Joshua 7:2

"And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; make not all the people to toil thither; for they are but few. So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty-six men; and they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them at the descent; and the hearts of the people melted, and became as water."

At this point, we should summarize what is called the "big problem" with this narrative. It is clear enough, of course, except that the scholars cannot pinpoint the location of Ai with any degree of certainty. We have frequently noted in our study of the O.T., that problems of this kind are no problem at all for believers. Frankly, it does not make the slightest difference exactly where Ai was located. Even, if men should never know, it would not challenge the historicity and utmost accuracy of this account in any manner whatever. As Francis Schaeffer stated in his dedication of a recent book of his:

"The Bible is what it claims to be, the written Word of God without error in all that it teaches concerning history and the cosmos."[4]

Nevertheless, out of regard for those who are much concerned about such things, we include here an analysis of the problem and proposed solutions as summarized by Blair.[5] We have abbreviated and paraphrased this material from Blair:

The problem is that the place scholars have chosen as the location of Ai was, according to the findings of archeologists, utterly destroyed not later than 2,500 B.C., long before the times of Joshua. They also believe that it was not resettled until long after Joshua's time. This would make Ai no place at all when Joshua took it!

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS:

(1) The archeologists are simply mistaken in their calculations, and this is by no means an unlikely thing.

(2) Joshua was written so long after the events recorded (by imposters, of course) that they included errors in their book. This alleged solution is unchristian and absolutely impossible for believers to accept.

(3) Albright said that the capture of Ai was probably the capture of Bethel, the principal fortification of which was at Ai, on the ancient ruins mentioned in the above paragraph. His reason for this allegation was that there is no mention of the capture of Bethel in Joshua, although the architectural evidence shows that Bethel fell about the same time of the fall of other cities that fell in Israel's conquest of Canaan.

(4) L. H. Vincent identified Ai with Bethel, as the fortified military outpost of Bethel, under the king of Bethel, called the king of Ai (Joshua 8:12), since he was indeed the ruler of Ai. This explanation also includes the supposition that only the military were at Ai, and that no permanent settlement was there, and this would account for no ruins having been found at Ai that can be dated in the times of Joshua.

To us, this "problem" is too remote chronologically to be of any great concern to Christians. All studies in the O.T. are perplexed by the names of places that have been changed, and re-changed, one or more times, and by many conflicting opinions about where this or that "place" was located. This is especially observable in a study of those forty-two places where Israel encamped during the forty years in the wilderness. Some of the questions pertaining to that far-off period are, at the very best, answerable only by conjectural solutions. The question here is certainty of that nature.

What information that exists seems to us to favor the solution presented in (4) above. J. A. Thompson, for example, said that, "If Ai was only a military outpost, there may not have been any substantial buildings there, and so nothing tangible would remain."[6]

"Achan ..." This name appears as "Achar" in 1 Chronicles 2:7; but we are not told, whether or not Achan had two names, or if the Hebrews merely nicknamed him "Achar" (by changing only one letter) because the latter name means "trouble."[7]