People of the Sea- The Search for the Philistines

Trude Dothan and Moshe Dothan

(New York- Macmillan; Toronto- Maxwell Macmillan Canada; New York, Oxford, Singapore, Sydney- Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992) 276 pp., 32 color plates, unnumbered black-and-white photos, drawings, maps, $25.00 ($32.50 Canada)

Giving Goliath His Due- New Archaeological Light on the Philistines

Neal Bierling

(Grand Rapids MI- Baker Book House, 1992) 281 pp., unnumbered photos, maps, charts, $16.99, paper

For more than 3,000 years, the Philistines have suffered from bad press. Depicted as the archetypal villains in the Bible for their constant conflicts with the Israelites, they also endured media bashing by the Egyptians, who included them among the “Sea peoples,” or bands of foreign marauders, who had the temerity to attempt an invasion of Egypt in the early 12th century B.C. So pervasive was the evil reputation acquired by the Philistines that by the 17th century their very name could be used as an insult, and even today it is still used to denote one who is boorish, barbarous or uncultured.

Despite this bad rap, or perhaps because of it (since everyone loves a good villain), a great deal of scholarly energy has been expended over the years in trying to answer some basic questions about the Philistines- Who were they? Where did they come from? Why did they happen to settle in Canaan (a land to which their name—Palestine—was eventually given) at almost the same time that the Israelites were also establishing a foothold? How did they live? And could their material culture—the remnants of their daily lives—be distinguished archaeologically from those of their neighbors, the Israelites, Canaanites and other Sea Peoples? These two recent books, both intended for the archaeologically literate general reader, attempt to deal with these questions from somewhat different perspectives.

Read the rest of Books in Brief: People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.

See also:

• Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, “Ekron of the Philistines,” BAR 16-01 and ”Ekron of the Philistines, Part 2“ BAR 16-02.
• Lawrence E. Stager, “When Canaanites and Philistines Ruled Ashkelon,” BAR 17-02.
• James D. Muhly, “How Iron Technology Changed the Ancient World,” BAR 08-06.