Talk:Canaan

Biblical Canaanites (revisited)

Firstly: there should be more secondary sources such as Richard Friedman providing analysis, and less direct citations refering to the Bible, the reason is given in Wikipedia:Reliable sources: they [primary sources] must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. , which means that using the Bible, being a primary source, to claim a statement in Wikipedia must correspond exactly to the statement in the Bible. Better to use academic sources.

Secondly: based on the same Wikipedia guidelines, the last paragraph of the section synthesizes unduly: it claims that

"the Bible describes God cautioning the Israelites against the sexual idolatry of the Canaanites and their fertility cult (Leviticus 18:27)".

which it doesn't. Then it uses Zechariah 14:21 to stress that synthesis, and by reading it seems very certain that that verse doesn't refer to the Hebrew conquest of Canaan at all. I've seen this kind of local-preacher behavior too often in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a preaching ground for convincing everybody to go to the local church and donate tithes to the local priest blathering dishonest arguments, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia! Grrr! ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 15:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

1) "The Bible describes God cautioning the Israelites against the sexual idolatry of the Canaanites and their fertility cult" Actually, the Bible does this in so many verses, we could come up with quite a few citations. Why should the section on Canaanites in the Bible not mention this fact? Or are you somehow arguing that the Bible does not ever say anything like this? Have you not ever read it? 2) "By the time of the Second Temple, "Canaanite" in Hebrew had come to be not an ethnic designation, so much as a general synonym for "merchant", as it is interpreted in, for example, Zechariah 14:21" Please look up what most of the interpretations of this verse actually are in most Bibles, specifically how the Hebrew term "Kena'ani" is interpreted. I think you'll find this too is a factual and informative statement. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

If what you are saying is true Til Eulenspiegel, then you should have no problem finding a reliable secondary source expressing that opinion. Using primary sources alone opens the text up to challenges on the basis that is not reliable sourced. Tiamut^talk 16:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, fine. If either of you thinks this is the wrong interpretation of how the Bible characterizes Canaanites, then please, enlighten us how YOU think the Bible characterizes Canaanites. Then we'll see what the secondary sources have to say about how the Bible characterizes Canaanites. According to the rules, any secondary source that any of us find addressing the topic may be considered. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

What I think isn't important. All I am saying, is that the section might benefit from the use of secondary sources, like this one for example. Its much better to express what is written in secondary sources, than it is to cite selected Bible passages as examples to SYNTH conclusions (which may very well be the same conclusions made in scholarship, but the fact remains that at wikipedia we prefer secondary sources). That's all I'm trying to say. Tiamut^talk 16:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Here, I found one secondary source answering the question simply and correctly, right off the bat: "The Bible for blockheads: a user-friendly look at the Good Book" By Douglas Connelly [1] This is pretty typical of the mainstream take on synopsizing what the Bible says on the Canaanites:

"Canaanite religion centered around many gods and goddesses. Some of their deities - Baal, Dagon, Asherah, and Astarte - appear often in the Old Testament. Their worship involved animal (and possibly human) sacrifices. Both male and female cult prostitutes played a large part in their fertility festivals. Canaanite religion and worship are pictured in the Bible as disgusting to the Lord. God commanded the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites "on account of the wickedness of these nations" (Deuteronomy 9:4-5). Some Canaanite practices were especially repulsive to God - practices such as burning their sons and their daughters in fires to their ods (Deut 12:31). Because God's command to destroy the Canaanites was never fully carried out, the people of Israel often followed their Canaanite neighbours in immoral and idolatrous worship"

That didn't take too long to find, but there's tons more; do any schools of thought actually contradict this view? If so, perhaps we can cite them too, for balance. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction and propaganda

The text says "The English name Canaan ultimately comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and Latin Canaan. The Hebrew name Canaan is of obscure origins ..."

If the Hebrew name is "of obscure origins" then the name can not possible come ULTIMATELY from Hebrew. Furthermore, if it WAS a Hebrew word, one would be SURE that it is a Hebrew word. Therefore one CAN BE SURE IT IS NOT a Hebrew word. DO NOT automatically take ownership of something that is NOT YOURS! EG: You see a car on the street. You don't know who's car it is. Are you allowed to take it? Change the text to unknown origin. Theorising is against Wikipedia rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.177.64 (talk) 12:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

You may be reading too much into it... In etymological terms, it is simply explaining the fact that the English form is taken from Latin, which was taken from the Greek form, which in turn was taken from the Hebrew. It is already clear from the next sentence that the Hebrew name probably originated elsewhere. 'Ultimately' in etymology doesn't necessarily always imply the original source of the word, it just means that's as far back as it can be reliably traced. Although if we replaced 'ultimately' with 'eventually' it might be more technically correct... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

it is undisputed that the term predates Hebrew, as it is attested from at least about 1450 BC. That's basically common Northwest Semitic. Hebrew proper evolves by about 1000 BC. --dab (𒁳) 13:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Bad, very childish edits

This article was recently cleaned up for neutrality, yet now already it is returning to a POV-pushing nightmare once again by editors who cannot seem to see past the end of their own noses and realize that other POVs beside their own really do exist out there.

