WEBVTT - What's So Bad about the Philistines? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.200 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.040 I guess what, Mango? What's that? Well? All right, so 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.320 you know the story of David and Goliath, Right, yeah, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.759 it's like the most famous underdog story in history. I 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.759 think it probably is, But it actually turns out that 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.480 David may not have been the underdog that he's been 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.320 made out to be over the years, and some historians 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.320 think that David was actually the one with the advantage. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.360 So Goliath was definitely big. He was either six ft 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.600 eight or nine ft seven, depending on which account you 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.640 look yet, so yeah, it's a little bit of a 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.400 difference there, but he's one of those and at that time, 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.040 either of those heights would have just been huge, right. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.320 And he was also wearing some heavy duty bronze armor, 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.160 wielding a sword, a spear, and a javelin. I didn't 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.240 actually remember all of these things. But here's the thing. 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.240 Even though David was going in without any of that, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.520 no armor, no blades, no high ground, he was packing 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.760 superior firepower. So everybody knows he had a sling shot, 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.840 but I think most people probably picture the kinds of 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.080 sling shots that maybe we had his kids or something 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.720 like that. This was not a kid's toy, so he 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.319 was using a sturdy, leather pouch with two long cords 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.240 attached to it. Now, this would have been the same 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.440 kind of sling that soldiers at the time we're using 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:26.160 for long range attacks, and he mastered the weapon during 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.440 his time as a shepherd, where he would use it 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.880 to ward off wolves other predators. So in his hands 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.360 it was truly a deadly weapon. In fact, the stopping 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.760 power of the stone fired from david sling would have 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.160 been comparable to that of a forty five caliber handgun. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.240 What that's crazy. It's almost like that scene in Indiana 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.320 Jones where the bad guy does all this fancy sword 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.160 wielding and then Indie just shoots him and walks away. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.800 I had forgotten about that scene bit right, Like the 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.640 fight was over before it even began, and it does 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.640 make David's victory a little bit less surprising when you 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.520 think about it. Yeah. So, I was actually thinking about 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.320 David and Goliath recently, and I realized I don't know 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.000 what the beef was between them, Like, was it just 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.960 a bully thing? Why? Why exactly were they fighting? I 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.079 think you you clearly did not sit through as much 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.200 Sunday School, as I did over the years. But yes, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.120 it was more or less a land dispute. So at 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.399 the time, the Israelites were living in a mountain range 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.480 along the eastern border of Palestine, and eventually their enemies, 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.600 the Philistines, they started to encroach on that territory. But 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.120 rather than have like this full battle with all the 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.120 bloodshed that would be involved there, the two sides agreed 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.960 to settle things with a little one on one fight. 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.079 So the Philistines sent their mightiest warrior to act as 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.440 their champion. That was, of course, Goliath, and the Israelites 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.519 sent David because well, actually he was the only one 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.560 willing to face off against the giant. But you take 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.000 a second look at this famous story and you see 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.160 how exaggerated the Philistine threat may have actually been. And 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.320 so it maybe wonder if there was anything else about 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.560 the Philistine is that we should probably think twice about. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:04.760 I mean, we all know they've gotten a bad rap 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.799 over the years, and I'm hoping that today we can 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.000 shed some light on whether or not they really deserve it. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.000 So we've got eight facts left to figure it out. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:36.280 Let's dive in, right, h Hey. Their podcast listeners, Welcome 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.800 to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.040 I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer and 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.240 on the other side of the computer screen showing his 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.320 Philistine pride with a shirt that says, actually turn it 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.800 this way, it says justice for Goliath. That's our friend 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.440 and producer lull That is. I don't know where he 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:54.000 got it, and this may have been another one of 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.640 his homemade ones, but it's impressive. And that is a 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.680 hot take if I've ever seen one, but I guess 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:01.800 it is good to know where Lowell stands on all 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.480 of this. Yeah, Lowell stands with Philistines, Yes he does. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.440 It is funny. But when I saw the topic for 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.200 the show in our sort of running Google doc, it 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.960 made me laugh because I've had this dad joke for 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.320 a while. I I've been telling, you know, Lizzie and 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.520 I are from different backgrounds, and people always ask like, 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.800 how are you raising your kids? And my standard answer 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.719 is like, well, Lizzie's Christian, I'm Hindu, but we're raising 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.800 our kids Philistine because my kids are awful. But I'm 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.159 actually glad we're learning about this culture because I've been 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.080 using it as a punchline for such a long time. Now, Yeah, 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.840 I have to be honest, I feel like I have to. