Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Ian wrote:

"It's perfectly possible that the people along the coast were called 
Philistines before the Philistines got there, but that possibility is 
so infinitesimally small that under normal human thinking we discard 
it out of hand as ridiculous to even consider... Medinet Habu has the 
Egyptian equivalent to Philistine... The other groups mentioned and 
portrayed also bear Greek cultural traits and Greek ethnic names."

Do I understand you right as saying that the other groups had Greek 
names but that the origin of the name "Philistine" is unknown? Surely 
there is more than an "infinitesimally small" probability that the 
name "Philistine" (used in Egyptian inscriptions and the Biblical 
texts) was not Greek at all but meant "inhabitant of Peleshet" (ethnic 
origin unspecified) which was perhaps a name for south-west Canaan?

Ian also wrote:

"The tablets go back to the times they apply to, often being trading 
accounts of kings with various other countries, so we can construct 
the trade relations in the area. There are treaties, land deals, 
conquests,.. all events that you mightn't accept as ever having 
happened, but they have a historical value that places them at times 
in the past that at least give them the possibility of being 
contemporary reports. This simply cannot be said about the biblical 
narratives."

This description of the tablets sounds like quite a good description 
of significant parts of the Hebrew Bible. So how can you justify your 
last statement? "Simply" is simply no argument. Perhaps you can 
clarify: are you claiming a difference in historical value because of 
a difference in genre, or only because of the greater antiquity and 
archaeological context of the tablets?

Peter Kirk