Tensions and Contradictions
Lastly, there is the problem of tensions or
contradictions between the findings and the texts . . . A famous instance in
the history of twentieth-century archaeology is Heshbon, “the city of Sihon,
king of the Amorites” (Num 21:26), who was defeated by the Hebrews under the
leadership of Moses, according to several texts (notably Num 21 and Deut
2:30-34. Between 1968 and 1976, Siegfried Horn led five seasons of excavations
sponsored by Andrews University at a site in Jordan named Tall Hisban by
locals, in order to find remains of biblical Heshbon. However, the earliest
significant remains uncovered date from Iron Age, while according to
calculations made from the Bible, Moses and Sihon lived earlier, during the
Late Bronze Age. In other words, the site seems not to have been inhabited at
the time when Sihon was king of the city; or, if it was inhabited at this time,
it was only a small village. Horn concluded that in spite of the close
resemblance of the names, Heshbon was not to be identified with Tell Hisban.
Since it sometimes happens that the name of a town is “transferred” to a nearby
site in local memory, a survey was made in the vicinity, and five cities occupied
during the Late Bronze Age were found in a ten-kilometer (about six-mile)
radius. Thus archaeologists from Andrews University undertook excavations in
sites like Tell Jalul, regarded by some as the location of Heshbon during the
late Bronze Age (P.J. Ray, “Heshbon, Encyclopedia
of the Bible and Its Reception 11:983-84). In the view of most scholars,
however, biblical Heshbon should be located at Tell Hisban, so the
archaeological remains do not square with the biblical account.
Importantly, in cases of tensions or
contradictions, before concluding that one or the other source—the Bible or
archology—is wrong, we must remember that it is a question of interpretation
and that our knowledge remains fragmentary. (Matthieu Richelle, The Bible and Archaeology [Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2018], 78)