From: faris@sarcasm.trl.OZ.AU (Aziz Faris)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Who are the Canaanites
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:41:02 GMT
Reply-To: a.Faris@trl.oz.au
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne,Australia

In article <1992Oct14.153615.27010@discus.technion.ac.il>, davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:
|> 
|> The Phoenicians are yet another Semitic people who is extinct as far as
|> we know. (There is no group that calls itself Cannatite or Phoenician
|> today with any remote evidence).

Yes I agree that these people do not exist any more, but they were racially
mixed with all other people.

|> 
|> However they are quite distinct in the bible. The Hebrews knew and
|> mentioned quite a few times the Phoenician kingdoms of Sidon/Tyre.
|> They even had quite a good relations with those peoples.
|> 
|> The Cannanites were a group of peoples (not all of them Semitic) that
|> settled approx. in the area of the British mandate of Plaestine.
|> The Phoenicians were the sea-faring Semites who lived in today's Lebanon
|> and Western Syria and in Syria itself the Aramaic tribes (another
|> distinct Semitic tribe).

I checked the history of the ancient M.E. religions and the history of Lebanon
in the encylopedia Britanica, since that all I had access now, and here is
what they say about the Canaanites and Pheonicians:

Religion: The texts that were found at Ugarit are the only documents that tell
us about the religions of the Canaanites and the Pheonicians. Those texts
seem to indicate that the Canaanites and Pheonicians practiced the same
religion. BTW, they also say they were the first semetic people that also
had Prophets and they affectionetly called their highest god as the "father".
scientist are only begining to see how much their religion is analgous to
the Jewish religion.

History: The britanica says that the Pheonicians have come from the Arabian
Pennisula, and their migration path was through Palestine. They have found
Pheonician artifacts near the dead sea. They also say that the pheonician
kingdom extended at one time as far as tel Aviv and Jaffa. Therefore, they
had occupied Palestine and simply began to move northward toward Lebanon
and Syria. It is possible they have done so to avoid the conflicts with the
Egyptians who were to their south.

This leads me to beleive that the Canaanites must have been entirely or
or their majority are Pheonicians. The book states that the hebrew word
Canaan exactly means Pheonicia based on the language those texts were
written in. Also this language was the first language that used the Alphebets.

|> 
|> From that period till today only 2 Semitic peoples preserved their
|> identity: Hebrews (or in the more restricted grouping Jews) and
|> Arabs (mentioned as merchants and nomads as Yishmaelim in the Bible).

The Assyrians, Syriacs, and Kaldeans, have preserved their language and
history also.

|> 
|> The Arabs conquered in the 7-10 centuries AD the whole middle east and
|> subjugated all the inhabitants. Today all the people in the region
|> except Jews and Christians (which are also mostly Arabs) are identified
|> as Arabs in every way, and even if they have pre-Arab roots these are
|> so blended and scorched that they are impreceptible.

All indications are that most of the people who setteled the M.E. had their
roots in the Arabian Peninsula even before Islam came to being.
|> 
|> 
|> The Arabs of Palestine has the same relation to Jewish or
|> pre-Jewish cultures in Palestine as the Arabs of Egypt are related to
|> the Egyptians of Tut-Anach-Amon and the same relation of the Arabs of
|> Iraq to the Babylonians and Asyrians (or Sumerians which are even more
|> remote). That is EXTREMELY REMOTE IF AT ALL.
|>  |> 
|> David.

Yes, but contrary to what was argued that the Palestinians are not decendants
of the Phillistines as some of you were arguing at one time.

A.Faris