PHILISTINE RELIGION

PHILISTINE RELIGION . The original arrival of the Philistines to the Near East seems to have occurred during the end of the thirteenth century bce as the waves of the "Sea Peoples"—so called in Egyptian texts—appeared in the eastern Mediterranean and spread throughout the whole area. For instance, the inscriptions accompanying the battle reliefs of the great mortuary temple of Medinet Habu at Thebes mention six different foreign peoples that tried to invade Egypt during the eighth year of the reign of Ramses III (twelfth century bce): the Peleset (prst or plst ); the Tjeker (tkr ); the Shekelesh (škrš or šklš ); the Danuna (dnjn ); the Sherden (šrdn ); and the Weshesh (wšš ). Some of these ethnonyms, along with a few additional ones (e.g., Lukka or Rwkw, probably connected to Lycia), occur in other Egyptian documents, such as the Great Papyrus Harris (from the reign of Ramses III), and earlier, at the end of the Late Bronze Age, in the Merneptah inscription at Karnak (late thirteenth century). Many of these peoples are mentioned also in Hittite and Ugaritic texts and Akkadian letters found in Amarna, all from the end of the Late Bronze Age. All these peoples seem to have had their roots in Anatolia and the Aegean. The Weshesh probably came from western Anatolia, like another group of the "Sea Peoples," the Tursha or Teresh (trš ), cited in an inscription from Deir el-Medinah (Egypt) and identified with the Tursēnoí in Greek texts (perhaps the ancestors of the Etruscans). The island of Sardinia may owe its name to the Sherden or Shardanu. The Danuna are frequently identified with the Danuniyim mentioned in Phoenician inscriptions and with the Danaoi of Greek texts. Sicily may have been named after the Shekelesh or Sicels. The Tjeker or Zakkala eventually settled south of Carmel, and Dor was their capital. Finally, the Peleset or Purasti must be identified with the Philistines.

Centuries after Ramses III and as part of the originally Yahwistic materials eventually added to the Priestly genealogy (tôledôt ) known as the "Table of the Nations" in Genesis 10, the Philistines are mentioned as originating from Kaphtor (Gn. 10:14: "and the Kaphtorim, from whom the Philistines came," cf. Am. 9:7; Jer. 47:4; Dt. 2:23)—Hebrew Kaphtor (kaptôr, Egyptian kftjw, Akkadian kaptaru ) is usually identified with Crete. The people labeled in the Hebrew Bible as Philistines (pĕlištîm ) occupied a rather larger territory (Jos. 13:2–3) that included a Pentapolis: Gaza, Ashqelon, Ashdod, Eqron, and Gath. Along with this Pentapolis, the Bible mentions other smaller Philistine settlements, called "villages" (ḥăṣērîm ) or "daughters" (banôt ), such as Ziklag, Timna, and Jabneh. Furthermore, there were other important cities identified as Philistine in some biblical passages, such as Gerar in the Yahwistic story of Isaac's encounter with Abimelek, king of the Philistines (Gn. 26)—but in the Elohistic story of Abraham (Gn. 20), Gerar is not associated with the Philistines. In terms of material culture, it is important to point out that the early (twelfth century bce, Iron Age I) strata of some of these Philistine sites (Eqron, Ashdod) have yielded a sizeable amount of mostly locally produced Mycenaean pottery (specifically, type Mycenaean IIIC.1b).

Almost everything the Bible tells us about the Philistines is likely to refer to later groups (Carians, Ionians, Lydians, and probably Cretans), rather than to any possible original Iron-Age-II descendants of a particular branch of the Late-Bronze and Iron-Age-I "Sea Peoples." Nevertheless, the biblical traditions constitute the main source of information (even if anachronistic) about the Philistines. According to the Bible (Jos. 13:3; Jgs. 3:3; 16; 1 Sm. 5–7; 29; 1 Chr. 12:20; Sir. 46:18), the ruler of a Philistine city was called *seren (a word attested only in plural, sĕrānîm ). Two different proposals have been put forward in order to explain this term.

First, *seren would be related to Greek túrannos and perhaps to the Neo-Hittite word for ruler in Hieroglyphic Luwian, tarwani- ; but this does not point to a direct Indo-European connection, as early Greek words concerning authority positions (túrannos, wánax/ánax, basileús ), even if attested already in Linear B (wa-na-ka, qa-si-re-u ), have no good Indo-European etymologies.

Second, *seren would come from the Anatolian root *sar-/*ser- meaning "above, superior." The root appears in some Anatolian substantives: Hittite šarli- [sarli-] "outstanding"; Luwian šarlaimi- [sarlaimi-] "lofty"; Lydian serli-/selli- "authority." A suffix -ēn is present in designations of political authorities in Anatolian languages: Phrygian ballēn, "king"; Lycian essēn, "king" and palēn, "chief."

