Located roughly 12 miles north of Jerusalem were the two biblical cities of Bethl and I. [music] This mound of ruins known locally as Etel [music] has for a long time been identified as the ancient city of I where the most descriptive battle in the Bible took place as part of the [music] Israelite conquest of the promised land. In 1985, the Jewish scholar Zeone Zevett wrote an article entitled The Problem of I, which well represented the majority view that the archaeological evidence excavated at I rejects the battle as described in the Bible. In short, [music] wrote Dr. Zevett, the evidence shows that there was no city of I for the Israelites to conquer. The problem of I has to do with archaeology and for a very long time especially within evangelical Christian scholarship. This has been the biggest and most confusing challenge to the Bible. The first to excavate at Etel as I was the British archaeologist John Garang and he dug there in 1928 and the evidence that he found there he said confirmed the biblical account of the battle of I. Uh then later starting in 1964, Joseph Callaway excavated at Ettel and he said the exact opposite. He said the archaeological evidence he found contradicted the biblical account of I. And it was really confusing because there was no reason to think that Joseph Callaway was not being honest with what he found because he was a Baptist seminary professor. Callaway wrote, “I is simply an embarrassment to every view of the conquest that takes the biblical and archaeological evidence seriously.” What a strange thing for a Baptist seminary professor to say that the biblical site that he’s excavating is an embarrassment to those who believe in the Bible. So to our utter amazement, God opened the door and we were able in 2019 to excavate etel that is biblical eye for ourselves. [music] And so we were able to expose the evidence and look at does this evidence confirm the biblical record or contradict the biblical record. Was Garing right or was Callaway right? And essentially what we were digging for [music] was the evidence that could answer the problem of I once and for all. [music] [music] [music] Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. I’ll leave a link in the description where you can order a copy of my book where God came down the archaeological evidence [music] which is number one in archaeology. I’ll also leave a link where you can make a donation. These are greatly appreciated and used for the production [music] of future videos. The location of I is obvious since Genesis 12:8 says that Abraham pitched his tent with Bethl on the west and I on the east. So this shows that these two biblical cities of Bethl and I are close to each other and east and west of each other. Now Bethl had been excavated. It had been clearly identified. I did a video on Bethl that you can watch after this. and it became an anchor point in biblical archaeology. In other words, uh since the location of Bethl was known so well, other biblical cities could be found uh based on where they were located in accordance to Bethl. None easier than the city of I. According to the Bible, from ancient Bethl, all we have to do is travel east and soon we’ll come to the fortified city of I. We can see what this area [music] currently looks like using this aerial footage. The ruins of ancient Bethl are under this town. When we fly east, we soon come to a distinct mound of ruins of a walled city known locally as Etel. Obviously, this is I. In fact, Etel means the ruin just as I also [music] means ruin. These are the reasons why for a very long time scholarship has identified etel as biblical eye. It’s obvious and so the uh problem of I is not in its location and nor is it in the topography of the area. In his articles, Zevett wrote, “In the course of my visits to Etel, I have been struck by the astounding extent to which the topographical details of the battle of I and the biblical accounts can be identified on the ground.” So to learn about the topography of this land and how it fits the biblical record. We’ll go through the story of the second battle of I which is found in Joshua 8. And then we’ll look at aerial views as well as 3D animation which keep in mind is based on the actual topography of this area. After conquering Jericho, the Israelites attacked the city of I but lost the battle. The second battle of I is described in Joshua 8. This time Joshua’s plan was to set an ambush behind the city. And so Joshua sent them, that is the ambush troops, out at night. Early the next morning, Joshua mustered his army and marched before them to eye. The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of I with the valley between them and the city. Directly north of Etel is a wide ridgetop ideal for setting up a large military camp. This fits the description for where Joshua’s main army camped in plain sight of the city. In the next shot, I’m standing here. I’m standing on a ridge north of I. You can see a valley coming in behind me here that separates out this north ridge that I’m standing on and then the bronze age ruins of the city of I on the southern side of that valley. If I walk over here, we see this open area with all these olive trees in here. And this is the logical place for the campsite of Joshua and the Israelites since it’s described as being north of the city of I with the valley between them. Verse 12 says, Joshua had taken about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethl and I to the west of the city. Just to the west of Etel is this hill. And from its southern slope, neither Bethl or I could be seen. And it’s a large enough area for 5,000 men to hide. So I’m standing up on a hill that is west of the city of I. This is the one that makes sense geographically for Ambush Hill because on the back side of this hill, uh, an army, which there were 5,000 men could not be seen from either Bethl or from the city of I. So the soldiers took up their positions with the main camp to the north [music] of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley. Before we continue the story of the battle of I, we want to make sure we understand the topography. To the west we have the city of Bethl and nearby and east of Bethl is the city of I. Ambush Hill is west of I. And on the ridge to the north was Joshua’s main camp. with the valley between them. Further east is the desert wilderness and the Jordan Valley called the Arabah [music] in Hebrew. Here’s how the topography currently looks. Ambush Hill, the ruins of Bethl and I, the valley that separates I from Joshua’s main camp to the north and further to the east, the wilderness and Arabah. Joshua 8:14 says, “When the king of eyes saw this,” referring to Joshua’s army to the north of the city, he and all the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle at a certain place overlooking the Arabah. Verse 15 continues, Joshua and all Israel let themselves be driven back before them, and they fled toward the wilderness. This barren desert area is the wilderness. The Israelites fell back towards [music] it to the east. The biblical account continues, “All the men of I were called to [music] pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were lured away from the city. Not a man remained in I or Bethl, who did not go after Israel. They left the city open and went in pursuit of Israel.” So notice that it says, “Not a man remained either in I or Bethl.” And so it makes sense that when the king of I in the morning saw Joshua and the Israelites camped out north of the city that he would have sent a runner down the road to Bethl to get the men from Bethl as reinforcements. Then all of them went after Israel. And this is why it’s important that from the position on the backside of Ambush Hill that this place was not visible from either Bethl or eye. Joshua 8:18 says, “Then the Lord said to Joshua, hold out toward I the javelin that is in your hand. For into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out toward the city the javelin that was in his hand. This is my good friend Zach and shop owner here in Jerusalem. And he is showing me this which is the head of a spear, a javelin head like the one that Joshua would have held up towards I during that battle when uh they were defeating the city of I. This is from uh that [music] basic period. This one is found in Judea. Yes. Verse 19 says, “As soon as he did this, the men in ambush rose quickly from their positions and rushed [music] forward. They entered the city and captured it and quickly set it on fire. So imagine [music] 5,000 men coming over the top of this hill and the city being left [music] open and rushing and attacking the city and then quickly setting it on fire. [music] [music] Verse 20 says, “The men of I looked back [music] and saw the smoke of the city rising up into the sky. This was the moment that the men of I realized they had been tricked and that the Israelites [music] saw that the ambush had worked. For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the [music] smoke was going up from it, they turned around and attacked the men of eye. Those in the ambush also came out of the city [music] against them so that they were caught in the middle with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down leaving them neither survivor nor fugitives. 12,000 men and women fell that day all the people of I. [music] In his article, Zion Zevit wrote these striking topographical details reinforce the conclusion reached on general geographic considerations that Etel is to be identified with I. In fact, they guarantee that the eye story in the Bible was told about Kerbet Etel. All of this is not lost on John Garang. He sees how the topography fits with the biblical account. This is why he takes a picture of the hill and puts it in his book Joshua and Judges and labels it the place of ambush west of I. He understood the location of I. He understood the topography of I, how it fit with the biblical record. And this is why he was the first to excavate there. So I’m standing at the site of Etel, this ancient mound that John Garang excavated in 1928 and identified as the biblical city of I. Garang had this picture taken of the mound and drew arrows on it that pointed out the different places he would dig, which he dated September 1928. He also drew this simple top plan of the site showing his excavation areas. The biblical date of Joshua’s conquest is rounded off to 1400 BC and this is archaeologically the late bronze one period. After his excavations, Garstang reported