The Book of Joshua and the Late Bronze Age Collapse
Author: Stan Guthrie
January 02, 2025
Last week, while I was doing some random searching on YouTube, I came across a video titled Bronze Age Collapse: The Ancient World’s Greatest Disaster.* While I know my fair share of ancient history, the idea of a rapid, cataclysmic collapse of Bronze Age civilizations had somehow escaped my attention.
As you know, the Bronze Age, considered to have lasted from 3300 B.C. to 1200 BC, was preceded by the Stone Age and followed by the Iron Age. You won’t be surprised to hear that bronze tools and weaponry emerged during this period, along with thriving urban societies across multiple empires, and complex writing systems. This fascinating era featured some of history’s best-known rulers:
- Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334–2154 BC) - Founder of the Akkadian Empire, perhaps the first empire in history.
- Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 BC) - King of Babylon, known for creating one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes.
- Tutankhamun (c. 1332–1323 BC) – King Tut, the young pharaoh whose tomb was discovered almost intact in the Valley of the Kings.
The Trojan War, c. 1184, also occurred during this period, depicted (with many mythological embellishments) in Homer’s Iliad.
But the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC) was also home to some well-known figures from the Bible, including Moses and Joshua. Some scholars believe the Pharaoh of the Exodus is Ramses II (reigning from 1279-1213, although the precise dating of the biblical events is disputed).
So what was the Late Bronze Age Collapse? Following a series of cataclysms in the Mycenaean world (including modern-day Greece and Crete), huge waves of migration by warriors and displaced peoples to the eastern Mediterranean were followed by mass societal collapse across the region. Whole empires disappeared in little more than a generation. Most scholars believe the Collapse was caused by multiple factors, including invasions and warfare, natural disasters, and economic and social upheavals.
According to Eric Cline, author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, “The magnitude of the catastrophe was enormous; it was a loss such as the world would not see again until the Roman Empire collapsed more than fifteen hundred years later.”
The Hittite and Ugarit empires were among the first to fall. Multiple kingdoms followed, including the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Trojans, and Babylonians. A thriving, interdependent global economy from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia vanished, along with their writing systems, technology, and architecture.
During this period, Egypt, led by Ramses III, twice fought off what were called the “Sea People,” including a group now identified as the Philistines. But greatly weakened by the strife, Egypt’s dominance in the eastern Mediterranean waned. This allowed the new arrivals and other small groups to spread freely, without superpower meddling. One of them was identified in Egypt’s famous Merneptah Stele (ca. 1208) as “Israel.”
It was during this chaotic, seemingly world-ending era when the events described in the Book of Joshua unfolded. It was a world, in other words, much like our own—confusing and dangerous, but under God’s sovereign care.
That’s one reason I’m excited that Pastor Chris is starting his new preaching series, “Joshua: The Timeless Call,” this Sunday. May the lessons stored in this ancient book of Scripture prepare us for whatever lies ahead in our own unsettled moment of history.
Stan Guthrie. NCC’s Minister of Communications, is author of A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy: 60 Predictions Everyone Should Know.
* There are many other videos in this genre, each with different emphases and theories.
Photo: Kerstiaen de Keuninck - Aeneas fleeing from burning Troy, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kerstiaen_de_Keuninck#/media/File:Kerstiaen_de_Keuninck_-_Aeneas_fleeing_from_burning_Troy.jpg.
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