Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
Keil's words in the above quotation strike us as being entirely true, and yet we do not think it may fairly be denied that God's frequent use of the NATURAL world in the achievement of His purpose might also, in ways unknown to us, have been a feature of this wonder here.  "It is possible to suppose, without minimizing the Divine guidance of events, that the physical cause was an earthquake, as in the case of the damming up of the Jordan."[6]  Something of the geographical and archeological information bearing upon this part of the Divine record should be observed.  The expedition of John Garstang (1930-1936) resulted in the conclusion that the site of ancient Jericho had been discovered, and, that, according to the archeological evidence it had been destroyed between 1400 B.C. and 1385 B.C., which is close enough to the probable date of the conquest that this writer is not willing, simply upon the basis of Kathleen Kenyon's expedition (1952-1958) with her conclusion that Garstang's Jericho fell 300 years earlier, to accept the assurance in which some deny Garstang's conclusion.  There is too much uncertainty about that.  As Morton put it, "This is inconclusive."[7]  Indeed it it is!  Furthermore, archeologists have simply NOT demonstrated their ability to arrive at trustworthy estimates of ancient dates.  The comment of J. A. Thompson on this subject do not in any way destroy the general opinion about Jericho as outlined by Garstang.[8]  About the fall of Jericho, he said, "The town was burned several times, and the features noted by Garstang could have been found also in other cities."[9]  Archeology, at best, is an INEXACT SCIENCE, and the problems are too complicated to allow any attempt to unravel all of them here, but we may summarize Thompson's view, in his own words: "There can be no doubt that archeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition."[10]