Bible Difficulties (21 page)

which baptism constitutes spiritual circumcision, according to v.11.

87

Were there Philistines in Palestine by Abraham's time?

Genesis 20 relates Abraham's sojourn in Gerar, where he resorted to a lie about Sarah's true relationship to him to safeguard himself against assassination, should the truth about their marital status be known. Chapter 21 records the episode about Abraham's securing property rights to the well of Beersheba; and then it is said, "So they made a covenant at Beersheba; and Abimelech and Phicol...returned to the land of the Philistines" (Gen 21:32). In Genesis 26:1 we are told that Isaac "went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines." (We may safely assume that since there was an interval of over sixty years between chaps. 21 and 26 [cf. 25:26], the Abimelech mentioned in 26:1 was a son or grandson of the older Abimelech and was named after him, a frequent custom among the Egyptian and Phoenician dynasties.)

These references to Philistines before 2050 B.C. (in the case of Abraham) have been rejected as impossible by many authorities. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
(14th ed., S.V.

"Philistia") states categorically: "In Gen. 21:32, 34 and Ex. 13:17; 15:14; 23:31 the references to Philistia and the Philistines are anachronistic." The ground for this assertion is found in the circumstance that up until now, at least, the earliest reference to Philistines in Egyptian records is found in the record of Ramses III concerning his victory over the

"Sea Peoples" in a naval engagement fought in the Nile River in the 1190s B.C. It is supposed that after the
P-r-s-t
(as Egyptian spelled their name) and their allies were thus repulsed by the doughty Pharaoh, they retreated to the southern coastal region of Palestine and settled there as a military colony on a permanent basis. But to conclude from the mere fact that the earliest extant reference to the Philistines in Egyptian records dates from the 1190s constitutes any objective proof that there were no Philistine immigrants from Crete there at any time previously in an irresponsible violation of logic.

The Hebrew Scriptures constitute the most trustworthy of all archaeological documents (since they are invested with a divine trustworthiness from beginning to end); and they state very clearly that Philistines lived in Philistia as early as the twenty-first century B.C.

They also affirm that the Philistine fortresses that guarded the northern route from Egypt to Palestine were so formidable in the days of Moses (the 1440s B.C.) that a circuitous southern route remained the safest for the Israelites to use in their journey toward the Promised Land (Exod. 13:17). Obviously this record composed by Moses was centuries earlier than that of Ramses III, and there is no reason to assume that the earlier a record is the less trustworthy it must be. (Until recent times a similar argument from silence was used by some critics to dismiss the references in Gen. 18-19 to Sodom and Gomorrah as purely legendary and unhistorical. But now that the recently discovered Ebla tablets, dating from the twenty-fourth century B.C., contain references to both cities' maintaining commercial relations with Ebla, this critical contention is exposed as absurd. (See G.

Pettinato ["BAR Interviews Pettinato," p. 48], for Eblite references to
Si-da-mu
and
I-ma-ar
.) Once again the argument from silence is proven to be fallacious. The five main cities of the Philistines, or at least those that have been excavated, uniformly show occupation extending back to Hyksos times and before. The earliest level uncovered at Ashdod is certainly seventeenth century B.C. (cf. H.F. Vos,
Archaeology in Bible Lands
[Chicago: Moody, 1977], p. 146). Inscribed seals found at Gaza bear the names of Twelfth Dynasty 88

Egyptian kings like Amenemhat III (ibid., p. 167). Hence there can be no doubt that this area was occupied by strong kingdoms back in the patriarchal age. To be sure, their population may have been pre-Philistine, but there is absolutely no proof that such was the case.

The southern coast of Palestine quite evidently became a favored region for trade and even for permanent settlement, so far as the Cretan population was concerned. The Philistines are referred to in Scripture as belonging to various groups, such as the Kaphtorim, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites. The commercial activity of Minoan Crete is known to have been most extensive; and its mariners must have discovered even before Abraham's time that the Philistine shore was blessed with an equable climate, rich soil, and a good rainfall for raising grain. They apparently migrated there in successive waves, more or less as the Danes kept migrating to the east coast of England over a period of several centuries until "Danelaw" was enlarged to cover all the region from the Scottish border to London itself. Migrations by the populations of a homeland across the sea are a frequent phenomenon throughout world history; so it surely should occasion no surprise that the Cretan emigrants continued their settlement activity over a period of several centuries, from before the time of Abraham until the unsuccessful naval expedition against Egypt in the early twelfth century. Therefore we conclude that there is no truly scientific evidence for classing the Philistine references in the Pentateuch as unhistorical or anachronistic.

