The area between Tebuk and Al Oula is a large and terrible wilderness.  In years before the invention of the steam locomotive, caravans passed between Damascus in the north to Mecca in the south.  These Haj travelers set forth in caravans numbering hundreds to visit Mecca on camel and or walking on foot next to those who rode.  One entire caravan perished in a place called the Wadi of Hell along the eastern edge of the harra (lava field) between the well of Tebuk and the well at Median Salih north of Al Oula.  They failed to locate water in the shallow holes they dug into the canyon floor.  The price of water reached a thousand dinars (per cup?).   Everyone died in the hot dry winds.  Someone scratched the story onto a rock. (Charles Doughty, TRAVELS IN DESERTA ARABIA).  On the north-western coastal side of the long mountain range of the Arabian Hijaz were a few seasonal pastures and palm oasis.  Wallin reported scattered almond trees on the mountains in his 1848 expedition report.  There were acacia trees similar to the mesquite trees of the American SW.  Wild goats (ibex), gazelles, oryx, and small mammals populated the area and were predated by the leopard, jackal, and wolf.  The sand partridge (qata) traveled in small coveys or alone; these flew thirty miles or more in a straight line to open water.  Desert people followed their paths to find water.  The climate was wetter in the desert during the ice age and residual water forming parts of seasonal springs and perennial water holes that may have dried up or were pumped dry since the days when some Semitic people wandered in from the desert to establish or become part of the nation of Israel.  
     
     The reported 600,000 soldiers listed in the book of Numbers as taking part in the Exodus was a probable exaggeration.  Given a family size of five there might have been more than 1.5 million camped in the desert and from these were 600,00 fighting men.  The size of the largest cities in the desert and hill country of Israel in the 12th century BC were of a few acres not square miles.  Facts such as people digging a well in a canyon bottom in Jordan from the book of Numbers and people migrating in stages as their livestock consumed the grass, annuals, and perennial bush leaves as they went were true to desert experiences spanning millennia.  Numerous archaeologists and historians have indicated that the campaigns of Joshua could not have occurred as they were described in the Bible as they contradict the archaeological record.  Christian theologists might not believe a description of a God who would kill the firstborn sons of all Egyptians without touching a second born, daughter, or Israeli such as was described in the story of the Passover. 

     The laws of Moses, or by the scribe Moses, against murder, adultery, theft, and false testimony are similar to laws and ethics found in Egyptian and Mesopotamian writings from hundreds of years earlier. 

     The book of Joshua has been challenged by the archaeological work of Kathleen Kenyon, the archaeology and research of William Devers and others.  The destruction of cities credited to Joshua were not all destroyed in the same generation. 

     See: OLD JERICHO

     While there were useful laws in the first five books of the Bible and accurate historical descriptions in the books of Kings, Chronicles, the Gospels, and Acts; not all of the Bible is factual. 

Another website by David Hall:  ISRAEL PHOTOS II