[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: orion Kittim, follow-up



On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Orion List wrote:

> Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 13:23:17 -0400
> To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il
> From: David Goldman <davic@pop.erols.com>
> Subject: KITTIM, follow-up
> 
> I thank everyone for the clarification, but I am left somewhat confused.
> Does the "chronology" of the use of the word KITTIM begin as a generic word
> referring to "foreigners" in general, which was subsequently applied to the
> Greeks and Romans? 

   For a discusion and a bibleography on the Biblical uses of the word
"Kittim" see "Kition: Mycenaean and Phoenician Discoveries in Cyprus", by
Vassos Karageorghis pp. 11-12, 1976. Basicly this was a word used for all
of Cyprus via the name sake of the city Kition.
   It is interesting to note that the most famouse uses of the word
"kittim" comes out of the prophesies of Isaiah in about 8th
century BC, but also in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and particulary Gen.
10:4, that links are made to Cyprus and Kition
   As we all know such material was discovered in Qumran. The
Hassideans/Essenes at Qumran may have been inspired, through such
passages, to use "Kittim" as a code word for the Greeks, and not the
Romans. Why? I have several reasons. In 319 BC Ptolemy liberated the Greek
occupants of Cyprus from the rule of their Phoenician Dynasts. Cyprus now
was a full Greek island. Another, is the use of the word kittim as the
place of origin of Alexander the Great in IMacc. 1:1 and 8:4. Along with
this we have the mention of Demetrius and Antiochus in 4QpNah 2:11-13.
   To answere your questions, Kittim was first used for those from the
city of Kition, then for Cyprus, then for the Greeks, then for Romans,only 
then perhaps for foriegners in general, but this I have not observed. 

< If this is true, does this identification exist only in
< the scrolls, and if so, why?

    Certainly not as I have already mentioned several biblical sources
such as Daniel and 1Maccabees. What appears to have happened was that the
word developed a life of it's own, from a specific to a more general
meaning over hundreds of years.
    see Rowley's article "The Kittim and the Dead Sea Scrolls" PEQ 1956,
pp. 92-109. This may help you more.


Harrison