University:³

Paul quotes two Greek writers as support for his case that the creator God does not need temples or temple services from humans. The use of this material has always prompted discussion among readers of Acts, especially with respect to application. Is Paul modelling how Christians ought to present the gospel in a non-Christian, non-Jewish environment?

The first allusion is to Epimenides the Cretan, the poet Paul cited in Titus 1:12. The original poem no longer exists, but fragments appear in other ancient writers. The second citation is from Aratus, a Cilcian poet (Phaenomena 5).  The original line, “in him we move and live and have our being,” was pantheistic, but Paul spins this line into a statement about God as the source of our life.

In other words, he ignores the writer’s original intention so that he can effective make his point. If Aratus had been in the audience in Acts 17, what would he have said in response to Paul? In modern scholarly writing, misrepresenting another scholar’s ideas is not just a mistake, but intellectual dishonesty. Someone who does this sort of thing today would be dismissed as a poor scholar or a crank (or possibly just a biblio-blogger). In some areas of scholarship, authorial intent is not important, so perhaps Paul is not out of line here. Can Paul legitimately pull this line out of context and reapply it to prove the God of the Bible is superior to the other gods?

A second problem is how Paul came to know these lines of poetry. There are not many modern readers who can quote freely from current poets or philosophers. One possibility is Paul had some secular education which could be applied to the preaching of the gospel. We might imagine Paul thinking through his task of being a light to the Gentiles and researching possible points of contact in order to preach to pagan audiences. This is in fact a typical way of doing apologetics today. Christians will study philosophy for the purpose of interacting with the philosophical world in their own terms.

While I do not think this kind of cultural education is a bad idea at all, that may not be Paul’s point in using these sources (or, Luke’s point in presenting Paul as using these sources). These lines may have been well known proverbial wisdom, common knowledge. If so, then the allusion to Greek poets is more like the preacher who uses a common phrase in order to make his point.

Or better, this is an example of a modern pastor quoting lyrics of popular songs to make a point. I occasionally use a line from a popular movie or song in order to make a point (although with my taste in music, it usually does not work very well).  This comes down to knowing your audience.  I have found that I can get a lot further with college age group with a Simpsons reference, while the same line is lost on an adult group.  Perhaps that is what Paul is doing here in Acts 17 – he is riffing on the culture.

In both of the allusions Paul simply intends to demonstrate his thinking is not too far from the culture the audience understood and appreciated.  To cite the Hebrew Bible would have been fruitless since the audience did not know it, nor were they inclined to listen to philosophy drawn Jewish texts.

Does this mean Acts 17 gives permission for Pastors to quote Bob Dylan lyrics or use Simpsons clips in their sermons and Bible studies? Perhaps, but we need to couple cultural reference with a serious point from the text of the Bible.  It is one thing to mimic culture to attract attention to you point, but it is a fairly worthless strategy is if there is no point behind the reference. I think that you can (and should) illustrate serious theological points via cultural artifacts (like poets, books, movies, etc.), but this can be very dangerous if it overwhelms the Scripture.

If the message of the Gospel is obscured by the using Fifty Shades of Grey as a sermon title, or by playing U2 songs during your worship, or hosting a Dancing with the Stars night at church, then you have missed Paul’s point in Acts 17.

            These responses are terse as well as comprehensive. Therefore, quoting unbelievers would neither affirm their reliability as divinely inspired nor undermine the reliability of the Bible. 

         

Endnotes:

¹https://carm.org/did-paul-quote-pagan-philosophers

²The same material is also found here: https://defendinginerrancy.com/bible-solutions/Titus_1.12_(2).php

³https://readingacts.com/2015/03/25/acts-1722-28-quoting-the-philosophers/

Websites last accessed on 29^th October 2019.