BAMBINO no. 19
BAMBINO (BRIT-AM BIBLICAL ISRAEL NEWS ONLINE)
Contents:
1. The Philistines and Samson: Did the Egyptians Rule Israel During the Late Bronze Age?
2. The Prohibition Against Pigs: Interesting Discussion
3. Walt Baucum: Peleg's "Division" of the World

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1. The Philistines and Samson: Did the Egyptians Rule Israel During the Late Bronze Age?
http://starways.net/lisa/essays/philistines.html
Extract:
The story of the death of Samson is one of the most dramatic in the Bible. The image of the blind hero--who sported before the Philistines and met his end by destroying the two pillars which supported the building--has served as a basis for much art. The Bible tells that a great audience had gone up to the roof of the Philistine temple in order to see the defeated hero. How could the people on the roof have seen what happened inside the temple? The form of the temple in Beth Shean gives us an explanation: the main part of the Philistine temple was a great courtyard. Samson sported before teh Philistines in the temple courtyard, and the roof of the temple was a comfortable vantage point from which to see what was happening in the courtyard. And according to the reconstruction of the temples at Beth Shean, the roof rested on two pillars...

In 1962, a cache of bronze tools and weapons was discovered in the Sharon, near Kfar Monash. The cache included gigantic and heavy axeheads, some 40 cm in length. Their size impressed scholars to the point that it was even theorized that they were the heads of primitive battering rams. Along with the tools were discovered about 800 thin bronze tablets, which were apparently the remnants of plate armor. Sheets like these were also discovered at excavations in Tel Erani, near Gath. The cache wasn't found in a stratigrapic context, and its time is unclear. In the First Commonwealth period, the Sharon was under the rule of the Philistine kingdom. The imaginative might see in the cache from Kfar Monash Philistine weapons from the time of Saul and David: "And a champion came out from the camps of the Philistines... and he wore bronze plate armor weihing 5000 shekels... and a bronze javelin between his shoulders, and the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels." (I Samuel 17:4-7)

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2. The Prohibition Against Pigs: Interesting Discussion
Recently on the ANE list there was a discussion about the prohibition against eating
pig meat.
The participants in this discussion in many cases seem to have a prejudice against the Bible
Nevertheless, the discussion brought forth some interesting points that we though might interest
our subscribers.
Sundry Extracts and notes from the Discussion
25.000.000 pigs in Denmark.
Egyptians identified Seth/Typho with pigs.
Egyptians also strongly identified Judah with Typhon.
[and before that with Israel. Later the Romans identified Britain and the Celts with Typhon  see our work "Ephraim"]

Jeffery A. Blakely
This past summer (2008) we were doing survey in southern Israel and we were at Tell en-Nejileh at about sunrise. We were standing on the tell when 1 boar, 3 sows, and either 17 or 19 "piglets" came tearing around the tell from the wadi below. They ran well over a mile to get away from us, which was as far as we could see. These were wild pigs and looked like razorbacks. We saw others at sunrise on another morning and we regularly found evidence of them on paths they had cut through the cane in the wadis.

I have known this area very well for over 30 years. Thirty years ago before deep wells and irrigation in the area there was far less water in the wadis and no cane at all. At that time there were no pigs. Now with cane "forested" wadis and more available water they seem to have migrated back to the region.

Heleanor Feltham:
"deforestation in the ventral Palestinian highland may change the habitat and make pigs rare, while they may still be part of the household on the plains."
##they do carry the killer parasitic disease trichonosomiasis which is a pretty good reason to ban eating them. Wild boar are not only dangerous to hunt (European boar spears have a substantial cross-piece to prevent them from running up the spear and getting the hunter before they die), but are also among the half-dozen or so symbols of power appearing on nomad-style art, on Persian images of the king hunting (lions, deer, wild boar, ibex), especially the Sassanian gilt silverwares, and on C3rd-10th textiles from a range of sources including Central Asia.

