Could the Biblical Jericho be in Europe?
I’ve shared before a pet theory of mine that the events of the Bible all took place in Medieval Europe, not the Ancient Middle East.
Yes, this goes against the mainstream historical narrative.
Yes, I get that many Christians are offended by this idea.
No, I’m not making any definitive claims. I obviously wasn’t there. Neither were you.
As a Protestant Christian, I’m not going to accept at face value anything the Vatican or the Jesuits or their universities say about history or the timeline they changed with their Roman calendars. As someone with 4 college degrees, I disagree with many of their conclusions.
I’m going to explore and investigate things for myself, looking for patterns, looking at the biblical texts in their original languages and I’ll see where it leads me.
So what does the actual text of the Bible tells us about Jericho?
- There’s a city called Jericho.
- It’s in a valley (in some translations referred to as the plains of Jericho) that was famous for its trees, with mountains all around it.
- From the top of one of the mountains in the area, Moses was shown the lands of Naphtali, Judah, Ephraim and Manassah.
- The walls of the city came down when the Israelites came and conquered it, and the city was then rebuilt in some form hundreds of years later.
- The Israelites crossed a significant river nearby before arriving there.
- In Jesus’ day, you could travel by road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Alright. Let’s go through and address these points one-by-one.
1. What’s in a name?
The alleged Middle-Eastern Jericho is the Arabic city of Ariha.
As linguistic matches go, that’s not bad. We know the letter J is a recent/modern invention from the 1600s/1700s. Case in point, the Biblical Jerusalem in all the original English Bibles from the 1500s/1600s was Hierusalem. (This is also why Jesus was known as Iesous, Yesu, Isa, Eissa, or as the modern Hebrew roots movement claims, Yeshua, etc.)
But there’s actually an even better linguistic match for Jericho in Europe, and you’ve definitely heard of it:
Zurich, Switzerland.
The city of Zurich is in the broader Canton of Zurich or Zurichgau, a name which traces back to the Roman Turico— both of which sure sound a heck of a lot like the Biblical Jericho.
2. The Rain Falls Mainly on the Plain.
Zurichgau occupies a portion of the Swiss plateau between the Jura mountains to the north and the much larger Alps to the south.
Well, that’s simple enough. Jericho is indeed in a large valley or plains between mountain ranges all round.
But what about the trees?
Well, the exact word in Hebrew describes Jericho as the city of the tamarim. Now, most translations render tamar/tomer/tamuru as palm trees or date-palms.
Now, obviously date-palms do not naturally grow in Switzerland — although they do grow on the other side of the alps in southern France, Monaco, Italy and Spain — so if that translation is correct; if Jericho really IS the city of “date-palms”, then my whole theory here is obviously wrong.
However, if you’ve read my article on “Gopher” wood, you’d know that there were many words in the modern Bible we just didn’t know how to translate. Hebrew was ostensibly a dead language from the time Rome conquered Jerusalem and was only resurrected in the late 1800s.
Most earlier Bible translations relied upon the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint and Luther’s German Bible, instead of translating from the Hebrew, because the particulars of modern Hebrew that many of us rely on today are more recent and aren’t necessarily accurate to the original Hebrew text.
Here are three plausible alternative translations.
1. Linden Trees
The Greek Septuagint translates tamar in Deuteronomy 34:3 as “phoenix” or “phoenician” trees. And even though we use this term modernly to refer to palm trees, there’s actually another interesting possibility here.
The so-called Phoenicians, in my model of history, are the Venetians of Venetia or Venice, renowned seafarers. And an old central section of Venice, known now as Teglio Veneto, is actually named after a specific type of tree for which Venice is famous, the Tilia tree, aka Linden tree or European Lime tree (not to be confused with the citrus lime).
Linden trees are medium-to-large fragrant flowery trees. They do produce a small berry-like fruit, which are considered non-toxic, but they are more prized for their fragrant medicinal flowers and edible leaves. And the entire Swiss plateau is full of them.
Not only is there a city of Linden in Switzerland, but there is actually a suburb in the modern city of Zurich named Zurlindenstrasse and a hill that is part of the city called Lindenhof.