How could God condemn human sacrifice in Leviticus 18 and 20 and yet command
it in Genesis 22, or at least accept it in Judges 11?

It is a mistake to interpret Genesis 22:2 as a command by God for Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. On the contrary, God actually (through His angel, at least) restrained Abraham's hand just as he was about to plunge the knife into his son's body, saying, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me"

(Gen. 22:12, NASB). While it is true that the Lord instructed Abraham previously to present Isaac as a burnt offering (
òlah
), and Abraham himself undoubtedly understood it as a command to kill his son on the altar, the point at issue was whether the doting father was willing to surrender even his only son (begotten by Sarah) to the Lord as a proof of his complete surrender. But v.12 is conclusive proof that Yahweh had no intention that Abraham should actually go through with this human sacrifice. It was simply a test of his faith.

As for the episode of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11, see the article that deals with that passage. There is good reason to believe that in her case also, as in Isaac's (in both instances the term
òlah
is used; cf. Judg. 11:31), the presentation did not eventuate in the death of the human "burnt offering." Rather, she was devoted to the service of the Lord as a virgin attendant in tabernacle worship for the rest of her life.

Leviticus 18:21 defines infant sacrifice as a profanation of the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Leviticus 20:2 prescribes the death penalty for any parent who does so--

89

particularly in the worship of Molech, which especially featured infant sacrifice. It is logically indefensible to assume that God would expect or condone infant sacrifice on the part of Abraham or Jephthah, or any other of His servants, after such a stern prohibition of it in the Mosaic Law.

Is there archaeological evidence for Hittites living in southern Palestine in
patriarchal times?

Genesis 23 states that "the sons of Heth" were in control of Hebron back in Abraham's time. Five or six centuries later the twelve spies reported back to Moses and the Hebrew host (Num. 13:29) that there were Hittite settlements in the hill country of Canaan. But since the main center of Hittite power was in eastern Asia Minor and their capital was Hattusas (Boghazkoy), and since their first rise to prominence in the Near East came in the reign of Mursilis I (1620-1590 B.C.), who sacked the great metropolis of Babylon around 1600, many modern scholars have questioned the historicity of Hittites in Palestine as early as 2050, when Sarah was buried in the cave of Machpelah. And yet archaeological evidence also indicates that the Hittites occupied or brought into vassalage many of the kingdoms of Syria; and in the days of Ramses II of Egypt there was a major showdown with Muwatallis (1306-1282) of the Hittite New Kingdom, and a remarkable nonaggression pact was made between the two superpowers, the text of which has been preserved both in Egyptian and in Hittite. The treaty line was drawn in such a way as to give northern Syria to the Hittites and southern Syria (plus all Palestine) to the Egyptian sphere of influence (cf. G. Steindorff and K. C. Seele,
When Egypt Ruled the East

[Chicago: University of Chicago, 1942], p. 251).

More recent archaeological discoveries have indicated further southward penetration than this line and an earlier stage of Hittite activity than that of the Old Kingdom and New Kingdom empires. Cuneiform mercantile tablets have been recovered from Kultepe (ancient Kanesh) in Cappadocia, left by early Assyrian merchants between 1950 and 1850 B.C. (Vos,
Archaelogy
, p. 314). But even before the arrival of the Indo-European-Anatolian immigrants (the Nesili-speakers), there was an earlier race of Hattians of non-Indo-European background. These were subdued by invaders of 2300-2000 B.C., who subsequently adopted the name Hatti for themselves, despite the linguistic and cultural differences between them and their predecessors.

