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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Origin of the Phillistines
  • Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 13:07:45 +0100

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

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