One generation (or "forty years") after their exodus from Egypt, according
to the Bible, the Israelites entered Canaan and forceably took control
of most of the land. Since the biblical evidence for the date of the Exodus
is not clear or conclusive, many scholars have hoped that archaeological
indications of the conquest of Canaan would provide a firm date for the
Exodus events. Excavations during the 1930s at Bethel, Lachish, and Tell
Beit Mirsim (which at the time was thought to be Debir/Kirjath-Sepher)
revealed that all three sites were destroyed near the end of the Late Bronze
Age, during the thirteenth century B.C. ^1. At about the same time as these
excavations, Nelson Glueck surveyed sites in Transjordan and concluded
that "from the end of Middle Bronze Age I to the very beginning of Iron
Age I, most of Transjordan was peopled largely by bedouin." ^2. So the
wandering Israelites' experiences with the kingdoms of Edom, Moab, and
the Amorites of South Gilead could not have taken place between c. 1900
B.C. (the end of the Middle Bronze Age I) and c. 1300 B.C. (the date for
the beginning of the Transjordanian Iron Age I settlements, according to
Glueck).

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