Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>]

--- On Fri, 2/6/09, "Gabe Eisenstein" <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com> wrote:

> The attempt to make the Philistines of Genesis&Exodus into a different, 
> completely unknown group is motivated only by awareness of the
> anachronism. 

For the so-called arrival of the Peleset (i.e. Philistines) in the southern 
Levant during the 12th century BCE there is really nothing but the old Sea 
Peoples hypothesis which is now coming under increasing criticism. It is 
based on two basic assumptions: (1) that the first mention of Peleset in 
Egyptian texts signals the advent of this people-group in the southern 
Levant; and (2) that pottery styles can serve as ethnic markers announcing 
their arrival. 

As for assumption 1, that no pharaoh we know of earlier than Ramesses III 
seems to make explicit mention of the Peleset would be support of the recent 
arrival hypothesis were it not for the fact that the pharaohs rarely made 
distinctions between the residents of Pa-Canaan. They were all 
Asiatic-Canaanites to most pharaohs. We have reason to believe now, for 
example, that Merneptah was not the first pharaoh to mention Israel by name. 
It seems that honor may actually belong to a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who 
mentions an Israel in the proximity of Ashkelon and Canaan (Manfred Goerg). 
None of the pharaohs between the 18th dynasty and Merneptah mention Israel 
yet it appears that there may have been such an entity in the Levant all that 
time.

We see in the Medinet-Habu texts of Ramesses III that the Peleset are not 
invading newcomers of the Levantine coast. They are mentioned in the Year 5 
text concerned with the Libyan war and thus they were already residents 
before the great Asiatic war of Year 8 and presumably long since Aegeanized 
due to continuous contact with the Aegean. What is actually described in the 
Egyptian texts for Year 8 is an Asiatic uprising against Ramesses III (not an 
invasion by Sea Peoples) supported by Hittite satellite states in Cilicia and 
also Syria. 

Turning to assumption 2, much like languages pottery styles are not reliable 
ethnic markers. This was demonstrated long ago by Ruth Amiran (1969) with 
Aegean pottery forms. These were present in the Levant all through the Late 
Bronze Age. They cannot be safely used as evidence of new ethnic arrivals 
from the Aegean in Iron I because such wares were already there. But more 
importantly, there is no evidence any migrants from Cyprus/Aegean styled 
themselves "Peleset" before they arrived. 

At approximately the beginning of Iron I we do have archaeological evidence 
of a fresh influx from Cyprus/Aegean (as shown by changes in diet, changes in 
architecture, tablewares, etc.) but no monochrome pottery is found in any 
20th dynasty context until the last days of Ramesses VI or later 
(Finkelstein, 1998). Myceneaen IIIC:1b pottery, the so-called hallmark of the 
Philistines, appeared only after the reign of Ramesses III (Killebrew, 2000). 

So the old arrival hypothesis is currently faced with a dilemma and AFAIK a 
consensus has not yet emerged. On the one hand the inscriptions of Ramesses 
III show that Peleset were already residents of the Levant before Year 5. On 
the other hand the distinctive material culture which is assumed to announce 
the arrival of the Peleset does not appear until 40 or more years after they 
were beaten by Ramesses III in Year 8 (Aharoni, 1978). 

If there is a legitimate reason to call any of the newcomers from Cyprus or 
the Aegean at the beginning of Iron I Peleset as if none of the pre-existing 
inhabitants were calling themselves Peleset before they became a military 
concern for Ramesses III it has yet to be found. For that one needs to 
produce epigraphic evidence from Cyprus or from wherever one believes the 
Peleset originally came which actually mentions the Peleset. Lipinski is one 
who is attempting to do this, but as of this writing the name 
Peleset/Philistim is associated only with Egypt and the southern Levant in 
the literary sources.

Keep in mind that the English were calling themselves English before and 
after the Normans invaded and became the ruling elite. The newcomers 
introduced changes but were not numerous enough to change the language. Thus 
no historical candidates for the Genesis and Exodus Philistines as somehow 
distinct from the Peleset mentioned by Ramesses III need be sought. Put 
simply, the term Philistine in Genesis and Exodus might very well be an 
anachronism but there is to date zero evidence that it is.

Tory Thorpe
Modiin, Israel