O. R. Gurney, an eminent Hittite specialist, suggested that the original Hattians may have been much more widespread than in Asia Minor alone, and that they may even have set up colonies in regions as far south as Palestine (Tenney,
Zondervan Pictorial
Encyclopedia
, 3:170). (Note that "Hatti" and "Hitti" would be written in the same consonants back in the B.C. era, and the vowels were supplied only by oral tradition.) In 1936 E. Forrer proposed on the basis of a Hittite text by King Mursilis II (ca. 1330 B.C.) that a Hittite group had migrated into Egyptian territory (i.e., regions of Syria-Palestine controlled by Egypt) earlier in the second millennium (cf.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, 14th ed., S.V. "Hittites"; Tenney,
Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia
, 3:169-170).

90

Military penetration south of the Tarsus range began in the seventeenth century under Labarnas; Mursilis I succeeded in destroying Aleppo in Syria, and even ravaged Mari and plundered the Hurrians of the upper Euphrates. But the "Hittites" of Genesis may have had little in common with these Indo-European, Nesili-speaking conquerors, but rather may have come from the Hatti who historically preceded them in Asia Minor. Little can be concluded from the names referred to in Genesis 23, for Ephron and Zohar appear to be Semitic, Canaanite names--indicating an easy assimilation of the regional culture by these "Hittite" settlers in Hebron.

The Hittites are referred to later on in Israelite history. In Joshua's invasion they furnished resistance to his troops (Josh. 9:1-2; Josh. 11:3), but they were presumably crushed and annihilated by their Hebrew conquerors. Yet by the time of David there were some Hittites, at least, to furnish contingents for David's army. Such was Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, who was clearly a committed believer and a devoted worshiper of Yahweh (2 Sam. 11:11). Solomon found the Neo-Hittites to be of sufficient political importance to have some of their princesses in his harem (1 Kings 11:1). Later on, in the 840s, Benhadad of Damascus led his troops in precipitous flight from their siege of Samaria because of their fear that "the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites" (2 Kings 7:6).

During the earlier part of the first millennium B.C, various kings of northern Syria (whose territories had been part of the Hittite Empire in earlier centuries) bore names like Sapalulme (Suppiluliumas), Mutallu (Muwatallis), Lubarna (Labarnas), and Katuzili (Hattusilis). Hence they may have carried on something of the Hittite tradition, even though they had by now attained their independence. Among the "Neo-Hittite"

principalities of Syria were Tuwana, Tunna, Hupisna, Shinukhtu, and Ishtunda (Tenney,
Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia
, 3:168). These names all appear in the cuneiform records (largely the Assyrian) of the time of the Hebrew divided monarchy.

Was Keturah Abraham's second wife (Gen. 25:1) or merely his concubine (1 Chron.

1:32)?

Genesis 25:1 states that after Sarah's death Abraham took to himself a wife (
'issah
) whose name was Keturah (
Qeturah
). Verse 2 gives the names of six sons she bore to him in his old age. Abraham lost Sarah when she was 127, and when he was 137 (Gen. 23:1; cf. 17:17). How soon after Sarah's death Abraham married Keturah, we have no way of knowing; but the six sons she bore him became ancestors of various Arabian tribes, and she is honored to this day by the Arab race as their ancestral mother.

There is really no discrepancy in 1 Chronicles 1:32, even though the term
pileges
is used there rather than
'issah
. Genesis 25:6 also refers to Keturah by implication as a
pileges
to Abraham; for after v.5 has made it clear that God had confirmed Isaac, Sarah's son, as his principal heir, v.6 records: "But to the sons of his concubines [the plural
pilagesim
presumably includes Hagar as well as Keturah], Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the East" (NASB).

Obviously the term
pileges
was used to indicate that although Keturah was the only 91

lawfully wedded wife Abraham had (hence his
'issah
) during this twilight period of his life, she had a secondary status in relationship to Sarah, since only Sarah had been chosen by God to be the mother of Isaac, Abraham's only heir under the promise of the covenant.

As for
pileges
itself, it was a non-Semitic term of unknown origin, but which seems to have had the basic meaning of "secondary wife" (Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner,
Lexicon in Veteris Testament Libros
[Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1958], p. 761).