If anything, they were more refined than the shepherds and farmers in the nearby hills, the Israelites, who slandered them in biblical chapter and verse and rendered their name a synonym for boorish, uncultured people. Well, well, well. The NY Slimes shows up to tell all us uneducated rubes that it was really the Philistines who were sophisticated, and the Jews were the boorish slobs who stole land.
Memo to the NY Slimes and the idiot that wrote this drivel - the Torah and the Bible are GOD'S WORD! It is true. No one "slandered" anyone. The Philistines were an evil people.
Also, Israel was a wasteland when the Arabs controlled it.
The Jews have turned the land they control into a lush, beautiful land in just a few years.
The Palestinians, on the other hand.............
the Israelites, who slandered them in biblical chapter and verse and rendered their name a synonym for boorish, uncultured peopleThe Philistines were much more advanced than the 12 tribes of Israel. They were likely immigrants from Phoenecia that were excellent sailors.
The writer is throwing out a strawman. Nowhere in the Bible does it say the Philistines were 'backward or boorish.'
The account of the first kings of Israel demonstrates clearly that the Philistines had superior weapons technology. All of Israel had to go to the Philistines to get their iron farm implements sharpened. This section also details that ONLY King Saul and his song Jonathan possessed swords.
When David fled to the Philistines for sanctuary from King Saul, he almost certainly stole iron technology from them and transferred it to his Bronze Age bretheren when he became king.
The idea that 'Philistine' meant backward is a construct that developed long after the Biblical account was recorded and does not come from the Bible at all.