Posted on 08/05/2019 9:16:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from?
As it turns out, the Philistines were exactly who the Bible says they were, and they came from where the Bible says they did.
Amos 9 speaks of God bringing up the Philistines from Caphtor, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 2 tells us that “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed [the original Canaanite inhabitants] and settled in their place.”
This brings us to the obvious question: “Where was Caphtor?” We just don’t know for sure, but the Bible does provide an interesting clue. Jeremiah called the Philistines “the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor.” The Hebrew word translated “coastland” can also mean “island.”
For this and other reasons, many archaeologists have concluded that biblical Caphtor was Crete. In fact, some modern Bible translations even render “Caphtor” as “Crete.” We can’t be completely certain that it is, but the Bible does tell us three additional things about the Philistines. First, they weren’t native to Iron Age Canaan. Second, they displaced the original inhabitants of the region. And, third, they came via the sea, that is, the Mediterranean.
Which brings me back to the excavation in Ashkelon. After analyzing DNA from the site, Michal Feldman, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute, and Daniel Master, the head of the expedition, revealed the results. Master announced, “Our study has shown for the first time that the Philistines immigrated to this region in the 12th century (BC).”
And from where did they immigrate? According to Feldman, “This [DNA] ancestral component is derived from Europe, or to be more specific, from southern Europe, so the ancestors of the Philistines must have traveled across the Mediterranean and arrived in Ashkelon sometime between the end of the Bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age.”
Over time, the “ancestral component” became diluted as the Philistines mixed with the local Canaanite population.
All of this is pretty much in accordance with the Biblical narrative. The Philistines were ancient Israel’s principal antagonist during the period of the Judges, which coincides with the time frame Feldman and Master mention, as well as the early Monarchy. As the biblical narrative continues, they become less distinct from their Canaanite neighbors and basically drop out of the picture, except as an historical reference, as in Jeremiah.
Whenever the latest archaeological evidence confirms parts of the Biblical narrative, we are told that this does not prove the Bible is “true.” I suspect what critics are trying to say, for example in this case, is that confirming the biblical narrative’s account of the origin of the Philistines doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the Bible is true.
Of course, it doesn’t. But the Bible is on quite a streak here, isn’t it? And, each finding further distinguishes the Biblical narrative from other religious or even ancient historical texts. The Biblical writers weren’t creating myths or recounting legends. They were relating history.
Like all history, the events it describes are interpreted within Israel’s larger story, but the events are clearly not created out of thin air to suit their agenda. These were events either witnessed or received from reliable sources.
Which is why we must say that Biblical faith is a historical faith. Many other faiths are “ways of life” or “paths to enlightenment” or something like that. The Bible is different. It tells the story of God’s dealing with His people as it unfolded in human history. Its details are grounded in real events, not in some mythological “once upon a time.”
And, along the way, we learn of other actors. You know, like the Philistines.
The Sea Peoples are a modern invention, used to wave away problems created by blind acceptance of the conventional pseudochronology. There are two references to them in Egyptian contemporary records, which are misdated by centuries anyway. There are otherwise no ancient references to them anywhere.
The Sea Peoples left no tombs, no distinctive burials, no graveyards, no graves, no tombs, no towns, no homeland, no geographic traces, no characteristic weapons, no characteristic pottery, no coins, no identifiable rulers (including conquerors of the lands they supposedly conquered) or king-lists, no written records in their own right, no characteristic armor, no characteristic weapons, and perhaps most significantly, no wrecks -- the last one being pretty damned peculiar for a massive group of seagoing conquerors. :')
They weren’t seagoing conquerors. They were seagoing refugees. I think that explains the lack of tombs, burials, etc.
They were pretty distinctive in the records that were left.
Refugees? That's not what the Egyptians wrote about them, and the Egyptian references (just two of them) are the only ones that exist. There's not a peep out of anyone else. And again, not a trace that they ever existed, apart from those two Egyptian references. Where were they from? Where did they go? They are, for all practical purposes, imaginary, insofar as they weren't the destroyers of the Bronze Age civilizations, and that's the role they're called upon to play.
What about the Cherethites? Were they from Crete? Or the Pelethites? (See 2 Samuel 20.23)
"Cretans are always liars" (as St. Paul warned Titus, quoting Epimenides), so if the Philistines had come from Crete, they would have lied about it.
The reason I do not devote myself to “proving” The Bible or Creation is that I recognize this is about spirituality and faith, not objectivity and fact. I learned that at age ten:
The Big Reason to Denounce the Historicity of the Bible once was the adamant assertion by archaeological experts that The Hittite Empire cited in Scripture was an obvious myth.
Then, in 1906 (as I recall), these same experts discovered Hattushah, the capitol of the sprawling ancient empire of the Hittites. Oops.
Did these pompous experts say, We were wrong; there is reason to believe the Bible account? No, they just moved on to The Next Big Reason [Excuse] to Denounce The Historicity of the Bible.
They are a pack of disingenuous hypocrites. Everything is just pretext for them to promulgate their favorite leftist, secular ideas.
Good point. Another interesting point is that Dr Stephen Collins, leader of the Sodom and Gamorrah excavation in Jordan/Israel, believes that Sodom and Gamorrah were Minoan settlements because of art and architecture. Also because of pederasty
Yep! God always proves the so-called experts wrong.
Good point. Another interesting point is that Dr Stephen Collins, leader of the Sodom and Gamorrah excavation in Jordan/Israel, believes that Sodom and Gamorrah were Minoan settlements because of art and architecture. Also because of evidences of pederasty
They were not refugees as in begging for handouts.
They were refugees as in they left their devastated homelands to conquer themselves a new place to live.
Which, outside of a few small places like coastal Israel, they mostly failed and died. The local victors left little or nothing of them to find.
Think Barbarian Migrations like the one that destroyed Rome, but using ships, and unsuccessful.
Tune in tonight at nine and find OUT!!!
https://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens
I knew that SOMEONE would beat me to it!
So, where were their mass graves, made by the victors after the "refugees" were killed? Where was their homeland?
LOL!.
So, where were their mass graves, made by the victors after the "refugees" were killed? Where was their homeland?
Their homeland was apparently Crete, Greece and the Aegean Islands.
Mass graves are more problematic.
The prolific Greeks spread out over the Mediterranean basin (and apparently around the Black Sea), settling in Sicily and Italy even in Mycenaean times. The Minoans (who were non-Greek, insofar as their written language has been found to be not Greek) were displaced in markets like Caphtor (Cyprus), Israel, and Egypt, as well as the north (and -inthos placenames show up around the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas). Classical Greeks wound up under Persian rule in places where they'd settled like those and in Anatolia. They didn't run into the Sea Peoples, because they were the Sea Peoples.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks SeekAndFind.
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