The Real Philistines were a bit different

Today's Fun Bible Story is about the much vilified people known as the "Philistines,' (or Peleset) an ancient people who occupied the Mediterranean coast concurrently with the Hebrew Bible events of Genesis - Jeremiah. To this day, the term philistine is used to describe barbarians and lack of culture, when this is the opposite of the historical truth. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures and especially in the Books of Moses, any ethnic peoples who were not the Hebrews or proto-Israelites were vilified.

HISTORY: Most people know this people primarily as enemies of the Jews, especially as depicted in the fairly tales of Samson and Delilah and David and Goliath. Bad Philistines, worshipers of pagan gods. 

Historically and archeologically speaking, the Philistines were known as the Sea Peoples. They were proto Greeks who migrated from the Aegean to the Levantine coast shortly after the Trojan War concluded in about 1200 BCE. This movement was likely part of an massive disruption of civilization known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse. It is also placed shortly after the Exodus story would have taken place (if it had actually taken place). Although not historically true , the Exodus tradition reflects a group memory of traumatic events that convulsed the region that emerged as to Early Iron Age.

The Hebrews/Israelites were an emerging Canaanite tribal confederation who occupied the hill country around Jerusalem beginning around 1200 BCE. The more advanced Philistines were settled on the coast by Pharaoh Ramesses III, concentrated in five major trading cities:  Gath, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gaza. That latter is the same region as the troubled Gaza strip of modernish times. In general, Philistia was more urban than the Hebrew**  hill country societies. Hence the ongoing conflict. However, as time passed, the Philistines and Canaanite/Israelites also integrated their cultures, intermarried (see Samson) and exchanged gods.

In addition to the better known biblical Philistine tales, consider these:

In Genesis, after pimping his wife Sarah to Pharaoh, Abraham turns around and lends her to a Philistine king named Abimelech for his harem. The fact that the Philistines did not yet exist, nor would they show up in the region for almost 1,000 years in no way diminishes the bible lesson: if you lend your wife to a King, he will give you presents. 

It is also overlooked on purpose that the Warlord cum King of Israel led a bunch of merry men comprised of Philistines while he was on the lam from King Saul. Samson himself hung out with Philistines, whence he sources the evil Delilah.

The Assyrians defeated and deported the population of Philistia, along with the ten confederated tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. All of these peoples disappear from history at that point, if not from conspiracy theory.

•  The term Palestine is derived from the word Philistine. 

• When the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel, YHWH punished them by afflicting them with hemorrhoids, which caused them give it back filled with gifts.* 

"And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts." [KJV]

 *The Ark was supposed to contain the tablets of the Law and other items, but it is not clear from this narrative if there was enough room.