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.599 Over the years, we've got our friend and researcher Gabe 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.760 Bluesier with us here. Gabe, good to see you again. Hey, well, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.200 hey Mango, nice to be back. All right, So I'm 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.760 curious about this. Do you have a stance on David 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.760 versus Goliath? Gabe? I mean, I try not to take sides, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.279 but I will admit I do have a soft spot 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.360 for David. I had this Nintendo game as a kid 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:02.440 called Bible Adventures, and there was a section when there 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:04.479 was a whole section of the game when you played 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.960 as David. And the really funny thing to me was 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.480 the gameplay was all based on, you know, the fact 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.919 that he was a shepherd, Like that's the part of 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.760 the story that the developers thought would make the best game. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.279 So most of the time you're just David. You're running 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.279 around collecting sheep, returning them to their pen. You only 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.159 fight Goliath at the very very end. Oh wow, So 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.559 I'm actually super curious because I've never heard about this game. 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:34.680 Are are the sheep important to winning the game? Unfortunately? No, 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.640 not really, Like you have a slingshot by the time 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.120 you face Goliath, so you have to take him down 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.800 with the old rock between the eyes trick. You know. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.040 Apparently that's the one detail the game developers were sticklers about, 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.200 like you can climb a tree with with five sheep 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.679 stacked on top of your head, but you can only 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.119 kill the giant with a rock. I love that. Well, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.640 I'm up next. And since Will mentioned what a bad 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.720 reputation the Philistines have, I kind wanted to look into 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.520 why they got it and who they got it from. So, 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.040 as you can probably guess, the Israelites are the source 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.080 behind most of the griping about the Philistines. And you know, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.239 they're talking about them being barbaric and crude and uncivilized, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.479 and if you flip through the Bible, it's not hard 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.080 to see why the Israelites might feel that way. Right. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.599 There are more than a dozen violent clashes between the groups, 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.120 plus a few random acts of meanness, like the time 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.559 the Philistines destroyed Abraham's well by filling them up with dirt. 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.279 Classic Philistines, I think. So there's actually another piece of 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.400 evidence for why the groups didn't get along, and it 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.320 comes from a pretty strange source, and that's ancient pigs. 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.120 So back in two thousand thirteen, a team of archaeologists 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.760 compared the DNA of ancient pig remains with that of 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.239 modern pigs, and what they found was that the boars 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.880 that live in Israel today are actually descendants of the 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.720 Philistines pigs, which they likely brought over from Europe. And 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.000 since observant Jews don't eat pork, archaeologists think that the 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.920 Philistines taste for swine kind of forced this Oz versus 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.640 them mentality sort of with the Israelites. That's interesting. I've 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.840 never heard that. But here's something weird I learned this week. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.200 It turns out the word Palestine is actually derived from 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.920 Philistine or Philistine, And just to be clear, the two 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.440 groups are not related. But after they came to the region, 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.040 and you know, we're talking about ninth century b c e. Here, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.880 the Philistines had assimilated so completely that it was actually 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.040 impossible to distinguish them from other groups in the area. 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.920 They lost all their defining characteristics and basically disappeared as 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.040 a people, but their name lived on because a few 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.240 centuries later, when the Roman Empire invaded, they just romanized 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.520 the old name Philistine and turned it into Palestine, and 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.360 so the names stuck around ever since, even though there's 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.480 not really a connection between the two groups. That's interesting. 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.240 So so do both names mean the same thing, like 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.800 Philistine and Palestine. Yeah, that that's the other weird part. 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.000 Both words do mean the same thing. They roughly translate 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.840 as the foreign invaders. And if that sounds like a 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.040 weird thing for a group to call themselves, it's because 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.560 they didn't. The name Philistines was just what the Israelites 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.600 and the Egyptians called the group. To this day, we 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.600 have no idea what the Philistines actually called themselves, and 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.160 we probably never will. All Right, well, I'm glad you 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.400 two got into some of the origin stuff because I 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.680 actually want to talk about how philistine became kind of 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.640 like this insult that you'd use to describe mangoes, kids, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:35.400 mainly mangoes. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary of philistine 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.240 is quote a person who is usually disdainful of intellectual 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.400 or artistic values. So yeah, that's pretty rough. But that 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.559 definition actually has a lot less to do with historical 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:52.280 accuracy than it does with classism or like general snootiness. 