Jan Pieter van de Giessen
Maybe it's interesting that pigs are often infected with Trichinella, eating raw or undercooked pork could result in the parasitic disease Trichinosis (trichinellosis/trichiniasis). Could this be a reason why pigs are unclean. The biologist Drs. Ben Hobrink in his book Moderne Wetenschap in de Bijbel (Modern Science in the Bible) has spent several chapters about his theory that most unclean animals are infected with Trichinella and eating their meat could result in illness. I don't know he is right, but it's a theory I don't hear very much
 
Russell Gmirkin
In my book Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus, in Appendix F on Seth-Typhon and the Jews, 287 n. 113, I write:

A religious aversion to pork was shared by Jews and Egyptian priests, the latter due to the association of the boar with Seth-Typhon (Plutarch, On Isis
and Osiris 8.354A); Egyptian ideas attributing leprosy to contact with swine (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 8.353F; Aelian, On Animals 10.16 [citing Manetho]); Tacitus, Histories 5.4; cf. Shafer, Judaeophobia. 66-81, especially p. 74) may have also played into slanders that the Jews originated among lepers.
The near-obsessive preoccupation in Graeco-Roman writing with Jewish avoidance of pork (as opposed to other Jewish categories of unclean animals) may stem from Egyptian accusations of Jewish Typhonianism.

Joan H Griffith:
As to pigs carrying trichinosis, how would the ancient people have known this, and why did not others ban pork? After ingesting the worms, they encapsulate in the muscles, releasing toxins that cause the pain. Anyway, these worms are only dangerous if the meat is undercooked. If it is cooked until done, the parasites are killed.
The Egyptians, and probably Israelites as well, had worms, as has been shown by X-rays or MRIs of the mummies in the USA. Apparently they had no idea where the worms came from or how to get rid of them.

David Q. Hall:
As the incidence of pig bones was decreasing from the EBA through the IA; also shown in a later study:  The Origin of Early Israel - Current Debate, Oren, U. of Negev Press, 1998.  This might be taken as evidence that hunting thinned out the herds, change in climate forced migration of pigs, or dietary laws or eating habits caused a reduction in the use of pig meat.  A few bones were still found in the Iron Age hill country settlements as there may have been a few pigs eaten during those days, but not in numbers large enough to indicate a preference for swine meat.
 The early Philistines used a large amount of pig meat during the IA I, then switched to other meat.
 Wapnish and Hesse concluded that if Jewish ethnicity could be determined by finding the areas where there were few or no pig bones, then there were more Jews in the Ancient Near East than anyone had previously calculated. 

Hesse and Wapnish have provided a detailed review of the use of pig bones and ethnicity in Israel in,  The Archaeology of Israel, Silberman, 1997, "Can Pig Remains Be Used For Ethnic Diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?" The author found a general trend across the Levant of decreased pig use between the Early Bronze Age and the Iron Age with a few exceptions.. 

Pig bones were found in Egypt, but not to the extent of other livestock bones.  There was one myth in Egypt that Seth sometimes took the form of a pig and that this pig Seth was evil incarnate.  Perhaps this had in influence on some people, there were many myths in Egypt.  The strict Hebrew prohibition against pork was thought by some to reduce problems caused by pork tape worms that afflicted people, or the raising of pork may have been seen as less efficient due to them not being found useful as dairy animals as Zias stated.  I recall reading about an Indiana farmer who was struck by lightening while feeding his pigs, and then the pigs devoured his body.  Wild boars sometimes attacked people (numerous Internet articles and you-tube video clips).  The pig might have also been banned for his unfriendly nature. 

Trudy Kawami
Because swine are omnivores they eat everything. This is their nature. It makes them very efficient garbage disposers & cheap keepers, but at the same time they are "tainted" at least by association with their food supply. Rabbits & camels are herbivores and will not root up shallow human graves when times are tough. In addition, adult swine can be very hard to handle with lowers tusks that can main & kill. All these negative characteristics add more social reasons why one doesn't eat pork in some cultures.

Niels Peter Lemche
Another circumstance speaking against pigs in the mountains. Pigs like woods, and if deforestation becomes dominant, it's bad news for pigs. This is mostly about the wild variety, as to the tame one, it demands shadow -- not much fur to protect it against the sun.
Another thought: Anyone tried to sacrifice a pig? These animals are highly intelligent (Orwell was right, they are far too close) and know somehow what is going to happen. Or ask the people who collect them to get them to the butcher. I can still hear them being taken from my fathers farm -- it is 60 years ago.

