Was there evidence of the Philistines around 1500 BCE, before the time of the Exodus?

[Sargonski]

The exodus is an origin story, just as the story of the Patriarchs is. That doesn't mean there aren't remnants of actual history. But there is no verification of any of the characters in the portions of the Tanakh that occur before the Bronze Age Collapse. These are stories that were orally passed on for ages before being written down. Think of them as literature designed to teach, not factual history.

I was listening to a historian earlier this week who was saying how many scholars think it was only the tribe of Levi that came out of Egypt, due to the fact that all the names of Levites in the Bible are Egyptian based, whereas the names of people in the other tribes are Hebrew based. It is very interesting to keep up with the latest understandings of historians and archeologists.

First mention of Israel comes around 1200 BC - Mernephta Stele - The Egyptian King bragging about defeating or taking control of various cities -- the Israel not mentioned as a city but one of the pesky nomadic tribes - claims to have laid waste to the Seed of these people ... beat them back in some battle.

So .. clearly we already this tribe .. or group of tribes was already a going concern .. this is also right at the time when Egypt is going down .. having to beat off Tribal Nomads .. in addition to the Sea Peoples .. including the Palestinians who are colonizing southern cost of Canaan .. Phonecians and other Sea peoples to the North .. gaining prominene as what ever the heck happned explodes and Canaan is unclaimed territory in a complete state of anarchy .. due to major power vacuum ..

Egypt is weakening at this time .. many civil and slave revolts could well be occurring .. folks leaving or escaping the chaos in Israel moving into Canaan. The semetic people migrating out of Egypt - most of which would be Canaanites are migrating into their own people migrating back from where they came .. integrating back into the Nomadic Tribes and Cities under the vassalship of these tribes as these Nomadic Tribes come into their own.


The magic number 12 is just that .. when the history was written there were a large number of discombobulated tribes that could be remembered .. somehow united at times for attacks against cities .. The Bible itself tells of other Tribes joining with Israel early on .. probably completely true .. but you choose the number in reporting because is a Holy Number not that there are 12 +1 when you account for both counts .. as there are two. but no need to dither ..

Some group calling itself by the Canaanite high God EL -- the most high - Supreme one .. of the Canaanite Pantheon .. how YHWH gets fused into the mix is complicated .. YHWH is one of ELs Sons .. Asherah being the Incestual Mommy Goddess. of the Universe

The Tribe of Moses were the Midianites according to the Bible .. these hook up with a bunch of other tribes and start taking territory -- 200 years later with much success these Tribes manage to take Jerusalem ~ 1000 BC . and are quite the going concern -- like the Mongrels .. or the Kassites .. who came down from the Hills to Rule Babylon for centuries. ... The party lasts for some 200 years - then Assyria Shows up to establish the Old Order .. the Bronze age Collapse now over .. the Iron Age taken over. Israel is no more .. just a small number of Goat herders up in the Hills remain .. Jerusalem a very small town at this time .. a religious center .. but high in the hills so very well defended.

and thus pretty much ends the Story - Judah struggles on for another 120 years - still a raging den of Paganism until very close to the End when Marduk defeats YHWH -- the place where the name resides is destroyed.

Is a long time later that the history of these rag tag band of Nomads .. who had become as important as the Bedouins or the Kurds of Today .. reinvent themselves and write down some of their story after some 85 years under the rule of Babylon many people exiled as was the practice of the day... then Persia comes .. shortly after the remaining vestages of Judah .. are allowed some freedom to be a people and encouraged to practice their religious beliefs and govern themselves in quasi vassal servitude ~ 500 BC a Judaism is born .. a reinvented religion with a reinvented God .. as a backdrop to this new Religion is the history of their glorius past .. that folks still remember .. "kind of" but was truly glorious .. Israel was a going concern for 300 Years .. what got retained after the collapse is still buried in the ground for the most part .. Bits and pieces in the Bible offer a good contribution in some cases . to that history.

 

[River Sea]

You are treating an origin myth as history. That is a mistake. The Abraham story is designed to teach. It is not meant to be a historical record. If you want to know what actual historians and archeologists think, this is a really really excellent vid:

@IndigoChild5559 I never heard of the Bronze Age's collapse. @Bharat Jhunjhunwala Have you heard about this? Also, this video shows that the Bible began to be written in the Iron Age, NOT the Bronze Age. What are your thoughts about this version?

Time of video

2:17
The first is that The Bible began to be written in the Iron Age, NOT the Bronze Age.

