Well, here we go again. This time, less controversy (see the Paul post last week). This one focuses on two peoples who often get confused in the Old Testament.

The Bible is filled with various nations, people, and places which are very confusing because they sound alike. One example of that is two groups of people: the Philistines and the Phoenicians.

The Philistines were an aggressive tribal group that occupied part of southwest Palestine from about 1200 to 600 B.C. They seem to have come from the area of Greece and Crete, ending up in colonies along the Mediterranean coast of Canaan. For a long time they attacked Israelites, and we read about some of the struggles in the stories of Solomon, Saul, and David. It was the fact that they knew how to work with iron that made them tough in battle.

The Phoenicians, on the other hand, lived further north. They were good seafaring people who achieved a golden age between 1050-850 B.C. It was the Phoenicians who set up the important colony of Carthage, which was to become a bitter enemy of Rome in later days. Sometime, read of the terrible wars fought between these two powers.  They’re credited for originating the alphabet and for pioneering the skills of glass-making as well as the dyeing of cloth. Scholars believe Solomon’s Temple and many of its furnishings were based on a Phoenician design.