RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Philippists Philistines
tive independence, removed from both as they were either by a great distance or by the desert. The coast is almost without natural harbors, the hinterland possessed a few small plains, and toward the south the country gradually becomes transformed into pasture land.
The first reports of this district come from Egyptian inscriptions and from the Amarna Tablets (q.v.). Thothmes III. (c. 1500 B.C.) reckoned the district to the land of Haru. The Amarna Tablets mention Gaza, Ashkelon, and Joppa. Especially instructive is the portrayal at Karnak of the
conquest of Ashkelon by Rameses II. 2. Origin, (c. 1280), in which the defenders of the
fortress are shown as distinct from the Philistines both in dress and countenance and as identical with Canaanites, proving that the inhabitants at that time were of the same race as those of Upper Palestine and that a foreign people had not yet intruded. This fact is confirmed by the names which come from this period, which are of Semitic-Canaanitic type. Deut. ii. 23 affirms that the Avvim dwelt here until the Caphtorim entered and destroyed them; Josh. xiii. 3, cf. xi. 22, implies that the Avvim and the Philistines lived alongside each other. The culture of the region was like that of other parts of Palestine, except that Egyptian influence was felt more strongly. The Old Testament (cf. Amos ix. 7) thus agrees with other information that the Philistines were intruders, and Jer. xlvii. 4 is in accord with other passages in deriving them from Caphtor (q.v.), the identification of which is not yet settled. A connection of the Philistines with the Cherethites of I Sam. xxx. 14- 15 and with the Carim, " captains," of II Kings xi. 4, 19 (cf. the gloss on Gen. x. 14), supposed to be from Caria in Asia Minor, has been attempted, but the combination is uncertain, even in view of I Kings i. 38, where Cherethites and Pelethites (or Philistines) are mentioned as part of the royal guard, and no certain datum is gained for determining the place of origin of the Philistines. The Egyptian monuments of the period of Rameses III. (1208-1180 B.C.) speak of unrest in northern and central Syria caused by a foreign and hitherto unnamed people, whose names are read Purasati, Zakkari, Shakrusha, Dano or Danona, Washasha, and Shardana. Of these the Purasati are always named first, and, it is assumed, were the leaders. The fact that these peoples marched with a great amount of baggage and with wives and children is taken by E. Meyer as proving that it was the migration of a people which pushed on to the borders of Egypt. W. M. Muller argues from the application to them of the name equivalent to " heroes " that they were predatory bands of soldiers plundering alike friend and foe. Rameses III. speaks of a land battle with them and also of a sea fight. The Golenisheff papyrus relates that the Egyptian Uno- Anion journeyed in a ship to Dor in Palestine for timber during the fifth year of Herihor, the last king of the twentieth Egyptian dynasty, and that the city then belonged to the Zakkari, whose chief was named Bidir. It is noteworthy that this people's name occurs both in the time of Rameses and of Herihor, in the former in connection with the Purasati, and that with
Rameses the Egyptian hegemony of southern Syria begins to vanish; it is further probable that since the Zakkari made sure their footing, their associates the Purasati also did. With the Purasati the Egyptologist Champollion connected the Philistines before 1832, and this identification has approved itself to later scholars. W. M. Muller supposed the pronunciation to have been Pulaesti, cf. the Assyrian Palastu, Pilistu. This scholar has located their home on the southern coast of Asia Minor and in the islands of the iEgean Sea. A sea people was known to the Egyptians as Ruku or Luku (Lycians). An attempt to derive the name from a Semitic root meaning " to wander " does not approve itself, since it is practically certain that the Philistines were not of Semitic stock, and the Egyptians gave to the peoples of Syria their own names, describe the Philistines and their associates as coming from " the end of the sea," and portray them as differing in feature and dress from Semites. It is not unlikely that between the Philistines and their associates and the " early Cretans " of Odyssey xix. 176 a relationship existed, but definite proof is lacking.
Proof from the language of the Philistines is lacking, since practically nothing is known of it, and the occurrence of persons and places in the Old Testament and Assyrian inscriptions helps little, since the Philistines naturally adopted the language of the country after their settlement 3. Not therein. The Semitic names of places, Semitic, upon which F. Schwally bases his argument that the Philistines were Semites proves nothing, since these names often remain unaltered in the East through successive waves of population. The Achish of I Sam. xxvii.-xxviii. has been placed alongside the Ikausu of the Assyrian Inscriptions (cf. Schrader, KAT, 3d ed., p. 473), a form " Ekasho of the land of Kefti " found in an Egyptian source, which seems to make a non-Semitic origin of this name clear. The Old Testament calls in several places (Josh. xiii. 3; Judges iii. 3; I Sam. vi. 4, 16) the rulers of the Philistines seranim, " lords," a word which does not yield readily to a Hebrew (Semitic) etymology, and Klostermann (on I Sam. v. 8) has equated it with the Gk. tyrannos. The deities of the Philistines appear to be Semitic — cf. Dagon, Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub (qq.v.). This people had images in their temples and took them when they went to war as did the Hebrews the ark (II Sam. v. 21); Isa. ii. 6 shows that their soothsayers were held in honor. Those who visited the temple of Dagon avoided stepping on the threshold (I Sam. v. 5; cf. Zeph. i. 9). But these observances are in accordance with Semitic custom. The general impression, however, received from a view of the facts is that the Philistines were not of Semitic stock, and were intruders into the land where they adopted Semitic customs and language. [The name of Goliath, with its Aramaic ending — ath, does not contradict the theory of the non- Semitic origin of the Philistines, since he is described as belonging to the Giants (q.v.; cf. II. Sam. xxi. 15-19; I Chron. xx. 4-8; both in accord with Josh. x. 22), who are recorded as descended from the Avvim or Anakim. Descendants of the old stock would be reckoned by outlanders to the
Philistines