4:50
Bronze Age Collapse and it was probably far more earth-shattering than the fall of Rome.

4:57
Most likely, a series of large-scale natural disasters led to drought and then migrations

5:29
And this is why the Bronze Age Collapse and the Iron Age that followed it are so important

Video that @IndigoChild5559 shared
The REAL Origin of the 12 Tribes of Israel

 

[IndigoChild5559]

@IndigoChild5559 I never heard of the Bronze Age's collapse.

Oh, its an extremely important event in history. During the Bronze Age, there were a number of empires in the Mediterranean area: the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Myceneans (proto-Greeks), etc. There was extensive trade between these empires that provided a level of wealth and art and stuff that was far greater than at any time previous. And THEN around 1200 BCE something happened that destroyed this world. There are many ideas that historians and archeologists have natural disasters, such as earthquakes and famine, revolts and invasions of the Sea Peoples. But basically in the short span of one lifetime, these civilizations were decimated. Entire cities were reduced to ash and rubble. Egypt was gravely hurt, but survived.

Connecting it to the Bible, it is remembered as that period of time when the Philistines (one of the Sea Peoples) invaded Canaan and conquered the coastline.

You can google it on your own of course. But here is an easy to watch video on it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

@IndigoChild5559 I never heard of the Bronze Age's collapse.

I tend to avoid YouTube, so I have not looked at the video @IndigoChild5559 offered, but another option might be:

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed​

 

[Bthoth]

. . . until after 600 BC

 

[Aupmanyav]

I thought the king's name was Gerar? I was wrong.

Philistine king of Gerar, reigned during the time of Abraham

Ok I learn something Gerar is a place
Place is Mohenjo Daro
Gerar, Land of the Philistines
Hindu name is Girivraja, Rajgriha,Magadha

Where did you read this BS? Jhunjhunwala?
Gerar is Mohenjo Daro (which is in Pakistan-Punjab). Girivraja (Rajgriha, Magadha, modern Rajgir, which is in India-Bihar).
The first is 1741 km from the second. .. Google Search
Stop reading fake history. It is only for idiots.

 

[shunyadragon]

If you accept Neanderthals as fellow homo sapiens, that would make sense. Is that what you think?

I was taking poke at what was being called an indigenous people.The diverse Semitic tribes of the Levant were the indigenous peoples.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I was taking poke at what was being called an indigenous people.The diverse Semitic tribes of the Levant were the indigenous peoples.

no, they weren't.

 

[shunyadragon]

no, they weren't.

Well, ah . . . the actual evidence disagrees with your assertion, which needs clarification.

The origin of the recent origins (~5700 BCE) of Semitic peoples centers on Syria in the Levant. Like many regions of the world there is evidence that the earlier paleolithic peoples (Neanderthal/Homo sapiens) were displaced by later pastoral tribes, which evolved Bronze Age cultures. The following reference supports the origins of the Semitic peoples of the Levant as migration out of Ethiopian/Horn of Africa origins before ~6000 BCE.

Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa

Author Summary The Horn of Africa (HOA) occupies a central place in our understanding of modern human origins. This region is the location of the earliest known modern human fossils, a possible source for the out-of-Africa migration, and one of the most genetically and linguistically diverse...

journals.plos.org

The archeological data supports a Ethiopian origin for South Arabian civilization, not Eurasian. Tihama culture makes it clear that Ethio-Semitic people were in intimate relations for an extended period of time with Sub-Saharan Africans, and the Semitic speakers probably originated in Nubia. This would explain Anta Diop’s discovery that after the suppression of the first consonant in many Semitic words you find an African root word (8). This would explain why Semitic is closely related to Negro-Egyptian (8).

This means that the majority of non-African ancestry in HOA is not the result of a Eurasian back migration. The so-called non-African ancestry within the HOA, may be HOA genomes, that Ethio-Semitic people took into South Arabia, India and elsewhere that researchers have misidentified as Eurasia. The archaeogenetic evidence suggest that many so-called "Eurasian" genes found among HOA and Eurasians are of African origin.

Other sources indicate that the migration out of Africa of the early modern peoples began 30,000-50;000 years ago or more displacing Neanderthals and earlier Homo Sapiens from Europe to India. Part of the reason for the displacement may be climate change and over hunting of large mammals. The climate change resulted in more grasslands and less forest in the Levant, Mesopotamia and Arabia adapted to pastorial agriculture evolving to agriculture.