while as usual middle bronze age wares were most abundant there were found a considerable proportion of late bronze one. He concluded that the site had been destroyed in 1400 BC in confirmation of the biblical date. One of Garstang’s students was a young Jewish woman named Judith Marquette Krauss and she was the next to excavate at Etel from 1933 to 1935. The eye account of Joshua 8 ends with these verses. But they took the king of eye alive and brought him to Joshua. He impaled the body of the king of eye on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance to the city gate, and they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day. This pre-exavation photo shows a large pile of rocks on the west side of the Etel mound. This picture in Marquette Krauss’s excavation report shows this massive pile of rocks which was roughly 28 feet high was over on the western side of Etel. And was this just a random pile of rocks or was this the pile of rocks that the Bible is talking about? So over the course of a couple of seasons, Marquette Krauss’s team removed this huge pile of rocks and what was underneath it was a gate complex. This included a fortification tower next to it, the gate itself, and then this small sanctuary associated also with the gate. Now, just to make sure we understand, when we look at Etel today, this is where the pile of rocks was located and underneath it was the western gate of the city of I. Flying towards the west, we approached the gate [music] complex where the pile of rocks was located before being removed. Underneath were the ruins of a fortification tower and next to it [music] the city gate. You can see the passage for the drainage under the gate still right here where I’m standing. I think there’s a very good chance that that 6 meter high pile of stones over the citadel or gate area is the one that’s mentioned in Joshua chapter 8. It’s certainly a very odd feature and that’s the only textual explanation that we have for it. Here we have this incredible dramatic correlation between the biblical text and the archaeology because the Bible says that the Israelites piled this massive pile of stones over the city gate of I and then this massive pile of stones was identified on the western side of Etel and when it was removed what was underneath it? The main gate of the city. Now, after the 1935 season, uh, Marquette Krauss fell ill and [music] tragically her life was cut short. In 1936, she died of tuberculosis. She was only 29 years old. [music] And so, her excavations came out in a report long after her death. And it’s it’s difficult for this reason to really understand exactly what her interpretations of the archaeology were. You may be wondering after all this, okay, so what is then the problem of I because the location fits so well, the topography fits so well and we have the archaeology Garstain found fitting so well. We have this pile of stones with a city gate underneath it found by Marquette Krauss. And the truth is is there was no problem of I until the 1960s. The problem began with Joseph Callaway who excavated I from 1964 to 1972 and claimed that there was no evidence of late bronze occupation at Etel. And this is a problem because the biblical date for the conquest is archaeologically in the late bronze one period. So what Callaway found and reported contradicted what Garstang had earlier found and reported. Garsten said that he had found late bronze one pottery in abundance. And then Callaway said that he had found no evidence for a late bronze occupation at Etel. Callaway’s explanation was that Garstain had gotten it wrong, that he had misdated earlier pottery as late bronze pottery. The other thing that was confusing is it didn’t really make sense why Joseph Callaway would have a anti-Bible agenda or bias since he was the professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Remember, Callaway had concluded that I is simply an embarrassment to every view of the conquest that [music] takes the biblical and archaeological evidence seriously. The majority of scholars such as Zeone Zevit followed Callaway’s interpretations which is why he begins his problem of eye article by saying extensive and sophisticated archaeological excavations have produced no evidence of human occupation at the site during the period when the Israelites supposedly settled in Canaan. In short, the evidence shows that there was no city of eye for the Israelites to conquer. This is also why Dr. Bryant Wood, an evangelical uh biblical archaeologist who definitely believes in the Bible, went looking for eye somewhere else. If Callaway couldn’t find late bronze period pottery at Ettel, then that must mean that Etel is not biblical eye and that it’s located somewhere else. And so he went and looked for another site. He settled on a nearby site just to the southwest of Etel called Kerbert El Mocketeer. and he excavated that site and became convinced that Mocketeer was biblical eye. And this is when my own personal wrestling with this problem of I begins because I moved my family to Israel in 2007. And not long after that, I started working with Dr. Wood at Kerbert El Maketeer. This is Kerbert El Mocketeer. The excavated ruins seen here, as the excavation report says, [music] are from the late