1) Canaan is a biblical region. Yet the bias of Nattybummpo, and now enforced by the admin Dougweller, would suppress this fact in the very intro by censoring the words "Canaan is a historical and a biblical land" and mentioning only that it "is a historical land". Really neutral POV, guys. I love your sense of balancing both sides.

2) The mnetion of "Palestinian territories" in the intro was piped to the much more ambiguous term "Palestine" by Nattybummpo, and now enforced by the admin Dougweller, for no clear or good reason.

3) Killebrew's opinion that Jerusalem was significant before 1550 BC and after 720 BC, but in between was insignificant, is not a monopoly, it is a "point of view" that many other sources do not agree with. Yet in a hypocritical travesty of NPOV, her opinion is being endorsed as factual by wikipedia, and all sources that disagree with her are being brushed aside as unreliable, with the circular fallacy that "in oder to be considered reliable, they would have to agree with Killebrew's school of thought". Such disregard for mentioning the fact that other points of view exist (such as archaeologist Eilat Mazar) exist, and taking sides in direct contradiction of WP:NPOV and enforced by admins, reveals a mentality that reminds one of certain totalitarian governments, but to see it on a supposedly "neutral" site makes me want to vomit. Another editor added evidence that other POVs exist, and it is simply blanked as if you are terrified to let readers learn that another POV exists. What are you so afraid of? If the correctness of your POV were really as axiomatic as you seem to think, then you should have nothing to fear from mentioning dissent. Instead you are inviting protest, and I most strongly protest.

The editor who added the dissenting viewpoint may not have used the best source in a news article, but that is a poor pretext for what is being done in the name of keeping the article one-sided. Per protocol, the deleted information should at least be placed here for further discussion, but instead only edit war. So here it is:

However, other archaeologists contend that Jerusalem was a highly important and fortified city during the Davidic and Solomonic period (c.1000-930 BCE), and likely thereafter as well. "King David's Palace is Found, Archaeologist Says" New York Times, August 5, 2005

4) Extraneous tags have been returned to TWO different places in the section "Canaan in the Hebrew Bible" warning the reader that: "This article improperly uses one or more religious texts as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them." Never mind the fact that if one actually READS this section, there are indeed abundant "secondary sources that critically analyze" the Tanakh. It still quotes the Tanakh view on the subject of Canaan, and some editors apparently hate to acknowledge that there is one, because of their bias, so let's just put tags up all over the place stating in pretense that there are no critical secondary sources whatsoever.

For all of this reasons, I am going to recommend once again that more editors check the lack of neutrality and one-sided direction this is taking. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 07:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Etymology section's 'Canaan' pronunciation

The etymology section begins with

The English term Canaan (pronounced /'keɪnən/ since c. 1500, thanks to the Great Vowel Shift) [...]

I have heard a few people pronounce "Canaan" (the place) as "keɪnən", but more frequently I hear "kɑnɑ:n" as the pronunciation in (American???) English, while "Canaanites" (the people) I do hear the the first two syllables as matching "keɪnən". Can we have a citation to back up the assertion currently in the article. If not, would it be better to change it to reflect "kɑnɑ:n" since it is discussing the term for the region, and not pointedly at the term for the people? — al-Shimoni (talk) 20:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

kɑnɑ:n would be a more learned pronunciation, approximating the way it would be pronounced in every other language besides English, since no other literary language had so extensive a vowel shift. It may be gaining more ground as academics attempt to spread greater accuracy and knowledge. But for most English speakers, I suspect "keɪnən" is still more widespread; there are any number of Christian Churches in the United States that even call themselves (ironically IMHO) by the name of "Canaan", and assuredly it is pronounced by them as "keɪnən"; it can also be assumed that Canaan Banana, being an English speaking politician, pronounced his first name as "keɪnən". Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Two articles needed

