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The Short Answer
Archaeologists dug Jericho — and found collapsed walls. Here's the strange detail: city walls fall inward when attackers breach them. Jericho's mud-brick wall fell outward, down the slope — forming, of all things, a ramp an army could climb. Diggers also found houses built against the wall (remember Rahab's?) and jars still full of grain — a city that fell fast, in harvest season, exactly like Joshua 6 describes. The fight among scholars is over the date of that collapse, not whether it happened.
How sure are we? The fallen walls are real — the argument is over which century
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Key Scripture
tap any to readJoshua 6:20
Read →“So the people shouted, and the priests blew the trumpets... and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him.”
Joshua 2:15 — the house on the wall
Read →“Then she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was on the side of the wall, and she lived on the wall.”
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Watch
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The Dig Debate
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From the Collection
Fall of Jericho — 1406 BC
see it on the timeline
Rahab
the woman on the wall
Joshua
character profile · 1480–1370 BC
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Why It Matters
“A wall that falls outward is a strange thing for legend to invent and a stranger thing for a spade to find. Jericho is where the Bible and the dirt shake hands.”
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