Furthermore, Zurichgau is actually quite famous for its flowering trees and is home to a renowned Tree Museum. In recent years, they’ve imported many Japanese Cherry Blossoms to compliment the native flowery Linden trees to increase the floral tourism and beauty of the country.
I should also note that Bern in central Switzerland is considered the “second best forested city” for foliage in all of Europe. Over 56% of the city is taken up by flora.
So, we do definitely have a valley/plain famous for its trees and surrounded by mountains.
But then again, what if it’s not even about trees?
2. The Tamarites
Jericho is referred to 4 or 5 times in the Old Testament as the city of the tamarim, which could mean tamar-s or tamar-ites.
Tamar is not only an alleged place name referenced twice in the book of Ezekiel — meaning that there were likely people calling themselves the people of Tamar or Tamarites — but it’s also the name of three different significant women in the Old Testament.
It’s also the precursor of the modern name: Tamara.
And Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah, the children of whom could collectively be known as Tamarites.
But wait, there’s more.
3. The Passage
While the Arabic word tamuru (same exact word) is used modernly to refer to dates, the primary, earlier or original meaning of the word tamuru is “pass” as in a pass or passage through something.
So, if Zurichgau on the Swiss Plateau was the valley of the Israelite “passageway” through the mountains and into central and Western Europe, then referring to Jericho as “the city of the passage” is more than reasonable. In fact, it’s fitting.
And as Hebrew was a dead language for centuries, it’s one of these situations where the translators are looking at the same words and trying to determine by context whether it’s a place or an object or a people.
ie. Imagine there was a woman named Cherry who lived in a town in the general region of another town actually called Cherry, and also there’s another town in the same kingdom famous for its cherries. Then hundreds of years later, you’re trying to translate these old records into the new language of the day and you’re trying to identify “cherry’s town”. It would be very easy to completely get the context wrong.
(Or perhaps you might know exactly what it means, but the king is paying you to translate it with certain malicious intent to mislead the working class.)
We do know there was a giant attempt by Rome after the Latin Vulgate was created in the 390s to destroy all non-Rome-approved versions of Biblical texts (just like with English Bibles after the KJV was published as the approved Bible for the people).
If this “book burning” happened to coincide with Rome’s attempts to hide the real Jerusalem — and we do know they were calling Constantinople “Jerusalem” or the “New Jerusalem” in the 300s and thereafter — then maybe part of the motivation to monopolize the scriptures was to hide the real Biblical Holy Land and keep it for themselves as the “Holy Roman Empire”.
Either way, there’s more than enough other plausible evidence to support the idea that Jericho might not be the city of “date-palms” at all. It could be the city of Linden trees. It could be the city of the Tamarites. It could be the city of the pass, passage or passageway. All are valid possibilities and don’t preclude Zurichgau from being the Biblical Jericho.
3. Location, Location, Location.
Did you know that Zurich — not all of Switzerland but Zurich specifically — is considered in many ways to be the gateway to Europe, with easy access between Italy, Germany, France and Austria?
Moreover, the city of Zurich hosts both Europe’s busiest train station AND airport.
According to Deuteronomy 34, Moses, climbed up the Nebo mountains to the top of 1) Mount Pisgah/Phasga before the plains of Jericho, and he surveyed the land and saw: 2) the mountains of Galaad/Gilead all the way to Dan, 3) the land of Naphtali, 4) the land of Judah, 5) the lands of Ephraim and 6) Manasse, along with (7) the plains of Jericho until the mountain(s) of Zeor/Segor.
- Mount Pisgah/Phasga. The Finsteraarhorn (or Mount “Finster”) in the Bernese Alps, at over 14,000ft tall is the tallest peak in central Switzerland from which you can see well over 100 miles in basically every direction. Keep in mind that the entire length of the Swiss Plateau is only maybe 120 miles as the crow flies between Lakes Geneva and Constance, so on any clear enough day, you should be able to easily see well past both of those lakes at either end of the plateau to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, etc.
