No, it will take more than a few seconds. It may take some real time to contact the people who told me what the word plishtim means. Not everything is in your dictionary.

I’m not into proving myself right and proving you wrong, or winning the conversation. I just want to know the truth and for things to go right in this world.

Right now I’m in the middle of paying bills and balancing my checkbook. This really needs to be done.  Is it okay with you if I do this first? Or do I need your permission? I also want to think about it for a bit. These people might not take it well if they think someone is questioning whether they know their own language or not. I know I myself wouldn’t like it too much.

But you go ahead and demand that I do what you want me to do when you want me to, and see what kind of impression that makes on me or anyone else, and see if I do it at all, or tell you the results when and if I do. 

Hi Judith

I don’t believe what anyone says is always absolutely true. Cept for God and JC, and we don’t always know what they say or have said, so there we are with that.

I’m glad we are together in faith and belief in Jesus. It’s good to know. 🙂 

I never said the Romans made up the geographical name “Palestine”

Copilot says we are both wrong:

🧭 Core Takeaway

The Plishtim were an Aegean‑influenced Iron Age people who settled on the southern coast of Canaan around 1175 BCE, formed a powerful pentapolis, clashed with early Israel, and eventually disappeared as a distinct culture under imperial pressure. They are not ancestors of any modern population.

🌊 Origins: Sea Peoples and the Aegean Pulse

• Egyptian inscriptions from the reign of Ramesses III list the Peleset among the Sea Peoples—migratory groups arriving from the Aegean world during the Late Bronze Age collapse.
• Archaeology at Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath shows early Philistine pottery with clear Mycenaean motifs.
• DNA from Philistine burials at Ashkelon reveals a European genetic signature that later blended with Levantine ancestry.

This is why biblical references to Caphtor (often linked to Crete) make sense: the Israelites remembered them as outsiders with a maritime origin.

🏙️ Their Cities and Society

The Plishtim organized themselves into a pentapolis:

• Gaza
• Ashkelon
• Ashdod
• Ekron
• Gath

Each city had its own ruler (“seren”), but they coordinated militarily and politically. Their culture blended Aegean and Canaanite elements:

• Distinctive bichrome pottery
• Aegean-style hearths
• Unique feathered helmets depicted in Egyptian reliefs
• Strong emphasis on urban fortification
• Adoption of local Semitic language over time

They were not a monolithic “invading horde,” but a hybrid society adapting to a new land.

⚔️ Biblical Portrayal vs. Archaeology

In the Hebrew Bible, the Plishtim are the archetypal antagonists:

• Samson and the Philistine elite
• Goliath of Gath
• The wars of Saul and David

But archaeology paints a more nuanced picture:

• Trade and cultural exchange occurred alongside conflict.
• They were technologically sophisticated, not “uncultured.”
• Their rivalry with Israel was regional and political, not ethnic in the modern sense.

Your open tab titled “Was David a Philistine/Palestinian?” reflects how modern debates often project contemporary identities backward. Historically, David was not a Philistine; he lived among them briefly while fleeing Saul, but that’s political refuge, not ethnic identity.

🏛️ Disappearance

By the 7th–6th centuries BCE:

• Assyria reduced Philistine autonomy.
• Egypt intervened.
• Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar II, destroyed their major cities around 604 BCE.

After this, the Plishtim vanish from the historical record. Their name survives only as a geographic term used by later Greeks and Romans (Palaistinē), which is linguistically related but not ethnically continuous.

🧩 Why “Plishtim” Matters Today

Because the term appears in biblical texts, modern discussions sometimes try to map it onto present-day identities. Historically, that’s incorrect:

• The ancient Plishtim were an Iron Age Aegean-Levantine culture that disappeared 2,500 years ago.
• The modern Palestinian identity emerges from Arabic-speaking populations of the Levant in the last two millennia.
• The similarity in names is linguistic, not genealogical.

Understanding this distinction helps keep ancient history grounded rather than retrofitted to modern politics.

Robert – Would you please stop addressing me (or anyone) in this way:

“You really haven’t read your Bible, have you?” – comment 22

“I totally reject your elaborate fantasy”  – comment 30

“Geez, Helen, please take it down a notch” – comment 45

“maybe I gave you too much credit for being clever” – comment 47

“First, I’m very glad you did some research and have presumably abandoned at least some of your earlier ideas & conjectures” – comment 47

—————————————————————————————–

These are just a few of the statements you have made to me on this one thread. You have done similar things on other threads. I’ll leave it to you to have some powers of self-correction, to look at them and make intelligent self-evaluation and correction on your own.

2380 said
Robert, it’s ok to refer to me this way.
I don’t like it when others decide how I should be referenced.
  

Sorry, didn’t mean to speak for you. Apologies.

Some others may feel the same way as I do, all the same.

Robert said

Helen Young said
Robert – Would you please stop addressing me (or anyone) in this way:
“You really haven’t read your Bible, have you?” – comment 22
“I totally reject your elaborate fantasy”  – comment 30
“Geez, Helen, please take it down a notch” – comment 45
“maybe I gave you too much credit for being clever” – comment 47
“First, I’m very glad you did some research and have presumably abandoned at least some of your earlier ideas & conjectures” – comment 47
—————————————————————————————–
These are just a few of the statements you have made to me on this one thread. You have done similar things on other threads. I’ll leave it to you to have some powers of self-correction, to look at them and make intelligent self-evaluation and correction on your own.

In an ideal world, Helen, how would you like me to respond to your continual arguing for a personal theory without any substantive foundation? 
  

If you think that a person’s individual intelligence and insight have no foundation, then Idk if you should respond at all.

Is it wrong to try out and work out new ideas here? Or are only ideas that have been worked out in the past, sometimes the over-petrified past, allowed?

There is more sanctity in a person’s ability to come up with new ideas and insights than there is in all your backlog of books and blah-blah-blah combined. If there wasn’t, we wouldn’t need people like Bart Ehrman to help find our way out and on, through and past it all.