Both etymologies present problems. Nonetheless, the Anatolian (albeit not necessarily Indo-European) connection seems a recurrent theme in what is known about the Philistines. The case of the name of the champion of the Philistines in the Davidic narratives (1 Sm. 17; 21–22; 2 Sm. 21:19; 1 Chr. 20:5), Goliath (golyāt ), is even more complicated. It has been suggested that Goliath's name is somehow related to the name of the Lydian king Alyattes (ca. 610–560 bce), the grandson of Gyges (Greek Gúgēs, Assyrian Gugu ). Gyges may be the historical figure behind the legendary northern king Gog (gôg ) in Ez. 38–39 (cf. Ap. 20:7, whose kingdom is called Magog (māgôg, the name Gog with a prefix for place-names). In the Qurʾān (18:94, 21:96), Gog (Yājūj ) and Magog (Mājūj ) are both reinterpreted as tribal names, and later Islamic sources (such as the Ḥadīth corpus) identified them either with two branches of Turks or with the Scythians. In spite of this complicated tapestry of relations, a connection between Goliath and Alyattes (even if only typological) poses serious linguistic problems.

The Philistine Pantheon

The main god of the biblical Philistines was Dagon (Dāgôn ). There were temples dedicated to him in Ashdod (1 Sm. 5:1–7; 1 Mc. 10: 83–84; 11:4), Gaza (Jgs. 16), and probably Beth-Shan (1 Chr. 10:10; 1 Sm. 31:10). The toponym Beth-Dagon (Bêt Dāgôn, "The House of Dagon") may imply the presence of temples dedicated to Dagon in the two homonymous towns, one in the Shephelah (lowlands) of Judah, near Lakhish (Jos 15:41), and another on the southern border of the tribal area of Asher (Jos. 19:27). Beth-Dagon is mentioned among the cities captured by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681) during his second campaign (Chicago Prism II 69: Bīt-Daganna, and appears also in Egyptian (bt-jdqn, byt-jdqn ), Phoenician (bt dgn ), and perhaps even Greek texts (Bētagōn )—the Greek form seems misinterpreted as a deity in the gloss in the Etymologicum magnum (Kallierges [Venice, 1499] 196.52: ho Krónos hupò Phoiníkōn, "Kronos by the Phoenicians"). The identification of this Beth-Dagon in Assyrian, Egyptian, Phoenican, and Greek sources with one of the two biblical Beth-Dagons (in Judah and in Asher) remains problematic. As in the case of other terms associated with the Philistines, Dagon may have an Indo-European etymology (related to the word for earth, *d^he^hom ). However, this god (Dagon/Dagan) was worshiped in Syria in the second half of the third millennium already, a fact that can hardly find a place in the web of alleged connections between the Philistines and the Anatolian and Aegean worlds. Moreover, in spite of their direct and prominent association with the cult of Dagon, it is quite likely that the Philistines limited themselves to taking over the preexisting worship of a deity that was already popular in Syria and the Levant for over two thousand years.

It is clear that the Philistines did not introduce the cult of Dagon/Dagan to the Levant. In fact, the name of a prince in Late Bronze Age southern Palestine occurring in two letters from the archive of international diplomatic correspondence found in Amarna (Egypt) is Dagan-takala (Knudtzon, EA 317, 318). This theophoric name implies the presence of the cult of Dagan in the area long before the arrival of the Philistines. Nonetheless, the cult of Dagon would seem central in the Philistine pantheon. According to 1 Samuel 5:1–7, the Philistines brought the Ark of the Covenant into the temple of Dagon at Ashdod. This was intended to signal submission to the Philistine god. However, in a typical theo-political twist to show the superiority of Israel's national god, the move backfired, and apparently the statue of Dagon fell down—that is, Dagon prostrated himself in the presence of the Ark—and broke into pieces. In Judges 16:23, the Philistine rulers (sarnê Pĕlištîm, the sĕrānîm of the Philistines) gathered in what seems to be a temple of Dagon in Gaza, in order to offer a thanksgiving sacrifice ("a great sacrifice," zebaḥ gādôl ) to Dagon for the capture of Samson. Likewise, according to 1 Chronicles 10:10, the head of Saul was displayed by the Philistines as a war trophy in a temple of Dagon, probably at Beth-Shan (1 Sm. 31:10). During the Second Temple period, the cult of Dagon seems to have survived. In 1 Maccabees 10:83–84, the high priest Jonathan burns down the temple of Dagon in Azotus (i.e., Ashdod), which was providing shelter to the cavalry of Apollonius, the Seleucid governor of Koile Syria.

