Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, Go up and spy out the land. The men went up and spied out Ai.
One scholar argued for et-Tell being the Ai of Abraham’s time, el-Maqatir being the Ai of Joshua’s time, and still another close site being the Ai of Nehemiah’s time (Ezra 2:28; Nehemiah 7:32). El-Maqatir is less than a mile west of et-Tell. [Note: Peter Briggs, "Testing the Factuality of the Conquest of Ai Narrative in the Book of Joshua," a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Colorado Springs, Colo., Nov. 15, 2001.] 