It is apparent there was a lot of back and forth relationships between the horn of Africa/Ethiopia involved with evidence of trade and migrasions. with the regions of Mesopotamia, Levant, Arabia, and India, Earlier claims more Eurasian origins are less likely,Migration was more likely from the South into Eurasia.

The following researches the origins of the Semitic peoples from ~5700 BCE in Syria of the Levant.

Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East

The evolution of languages provides a unique opportunity to study human population history. The origin of Semitic and the nature of dispersals by Semitic-speaking populations are of great importance to our understanding of the ancient history of the Middle ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

. We estimate an Early Bronze Age origin for Semitic approximately 5750 years ago in the Levant, and further propose that contemporary Ethiosemitic languages of Africa reflect a single introduction of early Ethiosemitic from southern Arabia approximately 2800 years ago.

5. Conclusion​

We used Bayesian phylogenetic methods to elucidate the relationships and divergence dates of Semitic languages, which we then related to epigraphic and archaeological records to produce a comprehensive hypothesis of Semitic origins and dispersals after the divergence of ancestral Semitic from Afroasiatic in Africa (figure 1). We estimate that: (i) Semitic had an Early Bronze Age origin (approx. 5750 YBP) in the Levant, followed by an expansion of Akkadian into Mesopotamia; (ii) Central and South Semitic diverged earlier than previously thought throughout the Levant during the Early to Middle Bronze Age transition; and (iii) Ethiosemitic arose as the result of a single, possibly pre-Aksumite, introduction of a lineage from southern Arabia to the Horn of Africa approximately 2800 YBP. Furthermore, we employed the first use of log BFs to statistically test competing language histories and provide support for a Near Eastern origin of Semitic. Our inferences shed light on the complex history of Semitic, address key questions about Semitic origins and dispersals, and provide important hypotheses to test with new data and analyses.

Based on this research: Who would be considered as indigenous people. of the Levant?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Tribe of Moses were the Midianites according to the Bible

That is an interesting theory. Nevertheless, "according to the Bible," Moses was a Levite (see Exodus 2).

 

[shunyadragon]

Yes, that is the present consensus of scholars, including geneticists, historians, and archeologists. The Jewish historian I have been studying lately basically divides the Tanakh (OT) into two parts -- the part describing things BEFFORE the bronze age collapse, which is essentially literature designed to teach, not record history, and the part describing things AFTER the bronze age collapse, which is when the authors actually lived, and which is a pretty accurate source of actual history.

What you present above is not the present consensus of scholars, Yes, there was a Bronze Age collapse during the 12th century BCE, but we have no Hebrew records at this time before or after the collapse. In the history of Judah is there is no evidence of Hebrew authors writing until after 600 BCE. We do have Egyptian, Cabaabite/Ugarite, Babylonian records, and evidence around the Mediterranean Sea of the collapse.

The cause of the collapse was primarily climate change across the Mesic climate band across Europe and the Middle East causing years of extreme drought. There is also evidence of widespread large Earthquakes in the Mediterranean region.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

The cause of the collapse was primarily climate change across the Mesic climate band across Europe and the Middle East causing years of extreme drought. There is also evidence of widespread large Earthquakes in the Mediterranean region.

I really enjoy learning about the Bronze Age collapse. Yes, I am familiar with all you say above, the drought and earthquakes in addition to the wars. But ultimately WHY the Bronze Age civilizations collapsed the way they did remains a mystery. It will be interesting to see what archeologists find in the future.

 

[Sargonski]

That is an interesting theory. Nevertheless, "according to the Bible," Moses was a Levite (see Exodus 2).

Matters not who Moses Parent's were .. he was raised an Egyptian and never worshiped the Gods of his Parents.

After Moses leaves Egypt he lives with the Midianites for 40 years .. Marries the Daughter of a Midianite Priest .. and it is during this period that he meets the Midianite God .. Yahu of the Shasu ..

 

[shunyadragon]

I really enjoy learning about the Bronze Age collapse. Yes, I am familiar with all you say above, the drought and earthquakes in addition to the wars. But ultimately WHY the Bronze Age civilizations collapsed the way they did remains a mystery. It will be interesting to see what archeologists find in the future.

I believe the collapse of agriculture due to drought spells doom to cultures. droughts are part of climatic cycles in particular since the end of the last Ice Age. The Maya civilization collapsed in the ~8-9th century due to drought. The regional droughts across Africa and the Middle East caused the Sahara and deserts of the Middle East and Asia, and caused migration to the Fertile river valleys contributing to forming of the early civilizations.