The other two deities linked with the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible are Baal Zebub and Ashtoret. Baal Zebub, or Baalzebub (baʿal zĕbûb ), is attested only four times in the Hebrew Bible, all in 2 Kings 1:2–16, a section that describes how Ahaziah, the king of Israel, consulted the oracle of Baal Zebub, god of Eqron (baʿal zĕbûb ʾĕlohê ʿeqrôn ). The apparent meaning of the name Baab Zebub is "lord of the flies," but this may be the result of a folk etymology that ended up transforming the name itself. The spelling in the Hebrew text does match the interpretation contained in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint (Baal muîa "Baal the fly"), the interpretation by the Hellenistic Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 9.2.1), and the Latin transliteration in the Vulgate (Beelzebub ). However, a fragmentarily preserved Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible by Symmachus uses Beezeboul, and the manuscripts of the New Testament use Beelzeboul (Mt. 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mk. 3:22; Lk. 11:15, 18–19). Moreover, the name is accompanied by the epithet "head of the demons" (árkhōn tôn daimoníōn ) in several New Testament passages (Mt. 12:24; Mk. 3:22; Lk. 11:15). Symmachus and the New Testament are likely to preserve an oral tradition. Furthermore, second-millennium bce texts from Ugarit (Ras Shamra, in Syria) exhibit two common titles of the god Baʿlu (literally "lord"): zbl bʿl ("prince Baʿlu") and zbl bʿl ʾarṣ ("prince Baʿlu /Lord of the earth"). Thus, Baal Zebub is most likely the result of a folk etymology ("lord of the flies"), as the original Baal Zebul ("Prince Baal/Lord") seemed to contain a word that was rather uncommon in Hebrew (zĕbûl "dominion, lordship").

The Semitic goddess Astarte appears in the Hebrew Bible as Ashtoret (ʿaštōret ). In fact, Ashtoret may be the Phoenician form corresponding to Hebrew Ashtarot (ʿaštārôt ), the latter being usually interpreted as a plural of Ashtoret. In 1 Samuel 31:10, the armor of Saul is said to be hung on the walls of the temple of Astarte (or perhaps "the temple of the Astartes"): "they deposited his armor in the house of Astarte (bêt ʿaštārôt ), his corpse they nailed to the wall of Beth-Shan." In the retelling of this episode in 1 Chronicles 10:10, "the house of Astarte" becomes "the house of their gods" (bêt ʾĕlōhêhem ). Moreover, Herodotus (I 105.2) mentions the sanctuary of Aphrodite Ourania (tês ouraníēs Aphrodítēs tò hirón ) in Ashqelon (a Philistine city), a goddess frequently assimilated to Astarte (see also Herodotus 1.131.3). This may be the same goddess Ctesias (Jacoby, FGrH 688 F I (4) 2-3) connected with Hierapolis and equated with Atargatis as a Phoenician goddess: Derceto (Derketō ); see also De dea syria 14; Strabo, Geography 16.4.27; Diodorus, History 2.4. Nevertheless, the use of Ashtarot in the Hebrew Bible is to be regarded most of the time as a generic label for goddesses, whose worship and worshipers were fiercely attacked by the eventually monotheistic layers of Israelite mainstream religion. The biblical emphasis on the demonization of all these deities worshiped by the Philistines and other peoples in the area should not be regarded as part of an ethnic or political antagonism. The theo-political discourse of the official and centralized cult anathematized most manifestations of popular and peripheral religion in ancient Israel.

The Inscription from Eqron

New light on Philistine religion and history has been shed by an inscription that was found in the cella of the Late Iron Age II temple at Tel Miqne (Ḫirbet al-Muqannaʿ, ancient ʿEqrôn) in 1996. The temple was most likely built after Sennacherib's campaign in Palestine (towards the very end of the eighth century), and the inscription probably dates to the seventh century. This Phoenician inscription contains what seems to be a mention of mysterious deity, for whom a temple (bt ) was build by the prince or lord of Eqron (šr ʿqrn ), Akayuš, son of Padi (ʾkyš. bn. pdy ): "for PTGYH, his lady" (lptgy.h. ʾdth ). Akayuš and Padi are mentioned in several Assyrian historical accounts as i-ka-ú-su and pa-di-i (or pa-de-e ). The same Akayuš, king of Eqrôn, is mentioned in the Bible (ʾākîš, 1 Sm. 21:11; 1 Kgs. 2:39–40). It has been suggested that the name Akayuš/Akayuś (ʾkyš ) may be related to Akhaios, meaning "the Achaean," "the Greek." Although written in Phoenician, the Tel Miqne inscription seems historically and culturally Philistine. In fact, this is somehow the first Philistine inscription ever recovered, although there is a small fragment of a seventh-century Phoenician inscription found in Guadalhorce (Málaga, Spain), which may contain the toponym Eqron (ʿqrn ). Among several proposals concerning the interpretation of the theonym Ptgyh, three deserve particular attention:

