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Philistines not Philistine?

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Boreas
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« on: March 25, 2007, 09:32:23 am »


Philistines, but less and less Philistine

In recent years, excavations in Israel established that the
Philistines had fine pottery, handsome architecture and cosmopolitan
tastes. If anything, they were more refined than the shepherds and
farmers in the nearby hills, the Israelites, who slandered them in
biblical chapter and verse and rendered their name a synonym for
boorish, uncultured people.

Archaeologists have now found that not only were Philistines
cultured, they were also literate when they arrived, presumably from
the region of the Aegean Sea, and settled the coast of ancient
Palestine around 1200 BCE.
     
At the ruins of a Philistine seaport at Ashkelon in Israel,
excavators examined 19 ceramic pieces and determined that their
painted inscriptions represent a form of writing. Some of the pots
and storage jars were inscribed elsewhere, probably in Cyprus and
Crete, and taken to Ashkelon by early settlers. Of special
importance, one of the jars was made from local clay, meaning
Philistine scribes were presumably at work in their new home.
     
The discovery is reported by two Harvard professors, Frank Moore
Cross Jr. and Lawrence E. Stager. In the report, the two researchers
said the inscriptions "reveal, for the first time, convincing
evidence that the early Philistines of Ashkelon were able to read and
write in a non-Semitic language, as yet undeciphered. Perhaps it is
not too bold to propose," they wrote, "that the inscription is
written in a form of Cypro-Minoan script utilized and modified by the
Philistines - in short, that we are dealing with the Old Philistine
script." Dr. Cross said the script had some characteristics of Linear
A, the writing system used in the Aegean from 1650 BCE to 1450 BCE.
This undeciphered script was supplanted by another, Linear B, which
was identified with the Minoan civilization of Crete and was finally
decoded in the mid-20th century.
     
The two researchers and other scholars said it was not
surprising that the Ashkelon inscriptions were in an Aegean type of
writing. The biblical Philistines are assumed to have been a group of
the mysterious Sea Peoples who probably originated in the Greek
islands and migrated to several places on the far eastern shores of
the Mediterranean.
     
The locally made storage jar, bearing seven signs, was found
several years ago buried under debris of a mudbrick building, which
appeared to date to no later than 1000 BCE. After the 10th century,
the Philistines borrowed their Israelite neighbors' Old Hebrew script
and alphabet then evolving from Phoenician writing. By then, the
Philistines and Israelites had been in such close contact that they
appeared to have reached some degree of amity, though tradition never
forgot Goliath as the bad Philistine.

The New York Times (13 March 2007)

http://tinyurl.com/3yoxn5
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Majeston
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« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2007, 02:11:37 pm »

Hi Boreas
thought you would like this.

Quote
= Boreas
This undeciphered script was supplanted by another, Linear B, which
was identified with the Minoan civilization of Crete and was finally
decoded in the mid-20th century.
...........
he locally made storage jar, bearing seven signs, was found
several years ago buried under debris of a mudbrick building, which
appeared to date to no later than 1000 BCE. After the 10th century,
the Philistines borrowed their Israelite neighbors' Old Hebrew script
and alphabet then evolving from Phoenician writing. By then, the
Philistines and Israelites had been in such close contact that they
appeared to have reached some degree of amity,....
The New York Times (13 March 2007)


The Hebrews had no written language in general usage for a long time after they reached Palestine. They learned the use of an alphabet from the neighboring Philistines, who were political refugees from the higher civilization of Crete.
The Urantia papers 1934






P837:6, 74:8.7 The Old Testament account of creation dates from long after the time of Moses; he never taught the Hebrews such a distorted story. But he did present a simple and condensed narrative of creation to the Israelites, hoping thereby to augment his appeal to worship the Creator, the Universal Father, whom he called the Lord God of Israel.

P837:7, 74:8.8 In his early teachings, Moses very wisely did not attempt to go back of Adam's time, and since Moses was the supreme teacher of the Hebrews, the stories of Adam became intimately associated with those of creation. That the earlier traditions recognized pre-Adamic civilization is clearly shown by the fact that later editors, intending to eradicate all reference to human affairs before Adam's time, neglected to remove the telltale reference to Cain's emigration to the "land of Nod," where he took himself a wife.

P838:1, 74:8.9 The Hebrews had no written language in general usage for a long time after they reached Palestine. They learned the use of an alphabet from the neighboring Philistines, who were political refugees from the higher civilization of Crete. The Hebrews did little writing until about 900 B.C., and having no written language until such a late date, they had several different stories of creation in circulation, but after the Babylonian captivity they inclined more toward accepting a modified Mesopotamian version.

P838:2, 74:8.10 Jewish tradition became crystallized about Moses, and because he endeavored to trace the lineage of Abraham back to Adam, the Jews assumed that Adam was the first of all mankind. Yahweh was the creator, and since Adam was supposed to be the first man, he must have made the world just prior to making Adam. And then the tradition of Adam's six days got woven into the story, with the result that almost a thousand years after Moses' sojourn on earth the tradition of creation in six days was written out and subsequently credited to him.

P838:3, 74:8.11 When the Jewish priests returned to Jerusalem, they had already completed the writing of their narrative of the beginning of things. Soon they made claims that this recital was a recently discovered story of creation written by Moses. But the contemporary Hebrews of around 500 B.C. did not consider these writings to be divine revelations; they looked upon them much as later peoples regard mythological narratives.