- The Galaad mountains until the beginning of the land of Dan, in my opinion is the Vosges mountain range just northeast of the Jura. The name Galaad, I believe, is from the word Gaul, Gallia, Galilee, Galicia, etc. We know that the original Danes, now of Denmark, claimed to be the Biblical tribe of Dan, I think their lands originally began further southwest, in northern Germany just beyond the Vosges mountains.
- Naphtali. Just based on the linguistics, northern Italy is my pick for the land of Naphtali. I think our modern words for Naples, Italy, Neopolitan and Napolean all come from the tribe of Naphtali.
- Judah. The land of Judah is, in my opinion, the land of the Jutes; the Dutch/Deutsch of modern-day Holland, Germany and Austria, who expanded from their original lands in southern Germany and Austria.
- Ephraim. In my opinion, Ephraim is the French or Frankish people of France, including the Flemish of Flanders and the Frisians of Frisia, who are both just more Franco-German dialects or pronunciation of the same original people.
- Manasse, M-N-S, on the other hand seems to line up better with names in Southern France; Marseilles, Nice and Monaco, all in the region the Romans referred to as Gallia Narbonensis or Nar-bonessa of Gaul. Manasse and Narbonessa are obviously a linguistic match also.
- Zeor/Segor. The plains of Jericho until Zeor, in my opinion, are the Jura mountains on the other side of the Swiss Plateau from the Alps.
Say what you will, but there’s a bunch of linguistic similarities for every detail, and without going to Europe and climbing the Finsteraarhorn myself, I’ve covered every visible direction around it that I can think of, besides the alps directly behind it of course.
Keep in mind that the Finsteraarhorn, while not THE tallest peak in the Alps is unique in that it is not only quite a distance off from the other taller peaks, but is a good height taller than all those around it, and it is centrally situated in Switzerland, the “gateway to Europe”.
Now, compare what we’ve just mapped out from Deuteronomy 34 to this alleged map modern Bible scholars have made of the “lands of the 12 tribes” in ancient “Palestine”.
Now, ask yourself, if you’re on a mountain near “mount Nebo” marked on this map, are the lands visible around you the lands of Naphtali, Judah, Ephraim, Manasse and the plains of Jericho?
I think not.
But wait, we’re only half done.
4. Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall
Looking at the medieval city of Zurich here, you might discount the possibility of its being Jericho — even though the city name in the title sure looks like it says Jericho — because it’s on both sides of the river. And the Israelites couldn’t possibly have marched around it 7 times with a river coming out on both sides.
But this wasn’t always the case.
Many ancient fortified cities had layers of walled fortifications. They started smaller, and grew layers over time as the population grew.
On top of the Lindenhof holl, a small hill on the western side of the of the lake, are the remains of the pre-Roman fortified settlement (or oppidum), known now as the Lindenhof Oppidum.
What this quaint painting doesn’t show you, however, is that this oppidum was a whopping 25 acres in size — that’s a quarter of the size of Vatican City — and, get this, 28m (92ft) high. That’s roughly as tall as a ten-story building!
And if you remember the story in the Bible, Caleb and Joshua are two out of twelve “spies” (or scouts) sent by Moses to scope out the land. They all came back and reported that the people of the land were giants, and the other ten of them said they should all turn back, because these giants would crush them like grasshoppers.
Only Caleb and Joshua insisted that they could take Jericho with the Lord’s help, and those two went back alone, and snuck into the city, where they met the harlot Rahab — presumably also a giant woman — whom hid them from the men of the city and afterward helped them escape by lowering them down the outside walls.
Then later when the walls come down, and she alone is miraculously spared and marries one of the princes of the tribe of Judah and gives birth to Boaz, whom sires Obed, whom sires Jesse, whom sires King David, whom sires King Solomon, and so on and so on until Jesus.
Now, here’s the artist’s rendering of Turicum Kastel on the Zurichgau website that I showed you already at the very head of the article.
Now, those are walls you could definitely circumnavigate without having to cross the Limmat river twice each time.
Yes, they don’t look ten stories tall, but that’s because the original oppidum was allegedly torn down, presumably by the Romans, who then rebuilt it as a Roman citadel, which is what we see above. The original oppidum is believed to have been much bigger than we see in this picture, and they can judge that by the size, depth and strength of the foundations.