1. Pidrayu, as in Ugaritic pdry, daughter of Baʿlu, probably due to a scribal mistake or the like (so, one would have to read ptryh ). This may be connected to Ugaritic pdr, which, depending on the context, may be an epithet of Baʿlu or simply another form of pdry. Nonetheless, both Ugaritic names have been connected with Ugaritic pdr (town, city), which may have a Hurro-Urartian origin. The existence of some irregular correspondences between the various Semitic cognates (Syriac pdorā, Arabic baðr ) supports the idea that this word may be ultimately Hurro-Urartian. The Mycenaean Greek form po-to-ri-jo is probably unrelated and corresponds to /*p(t)ólis/ > Greek polis (city). According to this, Ptgyh would be either a scribal mistake for Pdryh, or the result of a complex and unlikely chain of phonetic changes.
2. Potnia (Greek pótnia "lady, mistress," Mycenaean po-ti-ni-ja ), which requires assuming a scribal mistake and emending the phrase to lptnyh ʾdth. Thus, the scribe would have started an n, but left it unfinished as a g —in this Phoenician script, an n resembles a g, but with a longer vertical stroke.
3. Pythogaia (*putho-gaia Puthō + Gaîa ), an unattested form reconstructed on the basis of Greek (already Mycenaean) words, "(in) Pytho (i.e., Delphi, as in a synecdoche) the goddess Gaia."

Although option three, Pythogaia, is particularly interesting, no interpretation of this name on the Tel Miqne inscription seems convincing enough. Furthermore, one could connect the final -yh element in this theonym with the -yh found in seemingly non-Semitic anthroponyms in two ostraca from Tell Jemmeh, dated to the period of Assyrian occupation in Iron Age II (qsryh, brṣyh ).

Philistine Temples and Cultic Objects

Besides the aforementioned sanctuaries, alluded to in several Biblical passages, there is direct archaeological information concerning the Philistines and their religious life. The main sources of evidence for Philistine material culture are the excavations at Ashdod, Eqron, and Tell Qasile (on the northern fringe of modern Tel Aviv). The apsidal structure with adjacent rooms and a courtyard found at Ashdod may have fulfilled a religious function, but this is rather speculative. At Tell Qasile, an original temple was twice rebuilt and enlarged, so generating three superimposed temples that were excavated within the sacred precinct: Stratum XII (end of the twelfth century bce), Stratum XI (eleventh century), and Stratum X (beginning of the tenth century). These successively built sanctuaries at Tell Qasile included raised mud-brick platforms, pillars, mud-brick benches, and small chambers at their back, which could have been used as treasuries or were perhaps a holy-of-holies.

At Eqron (Tel Miqne), a monumental building (Building 350) that may have been a palace with shrines was unearthed in the center of the city. These shrines were not simple palace rooms as they contain mud-brick altars as well as a few bronze, iron, and ivory objects, possibly for cultic use. The shrines opened onto a hall in which there was a circular hearth with two pillar bases on each side. Hearths like this played an essential role in the structure of the megaron in the Aegean and Cyprus, whereas mud-brick altars existed in Canaan before the Iron Age (but were also common in Cyprus and the Aegean during Mycenaean times). Likewise, at Tell Qasile, a building near the earliest temple (Stratum XII, end of the twelfth century bce) also included a hearth and two pillars, which resembled those in Building 350 at Eqron.

