Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

George wrote:

>> >It's certainly not impossible to have two groups of Heth's.
>>
>> It is not impossible. What relatively contemporary source would you like to
>> put forward as suggesting there was such a second group?
>
>Well, the Bible! :-)

I did say "relatively contemporary source". Given that the earliest copies
we have date to the second century BCE, I wonder how you will ever show that
the relevant biblical sources are a "relatively contemporary source". I bet
you wouldn't like it if someone tried to sell you Manetho's story of
Osarsith as reflective of 14th century BCE Egypt.

>> >It may even be a euphemism for something. Or,
>> >it's just plain possible that there was a clan of Hittites in the region
>> >who had  migrated from further north. Why is this such an impossibility?
>>
>> Are you postulating these reasonable ideas purely because they are more
>> likely than the possibility that the text refers to the group we normally
>> call the Hittites?
>
>Just for elasticity of argument, mate! If we could build a time machine, 
>perhaps some of our best held hypotheses would be blown out of the water. 
>It's just me whispering, "You never know..."

I thought we were doing history, George, putting evidence together to
reconstruct the past, calling our best shots, not running and hiding when we
don't like what we see.

>> >As per the Philistines, they probably actually had the roots in S-W
>> >Palestine to begin  with! It is very unlikely that they were Greek 
>> >Indo-Europeans since, for all intents  and purposes, they used Semitic 
>> >languages. There is no evidence for them using any other language.
>>
>> Naturally the Germanic Franks were actually Latin after all. The Kassites
>> were really Semites as well because they used a semitic language (at least
>> to leave records). Sorry, George. I'm being a little facetious. I don't 
>> know
>> of any archaeological evidence from the earliest period that gives any
>> indication of language used. Do you?
>>
>> [...]
>
>Maxine Littlefield, a former graduate of Sydney Uni, wrote her thesis on 
>Philistine and Cypriot pottery and what it indicates about them. She reached 
>the conclusion, well argued, that the Philistine's roots were actually in S-W
>Palestine. I believe someone else, conducting an independent study on the 
>same thing, reached the same conclusion. However, I don't recall the name of 
>this person. Perhaps someone else can provide it.

(I would probably like to argue from the drawings of Philistine ceramics
I've seen that there doesn't seem to have been anything like it in Palestine
prior to the Philistine arrival. The anthropoid sarcophagi which are
culturally more telling don't find any prior attestation either.)

The different peoples of the sea are well-illustrated at Medinet Habu,
George, each with their own cultural dress. None of these represent anything
that was seen prior on Egyptian walls representing any group from Palestine.
The Semitic vestments are well-known on the walls of temples in Egypt: they
are easy to spot. They are nothing like any of those seen in the naval
battle scene from Medinet Habu.

If these people were native Canaanites as you would like us to believe, why
is it that the majority of them come by sea as did those people who attacked
Ugarit on the far north of the Levantine coast not too long before Ramses
III stopped the Philistines and why do they wear non-Semitic clothing? The
indications are that the Philistine ships fought with the Egyptians near the
eastern mouth of the Nile. The essential point is that there were no
Philistines in Palestine prior to the twelfth century, not that the
Philistines merged with the local Semitic population.

These arrivals in the twelfth century had a great impact on Egypt. All the
Asiatic possessions were lost, despite Ramses III great achievement of
stopping their progress. It is better than what happened to the Hittites who
succombed to the same movement of people. The Hittite capital fell, the
Egyptian gates were closed.

I find it difficult to see the motivation for wanting to hide the fact that
there was enormous turmoil in the Hellenic group of Indo-European peoples
that brought about a wake of destruction ranging from Miletus to the gates
of Egypt, that this was to a great extent a sea carried destructive force,
that this force included Philistines who were part of the whole movement.


Ian

(Oh, and thanks for the background on Kush. I'll have to find out who
actually called the zone where the Kassites were during Hammurabi's time
Kush. I'd forget about Kushan... there was even a Kushshara in the Hittite
realm.)