Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Gabe Eisenstein:
 
You wrote:  “If you had any plausible historical candidates for the Genesis 
"Philistines", that might rebalance the scales, but no one does.  (In 
particular, the "invaders" Jim postulates do not fit the texts that refer to 
the "land 
of the Philistines". How can "invaders" be considered owners of the land?)”
 
1.  The author of the Patriarchal narratives created the name “Philistines” 
as a derogatory nickname, meaning “Invaders”, and applied it to the worrisome 
foreign mercenaries whose presence in northernmost Canaan was becoming 
ominous in the mid-14th century BCE.  These “Invaders” were  n-o-t  the 
“owners of 
the land”.  No way.  Canaanite princelings hired these foreign mercenaries 
(PL$TY/“Philistines”) like Phicol to provide military services.  Phicol owned 
no 
land.  Phicol and his small ethnic, “Philistine” militia were foreign 
mercenaries from Anatolia who were paid by Canaanite princeling rulers for 
military 
services rendered.
 
2.  The textual reference to “land of the Philistines” is the clever way 
that the Hebrew author of the Patriarchs insinuates that historical 
princeling 
ruler Abimilki of the island city-state of Tyre (Biblical Abimelek) only was 
able to obtain desperately needed fresh water from water wells on the 
mainland by 
the drastic expedient of hiring foreign mercenaries.  But now the local 
rivals of Abimilki/Abimelek were hiring their own foreign mercenaries (such 
as the 
historical Sherden), who were stopping up those wells, as I noted.  That has 
nothing to do with the classic Philistines whatsoever, but is typical of the 
behavior of foreign mercenaries, who invariably get hired on both sides of a 
conflict.  The classic Philistines on the southwest coast of Canaan never 
battled 
over access to water wells.  That was par for the course, however, for the 
island city state of Tyre in northern Canaan in the mid-14th century BCE, as 
we 
know from 8 Amarna Letters.
 
3.  The name “Abimelek” is a virgin pure west Semitic name, not a Philistine 
name.  Abimelek is a Canaanite princeling who has hired Phicol (an Anatolian 
with an Anatolian name) as Abimelek’s chief foreign mercenary.  Genesis 
refers 
to Phicol’s people, who in fact were foreign mercenaries, by the derogatory 
name “Philistines”/“Invaders”.  In many ways, the real criticism that is 
being leveled in Genesis here is against the Canaanite princelings 
themselves, who 
had opened up Pandora’s box by inviting these foreign mercenaries into 
beloved Canaan.
 
Abimelek’s GRR/Gerar is KRR/GLyL/Galilee (item #80 on the mid-15th century 
BCE Thutmosis III list), in northern Canaan.  Historically, there was no 
Gerar 
anywhere in the general vicinity of Gaza, or anywhere else in or near the 
land 
of the classic Philistines.
 
There is nothing non-historical or anachronistic about the portrayal of 
Phicol as a foreign mercenary/PL$TY in northern Canaan in the Patriarchal 
narratives.  When you’re reading the Patriarchal narratives, you are reading 
an 
authentic account of life in the ancient near east of the mid-14th century 
BCE.
 
4.  (a)  There is  n-o-t-h-i-n-g  about Phicol and the “Philistines” in the 
Patriarchal narratives that matches the classic Philistines who appear in the 
12th century BCE.
 
(b)  There is  n-o-t-h-i-n-g  about Phicol and the “Philistines” in the 
Patriarchal narratives that fails to match the historical reality of the 
foreign 
mercenaries who became a problem in northernmost Canaan beginning in the 
mid-14th century BCE.
 
(c)  There is not a single story in the entirety of the Patriarchal 
narratives that is anachronistic in a mid-14th century BCE historical time 
period.
 
Once you admit that n-o-t-h-i-n-g  about Phicol and the “Philistines” in the 
Patriarchal narratives matches the classic Philistines who appear in the 12th 
century BCE, your attempt to show an historical anachronism here in the 
Patriarchal narratives dies of its own dead weight.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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