The Sea Peoples and British-Israelism: The Presence of Europeans in Bronze Age Palestine

 

A Temple Relief Depicting the Egyptians at War with the Sea Peoples under Ramesses III

The Sea Peoples and British-Israelism

The Presence of Europeans in Bronze Age Palestine

By Scout

"At this time the island of Britain was called Albion.  It was uninhabited except for a few giants.”

– Geoffrey Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain

 

I saw a giant at the grocery store few weeks ago.  He wasn’t just tall and fragile-looking like some giants with endocrine problems.  He was tall and also robust.  I would say he was about 6’8”.  He was broad-shouldered and looked athletic. My guess is that he weighed one hundred pounds more than me.  I’m a little over six foot and weigh about 190. But I felt quite small. Seeing someone so large did not disrupt my shopping although his size gave me momentary pause.  When I see big people, I just wonder where they get their clothes.  I worked with a huge Irish guy one time.  He wore a size 17 shoe.  Where does one even find something like that?  That brings me to Goliath the Philistine.  

Archaeogenetics has established that there were people in Palestine during the late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age with the same population genetics as Europeans.  But they were not of the tribe of Ephraim.  Nor were they of the tribe of Manasseh.  They came from a non-Israelite population and their history should be interesting to anyone who is seriously considering the idea of British-Israelism.  Goliath is a part of that consideration. 

The Sea Peoples and the Philistines

The Sea Peoples were a diverse coalition of people who originated in Southern Europe and West Asia.  They fought against and plundered various cities in the eastern Mediterranean.  Ramesses III of Egypt repelled a massive invasion of these people during his reign. Ramesses III defeated these seafaring invaders and transplanted some of them to southern Canaan. The Egyptians recorded that among this diverse group of invaders were the Peleset or the Philistines.  Other historical evidence indicates that the Philistines came out of the Greek sphere and originated around the Aegean Sea and settled around 1175 BC in Canaan.

The Table of the Clans of Noah in Genesis 10 indicates that the Philistines were Hamitic descendants of Mizraim, another name for the Egyptians.   It is entirely plausible that the Sea Peoples, a motley group, could have included these descendants of Adam living in Greece and came to have their name.  The precise relationship between the Genesis 10 Philistines, the Sea Peoples and the Europeans is a little vague working from historical references alone.  Genetics does much to clarify this.

The Archaeogenetics of the Philistines in Brief

Archaeogeneticist Michal Feldman, in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute, analyzed the genetics of 10 individuals who were excavated in the Philistine city of Ashkelon.  The burials date from the Early Iron Age, the 12^th Century BCE, a little earlier than the time of David who lived in the 11^th Century BCE.  She found four infants whose genetics indicated a Southern European ancestry.  A Southern European origin for the Philistines is supported by language studies and pottery types.  The Philistines are associated with the Aegean and in particular the island of Crete.  Crete is thought to be the Caphtor which is mentioned in the tribal name Caphtorim in Genesis 10.  Further research indicates that over time these early Europeans were absorbed into the Levantine population.

One of the excavated infants, labelled ASH067, was haplogroup R.  This connects these people to the Pontic Steppe Pastoralists who occupied most of Europe.  The haplogroup could not be fully sequenced, though markers were identified, so we do not know if it is haplogroup R1b or R1a, respectively corresponding to western Europe and eastern Europe. It is likely that it is R1b because that population existed in the Aegean region.  This drives the conclusion, then, that there were Europeans among the mixed population of the Philistines in ancient Palestine. I think that Goliath was one of them.  

Goliath the European Giant – Maybe

Goliath was a big guy.  But he was not so big that David could not comfortably use his sword (1 Samuel 21:9).  My conjecture is that he was a big European – maybe standing at 6’ 8”.   The Jews in the time of Christ were on average around 5’ 1” and weighed about 110 pounds.  My guess is that the earlier Israelites in the time of David were about that same size.  Europeans are a larger people and a big western European would seem like a terrifying giant on the battlefield to the Israelites back then.  It’s the case of a guy wearing a size 7 shoe meeting in bellicosity a guy wearing a size 17 shoe in low tech, sword against sword circumstances. 

There are, of course, other theories.  Malcolm Gladwell made a persuasive argument that Goliath suffered from acromegaly.  And there is a possible Biblical connection between Goliath and the sons of Anak who were supposed to be giants.  I think the Anakim were big people at one time but I also think that the expression “sons of Anak,” referring to large people, entered the Hebrew language as a figure of speech later.  There is also a possibility that he was descended from the Rephaim, another Biblical race of giants. The Talmud asserts that Goliath was descended from a sister of Ruth named Orpah.  Further, Ruth and Orpah were both daughters of Moabite King Eglon. And Orpah may have been the mother of other Philistine giants who lived in the city of Gath.  The connection between Ruth and Orpah would make David and Goliath distant cousins.  Theories abound.  One thing that is not theory is the genetic evidence that there were Europeans at one time among the Philistines.

A Challenge to Armstrongists with Money for Archaeology

R1b-M269 is the haplogroup of the British and other Northwest Europeans. This subclade of haplogroup R originated about 13,000 YA in Eastern Europe.  If the R1 haplogroup associated with ASH067 in Ashkelon is actually R1b-M269 then it is the earliest occurrence of this haplogroup in ancient Palestine.  It places people of European descent in the camp of the enemies of Israel (Might this not have some prophetic significance?).  But further, it is a singular occurrence and does not reflect a high-density population in ancient Palestine of R1b-M269.  Yet, if G.G. Rupert and HWA are right, British-Israelism would predict that the excavated burials of ancient Palestine should contain R1b-M269 at high density. 

Instead of funding the excavation of the City of David or other similar projects, would it not be more valuable to fund excavation that might establish that this high-density population of R1b-M269 at one time existed in ancient Palestine in the area of the thirteen tribes? Imagine the headlines.  “Ancient Israel is the Home of the Western European People Based on New DNA Findings.”  Think of what a boost that would be to the End-time Work. HWA’s key to prophecy would be underpinned by the best archaeology and technology available to us.  If one is confident about British-Israelism, this challenge could be easily and elegantly met and would be well worth the effort.

The Outcome 

Up to this point, the presence of Europeans in late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Palestine as indicated by archaeogenetics is problematical for British-Israelism.  The finds at Ashkelon indicate that the early Europeans were not Israelites but were among the Philistine enemies of Israel during the time of the Judges and David.  It is true the sample size in small, but I expect more and more data will surface.  Perhaps, Goliath himself was a big Western European.  That Goliath was related to the British and other western Europeans is a much more plausible hypothesis, based on credible scientific evidence, than the idea that the British are descended from Israel. 

Reference

This link contains links to other articles: New DNA Study Suggests Philistines Came from Crete