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.880 So the modern meaning began to take shape at German 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.640 universities in the late seventeenth century, where you'd have these 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.640 stuck up students who would mock the townies by calling 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.640 them philisters. And so from their writers and critics picked 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.319 up on the word, and it began to spread across Europe, 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.560 and you fast forward to the seventeen hundreds, it had 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.680 made its way to America. And here's the most surprising bit. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.720 Ben Franklin was one of the first Americans to popularize 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.560 the term. Here it was in seventeen thirty seven he 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.600 published a list of more than two hundred expressions for 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.560 describing someone who's had too much to drink, and among 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:33.080 them was the colorful phrase he has been among the Philistines. 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.760 That's so funny. I feel like at mental last that 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.160 list would come up over and over again, and every 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.439 single time I read it, I was like delighted by it. 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.640 It's just so great. But you know what, what what's 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.520 funny about that fact is that it's actually kind of accurate. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.520 Like the Philistines were known as these party animals of 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.040 the ancient world. Um their feasts were ragers, and and 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.640 their cities were filled with multiple breweries and wineries, so 0:09:57.880 --> 0:09:59.560 they were really ahead of the curve in terms of 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.120 alcohol production. But the thing I found surprising is that 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.240 the Philistines were far from uncivilized. Like these biblical stories 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.160 and stereotypes kind of make them seem like they were 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.560 a bunch of meat heads, but there's all this archaeological 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.640 evidence that proves the opposite. So, for instance, the Philistine 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:17.960 graveyard was discovered for the first time in two thousand 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.640 and thirteen, and it showed that there were people who 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.800 lovingly buried their dead, so many of the bodies were 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.559 entombed with a bottle of perfume next to their face, 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.199 so that the deceased could almost like enjoy the fragrance 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.319 throughout era Trinity. Wow, So I grew up going to 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.040 Sunday School and there was never any hint of that 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.960 kind of I don't know, tenderness from the Philistines, Like 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.520 they were always just the bad guys. Yeah, And I 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.400 mean that makes sense, right, Like history is written by 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.600 the victors, And so it's only now with these recent 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.360 discoveries that we're starting to get this fuller picture of 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.800 who they really were. And as it turns out, they 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.400 were way more advanced than we've given them credit for. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:58.959 There were, in fact, like years ahead of the Israelites. 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.240 The Philistines were renowned for their use of iron, which 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.560 was a rarity during the Bronze Age. They were the 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.240 only ones who knew how to refine and temper the metals. 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.000 So even the Israelites would have had to rely on 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.719 the Philistines when they need to sharpen or repair their 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.679 iron tools and weapons. Wait, so their arch enemies would 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.360 ask them for help with their weapons, like, like, sharpen 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:20.800 this for me, please, so I can turn around and 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:22.600 stab you with it. Is that kind of what was happening. 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.520 That's basically the case. I mean, it's super weird, but 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:29.680 you know, there's all this mounting evidence that the two 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.599 groups may not have been as directly opposed as we 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.560 once thought. And uh, I mean they clashed a lot 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.840 for sure, because they were living alongside each other, but 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.880 they also had to work together and share resources, and 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.679 eventually they intermingled so much that the Philistines ceased to 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:46.640 be a distinct people. This is kind of what Gay 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.920 was talking about. So the relationship probably wasn't as cut 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:51.880 and dry as you might think. Well, I mean, that 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.560 seems like a nice upbeat place to stop and take 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.880 a quick break. But we've got four facts left to go, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:13.360 so we'll be right back. Welcome back to Part time Genius, 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.319 where we're talking about the Philistines. Were these iron wielding 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.600 heathens that history loves to hate, and today we're actually 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.760 trying to give the group a much needed makeover. So 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.559 Gabe Europe next, help us win some hearts and minds 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.400 with this one. Go for it, all right, I think 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.800 I've got just the thing. Everybody loves green onions or scallions, right, 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.200 of course they do. And you know they're found in 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:43.240 everything from thanks starting with right now. Everybody loves green onions. