Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> 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.

But -- the Bible does mention events which have something to do with history 
- um,
like Hezekiah's tunnel and the wars of Sennacherib; um, like Mesha; and like
Nebuchadnezzar and the defeat of Judah; like Jehoiachin - and I could go on. 
Now, I'm
not saying that therefore the Bible is accurate at every point, or even on 
these very
events, but these various points of contact with verifiable history means we 
have to
give it a bit more credit than just saying, "The earliest manuscripts are 2nd 
cent.
BCE, so they're useless." I agree - the job of making these contact points for
anything patriarchal is well nigh impossible, but to simply write various 
bits of info
off because we've set other hypotheses into concrete doesn't quite seem 
scholarly to
me.

> 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.

That's a little cheap, Ian. I ain't hiding from history, nor do I dislike 
what I see.
You seem to be making moral judgments here which have no place in such a 
forum as
this. I just so happen to be considering other possibilities -- that seems to 
be
attempting to tackle the evidence, not hide from it! However, it strikes me 
as odd
that you take such a reflex action of disapproval when the evidence can be 
interpreted
differently to what you would like it. I agree that it's unlikely there were 
scores of
Hittites in Palestine at whatever time you'd like to posit - but it's 
certainly not
impossible. In fact, it is more than probable that there were perhaps a 
handful of
Hittites in Palestine, as well as Mesopotamia and even Egypt, even if not 
hoardes of
them. Or, it's just possible that there was a group of people called "Hittim" 
who
weren't actually Hittites from Anatolia. Unlikely, but we just don't know. We 
can't
pontificate about whether there was or there wasn't because we just don't 
know. You
are of course entitled to your opinion that there weren't - seems reasonable 
enough.
But we can't announce it as Torah of God.

> (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 [...]
> 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.
> [...]

Valid points which I would raise myself - but then I read Littlefield's 
arguments and
her analysis of the evidence seems quite sound. I still have difficulties 
with parts
of it, but generally, her points were well made.

> 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.

Who wants to hide any fact? You make it sound like I have a sinister scheme 
and I'm
rubbing my hands together craftily while I mention these other hypotheses. 
Just
because I mention hypotheses which don't quite match up with yours doesn't 
mean have a
secret agenda, powered by an evil motive to hide the facts of history and 
rewrite it
to create a world where Hittites live on every street corner in the Fertile 
Crescent
and where Philistines are really Canaanites dressed up as Greeks - or maybe 
they're
really Hittites. I'm just mentioning possibilities. Take them or leave them - 
but
don't pontificate on them.

> (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

I wouldn't.

Regards,
GEORGE ATHAS
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
- Email: gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au
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