But even this rebuilt “Roman Citadel” is huge in comparison to the way we build structures nowadays.
As you will see below, many of the 2-meter-thick lime and mortar castle walls have been integrated into modern townhouses and buildings in Zurich, and parts of it are displayed proudly in the old part of town as part of Zurich’s ancient heritage.
So, yes, we have evidence — very conclusively — that like the Biblical Jericho, the historical Turico/Turicum (modern Zurich) was once a walled city, seemingly built for bigger people, that a large group of people could have marched around, and which was at one point completely torn down, and then later rebuilt again smaller by the people who occupied the land, and people have continued to live there ever since, and we can physically go there and see the clear evidence of it with our eyes.
5. As I Went Down by the River to Pray
In Joshua chapter 4, we have the details of the crossing of the river “Jordan” (Hebrew: Yar-den). 12 priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant step into the river, and then we have a similar miracle from Exodus where the water stops flowing, recedes, backs up, and the Israelites all cross through.
And here’s the interesting thing.
When everyone else is through safely, Joshua commands 12 men, one from each tribe, to go back into the river bed where the priests are standing and haul out 12 stones for them to erect as a monument to their crossing.
And they don’t just erect them on the riverbank; they haul these stones all the way to where they’re all going to set up their camp along the eastern borders of Jericho and pitch them as a standing reminder for all time.
Joshua 4:19–22 (KJV):
And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.
And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.
And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones?
Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.
Now, the question must be asked… how big could these stones have been to stand as a monument for the future generations?
What if I told you that Zurich has its own mini circle of standing stones on Kaferberg mountain just 3 miles (5km) from Lindenhof, and on the eastern side of the Limmat River?
The Kaferberg Steinkreis (stone-circle) is a group of standing stones, 5 of which as still standing, and an unspecified amount (according to the internet) of which are fallen over.
At present, all I’ve found online is the 7 we see in the photos, and some stone-circle visitor’s comment that “several” of the stones there have fallen over, which, to me, indicates more than the photos are showing us.
As I don’t live in Europe, I can’t easily go investigate this all for myself and see if we have evidence of 3–5 more stones. Believe me, I would love to.
But if you live in or near Zurich and want to go scope out the site for yourself. I would love to hear back in the comments if there are any more around, because if there are at least 9 or 10 stones, or even as many as 13; the closer we get to 12, the more plausible this theory becomes.
What’s more, as stone monuments go, they’re pretty small. Between 2.5–5ft tall. And to my eye, they look pretty smoothed out like river stones.
Now, I don’t know the weight of those stones, but as someone who has moved some pretty heavy stones — and many tons of hardwood logs — myself, I’m guessing they only weigh between 250–800lbs, based on their sizes. (And I’m being generous here.)
That’s definitely the sort of thing you can haul in a cart, or pull with animals or men. It never says they carried them on their backs all the way to the camp.
And the fact that several have fallen over implies that they’re not exactly buried deep into the earth.
If you had the biggest, strongest man from each tribe, go in and haul out the biggest stones they could manage, and then transport them to your camp and erect them as a monument, this is totally within the “plausible” size range. We’re not talking about 3-ton rocks here.
(And if people were on average much larger then, as many Creationists and alt. history researchers speculate, then it only becomes more and more plausible.)
And perhaps the most interesting thing about this particular stone-circle location, is that it’s maybe 10–11 miles (less than 20kms) as the crow flies from the Rhine/Rhein River.
(From a basic strategic/military standpoint, if you did want to take the early city of Turico, crossing the Rhine river at the bend and then bringing your army right up to camp on a higher, ideally situated Kaferberg mountain, 3 miles away, overlooking the city would be exactly what you’d do. It’s directly on your route to the city.)
Now, the Rhine river, as you may know, is one of the biggest rivers in all of Europe and flows all the way from the Alps to the North Sea, which at one point (including the English Channel) was known to the Romans as the Sea of Gaul/Gallia.
The biblical Jordan river also ran generally northward to a northern salt sea called the Sea of Galilee.
Now, yes, the names Rhine and Yar-den are definitely close enough to possibly refer to the same river hundreds or thousands of years later. However, it’s actually even better than that.