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.640 It's a matter of fact. And you know they're found 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.319 in everything from Mexican cooking to Chinese food. And if 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.040 you are a fan, you've got the Philistines to thank 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.800 for it. Um. The Philistines were among the first groups 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.079 to cultivate green onions and export them from their ports 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.720 city of ash Colon, which is still a city in 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.560 Israel today. And in fact, the onions were such a 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.640 hit that everyone started talking about the onions of Ascalon 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.840 and uh, eventually the words just kind of got squished 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.960 together and people started calling them scallions. I love that, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.920 Like it was just everyone was buzzing about these things, 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.760 these signings of it is an amazing fact. So I've 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.600 got another one that hopefully it drums up a little 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.200 sympathy for the Philistines. I assume we're all familiar with 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.680 the Ark of the Covenant, right, like the Sacred Hebrew artifact, 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.000 Indiana Jones plot device, all that. Man, he just keeps 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.000 coming up today, like Indiana Jones. Get a lot of 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.960 shout outs. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you can't 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.120 escape him. He's like one of the three cultural relevant 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.520 points we have for you know, archaeology. The real Ark 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.840 of the Covenant was an incredibly meaningful object to the Israelites, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.680 and everyone at the time knew this, including the Philistines. 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.760 So one day, when tensions were super high, some Philistine 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.200 pranksters stole the our and placed it in one of 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.760 their own temples, which kind of sounds like a college 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.839 prank or something, right. But if Raiders of the Lost 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.240 Arc is is clear about one thing, it's that bad 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.920 things happen to people who misused the arc. So the 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.520 Philistines didn't get their faces melted off. But what they 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:19.920 did get was a mass plague of hemorrhoids. I'm not 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.600 sure which is worse. It might be worse to actually 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.040 have your face melted off. We'll have to check. Well, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.920 you know, this is for real according to the Bible, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.960 the quote the hand of the Lord was against them, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.560 and he smote the men of the city, both small 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.520 and great, with hemorrhoids in their secret parts and mental flaws. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.120 Did a peace back on this and the back of 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.480 the day, and and they referred to this as quote 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.400 the only mass hemorrhoid attack and recorded history, So you 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.040 know it kind of kind of a strange claim, but 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.120 you know it. It did take some time for them 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.920 to get some relief. The hemorrhoids actually stuck around for 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.119 a full seven months. Uh. I guess this is before preparation. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.760 Ah but um. At that point, the Philistines only asked 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.280 the priest how they could atone for their sins and 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.120 end this plague, and the answer was, of course, to 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.280 return the ark to the Israelites. So this is actually 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.160 my favorite part because they were instructed to make amends 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.800 by sending an offering of what included quote five golden hemorrhoids. 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.080 Uh um, it's best if you don't try to picture 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.240 that and what am I to looked like? But I 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:25.960 do find a funny that some poor Philistine sculpture had 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.520 to grapple with what that should look like. Such a 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.640 gross and weird story, but but but a good one, 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.640 all right, all right. I mentioned earlier that the Philistines 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.960 and Israelites probably had way more daily interaction than you 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.320 would have expected, and I do want to talk about 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.080 one of the strangest examples of that. And the story 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.640 goes back to Samson, who was the Israelite who of 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.240 course had the long hair that gave him super strength 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.720 until Delilah cut it off. But something you may not 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.680 remember about this is that Samson was actually married to 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.920 a Philistine woman long before he was connected with Delilah, 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.920 and and they had a pretty unusual courtship. So one 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.680 day Sampson was on his way to visit his bride 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.800 to be when he suddenly crossed his path with a 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.240 wild lion. There So this isn't a problem for Samson, 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.880 though he easily kills it with his bare hands and 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.320 carries it on his merry way. And you fast forward 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.600 to the next week, and Samson is on his way 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.920 to marry this philistine girl. Now, this time he comes 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.520 across the carcass of a dead lion, but for some reason, 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.320 it's now overflowing with bee hives and loads of fresh honey. 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.640 For whatever reason, so Samson does what any of us 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.960 would do. He tucks into the dead lion and scoops 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.040 himself out some honey. You know it's honey. You don't 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.120 want to turn that down. But not only that, he 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.000 also gathers some to serve at his wedding feast. So 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.240 this is already like the weirdest story I've ever heard, 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.600 But but I feel like you're just getting started here. Yes, 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.640 this is definitely one that just keeps getting weirder. And 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.640 actually did not remember much of this from from Gabe 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.320 and my my Sunday school classes. But what you cut 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.320 to Sampson's wedding feast and he's sitting around with all 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.520 of his wife's philistine friends chowing down on the lion honey. 