We are going alphabetically through difficulties in the Bible that have puzzled people for a long time. I’m not sure that my contributions will solve anything, but I hope they make people think.

Here we go:

Jericho

The big question here is whether the walls really did fall down as the Bible reports. Collapsed walls have been found at Jericho, but the debate goes on regarding when this happened. Was this disaster caused by the Israelites or were the walls already down when the Israelites got there? Maybe there will be an answer, but nobody knows right now.

Life spans

The early chapters of the Bible list people who have lifespans of hundreds of years. Is that possible? There are reports from other cultures of kings who had lengthy lives as well (Sumer, Akkad). I read a report that said astronomers had found cosmic rays from a recent, nearby supernova (Vela) which 20-30,000 years ago bathed the earth in radiation. The authors speculated that life spans before this event could have been much longer, but since then our genetic makeup has been damaged. Just something to think about.