Civilizations require large scale agriculture and of course lots of water.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Matters not who Moses Parent's were .. he was raised an Egyptian and never worshiped the Gods of his Parents.

Thanks for sharing.

You wrote:

The Tribe of Moses were the Midianites according to the Bible

You were wrong. Stop whining.

After Moses leaves Egypt he lives with the Midianites for 40 years .. Marries the Daughter of a Midianite Priest .. and it is during this period that he meets the Midianite God ..

The story has him encountering a deity which proclaims:

“I am the God of your father’s [house]—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”​

Check with your parents if you are unclear about the difference between

• "your father's" and
• "your father-in-law's."

 

[Sargonski]

Thanks for sharing.

You wrote:


You were wrong. Stop whining.


The story has him encountering a deity which proclaims:

“I am the God of your father’s [house]—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”​

Check with your parents if you are unclear about the difference between

• "your father's" and
• "your father-in-law's."

No .. You are desperate for a Gotcha moment but have failed .. as explained to you .. The tribe of Moses -- whome he lived with for 40 years - Taking a Midianite Wife .. Daughter of a Midianite Priest ..

Why are you still whining about Moses Parents being Levite .. as if this changes the fact that the Midianites were the Tribe of Moses .. his offspring from his Midianite wife would have also been Midianite .. and so it is you who is wrong .. and whining about it .. but what is worse ,, is that this is irrevlant to the Main point that you are so desperate to avoid .. playing Gotcha games and .. what is this now .. Grammar class .. running around chasing typo's as if this is an argument for something other than "HELP"

It is when Moses is with the Midianites .. no doubt adopting the Religion of his Father in Law who is a Priest of this Religion .. along with his wife .. that he meets YHWH on the Mountain .. which .. not surprisingly turns out to be the Midianite Patron God -- of which his wifes father is a High Priest .. Yahu of the Shasu .. .. shortened to Yah at some point .. you know how these thigns work with the names of Gods .. The High God to Abraham was Enlil .. in Babylon..the High God of the Babylonian Pantheon - the God who revealed himself to Abratham "God of the Patriarchs" one of his epithets. When Abe goes to Canaan .. his God is the same God but the Canaanites use a shorted version of Enlil (EL) .. others worship this God as Ellil . which we can see is easily shortened to EL.

Abe and the Patriarchs did not know any God by the name YHWH .. nor do we have any historical record of a Most High God by that name until after the time of Moses. The Cult of YHWH begins with Moses .. and this is when we first hear the name of this God in external sources .. Yahu of the Shasu ..

El - Chief God of the Canaanite Pantheon in Abe's time .. and of the Israelite Pantheon 800 Years Later when David takes Jerusalem .. and keeps the Priestly Order of Melchi-Zedek in place .. the High Priest over all Israel .. A priest of the Order of Melchi-Zedek.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No .. You are desperate for a Gotcha moment but have failed .. as explained to you .. The tribe of Moses -- whome he lived with for 40 years - Taking a Midianite Wife .. Daughter of a Midianite Priest ..

Have a great day.

 

[shunyadragon]

I really enjoy learning about the Bronze Age collapse. Yes, I am familiar with all you say above, the drought and earthquakes in addition to the wars. But ultimately WHY the Bronze Age civilizations collapsed the way they did remains a mystery. It will be interesting to see what archeologists find in the future.

The following source gives more information concerning the collapse including interesting facts concerning language at the time.

4.2: The Collapse of the Bronze Age

The Bronze Age at its height witnessed several large empires and peoples in regular contact with one another through both trade and war. Most of the states fell into ruin between 1200 - 1100 BCE. The …

human.libretexts.org

The Bronze Age at its height witnessed several large empires and peoples in regular contact with one another through both trade and war. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom corresponded with the kings and queens of the Hittite Empire and the rulers of the Kassites and Assyrians; it was normal for rulers to refer to one another as “brother” or “sister.” Each empire warred with its rivals at times, but it also worked with them to protect trade routes. Certain Mesopotamian languages, especially Akkadian, became international languages of diplomacy, allowing travelers and merchants to communicate wherever they went. Even the warlike and relatively unsophisticated Mycenaeans played a role on the periphery of this ongoing network of exchange.

That said, most of the states involved in this network fell into ruin between 1200 - 1100 BCE. The great empires collapsed, a collapse that it took about 100 years to recover from, with new empires arising in the aftermath. There is still no definitive explanation for why this collapse occurred, not least because the states that had been keeping records stopped doing so as their bureaucracies disintegrated. The surviving evidence seems to indicate that some combination of events - some caused by humans and some environmental - probably combined to spell the end to the Bronze Age.

