Achan , also called Achar, is a figure mentioned by the Book of Joshua

Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. Its 24 chapters tell of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, their conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Joshua, and of serving God in the land....

 in connection with the fall of Jericho

Jericho

Jericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...

 and conquest of Ai

Ai (Bible)

Ai refers to one or two places in ancient Israel:*A city mentioned along with Heshbon by Jeremiah 49:3, whose location is currently unknown, and which may or may not be the same as:...

.

According to the narrative of Joshua chapter 7, Achan pillaged an ingot of gold, a quantity of silver, and a costly garment, from Jericho; the text states "But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord." The Book of Joshua claims that this act resulted in the Israelites being collectively punished

Collective punishment

Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions...

 by God, in that they failed in their first attempt to capture Ai, with 36 Israelite lives lost. The Israelites used cleromancy

Cleromancy

Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortition, casting of lots, or casting bones or stones, in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but are sometimes believed to reveal the will of God, or other supernatural entities.-In...

 to decide who was to blame, and having identified Achan, stoned him to death, as well as his sheep, other livestock, and, according to many interpretations, his wife and children. Their remains were burnt by the Israelites, according to the text, and stones piled on top.

Rashi

Rashi

Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

, and many opinions in the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

, argue that the stoning was only carried out on the livestock and Achan himself, and that his children were merely brought forward to witness the Israelites ... stone them (Biblical text with emphasis added). The Talmud writers do however admit the possibility of the children being also stoned, arguing that since they had kept silent about their father's actions, they were complicit in the crime. One tradition, seemingly older, that is reported by the Classical Rabbinical literature, states that Achan's crime was far worse than the Biblical account appears - Achan had, according to these Rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

s, also stolen a magic idol

Cult image

In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...

 with a golden tongue, silver votive gifts dedicated to it, and the expensive cloth that covered it. Other classical Rabbis portray Achan as guilty of more earthly crimes, claiming that he had committed incest

Incest

Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...

, or performed work on the sabbath

Shabbat

Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

 (equally immoral in their eyes).

In the narrative, before Achan is stoned to death, he first confesses

Confession

This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...

 his actions, which the Classical Rabbis argued would have saved him from Gehenna

Gehenna

Gehenna , Gehinnom and Yiddish Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom ; one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.In the Hebrew Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and...

 (the classical-era Jewish conception of hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

). From a textual point of view, it exonerates the Israelites from any question of condemning a man without evidence other than cleromancy, and thus avoids questions over the validity of supernatural tests of guilt.

The narrative states that the location for this punishment of Achan, which lies between Jericho and Ai, became known as the vale of Achor in memory of him. This narrative is seen by some biblical scholars [Needs citation] as an etiological myth providing a folk etymology for Achor, at the point in the narrative where the vale of Achor is necessarily crossed.

One item to note however is that the text describes the garment that Achor stole as Babylonish; the time of the Israelite invasion is usually dated to the 15th or 12th centuries BC, but between 1595BC and 627BC Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

 was under foreign rule. For this reason, a few textual scholars

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

[Needs citation]believe that this part of the Achor narrative was written during the 7th century BC or later, but many Biblical scholars believe the judge Samuel may have put together this account from historical books from that time. It is not certain, however, that the whole Achor narrative dates from this time, as textual critics believe that the Achor narrative may have been spliced together from two earlier source texts; the words in the first part of Joshua 7:25, all Israel stoned him with stones (emphasis added) show a different style and tradition from those at the end of the verse: they stoned them with stones (emphasis added). However, these conclusions do not provide significant evidence to doubt the historicity of the events related in the book of Joshua.