Ratson Nahar Odama
Perhaps the only uniqueness in the pig is not that the Isra'elites prohibited it, but that the majority of other cultures did not prohibit it, and refused to prohibit it. If you look as Western diets, perhaps more so with American diets, what is considered acceptable animals by the majority is essentially the permissible foods of the Isra'elite religion. The notable exceptions would be pigs and shell fish. Of the exceptions, the pig is the most common exception found on a dinner table (id est, much fewer people have lobster on their table every night compared to pig). Western diets and Isra'eli diets generally agree that animals such as the dog, horse, bear, cat, and many other animals are not fit to be food.

Joe Zias
One of the best essays on why folks here do not eat pork was written by the anthropologist Marvin Harris in the 1960's. In short, here is an animal who competes with us food wise, and does not give us milk, nor fur which sheep, sheep, goats and cattle do. Living as we do in a environmentally 'challenged' part of the world it makes little sense to raise them, though from a nutritional and economic point of view they, after chickens, win hands down.. Phenomenal wt gain and less chance of transferring any disease of theirs to humans unlike sheep, goats and cattle. In fact, one can get up to 30 diseases from a glass of milk...One thing which Harris and others failed to notice is that domesticated pigs are very opportunistic and will on occasion kill small babies for food. Happens in India every year amongst the poor where they wander the streets like cattle, brought their to take care of human waste.

letting them run wild in nature as opposed to herding them is a bad move as we know from experience that they ruin crops. And remember as I pointed out they are one of those rare animals that have it both way food wise, can survive solely on human food or solely on animal food. Thus they compete with both man and animal. In EU they were herded and like many domestic animals where water and grazing is plentiful it made a lot of sense in having them around. Today then can go from a few ounces at birth to 200 pounds in less than 6 months. Other than the chicken and fish, no other animal can boast of such an ability of converting food into muscle. As we move from a herding to a settled argicultural community it made little sense in having them around, destroying crops, competing with us, so rather than trying to explain it, just say god said it I believe it and that settles it.

Jim West
'pigs, unlike caprovines and cattle, have no secondary products and are exploited solely for their meat. they breed far more quickly than the other domesticated animals, and although they cannot eat grass, they can be fed on many other things, including waste. they also have a high fat and calorie content. the lack of secondary exploitation means that most pig remains are from young animals slaughtered for meat.' (p. 64).

on pp.67ff he describes the incidence of pig bones in archaeological sites related to the philistine cities. he observes that even at Ekron, pig bones comprised only 24% of the animal bones found. By contrast, at Tell Nimrin 'pig utilization drops from 4.7% in the MBA to less than 1% in the IA.' He does also point out that pig evidence cannot be used to distinguish between ethnic groups (as is frequently claimed).

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3. Walt Baucum: Peleg's "Division" of the World
 
"And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided" (Gen. 10:25).
 
