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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: gabe AT cascadeaccess.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Can absence of evidence be evidence of absence?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:46:06 EST


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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