hellenistic, early Roman and Byzantine periods when there was a walled town on the site. This structure, however, Dr. Wood considered [music] to be much earlier and it was interpreted to be the western side of the city gate of I that dated to the time of Joshua’s conquest. [music] In fact, this structure was considered the main evidence that makate was biblical eye. So, I’m standing at Kerbert El Maketeer. We have a structure here. Uh, this was believed to be the late bronze one gate of the city of I and I believe that for many years I excavated [music] here with my mentor Dr. Bryant Wood. Uh, however, I brought several experts out here. Three in particular, one a geologist and two [music] archaeologists. And all three of them independently of each other immediately when they saw this identified it as a Byzantine wine press. The [music] purpose of this structure became obvious when in front of it two plastered vats for holding the juice from pressed grapes were unearthed. In the excavation report, the structure is identified as a wine press, and a picture of it after being excavated shows the two plastered vats in front of it. Team member Lane Ripmier drew this reconstruction to show how this wine press was used. Despite all of this, the original interpretation was not abandoned since the report claims that the wine press operated inside a repurposed western chamber of the Bronze Age City Gate. This argument was rejected by the experts I brought out to the site. They could clearly see the Byzantine wine press, but they couldn’t see a late Bronze Age city gate at all. This Iron Age gate at Hotzour shows us an example of what an excavated city gate looks like from the air with gate chambers on either side, a passage in the middle and city walls attaching to them. In contrast, even though the area has been excavated at Mocketeer, all that can be seen is a single structure. No trace of multiple chambers or a passage or the other side of the gate or connecting city walls can be seen. All that can be seen is the structure used as a Byzantine wine press. And so um I lost my faith in Maketeer as being the biblical site of I. While I was working at Maketer, I met a young man named Titus Kennedy and I invited him to come and stay in my apartment with my family and we became friends. And over time it came out that we had both independent of each other come to the realization that Kerber El Mcketeer could not be biblical eye. With the remains of houses and late bronze pottery, Mocketeer may have been a small village but not the fortified city of I. And so this set us in motion to go, okay, let’s go find where I is then. And this led us to Bethl and then from Bethl over to Etel and the excavations of Garstang and and the evidence that we’ve already gone over. And it became obvious to us as it had to these scholars in the past that Etel had to be the biblical sight of I. But what was of course confusing was why couldn’t Joseph Callaway find any late bronze pottery there? So one day I was reading um the obituary of Joseph Callaway on the seminary website and I read that in 1961 he had studied under the famed archaeologist Kathleen Kenyan and when I read that all of a sudden the lights went on and I understood what the problem of I actually was. It wasn’t the archaeology it was the archaeologist. So let me explain this and bear with me because this is important. Uh, when I first met Dr. Brian Wood, I flew him over to Israel because I was working on a video called Jericho on Earth. That’s on my YouTube channel here. You can watch it after this. And I had specifically brought Dr. Wood in because he’s the one that solved the problem of Jericho. And the problem was that none other than John Garang had excavated at Jericho and said that the evidence that he found there uh confirmed the story of Jericho in the Bible. And then later Kathleen Kenyan came and excavated Jericho and she said that it contradicted it. She claimed that she found no late bronze pottery at Jericho and that there was no occupation there. There was no city for the Israelites to conquer. In other words, the problem of Jericho is identical to the problem of I. The solution to the problem of Jericho was simply put by Dr. Wood as that Garang had been right and that Kenyon had been wrong. I’m just saying John Garang had it right. Kathleen Kenyon had it wrong. And so uh the same would be true then at I that Garang got it right and Callaway who was trained by Kenyan got it wrong. So my archaeology professor Dr. Shimone Gibson said to me one day when I was talking to him about I he said well if John Garsteang said that he found late Bronze one pottery then he found late bronze one pottery. And I said well what do you mean by by that? And he explained that John Garstain was one of a very small handful of scholars, the three main ones being Vincent, Albbright, and Garang, who developed pottery chronology that is still in use to this day. So you can’t argue that Garang did not know his pottery. He was one of the critical scholars who developed the pottery chronology. It was Kenyan and Callaway who got the pottery wrong, not John Garang. Another thing that I learned from a seminary professor was that back in the 1960s, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had