Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 6:14 PM, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au> wrote:

Yes, the Philistines are generally understood to have come from an original Aegean area. I believe it's surmised that Cretans were probably settled in the areas of the Negev by the Egyptians who repelled the attacks of the Philistines and other Sea People in 1175 BC, and then settled them as mercenaries and a kind of 'buffer' people throughout the Levant.

The identity and date of the Sea Peoples’ attack is open to question, some historians date it as late as late seventh century, early sixth century BC. The Philistines predate even your early date given above.

So you're identifying the Pelethites as 'hoplites', taking the ה as part of the noun, rather than the article?

I’m taking this as a possibility, not a fixed. What seems pretty clear that this is a loan word into Hebrew from another language, most likely from Philistine. Was it a loan word into Philistine? If so, from where? As far as Greek is concerned, was it a loan word into Greek? Possibly as early as Linear B?

 

Interesting. It does break the symmetry with Cherethites, though, which evidently does have the article, but that's no big deal.

Were these names of peoples hired as mercenaries, or divisions of David’s army according to specialized skill?

 

The problem, though, is that 'hoplite' is a Greek word, not Semitic, and I don't think you find any hoplites before about 600 BC at the earliest. I don't think Homer mentions hoplites at all, does he? And if he doesn't, it would suggest there were no hoplites before the 8th century BC. So the suggestion, as much as I like it, would appear to be quite anachronistic. The only alternative is to suggest that the text is written at a time when hoplites were known throughout the wider region, which would probably be the Persian Era.

It’s hard to date terms, as the surviving literature is somewhat sparse. For example, I was told that Dionysios is mentioned in Linear B texts, but not again until fifth or fourth centuries BC, yet there’s no reason to believe that the term was not used continuously during the intervening period. So likewise, with hoplite, we have no earliest date, all we have is the earliest date of a surviving text. 

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia

Karl W. Randolph.