Exactly how the earth was "divided" has intrigued students of history for generations.  Some believe it to mean the separation of the continents, the Continental Drift Theory.  Others have guessed it to mean the dispersion of people from the Tower of Babel after the confusion of languages.  But there is a more probable meaning of these words concerning the Pelasgians of Peleg. 
"There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands." Strong's has "divided"? as #6385 palag: to split, which could mean to break into separate parts.  Strong's word for Peleg goes back to #6388, which has to do with water, rivers, and streams (of the ocean?)  History reveals that the Pelasgians (Peleg's offspring) sailed to NW Europe and Britain and even across the Atlantic to North America.  Peleg (called Phaleg by Josephus, Pholoste by Champollion) was born at the "dispersion of the nations to their several countries." It was during his time that "the world was divided." "Islands" could include continents or even coastlines, and many sources show that Peleg (the Pelasgi) became a nautical power.  They controlled the Bronze Age from ca. 2000-1500 BCE, and they were part of the Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt ca. 1200 BCE, the so-called Cretans of Crete and the Aegean areas, known to us today as Minoans.
Its meaning, then, is likely associated with the cartographic efforts of Peleg's progeny on their worldwide journeys in search of raw materials for their vast trading endeavors.  Charles Hapgood was convinced that these ancient maritime people had found correct relative longitudes and latitudes across Africa, the Atlantic, and many other continents and seas, showing proof from old maps that had been copied from still more ancient maps. 
It is important that most of the islands are in correct longitude.  The picture that seems to emerge is one of a scientific achievement far beyond the capacities of the navigators and mapmakers of the Renaissance, of any period of the Middle Ages, of the Arab geographers, or of the known geographers of ancient times.  It appears to demonstrate the survival of a cartographic tradition that could hardly have come to us except through some such people as the Phoenicians or the Minoans, the great sea peoples who long preceded the Greeks but passed down to them their maritime lore.[1] 
Rather unlike modern maps, lines of longitude and latitude, which are spaced at equal intervals that cross to form grids of different kinds, lines on the old maps seem to radiate from many different centers on the map, like spokes from a wheel.  These radiating "spokes" are spaced exactly like the points of the compass, with 16 lines in some and 32 in others, thus the "division" of the world.
Hapgood's "twelve-wind system" the ancients possessed is undoubtedly the Sumerian zodiac, far superior to the eight-wind system used in the portolan charts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  It was based on the division of the 360 degree circle into twelve arcs of 30 degrees each, or six arcs of 60 degrees.  It involved the division of the circle into 360 degrees, based on Sumerian science, but called "Babylonian" by Hapgood throughout his book, for it was Sumerians who invented the 360-degree circle and the same division of times that we still use today.
"Now the stars were used in ancient times, in navigation, and so the zodiac and the other constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres were a sort of map written in the sky.  The relationships of the Babylonians [Sumerians were first] and Phoenicians in ancient times were very close, and we can easily imagine that the Phoenicians might have applied these basic elements of Babylonian [Sumerian] science to mapmaking.  The result of any such effort would have been the twelve-wind system."[2]
He further adds that the 360-degree circle and the twelve-wind system were ancient before the rise of Babylonia, thus indicating the ancient Sumerians of Shem, and long before Tyre and Sidon were built by the Phoenicians.  Babylon's science was a heritage from a much older culture, again implying Sumerians, the first worldwide sailors.[3]
Geology shows the Continental Drift to have been millions of years ago.  Since Peleg lived to be over 200 years old, he could have started the "celestial" mapmaking immediately after the dispersion of the people at Babel, with his offspring continuing and perfecting it.
A reasonable conclusion is that the "Sea People" Pelasgians put this inherited knowledge (from their Sumerian forefathers) of mapmaking, the Zodiac, and virtual worldwide sailing tradition into these ancient maps.  It is these markings of longitude and latitude that not only guided them in their own ventures over much of the globe, but also what seems to be implied by the "earth [being] divided" in Peleg's time.
 

[1] Hapgood, Charles, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966), p. 40. Most of these maps, writes Hapgood, were of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, but maps of other areas survived. These included maps of the Americas and of the Arctic and Antarctic Seas. "It becomes clear that the ancient voyagers traveled from pole to pole. It is clear, too, that they had an instrument of navigation for accurately finding the longitudes of places that was far superior to anything possessed by the peoples of ancient, medieval, or modern times until the second half of the 18th Century." Hapgood was convinced that the maps were derived from prototypes drawn in pre-Hellenic times, that they were based on a sophisticated understanding of the spherical trigonometry of map projections, and that the people had an accurate and detailed knowledge of the latitudes and longitudes of coastal features throughout a large part of the world.
[2] Ibid, p. 32.
[3] The author quotes B.L. van der Waerden that the fundamental ideas of Babylonian astronomy (again, Sumerians were first) were the periodical return of celestial phenomena, the artificial division of the Zodiac into 12 signs of 30 degrees each, the use of longitude and latitude as coordinates of stars and planets, and the approximation of empirical functions by linear, quadratic, and cubic functions, computed by means of arithmetical progressions of first, second, and third order. He further says there was a considerable development of geometry in Egypt, but apparently no algebra. Conversely, there existed a remarkable development of algebra in Babylonia and in China, but no special development of geometry. "We have seen that the science reflected in the maps implies, however, the possession of all of these elements by one culture. Geometry is present in the portolan design; the Babylonian division of the Zodiac is present in the twelve-wind system; so are the units of sixty (six units of sixty in the circle). The included decimal system for counting the 360 degrees of the circle are present in the Oronteus Finaeus Map." He believed this was evidence that all these different scientific achievements were once the possessions of the unknown people who originally survived, some in one place, some in another. He supposed that a "carrier people," an intermediary people like the Phoenicians (probably Pelasgians at first, then Phoenicians, their Hebraic kinsmen) inherited all these aspects of science from the ancient source and brought it by trade contacts to the known civilizations of antiquity, the Babylonians and the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Indians of India, and the American Indian peoples.

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