gone through a liberal phase and many of the professors there were liberal. Now, I don’t know for sure if uh the motivation behind the interpretations by Joseph Callaway were based on him being liberal or if he had simply been taught wrong by Kenyan and then pass that along. Whatever the situation is, what I did know was that Joseph Callaway is the one that got the pottery wrong. Now, amazingly, in 2019, we got the opportunity to excavate at Ettel ourselves. [music] By this time, Titus Kennedy had his PhD and was the director of the dig. This is the first square we dug just inside the ancient city wall line. [music] On the acropolis of the etel [music] mound, we excavated a second square here. These are the ruins of the western city gate. And just to the north of it, and inside the fortification wall, we dug a third square. [music] As we dug down into our squares [music] at Etel, it was so obvious. I mean, we came across these layers that were literally filled with late bronze one pottery and then [music] into a destruction by fire. A layer filled with [music] black ash. This burn destruction layer can be seen running along the side of the square. Here is a closer view of it. This was the end of this late bronze [music] city. Next, on the southeast part of the mound, we put in a fourth square. [music] So, [music] we’re coming down on a level here. You can see the charcoal flakes. It’s hard packed. It’s a different color. It’s a It looks like there’s a destruction level [music] here. There’s There’s charcoal uh in the floor. Here, we dug deep before reaching the same burn destruction layer. We didn’t just find a few scattered shurds here and there of middle and late Bronze Age pottery, but we found an abundance of it in every square that we excavated. It’s interesting that Joseph Callaway claims there was no late Bronze Age pottery at Etell or no late Bronze Age occupation because if you look in his material and even in his reports, you will see samples of late Bronze and even late Bronze Age one pottery. Why I think that he made the conclusions that he did is that he was influenced heavily by Kathleen Kenyon who had actually trained him previously. I think that all the expeditions that have been done at Etel have actually vindicated Garang’s original assessment of the site from his 1928 excavations. I’m completely convinced that Kervet Etel is the site of biblical eye because of the occupational periods that we found there because of all the geography, the size of the city, architecture like the gate and some very interesting features such as a fire destruction and a pile of stones 6 m high over the gate area. In his article, Zion Zevett had concluded whether the story of I is historically accurate, however, is not important. What is important is the meaning of the story. The Bible says that the events that happen in the Bible are actual historical events. And so if the battle of I never took place, then that would mean that the Bible was a false witness. So the only way that the account of I in the Bible has meaning and significance is if it really happened. The solution to the problem of I is that there is no problem of I. The location, the [music] topography and the archaeology all fit brilliantly with the descriptions in the Bible. [music] And this shows that Etel is to be identified with the biblical city of I. [music] So in the past Joshua came and conquered the city of I. In the future, Jesus will also come as a conqueror of the earth and the earth will suffer the same [music] fate that the city of I has suffered in the past. In the story of I, it’s the king of I who suffers this severe [music] punishment. He’s placed on a pole presumably outside the city gate because afterwards his [music] body is thrown in the city gate. And it says in Deuteronomy 21:23 that anyone who’s hung on a pole is under God’s curse. [music] And so we see the king of I suffering this punishment under God’s curse [music] in the story of I. Uh however in the New Testament it’s Jesus who is [music] the king of the world who is hung on a pole in his crucifixion outside the city gate of Jerusalem. [music] He willingly goes under God’s curse so that that curse [music] could be broken over us and we would receive a blessing, the blessing of salvation instead. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. I’ll leave a link where you can order a copy of my book where God came down the archaeological evidence. Thanks for making it number one in archaeology. I’ll also leave a donation link. Uh it is your generous donations that fuel the production of future videos. I will also leave a link in the description below the video where you can go and check out all these amazing antiquities. Uh Zach also has an online store for those of you who are interested in studying biblical archaeology. I’ll leave a link to uh the program at Shepherd’s Theological Seminary. Uh this is an accredited master’s degree program in archaeology. It’s a program I helped start. Uh Titus Kennedy teaches there and so I would highly recommend it. You can watch other videos here if you haven’t already. Then watch Jericho Unearthed. Also, I would [music] recommend the video that I did on Bethl. And thank you for watching and I’ll see you next time.