2:8 hundred and ten years old. The chronology of the period of judges is uncertain. If Josephus, the Jewish historian, was right when he estimated that Joshua was eighty-five years old when Moses gave him charge over Israel, then the period began about twenty-five years after they crossed Jordan and began the conquest of Canaan. In view of the forty years in the wilderness, this would mean Joshua had been forty-five years old when he served as one of the twelve spies.