P838:4, 74:8.12 This spurious document, reputed to be the teachings of Moses, was brought to the attention of Ptolemy, the Greek king of Egypt, who had it translated into Greek by a commission of seventy scholars for his new library at Alexandria. And so this account found its place among those writings which subsequently became a part of the later collections of the "sacred scriptures" of the Hebrew and Christian religions. And through identification with these theological systems, such concepts for a long time profoundly influenced the philosophy of many Occidental peoples.
http://urantiabook.org/newbook/ub/ppr074_8.html
« Last Edit: March 25, 2007, 03:46:51 pm by Majeston » Report Spam   Logged

"melody has power a whole world to transform."
Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits.
Harmony is the speech of Havona.

http://mercy.urantia.org/papers/paper44.html
Boreas
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« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2007, 11:52:10 pm »

One up Majeston,

The description of 1934 seems to be unparalleled by any other source - and thus not possible to rely upon.  Until the recent results came across - from present archaeology. Amazing.

Quote:
Quote
"P837:6, 74:8.7 The Old Testament account of creation dates from long after the time of Moses; he never taught the Hebrews such a distorted story."

It seems you're rigth. After Moses they deprived some of his teachings, such as the part about worshipping the symbol of Moses' bronze-snake.  That got me wondering...
 
 
Quote
"But he did present a simple and condensed narrative of creation to the Israelites, hoping thereby to augment his appeal to worship the Creator, the Universal Father, whom he called the Lord God of Israel"

Which he was - given that the "Rex Mundi" was also the "Rex" of the Isralittes and equally conserned about them as any other people...

Quote
That the earlier traditions recognized pre-Adamic civilization is clearly shown by the fact that later editors, intending to eradicate all reference to human affairs before Adam's time, neglected to remove the telltale reference to Cain's emigration to the "land of Nod," where he took himself a wife.

My OT says "took himself a wife among foreign women"
Obviously some have been fiddling with the original and forgetting that it created an immediate logic default...

Concerning the wars later described between the tribes of Judea and Israel there seems to have been some strong inner conflicts among the Jews at the time prior to David. The reason for this turmoil seem to be related to matters of belief or faith, where one part is defending the old semittic pantheon of El/Baal/Astarte and the other is proponing the monotheistic model with Adonai/Jehova as the sole power.


In the OT there is no reference to Phoenicia, instead the older inhabitants of the coastal area are identified to the city of Tyr and called "Sidonians". During a time of expansion there is a very positve relationship and a strong alliance between the Canaanites, the Hebrews and the Sidonians. During their time of prosperity we hear of Hiram from Tyre that furnished architects, workmen and cedar timbers for the new temple of Jerusalem, as built by the legendary SolOmon.

Later the house of Judea and the house of Israel seem to divert, and the more agressive Judeans started  to issue sanctions against their northern brethren when they "compromised" their kind - by drawing royal wives from "foreign" peoples. The story of Elijah execrating Jezebel, princess from Tyre, is well known in the OT. Here we get the detailed explanation of how "God" persecuted and punished the israeli King Ahab for his acceptance of Jezbel and her "sidonian" gods.

This seems to be one of the later significant appearances of the Phoenicians in the OT. Later they disappear and their area becomes re-Hellenized.
In the NT we get to know that the natives of the region where the Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenician", implying that the Syrians were a mix between Greeks and Phoenicians - forming a mixed population of Phoenicians and Greeks.

May that be an explanation the distortions of the orignal teachings of Mose?!

 
« Last Edit: March 25, 2007, 11:56:26 pm by Boreas » Report Spam   Logged

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Boreas
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« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2007, 12:42:50 am »

Phoenician Language

The Phoenician language seems to be common with the Caananite and the Hebrew.

Phoenician alphabet


The original Proto-Sinatic alphabet was pictographic and derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. It as in use from ca. 1500 BC in the Sinai and the Levant, probably by early West Semitic speakers. In Canaan it was succeeded by the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, designed for a Canaanite language (Northwest Semitic) and in use until the 11th century. Thus the Phoenicians are credited with developing the Phoenician alphabet.

Present researh seems to say that the Phoenician alphabet arose around 1400 BC from a need to communicate with the diverse languages of their trading partners that encircled the Mediterranean Sea. Their 22-letter alphabet based on sound was widely received already, as opposed to the myriad of symbols in cuneiform or hieroglyphics prevalent at the time. The efficency of the Phoenician alphabet was then adopted the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Arabic alphabets. Phoenician traders disseminated the concept along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia (Turkey), the Minoan civilization of Crete, Mycenean Greece, and throughout the Mediterranean.

Oposite to the Greek and Roman The Phoenician alphabet has been termed an abjad or a script that contains no vowels. A cuneiform abjad originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the 14th century BC. Their language, Phoenician, has been considered by some authorities as a Northwest Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed Punic - which may hint to the Indian City of Pune, highly reknown for uts hiderodof  the trade inside the Indian subcintinent - .

The Amarna letters 14th century BC, although written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes', but actually early Canaanite words and phrases. Because of their Lebanese provenance, some identify these as Phoenician; however, most scholars reserve that term for a later era.

The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the 9th century BC, slowly supplanted Phoenician there, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language.

(From Wikipedia)

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