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.480 When suddenly Samson tells the group that he has a 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.000 riddle for them. You know, he's probably feeling kind of giddy, 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.440 he's been eating all that honey, and if they can 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.280 solve it within seven days, he'll reward them with thirty 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.119 new sets of clothes. But if they can't, then they'll 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.360 owe him thirty sets of clothing. So the Philistines take 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.399 the bed and Samson delivers the riddle, which was this, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.760 out of the eater, something to eat, out of the strong, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:46.880 something sweet. Right, So the Philistines, they they rack their 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.280 brains all week, but they cannot figure out the answer 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.960 to this thing. And at lasts they are so desperate 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.640 they go to Samson's new wife and they beg her. 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.200 They beg her to find out the answer for them, 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.560 so she does, and Samson eventually tells her that the 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.439 answer is the lion he found on the side of 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.200 the road, which, first of all, like what a weird, 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.560 dumb riddle, Like it doesn't to get thirty pairs of 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.479 clothes or whatever, But it really doesn't feel fair. How 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.680 are they supposed to know that, like there's some magical 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.440 honey dripping corpse out there. I mean, that's a fair point. 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.240 But the guy needed thirty new pairs of clothes, I think, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.680 so he couldn't couldn't take any risk, And maybe Sampson 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.560 suspected that they had cheated to get the answer, because 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.520 the way he chose to pay the bet was more 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.000 than a little bit hostile, Like he went out and 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:41.160 actually struck down, so he presumably killed thirty Philistines. Then 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.560 he stripped them and gave their clothes to the people 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.480 who had answered the riddle. I mean, that is harsh, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.960 but at least he honored the bet. He did. Yes, 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.560 he was a man of his word. He did, he did, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.440 he did, and he didn't kill the people who cheated. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.720 Actually he killed thirty other Philistine to teach them a lesson. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.679 You know that really really teaches you a lesson when 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:05.760 we do things like that. And so to make the 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.920 whole thing even weirder, after all this happened, the bride's 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.400 father took his daughter gave her in marriage to somebody else, 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.160 so the whole thing was actually for nothing, Like they 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.080 didn't even stay married. That is such a mess. I 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.240 love that story. I can't believe they left that out 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.879 of Sunday School. But on the whole though, I'd have 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.960 to say the Philistines did eventually get the last laugh, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.160 because my third fact is that they actually helped plunge 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.640 the ancient world into a two hundred year Dark Age, 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.800 And I know that doesn't cast them in the best light, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.320 but hear me out, because the ancient world kind of 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.320 had it coming. So beginning around twelve d b c e. 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.560 Prosperous empires like Greece, Egypt, and Canaan they began to 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.679 fall apart, and historians think the Philistines are partly to 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.760 blame for that. They were located at the center of 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.520 a vast trading hub, which made it see for them 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.399 to raid their neighbors ships and you know, disrupt the 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.240 trade system. And in particular, the Philistines were able to 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.160 cut off the supply of tin that Mediterranean nations relied 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.160 on for making bronze. And you know, there were other 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.119 factors at play to like a string of bad weather 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.000 and disease, but the so called collapse of the Bronze 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.840 Age had a lot to do with Philistine raiders kind 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.119 of throwing a wrench in the tin trade. And you know, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.800 the world was forced to switch from bronze to iron 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.879 at that point, and the Philistines who caused the shift 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.560 were quietly absorbed it, you know, into the surviving nations. 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:38.720 And I guess that they got to go out with 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.639 a bang and and took everybody else down with them 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.760 in the course of that. But that's that's an interesting 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:45.880 way to go. Yeah, I mean it was probably payback 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.879 for everyone calling them Philistines all the time, right, you 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.240 know that that and you know the hemorrhoids. That hemorrhoids. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.320 I was going to say the hemorrhoids pretty rough. I 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.760 don't know if that last fact was sunny enough game, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.080 but but I did love your Nintendo game fact so much. 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.679 Of all the Nintendo games out there, the fact that 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:06.800 you had one based on the Bible is amazing to me. 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.560 And I think it's not just great that you told 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.359 us about it, but that you're telling the world about 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.480 it on this podcast. So I think you deserved the trophy. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.359 I completely agree. I'm actually sitting here on eBay trying 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:19.320 to see if I can find a copy of this 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:21.639 uh game. Of course, now I'm going to have to 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.520 find the Nintendo as well. But it's worth it for whatever. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.760 It's a few hundred dollar investment, but yeah, well worth 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.800 worth it. So I think that's gonna do it for 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.119 today's part time Gudius. Thank you everyone who sent in 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.920