(16 votes, average: 4.94 out of 5)
Loading...In my post a couple of days ago I stated the fact, that I took to be a fact, that the historical Moses (if there was one) (which I doubt) could not have written parts of the Pentateuch (I don’t think he wrote any of the parts) (OK, since, among other things, I don’t think he existed) because of the mention of the people the “Philistines” and the city of Beersheba, neither of which existed in the thirteenth century BCE, when he must have lived, if he lived. A reader asked me what the evidence for that is. I include the question below.
It’s a great question. I used to know the answer! Off the top of my head, I couldn’t remember what that was, apart from a vague recollection of archaeological reports. Moreover, at the time I was on the road away from my books (visiting my 89-year-old mother in Kansas!). So not being able to look it up, I did the next best thing, which turns out not to have been the second best but the absolute best thing. I asked a colleague who is an expert.
Joseph Lam is my colleague at UNC. He has a PhD from the University of Chicago and is an expert on the languages and cultures of the Ancient Near East. He reads (and teaches) everything from Hebrew to Aramaic to Ugaritic to Akkadian to … well, lots of other Semitic languages and cultures. I envy people like that. In any event, I asked him if he knew offhand the evidence about the Philistines and the city of Beersheba.
Oh boy did I ask the right person at the right time. Below the question of the questioner, which I forwarded to him, and then Joseph’s reply.
*********************************************************************************
QUESTION: What evidence do we have for dating when the Philistines or the city of Beersheba came into existence? Is there evidence for actual foundings/beginnings, or is there a lack of evidence before a certain and suddenly evidence after such and such date?
If the latter, I could imagine some fundamentalists complaining that this is an argument from ignorance and pointing back to the commonly used example of “scholars once said the Hittites were made up by the bible and no such group could have existed because there is no evidence, then boom, we found evidence confirming their existence”. Any possibility that the Philistines or Beersheba existed before but we don’t have any evidence that survived?
JOSEPH LAM’S RESPONSE (when I forwarded to him the question): The timing of your question is impeccable: I’m nearing the end of my time in Israel this summer, having visited several Philistine sites, a museum of Philistine culture, and with plans to be in Beersheba next week.
The archaeological evidence we have for both the arrival of the Philistines and the founding of Beersheba in the 12th century BCE is considerable. For the Philistines, extensive excavations conducted in 4 of the 5 major Philistine cities (Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath–ancient Gaza is under the modern city and cannot be excavated), as well as other “minor” Philistine sites (e.g., Tell Qasile), have revealed a distinctive cultural assemblage (pottery, architecture, cultic remains, cooking styles and diet, etc.) that appears in all these sites around 1200 BCE (dating is based on fine-tuned pottery chronologies from countless sites in the Levant and around the Mediterranean). This cultural assemblage is sharply distinct from what existed at these sites before (i.e., the “Canaanite” occupation levels). This fits well with the references we find in texts from the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses III to the Sea Peoples (including a group called “Peleset”). The pottery development, in particular, is striking: the earliest “Philistine” pottery resembles Mycenean Greek styles, and gets merged more and more with local Levantine styles as time goes on. I would dare say that the Philistine phenomenon is one of the most secure examples archaeologically of a “foreign” group coming into a new place and settling there.
Ancient Beersheba is located just on the edge of the modern city, and was excavated by a Tel Aviv University expedition in the 1970’s. The settlement pattern they discovered (based on surveys of the site) was quite striking: some small Chalcolithic settlement (late 4th millennium BCE!), followed by NO settlement at all throughout the Bronze Age (I’m sure they looked!), and re-settlement beginning with a small village/huts in the mid-12th century, growing into a larger fortified administrative city in the later Iron Age II.gggg
All that to say, the archaeological evidence on these matters is direct and abundant.
IF YOU DON”T BELONG TO THE BLOG YET, JOIN!!! You get this kind of crazy-good stuff all the time, at very little cost! And all the proceeds go to important charities. So GET WITH IT!!!
As always…well done!
Joseph Lam’s first book nearing completion and tentatively titled Metaphorical Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East sounds interesting though it’s probably for scholars.
The Joseph Lam book does look very interesting and it seems to already be out. Unfortunately with a price tag of $66.00 on Amazon down from $74.00 on Oxford Press its out of my price range. You can sample part of chapter one on Amazon. I’m no scholar, but could understand what I read. If you can afford it I would pick it up, though there are no reviews of it yet. That’s if you find reviews useful. Peace.
I know it’s hard to swallow, but for a serious academic book, that’s a bargain!
Awesome credentials on that piece.
