Editing Joshua (section)

===Current mainstream opinion===
The prevailing scholarly view is that the [[Book of Joshua]] is not a factual account of historical events.{{sfn|Coote|2000|p=275}}{{sfn|McConville|Williams|2010|p=4}} The apparent setting of Joshua is the 13th century BCE{{sfn|McConville|Williams|2010|p=}} which was a time of widespread city-destruction, but with a few exceptions ([[Tel Hazor|Hazor]], [[Tel Lachish|Lachish]]) the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time.{{sfn|Miller|Hayes|1986|pp=71-72}} Given its lack of historicity, Carolyn Pressler in her commentary for the ''Westminster Bible Companion'' series suggests that readers of Joshua should give priority to its theological message ("what passages teach about God") and be aware of what these would have meant to audiences in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE.{{sfn|Pressler|2002|pp=5-6}} [[Richard D. Nelson|Richard Nelson]] explained that the needs of the [[Centralisation|centralised]] monarchy favoured a single story of origins, combining old traditions of an [[The Exodus|exodus from Egypt]], belief in a [[national god]] as "divine warrior," and explanations for ruined cities, [[social stratification]] and ethnic groups, and contemporary tribes.{{sfn|Nelson|1997|p=5}}

It has been argued that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value.{{sfn|Killebrew|2005|p=152|ps=: "Almost without exception, scholars agree that the account in Joshua holds little historical value vis-à-vis early Israel and most likely reflects much later historical times.<sup>15</sup>"}} The archaeological evidence shows that [[Jericho]] and [[Ai (Canaan)|Ai]] were not occupied in the Near Eastern [[Late Bronze Age]],{{sfn|Bartlett|2006|p=63}} although recent excavations at Jericho have questioned this.{{sfn|Nigro|2020|pp=202–204}} The story of the conquest perhaps represents the nationalist [[propaganda]] of the eighth century BCE kings of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]] and their claims to the territory of the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]],{{sfn|Coote|2000|p=275}} incorporated into an early form of Joshua written late in the reign of king [[Josiah]] (reigned 640–609&nbsp;BCE). The book was probably revised and completed after the [[Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC)|fall of Jerusalem]] to the [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]] in 586 BCE, and possibly after the return from the [[Babylonian exile]] in 538 BCE.{{sfn|Creach|2003|pp=10-11}}