Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

You see,

the basic reason we are failing to understand each other is because  
you are using the term Philistines to refer to the non-indigenous  
invaders who had little effect other than bringing their pottery and  
influencing the architecture of building projects.

I am talking about the original philistines, the ones that came from  
Mizraim's offspring, the ones that are indigenous to the area. Not to  
the invaders. The reason they spoke a Semitic language is quite simply  
because that is all they ever spoke. The few loan words that the  
Indo-European invaders managed to cause to enter the language is in no  
way shape or form conclusive evidence that the Philistines (I am  
talking about the indigenous *not* the invaders) ever spoke that  
foreign tongue.

Even the foreign architecture has inscriptions which are Semitic in  
origin. This only testifies how the invaders were completely  
unsuccessful in supplanting the Philistines Semitic language. The  
theory that the Philistines:

a) spoke Semitic
b) then spoke Indo-European for a few generations
c) then thought 'sod that! Let's magically relearn Semitic again'

is both unproven, unlikely and quite possibly even implausible.

I purposefully haven't commented on your identification of Pereset  
with Philistines because even if these can be reliably matched the  
only thing it goes to show is that is the name of the indigenous was  
being used to describe the invaders. This is the exact same mistake as  
you seem to be making.

It is contextually clear that this same mistake was not made in  
Genesis and the references to the Philistines are to the indigenous  
Hamitic offspring of Mizraim with a king with a Semitic name Abimelech.

I mean come on. Can you get much more Semitic than Abimelech? Having a  
name like Abimelech is like having a verified stamp of being a 100%  
lean mean Semitic reigning machine.

The genealogy of Genesis 10 is quite clearly talking about the  
genealogical roots of the indigenous Philistines *not* the later  
misnomer of the non-indigenous invaders. This is only goes to show  
Genesis 10 has a more ancient origin than the adopted use of the  
misnomer. This, ironically, is the exact opposite of the conclusion  
drawn from the circular logic you applied in dating Genesis 10.

James Christian



James Christian



James Christian




Quoting George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>:

> James,
>
> I'm not sure if you realise, but there are very few people (if any)   
> who seriously challenge the idea that the Philistines are the   
> Pereset of Ramesses III's account of the invasion of the Sea Peoples  
>  in c.1176 BC. Not only is it a good linguistic match between   
> Egyptian and Hebrew, but the archaeological record supports the   
> identification (see the production of Mycenean IIIB ware in the   
> Levant). This is a basic datum of the historical record. It actually  
>  provides a very firm external point of verification for the   
> Philistines, making the hypothesis I described previously anything   
> but circular reasoning. Only if you reject the Philistine=Pereset   
> identification could you possibly see it as circular reasoning. And   
> if you do reject the identification, you'd have to show good reason   
> why - which would probably have to take the form of newly discovered  
>  evidence. The hypothesis stands on good solid ground - not a 'shaky  
>  foundation' at all. It's not 'my' theory - it's the basic wisdom of
>   the academy at the moment.
>
> It seems you have a bit of history to brush up on, James. Before   
> then, you might want to think again about lambasting some of the   
> most basic ideas in the field.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew



--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.