Around 1050 BCE, two of the victims of the collapse, the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Hittite Empire, left clear indications in their records that drought had undermined their grain stores and their social stability. In recent years archaeologists have presented strong scientific evidence that the climate of the entire region became warmer and more arid, supporting the idea of a series of debilitating droughts. Even the greatest of the Bronze Age empires existed in a state of relative precarity, relying on regular harvests in order to not just feed their population, but sustain the governments, armies, and building projects of their states as a whole. Thus, environmental disaster could have played a key role in undermining the political stability of whole regions at the time.

Even earlier, starting in 1207 BCE, there are indications that a series of invasions swept through the entire eastern Mediterranean region. The New Kingdom of Egypt survived the invasion of the “sea people,” some of whom historians are now certain went on to settle in Canaan (they are remembered in the Hebrew Bible as the Philistines against whom the early Hebrews struggled), but the state was badly weakened in the process. In the following decades, other groups that remain impossible to identify precisely appear to have sacked the Mycenaean palace complexes and various cities across the Near East. While Assyria in northern Mesopotamia survived the collapse, it lost its territories in the south to Elan, a warlike kingdom based in present-day southern Iran.

The identity of the foreign invaders is not clear from the scant surviving record. One distinct possibility is that the “bandits” (synonymous in many cases with “barbarians” in ancient accounts) blamed for destabilizing the region might have been a combination of foreign invaders and peasants displaced by drought and social chaos who joined the invasions out of desperation. It is thus easy to imagine a confluence of environmental disaster, foreign invasion, and peasant rebellion ultimately destroying the Bronze Age states. What is clear is that the invasions took place over the course of decades - from roughly 1180 to 1130 BCE - and that they must have played a major role in the collapse of the Bronze Age political and economic system.

The interesting relationship with the Hebrews is the collapse of Egypt retreating from Canaan, and the Hittites retreated North, Canaan no longer existed after about 800 BCE the Hebrews moved into the Palestine and by 600 BCE formed two kingdoms. The issue of the Philistines is also covered.

 

[shunyadragon]

I described how more advanced homosapiens moved out of Africa beginning over 50,000 years ago and began progressively replacing older low tech hunter gatherer cultures I believe often rather brutally.

The further from Africa the more recently the hunter gatherer were replaced. DNA Analysis Tracks Origins of Scandinavia’s First Farmers - Archaeology Magazine.

News - DNA Analysis Tracks Origins of Scandinavia’s First Farmers - Archaeology Magazine

LUND, SWEDEN—According to a statement released by Lund University, DNA analysis of bone and teeth […]

www.archaeology.org

DNA Analysis Tracks Origins of Scandinavia’s First Farmers

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

(National Museum of Denmark)

LUND, SWEDEN—According to a statement released by Lund University, DNA analysis of bone and teeth samples from prehistoric human remains unearthed in Denmark suggests that the first farmers to arrive in Scandinavia some 5,900 years ago wiped out the hunter-gatherer population within a few generations. “This transition has previously been presented as peaceful,” said Anne Birgitte Nielsen of Lund University. “However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers,” she added. Then, some 4,850 years ago, seminomadic domestic cattle herders from southern Russia with Yamnaya ancestors entered Scandinavia and replaced those early farmers. This may have also occurred through violence and disease, Nielsen explained. Today’s Scandinavian population in Denmark can be traced to a mix of the Yamnaya and Eastern Europe’s Neolithic people. “We don’t have as much [ancient] DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events,” Nielsen said. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature. For more, go to "Europe's First Farmers."

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I tend to avoid YouTube, so I have not looked at the video @IndigoChild5559 offered, but another option might be:

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed​

A couple of weeks ago, you recommended to me a good book on the historicity of the Exodus.

My whole life, I have been a voracious reader. However, in the last 10 years or so, diabetes have made my eyes so bad, that I can no longer read unless I have a large text. Fortunately I can configure my website browser to increase text size. But most books are simply out of my reach these days. It's been a huge adjustment.

I realize that online videos are not what you would call the best sources, LOL. However, given the condition of my eyes, they have become my main source of learning new information.

I am wondering if you have any quality historical video that you can similarly recommend that approaches the Exodus as something likely to have happened?

BTW, I did try sending this request to you via PM, but for some reason, it will not allow me to PM you.