Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho in the 1950’s.  Kathleen Kenyon found that the city was destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age about 2200-2100 B.C. the walls were fallen down and the city was burned.  It was rebuilt later about 1900 B.C.   During the Hyksos times it was fortified with a sloped hillside coated with plaster sloped at 35 degrees and 15 feet high.  About 1580 B.C. the last layer of town with fortifications uncovered by excavators was burned.  This layer coincided with the times of the Egyptian expulsion of the Hyksos.  The Late Bronze Age town was destroyed or abandoned.  Pottery found in gulleys below the mound and in nearby tombs was found to account for Jericho occupation until about 1350-1325 without evidence of defensive walls during this period as most of the town above the MBII was destroyed by erosion.  Soundings of the erosion gullies did not produce LBA pottery.  The town was reinhabited by Jews after 800 B.C.  Archaeology in the Holy Land, Kenyon, 1960.  Jericho, Holt, 1995, Amorites and Canaanites, Kenyon, 1963, 1966.  Digging up Jericho, Kenyon, 1957.  Recent Archaeological Discoveries, Dever, 1990.

Further up from the Jordan Valley towards Bethel north of Jerusalem there were the ruins of Ai near Bethel.  Bethel near Ai was supposed to have been destroyed about 1200 B.C.  In Joshua both the men of Ai and Bethel had run out and attacked Israel (8:17),  Joshua defeated the people of Ai who along with the people of Bethel had attacked him. Joshua was credited with burning Ai.  J. Callaway dug at Et Tell (Ai) and found the third city was destroyed about 2350 B.C. and not rebuilt until about 1250 B.C.  (Biblical Archaeologist 3/76).  Bethel and Ai could not have been destroyed at the same time.     

Hazor was occupied from the Middle Bronze Age until it was destroyed about 1200 B.C.  (Hazor, Yadin).  Joshua was reported to have destroyed this city.   

Heshbon in Jordan was supposed to have been destroyed by Israel in Numbers 21:25, yet there were some remains from the Iron III published in an expedition report published by S. Horn.  Later some pottery dated to no earlier than 1000 B.C. was published. No pottery earlier than Iron II was published for Heshbon.  The destruction of Heshbon by Israel could not be confirmed.  

Mereneptah mentioned a campaign where he destroyed Israelis in the Mereneptah Stele.  The stele was from 1209-1208 B.C.   Since the reign of Merneptah began about 1213 B.C.  the battle against Israel must have been about 1213-1208.  The Philistines established Ekron about 1185 B.C.  In Joshua (13:3) it was mentioned that Joshua was not able to take Ekron, Gaza, Ashdod,  Ashkelon, and Gath the cities of the Philistines reckoned as Canaanite, while in Joshua 13:3 it was written that Joshua had taken Ashdod.  This is an obvious error in the Biblical account of Joshua.  Joshua did not likely take LBA Jericho as it was not a walled city at that time.  Some historians gave Joshua credit for destroying Lachish, Bethel, Hazor about 1200 B.C.  If so they would not have encountered the Philistine pentapolis at that time.   

Joshua was supposed to have taken Lachish (Joshua 10:22).  There was a bowl dated to the fifth year of Merneptah (or Ramses III?) found in the destruction layer of Lachish.  This was 1208 (or 1178?), the same time of the Merneptah Stele about the Egyptians destroying Israel or later.  The Mereneptah stele dated the destruction of Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam, and Israel in the same military battle list.  Joshua could not have destroyed Lachish while Merneptah's army was routing his forces and looting the coastal cities.  If the destruction of Lachish by an alternate theory was about 1178, Ramses III might have destroyed the city in his campaign into Canaan. This was the time the Sea Peoples were invading the area and they might have destroyed Lachish.  The story of Joshua did not even mention any Egyptian troops in his campaign.  The Egyptian army of Merneptah took credit for destroying Gezer and the writer of Joshua gave Joshua the credit for destroying the army of Gezer, after the supposed destruction of Gezer (Stratum XIV described by Dever, 1990, Recent Archaeological Discoveries- Dever presumed Philistine destruction of site) .  Recent evidence presented by David Ussishkin indicated a symbol of the Pharaoh Rameses III was found in the ruins of Lachish indicating it was destroyed thirty years after the times Merneptah encountered Israel in battle.  During a time when the Sea Peoples were raiding up and down the coast and establishing themselves in cities.  One could not give credit for Israel having destroyed the place.  Israel was supposed to have already taken control of the hill country by about 1200 as archaeologists indicated that there was a taboo against the use of pork from about 1200 onward.  The "laws of Moses" advised the Hebrew not to eat pork.  According to Herodotus and other evidence the priestly class in Egypt did not favor the use of pork.  Egypt had long controlled cities in Israel.  Merneptah had gone north with his army to try to reassert control over the region.  The mythology of Exodus contains none of this history. The use of domestic pork has been declared safe by the USDA if not the Hebrew rabbinical colleges.    There was risk of getting parasitical trichinosis worms from pork in ancient times as hogs were omnivorous and had a higher incidence of worms.  Eating undercooked pork might result in trichinosis and death, although the infestation was usually not fatal.  There was also risk from beef tape worms from cattle.  There were other intestinal parasites transmitted by goats, raw fish, chickens, turkeys etc.  The intestinal worms put out eggs in the stools of their hosts and the eggs were deposited into the soil where other animals foraging in or upon the soil ingested them.  Worms were also received by way of eggs in the water or eggs in the soil then ingested.  The stagnant water in "mikveh" pools where the "unclean" went to dip were vectors for disease and parasite transmission.  The "laws of Moses" were not sufficient to guard the health of an individual.         

Based on these and other findings, Exodus and Joshua are not credible accounts, nor was there credibility of an army numbering 600,000 fighting men crossing the deserts of the Sinai and Negev with their children and livestock.  If they had crossed the desert and then lost even one battle at Ai (Et Tell - "The ruined village") by a handful of men who had been dead for hundreds of years, while Jericho behind them had been destroyed about 1550, and Hazor claimed to have been destroyed by Joshua in 1200 B.C. was to thrive for another few centuries, then there is some sort of calamity in this historical fiction.

One may reject parts of the Torah and support a theory that God was not a genocidal God, nor should God be blamed for the execution of all the first born males of Egypt with extreme prejudice in order to secure the friendship of militant rulers.  For all intensive purposes Moses was a novelist with a need to preserve his law.