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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Origin of the Phillistines
  • Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 10:38:37 +0100

Thanks for giving me the go ahead Yigal.

As Yitzhak has bowed out of this thread I shall attempt, in his place, to present a summary of the 'mainstream' view of the origin of the philistines. Apologies in advance for any slight errors as I am by no means as familiar with the relevant literature as Yitzhak probably is. No doubt, if I make any serious mistakes he will correct me. But, in any case, I'm just going to provide a broad outline.

The mainstream view is that the original language of the Philistines is of Indo-european origin. The basic line of reasoning is that archaeology in cities of Philistine territories have revealed pottery of Mycenaean style of certain building features also seemingly of Mycenaean architectural styles. That although no written records survive of the Philistine language before they adopted 'Canaanite' language and culture the existence of a few non-Semitic load words in their language are indicative of a non-Semitic origin. Names like Goliath, Phicol have been postulated to be of Indo-european origin.

However, there are certain factors which make this view a little extreme. Firstly, the author of the table of nations in Genesis 10 quite plainly tells us that the Philistines came out of Mizraim. They have a common ancestor with the Egyptian people. Abraham makes a covenant with the Philistine king of his time, Abimelech. Abimelech is a very Semitic name.

It seems more likely that the Philistine language has always been of Semitic origin and any traces of Indo-European loan words and Mycenaean pottery can perhaps be better explained by the influence of later invaders. Indigenous peoples tend to cherish their language and culture and not all invasions are successful in supplanting the language (there are still communities in Wales that speak a Gaelic dialect to this day).

And so the above linguistic and archaeological observations perhaps best answer the question of where those who later invaded and influenced the philistines came from but not what the original language of the philistines was or where the philistines originally came from. The accounts in Genesis make it clear to us that the philistines are

a) of Hamitic origin (more precisely from Egypt)
b) spoke a Semitic language from their very conception as a nation

James Christian




Quoting James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>:

There was no discussion. It was contentless.

Anyway, I interpret your refusal to present the 'mainstream' view of
the origin of the Philistines as your admission that the 'mainstream'
view follows pretty much the same logic as the ridiculous analysis I
gave of the English language.

Case closed.

James Christian

Quoting Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>:

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 2:15 AM, James Read wrote:

So now, without looking like a total hypocrite would you like to
expound to myself and the list members the 'mainstream' view of the
origin of the Philistines as presented in the literature that you
evidently very familiar with?

No, James. Let's keep to the original discussion.

Yitzhak Sapir
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