One thing you may not know is that when we label specific watercourses — when one river flows into a larger river — you connect the names with a hyphen.
For example, the Limmat river flows into the Aare river which flows into the Rhine. So, if you travel by boat from Zurich to the ocean, the watercourse you are traveling is the Limmat-Aare-Rhine.
And Aare-Rhine, linguistically, is a very good match for the Hebrew Yar-den, which in modern English we call the “Jordan”.
(Pretty funny how we added all these J’s that didn’t exist 350 years ago to all these key Biblical pronouns. Jerusalem, Jericho, Jordan, Joshua, Jesus… Not like anyone’s trying to hide details of the real Holy Land from us.)
So, yes, we have a prominent, generally north-running river, flowing to the salt “sea of Galilee”, that you would need to cross to besiege early Zurich. And we even have some large standing river stones at the ideal location you would set up camp in order to besiege the city, matching the Biblical account in Joshua.
6. All Roads Lead to Rome
In Jesus’ day, you could travel by road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Now, in case I haven’t made it obvious, I don’t believe that the city of Kuds/al-Quds in the Middle East is the Biblical Jerusalem.
We’ve had Biblical scholars there for 150 years trying to find evidence to prove it, and link up locations with the Bible.
They’ve thrown all their best guesses into a geographic model, but they’re laying down supposition on top of supposition without hard evidence, because the powers that be told them that Jerusalem was in the Middle East and Egypt was in Africa.
I just don’t see the hard evidence for it.
And mainstream Protestant Christians will defend it to the death because all their pastors and Bible-school scholars defend it as the Holy Land, because the Jesuit universities trained them to believe it.
Now, I’m just researching for myself, and following the patterns where they lead. And my current opinions could very well change, but here’s a brief run down of what I currently think based on what I see.
I think the Biblical Egypt was modern-day Italy. That Rome was originally the city Raamses (not named for Romulus or Remus), that their original king went by the name Faran/Pharaoh (father of the Farnesi family, one of the original 13 Roman bloodline families) and that the original Egyptians are the Gypsies or Romani people.
I think the main Biblical Jerusalem was modern-day Paris, the city of Pharisees. That’s where the Cemetery of Innocent Infants murdered by King Herod/Harold is located. That’s where the Arch of the Triumphal Entry is located. That’s where the Sanctuary (Temple) of Ile de Cite (Holy City) — aka Notre Dame — is located. It’s also where the Society of Jesus (aka the Jesuits) founded their order, atop one of the city’s seven hills, known as Montmartre (the Mountain of the Martyr). And just 19kms to the west, you have the Chateau de Versailles, the Castle/Palace of Solomon, with 2,300 rooms for his thousand wives and all their children, and immense gardens to feed them all. (I’ve written more about Jerusalem being Paris here.)
I think the Biblical Babylon (aka Papa/Father Lon) was the city of Lon (Roman: Londinium), modern-day London. The Babylonian Targum (or translation) of the Torah, from when the Israelites were captives in Babylon, was originally known as Targum Onkelos (the translation of the Engels/Angeles), and the language is Aramaic (Romanized Arabic).
Arabic or Arabian/European was the international language of Europe/Horeb/Oreba/Arapea/Arabia until the 1700s. Biblical Hebrew is an Arabic dialect, just like the Aramaic. Both Old French, Old High German and Ottoman Turkish have all the same original roots as the Hebrew/Arabic language of the Bible. What’s more, the Coligny Celtic Calendar of pre-Roman Europe IS the Biblical Soli-Lunar Calendar of the Kingdom of Israel with an intercalendary month every 2.5 years.
80–90% of all the Arabic coins, weapons, clothing, historical documents, etc. are found in Europe, not the Middle East or North Africa. All the New Testament relics/artifacts are found in Europe. All the earliest Christian artwork is all set/framed in European backgrounds.
Case in point.
This is a stained glass window scene from a German cathedral (I couldn’t confirm which one exactly). In it you see a depiction of the Good Samaritan aiding the man who was robbed on the road to Jericho, with the priest and the Levite (Helveti?) having continued on their way to Jericho in the background.
Interestingly enough, if you look closely at the background setting, they are traveling on a road across a bridge to a particular looking hilltop castle.
I give you the Aarburg Castle in Switzerland.
Located on the Aare river in Switzerland, just less than 30 miles from Zurich, is the Aarburg castle. While the details of the building of this castle are completely unknown, the earliest mention we have of it was as the central and only fortified stop/stayover between Bern and Zurich in the 1200s.
This makes a lot of sense because it’s roughly equidistant between the two cities. And as a standard day’s walking distance along the Roman road system was about 25–30 miles a day on foot, 40–50 miles by cart, and 50–75 miles by Imperial Post.
So this castle represents the place you would usually spend the night the day before you make it to Zurichgau.
That’s a pretty uncanny similarity, if you ask me.
I mean, what are the chances that whomever made this Cathedral window hundreds of years ago also seemed to think Zurich was Jericho enough to place the scene in front of the place you stop the night before arriving to Zurich, and only if you’re coming from the West?
As far theories on the Bible in Europe, we actually have 5 or 6 major suggested Jerusalems. You have Barcelona, Istanbul, Edinburgh, Moscow and Paris.
And this makes a lot of sense because Jer-usalem means “city of Peace”, and so it’s entirely plausible that you have multiple cities of Peace, that are international hubs (as opposed to tribalistic towns and kingdoms) where anyone can come and trade with each other.
But if you were traveling east to Zurich from a Jer-usalem in the West in order to stop at the Aarburg castle on the way, well, your only real contenders are Paris or Barcelona. Let’s break it down.
Paris to Zurich is 300 miles as the crow flies but around 400 miles on the Roman road system. This means it’s roughly a 14–18-day journey on foot, 8–10 days by cart or 6–7 days by Imperial post.
Barcelona is roughly twice the distance to Zurich as Paris, about 650–700 miles by road. That makes it a 3–4 week journey by foot, 14–18 days by cart, and 9–11 days by Imperial post.
So while, yes, in Jesus’ day, you could technically travel from either of these potential Jer-usalems to Zurich by Roman road, sheer proximity makes Paris, the Holy City of the Pharisees (already the most likely for a whole slew of other reasons) the most sensible option if Zurich is indeed Jericho.
(I feel the need to point out now that many of the things I found two years ago on Paris matching the Biblical Jerusalem seem to have been scrubbed from the search results in the intervening time. Paris used to be on a Wikipedia list of cities founded on seven hills. It’s now been removed from that list and bunch of dodgier candidates have been added. Images of the hills of Paris and websites I found two years ago aren’t showing up in search results anymore. Both Google and DuckDuckGo are trying to redirect you to the seven hills of Rome. This sort of bizarre censorship is both alarming and exciting because it reaffirms to me there’s something to this research.)
In Conclusion
Zurichgau is a great plausible match for the Biblical Jericho. I find it far more compelling than the Middle Eastern option that the Jesuits have tried, very successfully, to convince us of.
The linguistics match. The surrounding geography details match. The river’s a match. The walls match. The roads match. The stained glass windows match. The standing stones are even a pretty compelling match.
The sheer number of solid coincidences and correlation do mean something.
It’s definitely hard to get on board with the idea that we may have been intentionally misled on such a massive scale, but if you believe that Israel and Palestine have been killing each other over the same spot of desert for thousands of years because they both consider it the Holy Land, well, how much more willing might a group of people be to lie and mislead people as to the location of the true Holy Land through simple misinformation?
Isn’t that morally better than killing people for it?
Just convince everyone that it’s actually this patch of desert nobody wants, and place all these related, major “ancient historical locations” in crappy deserts nearby.
And then keep everyone distracted with their attention on the desert in the magician’s wrong hand, while the real trick is being done to the audience right before their eyes?
Ta-da. We stole your Holy Land. It’s ours now.
And they would convince themselves it was all chutzpah and pat themselves on the back for it.
Doesn’t sound so far-fetched to me. Especially if you control the flow of information.
If you do live in Switzerland and have any info I might be missing, that’s worth addressing, feel free to throw in your two cents below.
Thanks for reading.