Dr. Ehrman, I have a pet theory that the Philistines were actually the descendents of the Pylos contingent (headed by Nestor in the Illiad) that first invaded then settled a colony in the Nile delta following the events of the Trojan war. The Pylos “Sea Peoples” founded their own settlement called Pelest in the Delta, and from there they were forced to (or bribed to) immigrate to and occupy the southwest Levant that became Philistia and the Pentapolis of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath. That would explain why the Philistines show signs of coming from a Mycenaean culture.
Great info! Thanks so much!
With regard to the interesting question of whether or not Moses actually existed, would the four (JEPD) sources qualify as being “multiple independent sources” of the existence of Moses showing no evidence of collusion? Of course, these four sources were not written close to the time they describe nor are they completely consistent with one another having significant contradictions with regard to the story of Noah’s ark and the two very different versions of the Ten Commandments and so on and so forth.
Does your Mom and you still fish together?
Yes, I suppose so. But you would have to consider lots of other factors: they appear to be “sources” centuries removed from the events, if the events happened.
No, I’m afraid our fishing days are now over….
It looks like the full article is being cut off ??
No, it should all be there.
Oh I see, it ends at the red text. I’m new here; I read your book ‘Jesus Interrupted’ and then some others as well in the past year and just joined your site this week. Lots of good articles and discussions!
DR EHRMAN:
King Solomon lived in the tenth century BCE.
According to 1 Kings 6:1, four hundred and eighty years had passed since the children of Israel had come out of Egypt when King Solomon began constructing the Temple in Jerusalem.
Also according to 1 Kings 8:9, and 2 Chronicles 5:10, the children of Israel still had the two original tablets of stone which Moses had stored inside the Arch of the Covenant.
My point is, that the original Ten Commandments written not by Moses, but by God himself, were still in their possession and they kept them in the Arch of the Covenant. Most likely they also had the original words of Moses in the form of statutes and ordinances which God commanded him to write down for the children of Israel.
However by the time Jeremiah lived in the latter part of the seventh century BCE into the sixth century BCE. the original words of the Living God were perverted by the scribes. Jeremiah testifies to this fact in Jeremiah 8:8 and Jeremiah 23:36 (bible references below)
1 Kings 6:1-Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
1 Kings 8:9-There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
2 Chronicles 5:10-There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.
Jeremiah 8:8“How can you say, ‘We are wise, And the law of the LORD is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie.
Jeremiah 23:36-“For you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man’s own word will become the oracle, and you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.
Awesome stuff !
interesting article related to this thread …
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/science/possible-philistine-cemetery-discovered.html?emc=eta1
I have made a reply to this post:
Philistines, Beersheba, Bible Accuracy
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2022/03/ehrman-errors-1-philistines-beersheba-bible-accuracy.html
Excerpt and summary:
In the case of the Philistines prior to c. 1200 BC, it’s a matter of them being known by a different name, but still in existence. In the case of Beersheba, you are right that it didn’t exist as a town or city in Moses’ time, but wrong about the Bible supposedly claiming that it did. Both of these supposed “anachronisms” are rather easily answered.
The Philistines were known as the Caphtorites in Genesis. Where “Philistines” appears, it is probably a later editor using the current name. The notion of say, Ezra (5th c. BC) making slight additions to the Bible is not an “after the fact” rationalization of alleged anachronisms, either, since, for example, Charles Buck’s Theological Dictionary, published in 1802, mentioned it.
Recent genetic studies (e.g., Nature, 7-4-19) have shown that the Philistines largely derived from Crete (43% DNA match).
Beersheba is mentioned eleven times in Genesis. None of the passages require the interpretation of even a town, let alone a city. The very first mention, in Abraham’s time (Gen 21:14) refers to “the wilderness of Beer-sheba.” The biblical narrative during the time of Abraham doesn’t indicate any city.
Your response misses the point. I know of no historian or archeologist who advocates for Aegean settlement as early as would be needed for the story to work, in which “land of the philistines” is used. I know some have hypothesized “early” philistine colonization before the invasion of the Sea People, but this is based on incredibly scant evidence and is not widely accepted. The Philistines left a distinctive archeological mark. A few imported Minoan shards as early as 1600 BCE isn’t the evidence we would need to justify calling this the “land of the Philistines.” On the other hand, the archeological evidence of their later development is abundant, as pointed out by Dr. Lam above.
As for Beersheba, the same argument could be made for Harran or Ur of the Chaldeans. So Abimelek and Abraham made a covenant in the wilderness? He and his descendants stayed and built wells in the wilderness? This isn’t a convincing response to me.