Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Gabe,
> To all who answered my post about Philistines and Samaritans:
>
> The attempt to make the Philistines of Genesis&Exodus into a different, 
> completely unknown group is motivated only by awareness of the 
> anachronism. No ancient scholars thought there needed to be two groups, 
> nor, I would guess, does any modern reader unaware of the anachronism. 
> Therefore Occam's Razor would certainly come down on the side of there 
> being only one referent for the word "Philistines", even though the way 
> they are pictured in Genesis has little in common with the historical 
> Philistines. 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?)
>   

HH: There are ways to understand this. The Sea People immigration could 
account for it. The two biblical groups of Philistines are often 
pictured as two groups of Sea Peoples. See below.
> When I was young I read Robert E. Howard's "Conan" books, which featured 
> a map in which countries like Kush and Cimmeria were fit together in 
> ways that had nothing to do with anything historical. He simply used 
> names that the reader might vaguely recall from somewhere, without 
> attaching specific data. Similarly in the Fantastic Four, Dr.Doom was 
> king of "Latvia", but "Latvia" was a mountain kingdom that had nothing 
> to do with the Baltic state. It seems that the author of Gen.21&26 
> operated in much the same way with the name "Philistines".
>   

HH: It seems differently to others. Here is Victor P. Hamilton, in The 
Book of Genesis: chapters 18-50 (NICOT):

Many commentators have viewed the designation "Philistine" (vv. 32, 34) 
as an anachronism, because external sources (i.e., Egyptian texts) 
attest the presence of the Philistines as Philistines in Palestine only 
as early as 1200 B.C. But such a conclusion is unwarranted. The later 
Philistines, mentioned in Judges and Samuel, are bellicose and live 
under "lords." The Philistines of the patriarchal age are peaceful and 
live under a "king." If this is an anachronistic retrojection it would 
be unlikely that the character of those pictured in the retrojection 
would clash with the later Philistines. One would expect imitation and 
correspondence. I suggest that the Philisitines of Genesis represent the 
first wave of Sea Peoples from the Aegean, and that the later 
Philistines represent the last wave (ca. 1200 B.C.). These early 
Philistines would then represent some earlier Aegean group, such as the 
Caphtorim from Crete (Deut. 2:23).

CSB Deuteronomy 2:23 The Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed the 
Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, and settled in their place.

CSB Amos 9:7 Israelites, are you not like the Cushites to Me? This is 
the LORD's declaration. Didn't I bring Israel from the land of Egypt, 
the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir?

HH: But, differently than Hamilton, it is certainly possible that the 
word "Philistines" was an anachronism in Genesis, for we see such an 
anachronism elsewhere in Genesis. Genesis 14:14 uses the name "Dan" 
anachronistically:

CSB Genesis 14:14 When Abram heard that his relative had been taken 
prisoner, he assembled his 318 trained men, born in his household, and 
they went in pursuit as far as Dan.

The Israelites renamed as Dan a northern site formerly called Leshem:

CSB Joshua 19:47 When the territory of the Danites slipped out of their 
control, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and struck 
it down with the sword. So they took possession of it, lived there, and 
renamed Leshem after their ancestor Dan.

HH: But Abraham fought the invaders long before the conquest under 
Joshua, and long before the birth of Dan. So the editors of the 
Scriptures, it seems changed the ancient name of the place into a more 
recognizable place name for their contemporaries. It is possible that 
they called people Philistines who lived in the place that the later 
people called Philistines lived.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard