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History of Tel Hazor


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During the Egyptian Second Intermediate Period and early New Kingdoms (together running between 18th century BC and 13th century BC), Canaan was an Egyptian vassal state; thus 14th century documents, from the El Amarna archive in Egypt, describe the king of Hazor (in Amarna letters called Hasura), Abdi-Tirshi, as swearing loyalty to the Egyptian Pharaoh. However, EA 148 specifically reports that Hasura's king has gone over to the Habiru who were invading Canaan. In these documents, Hazor is described as an important city in Canaan. Hazor is also mentioned in the Execration texts, that pre-date the Amarna letters, and in 18th century BCE documents found in Mari on the Euphrates River.

According to the Book of Joshua Hazor was the seat of Jabin, a powerful Canaanite king that led a Canaanite confederation againstJoshua, but was defeated by Joshua, who burnt Hazor to the ground. According to the Book of Judges Hazor was the seat of Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose commander, Sisera, led a Canaanite army against Barak, but was ultimately defeated. Textual scholars believe that the prose account of Barak, which differs from the poetic account in the Song of Deborah, is a conflation of accounts of two separate events, one concerning Barak and Sisera like the poetic account, the other concerning Jabin's confederation and defeat. In addition, the Book of Judges and Book of Joshua may be parallel accounts referring to the same events, rather than describing different time periods, and thus that they refer to the same Jabin, a powerful king based in Hazor, whose Canaanite confederation was defeated by an Israelite army.

Israel Finkelstein claims that the Israelites emerged as a subculture within Canaanite society, and the Israelite conquest of Canaan did not happen as detailed in the Bible. In this view, the Book of Joshua conflates several independent battles between disparate groups, over multiple centuries, and artificially attributes them to a single leader
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