Hittites: Encyclopedia II - Hittites - The Biblical Hittites

Hittites - The Biblical Hittites

References to a people whose name is transcribed into English as "Hittites" (or sometimes "Hettites") are found throughout the Hebrew Bible. These Biblical references to the Hittites are summarized below. It should be noted that the corpus of the Hebrew Bible was probably compiled in its near-final form between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, during or after the Babylonian exile, as related in the Book of Ezra, with a further revision in the Masoretic text occurring some time between ca. 200 BC and 100 AD, as inferred from textual analysis of the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other sources.

Hittites - The references

The first reference to the Hittites is in Genesis 23:10, where Abraham bought the family burial cave at Machpelah from "Ephron the Hittite" (עפרון החתי, ʕFRVN HĦTY). Later, in Genesis 26–36, two of Esau's wives are labeled as Hittites. In these accounts, the Hittites are mostly called "The Children of Heth" (בני-חת, BNY-HT) and described as a branch of the Canaanites, living in the Hebron area; indeed Heth (חת, HT) is listed in Genesis 10 as a son of Canaan, son of Ham.

Starting with the conquest of Canaan, the Hittites — from now on always called חתי, HTY — are listed on a par with the Canaanites, as one of the seven mighty peoples living in the region. Later they are cited among the four nations whom the Israelites were not able to destroy completely. Indeed, some centuries later, two of King David's generals are labeled as Hittites: Ahimelech (1 Samuel 26:6) and Uriah (2 Samuel 11:3); David had the latter deliberately slain in battle for the sake of his wife Bathsheba. King Solomon also had Hittite wives (1 Kings 11:7), and traded with (or received tribute from) the kings of the Hittites, of Syria, and of Egypt (2 Chronicles 1:17). An episode in the time of Elisha (2 Kings 7:6) mentions "the kings of Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians" as mighty powers.

The Hittites are last mentioned by Ezra, on his return from Babylonian captivity (Ezra 9:1; around 450 BC, long after the demise of the Anatolian Hittite empire). They are one of the peoples with whom the local Hebrew leaders, who had remained in Palestine during the captivity, had intermarried.

Hittites - The traditional view

Given the casual tone in which the Hittites are mentioned in most of these references, Biblical scholars before the age of archaeology traditionally regarded them as a smaller tribe, living in the hills of Canaan during the era of the Patriarchs. This picture was completely changed by the archaeological finds that placed the center of the Hatti/Hattusas civilization far to the north, in modern-day Turkey.

Because of this perceived discrepancy and other reasons, some Biblical scholars reject Sayce's identification of the two people, and believe that the similarity in names is only a coincidence. In order to stress this distinction, E. A. Speiser called the Biblical Hittites Hethites in his translation of the Book of Genesis for the Anchor Bible Series.

Hittites - The mainstream view

On the other hand, the view that the Biblical Hittites are related to the Anatolian Hittites remains popular. Apart from the coincidence in names, the latter were a powerful political entity in the region before the collapse of their empire in the 14th-12th centuries BC, so one would expect them to be mentioned in the Bible, just in the way that the HTY post-Exodus are. A stone lion relief found a Beth Shan, near the Sea of Galilee (now at the Israel Museum), dated to about 1700 BC, has been interpreted as confirming this identification, since lions are often pictured in Hittite art. [1]. Moreover, in the account of the conquest of Canaan, the Hittites are said to dwell "in the mountains" and "towards the north" of Canaan — a description that matches the general direction and geography of the Anatolian Hittite empire, if not the distance.

Modern linguistic academics therefore propose, based on much onomastic and archaeological evidence, that Anatolian populations moved south into Canaan as part of the waves of Sea Peoples who were migrating along the Mediterranean coastline at the time in question. Many kings of local city-states are shown to have had Hittite and Luwian names in the Late Bronze - Early Iron transition period. Indeed, even the name of Mount Zion may be Hittite in origin.

Hittites - Other views

Some people have conjectured that the Biblical Hittites could actually be Hurrian tribes living in Palestine, and that the Hebrew word for the Hurrians (HRY in consonant-only script) became the name of the Hittites (HTY) due to a scribal error. Others have proposed that the Biblical Hittites were a group of Kurushtameans. These hypotheses are not widely accepted, however.

It is also possible that the Biblical HTY refers to two distinct people at different times; e.g. a local tribe before Exodus, and the Anatolian empire after Exodus.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Biblical Hittites", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki