Who is Kathleen Kenyon and why was her work highly controversial in proving or disproving the Bible's historicity?

Answer 1

In 1999 archaeologist Bryant Wood re-examined her work and found some startling contradictions in her conclusions. He claimed that radio-carbon dating place the destruction of Jericho at or near 1410 B.C., but several Egyptian scarabs (beetle shaped amulets) were found in the cemetary, showing that at least the cemetery continued to be used for burials.. These scarabs bore names of three pharaohs who ruled from 1500 to the 1380s B.C.

When placing the time of destruction at 1410 B.C it easily places the fall of Jericho within the Biblical time frame. Also the city contained a heavy layer of ash consistant with the Biblical account that the city was to be consumed by fire. In addition large amounts of food were still left."Successful attackers normally plundered valuable grain once they captured a city. This of course would be inconsistent with the grain found here. But in the case of Jericho the Israelites were told that 'the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction,'and were commanded, 'Keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction' (Joshua 9:17-18). So the Israelites were forbidden to take any plunder from Jericho. This could explain why so much grain was left to burn when [the city] met its end" (Biblical Archaeology Review, March-April 1990, p. 56).

Answer 2

Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978) was a highly respected archaeologist who did most of her field work in southern Africa and Palestine. Her most famous excavations were at the ancient city of Jericho, which she showed to be the oldest known urban site, dating back to around 7,000 BCE - well before the biblical creation.
It is one of the greatest disappointments to Biblicists that although Kathleen Kenyon found remains of the walls which had surrounded Jericho, she could find no evidence of any walls that had been destroyed during the 13th to 15th centuries BCE, the time ascribed to Joshua. This, combined with the inability of archaeologists to locate most of the rest of the cities allegedly destroyed by Joshua or to find destruction dated to the time of Joshua at those cities they did locate, caused the archaeologists to re-evaluate the nature of the Hebrew incursion into Canaan.

Her excavations in Jerusalem were less conclusive. Although she was able to find evidence of a locally important city around 1800 BCE, as well as important evidence from the time of the divided kingdom, she was unable to find evidence of an important city during the time attributed to Kings David and Solomon.

During the 1990s, Bryant Wood attempted to disprove Kenyon's dating of the destruction of Jericho, using carbon-dating. Subsequent, more accurate carbon-dating by other researchers has supported Kenyon's dating. In 1999, Wood believed that shards found at the site proved its destruction at the time attributed to Joshua, of which Bienkowski wrote, " Not a single one of these arguments can stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, there is strong evidence to confirm Kathleen Kenyon's dating of City IV to the Middle Bronze Age. Wood's attempt to equate the destruction of City IV with the Israelite conquest of Jericho must therefore be rejected." Kenyon's dating remains accepted by the majority of mainstream archaeologists involved in Syro-Palestinian exploration.