The Aegean connections of Philistine material culture and sites are reinforced by the presence of seemingly cult-related objects, such as the famous "Ashdoda," a ceramic figurine found in Ashdod, which is a hybrid of a chair or a throne and most likely a goddess (the top of the chair's back continues into an elongated neck ending in a head and other body parts are painted or embedded in the surface of the chair). Fragments of "Ashdoda"-like figurines have been found in Eqron and Tell Qasile as well. This seems to be a local version of the Mycenaean female figurines seated on a throne and sometimes holding a child. At Ashdod, Eqron, Gezer, and Megiddo, locally produced kernoi have been found. A kernos is an originally Aegean cultic libation vessel, consisting of a hollow ceramic ring on which the potter placed figurines of animals (such as birds, rams' or bulls' heads), pomegranates, and the like. On the other side, the Philistines had also their own style of cult vessel: a kind of lion-headed rhyton with one handle, of which examples have been uncovered in Eqron, Megiddo, Tell Qasile, and other sites. Moreover, there is also textual information about some cultic objects. Although they do not seem to correspond to any materials excavated to date, the biblical story of the return of the Ark (1 Sm. 6:4–16) refers to the compensation or fine (ʾāšām ) the Philistines had to pay to the god of Israel: images or figurines of tumors (ḥămiššāh ʿěpolê zāhāb, "five golden tumors"; ṣalmê ʿěpolêkem, "images of your tumors") and figurines of mice (ḥămiššāh ʿakberê zāhāb, "five golden mice"; ṣalmê ʿakbĕrêkem hammašḥîtim ʾet-hāʾāreṣ, "images of your mice that are wasting the land").

It is obvious that the archaeological remains found at the Philistine sites abound in connections with Aegean material culture and that the scarce linguistic items linked to the Philistines seem to all point to Anatolia and the Aegean (the world of the "Sea Peoples"). However, with the exception of the recently discovered Phoenician inscription from Eqron, the Philistine pantheon and the general setting of its worship (such as the use of mud-brick altars) are essentially local, rooted in Canaanite religious traditions. In this respect and aside from the specific narratives of the legends of Saul and David, the theo-political biblical discourse antagonizing and demonizing the Philistines is not specific to this ethnic group. Similar intellectual constructs targeted diverse (otherwise autochthonous) groups, such as the Edomites, the Moabites, and the bulk of the rural population of ancient Israel, who were all engaged in traditional Canaanite religious practices long after the centralization and monopolization of an exclusive and monotheistic cult in Jerusalem. This theological elaboration contrasts with many details in the Davidic narratives. For instance, the name of David's special mercenary units (his "Praetorian guard" of sorts) is Kerethites (kěretîm, e.g., 2 Sm. 8:18, 1 Chr. 18:17), which should be connected with Kaphtor (see above) and therefore understood as "Cretans." In fact, these troops of David were equated with the Philistines by some prophets (Ez. 25:16; Zep. 2:5). To a great extent, the deep religious and ethnic rivalry injected into the Davidic narratives did not have its roots in a historical setting of interaction between Philistines and Israelites, but rather in the subsequent articulation of a political theology justifying the later status quo.

See Also

Astarte; Dagan.

Bibliography

On the Philistines and the "Sea Peoples," see Trude Dothan and Moshe Dothan, People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines (New York, 1992); Gösta W. Ahlström, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis, Minn., 1993), pp. 288–333; Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, N.J., 1992), pp. 241–280; Carl S. Ehrlich, The Philistines in Transition: A History from ca. 1000–730 bce (Leiden, the Netherlands, 1996); Symour Gitin, et al. (eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries bce (Jerusalem, 1998); Israel Finkelstein, "The Philistines in the Bible: A Late-Monarchic perspective," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27 (2002): 131–167. For citations of Ctesias, see F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden, the Netherlands, 1923–1958). The Amarna letters are quoted according to J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln (Leipzig, 1915).

On Philistine seren, see Franco Pintore, "Seren, tarwanis, tyrannos," in Studi orientalistici in ricordo di Franco Pintore, edited by Onofrio Carruba, and others, (Pavia, Italy, 1983), pp. 285–322; Giovanni Garbini, "The Hebrew-Philistine Word Seren," in Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, edited by A. S. Kaye, (Wiesbaden, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 516–519.

On the new inscription from Eqron, see Seymour Gittin, and others, "A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Eqron," Israel Exploration Journal 47 (1997): 1–16; Aaron Demsky, "The Name of the Goddess of Ekron: A New Reading," Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 25 (1997): 1–5; Reinhard G. Lehmann, "Studien zur Formgeschicte der ʿEqron-Inschrift des ʾKŠY und den phönizischen Dedikationstexten aus Byblos," Ugarit-Forschungen 31 (1999): 255–306; Christa Schäfer-Lichtenberger, "The Goddess of Ekron and the Religious-Cultural Background of the Philistines," Israel Exploration Journal 50 (2000): 82–91; Ryan Byrne, "Philistine Semitics and Dynastic History at Ekron," Ugarit-Forschungen 34 (2002): 1–23.

On the Tell Jemmeh names, see Joseph Naveh, "Writing and Scripts in Seventh-Century bce Philistia: The New Evidence from Tell Jemmeh," Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985): 8–21; Aharon Kempinski, "Some Philistine Names from the Kingdom of Gaza," Israel Exploration Journal 37 (1987): 20–24.

Gonzalo Rubio (2005)