22 The Fundamentals. is that we have not lived long enough, or have not had suffi ciently wide experience to test its merits in all particulars. Gezer was an important place in Joshua’s time, hut it after ward became a heap of ruins, and its location was unknown until 1870, when M. Clermont-Ganneau discovered the site in Tel Jezer, and, on excavating it, found three inscriptions, which on interpretation read “Boundary of Gezer.” Among the places conquered by Joshua one of the most im portant and difficult to capture was Lachish (Josh. 10:31). This has but recently been identified in Tel el-Hesy, about eighteen miles northeast of Gaza. Extensive excavations, first in 1890 by Dr. Flinders Petrie, and finally by Dr. Bliss, found a succession of ruins, one below the other, the lower founda tions of which extended back to about 1700 B. C., some time be fore the period of conquest, showing at that time a walled city of great strength. In the debris somewhat higher than this there was found a tablet with cuneiform inscriptions cor responding to the Tel el-Amarna tablets, which are known to have been sent to Egypt from this region about 1400 B. C. At a later period, in the time of Sennacherib, Lachish was as saulted and taken by the Assyrian army, and the account of the siege forms one of the most conspicuous scenes on the walls of Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh. These sculptures are now in the British Museum. Among the places mentioned in the Tel el-Amama corre spondence from which letters were sent to Egypt about 1400 B. C., are Gebal, Beirut, Tyre, Accho (Acre), Hazor, Joppha, Ashkelon, Makkadah, Lachish, Gezer, Jerusalem; while men tion is also made of Rabbah, Sarepta, Ashtaroth, Gaza, Gath, Bethshemesh, all of which are familiar names, showing that the Palestine of Joshua is the Palestine known to Egypt in the preceding century. Two hundred years before this (about 1600 B. C.) also, Thothmes III. conquered Palestine, and gives in an inscription the names of more than fifty towns which can be confidently identified with those in the Book of Joshua.
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