Caphtor
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Caphtor (Hebrew: כפתור) is a locality mentioned in the Book of Amos, 9.7: "Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?." It is named as the place of origin of the Caphtorites, said in Genesis 10:13-14 to descend from Ham's son Mizraim (Egypt).
The Aramaic Targums translate the name as "Caphutkia" that is Pelusium. This identification is also made by Benjamin of Tudela who wrote that "Damiata" (the name for Pelusium in his day) was Caphtor. [1]. The Septuagint translates it as "Kappadokias" and similarly the Vulgate renders it as "Cappadocia" which are understood to refer to the same location. Nevertheless, the seventeenth-century scholar Samuel Bochart[2] understood these to be references to Cappadocia in Anatolia. Modern commentators and translators commonly identify it with Crete (Hertz 1936) although it has also been linked to Cyprus, and the nearby coasts of Anatolia. By some accounts,[citation needed] both Cyprus and Crete together were known as "the isles of the Caphtorim".
The name has been compared to Egyptian Keftiu and Akkadian Kaptara (a term found in the Mari tablets). The name keftiu is found written in hieroglyphics in the temple of Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt and possibly in the Egyptian tomb of Rekhmire.
The Caphtorites (or Caphtorim) were a people first mentioned in Genesis 10:13-14 in the Table of Nations which lists them as a descendant of Mizraim thereby making them an Egyptian people.
Deuteronomy 2:23 records that the Caphtorites came from Caphtor, destroyed the Avvites and usurped their land. The Talmud (Chullin 60b) notes that the Avvites were the original Philistine people in the days of Abraham while the Philistines of later times were descended from the conquering Caphtorites. This accords with Genesis 10:13 which lists the Philistines as a distinct people to the Caphtorites while Jeremiah 47:4 and Amos 9:7, set in a much later period, speak instead of Philistines having come from Caphtor.
The name Caphtor is identical to the Biblical Hebrew word for a knob-like structure [3]. The Atlantis theorist J.V. Luce suggests that "Keftiu translates as either 'the island of Keft' or 'the people of Keft', depending on which determinative is added to the Egyptian hieroglyph. The root keft has come into the twentieth century as the word 'capital'[originally of a pillar]."[4] Mainstream linguistics, however, traces "capital" to Latin caput, from Indo-European *kap-ut-.[5]
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[edit] Notes
- ^ The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible, Amos 9:7
- ^ Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan (Caen 1646) l. 4. c. 32. [1].
- ^ Exodus 37:17
- ^ Charles R. Pellegrino, Unearthing Atlantis, 1991, p. 45; J.V. Luce Lost Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend, 1969
- ^ Calvert Watkins, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, ISBN 0-395-37888-5
[edit] References
- Hertz J.H. (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
- Deuteronomy 2:23
- Book of Jeremiah 47:4
- Book of Amos 9:7