The article is discussing two separate though related subjects, the historical Canaanites and the Canaanites in the bible. The first is (or are, or were) a real people (had a distinct cultural identity known from archaeology and their own literature), the second were a fictitious group found only in biblical literature where they were created as a foil to the Israelites (i.e., the biblical authors invented their own "Canaanites" in order to distinguish themselves as a God-chosaen people). There should be two articles. PiCo (talk) 05:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You are pushing a point of view school of thought pretty hard here, Pico. There are other opinions on the matter. And please try to remember that the names of books (like Bible) are capitalized in English. No matter how much personal contempt you may have for the Bible, there is still no grammatical rule allowing for a special exception to be made to the English rules of capitalization. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Fictitious or not, there is a good argument for two articles, one on Canaanites in the Bible (which obviously wouldn't call them fictitious whether that's right or wrong), and the other - not sure about the title, but about the Canaanites that are clearly recorded through historical and archaeological sources. And this isn't the article, anyone can use capital letters here however they wish unless it's disruptive. Dougweller (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

What is the good argument? I still haven't seen it... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess if you don't think they are separate subjects, you can't see it. But they are separate subjects - only if you take a literalist pov could they be the same subject. Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

"Historical records" about this region consist of Hebrew, Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian etc. etc. etc. religious texts. It takes a minimalist POV to state that the Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian etc. etc. religious sources are all "reliable historical documents" but only the Hebrew sources including the OT are "not reliable historical documents". They are all essential views of the same elephant. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting the minimimalist pov. And over-stating the extent to which the other sources can be called religious sources. And perhaps you could point to the diff where I said 'reliable historical documents' as I can't find it. Dougweller (talk) 16:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the first step is to gather some reliable modern sources for both parts of the article. I'll start a Bibliography section for that. The most interesting part will be writing about Biblical Canaan - I know a few good books on that. PiCo (talk) 21:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the first step would be achieving consensus first. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we need a consensus to put books in a bibliography? Anyway, at the moment I'm just putting the existing books into harvestref format. PiCo (talk) 01:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

PiCo, I'm not quite understanding your biblical Canaanites being "a fictitious group found only in biblical literature where they were created as a foil to the Israelites" and that they were "invented." Surely there were Canaanites in Canaan when Judah and Israel were there, so how is it that they are "invented" when there were Canaanites living in the land along side them? Even with Fink's ‹Israel is derived from the Canaanites› stance (which I agree is partially true), there were still those who did not become Israelites or Judaites who continued to live in the region. Even the Phoenicians referred to themselves as Canaanites. I'd also reiterate — by reference to — Til Eulenspiegel's comment above which he began with «"Historical records" about this region [...]» — al-Shimoni (talk) 07:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry al-Shimoni I haven't looked back at this till now.

My understanding is this: Israel and Judah developed out of Canaanite culture - their inhabitants were Canaanites, they spoke Canaanite dialects and worshiped Canaanite gods (with the important exception of Yahweh, who was not Canaanite) and were generally indistinguishable from Canaanites. In the 8th century a prophetic movement arose in Israel (northern kingdom) dedicated to the idea that Israel (the kingdom) should worship Yahweh alone. They pretty much failed. Then Israel was destroyed and the prophets came south to Judah, where Yahweh was worshiped. They blamed the destruction of Israel on the failure of the kings of Israel to worship Yahweh, and, through a series of largely accidental events (the murder of a king, the accession of an 8 year old child to the throne, their success in becoming the child-king's guardians), they managed to become the single most powerful faction in Judah. These were the Deuteronomists. Their basic idea was that the kingdom should worship Yahweh alone, under the terms of a covenant between Israel (now seen as the people of God, not the kingdom) and Yahweh. "Canaanites" were those who were not "Israel".

Judah was destroyed by Babylon. Catastrophe, especially for the Deuteronomists - the covenant had failed. They could have reacted by declaring they'd been wrong - quite probably many Judahites did. Those who didn't, however, circled the wagons and insisted that if the covenant had failed it was Israel's fault for sinning - and sin was defined purely as not worshiping Yahweh alone. It's this period that many of the great prophetic books come from - half of Isaiah, all of Ezekiel, some of Jeremiah. It's also in this period that the history books get re-written - that's the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. There are many voices in the books, but they all try to explain why God abandoned Israel, and put the blame on Israel.

The third act began with the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539, just one long lifetime after the Exile. Not everyone had been exiled, by the way - back in Judah there were Judahites who'd stayed on. They'd taken over the lands of the exiles. Some of them worshiped Yahweh, some didn't (remember how prophets right down to Jeremiah excoriate the Judahites for following other gods - Yahweh-worship was an ideal more than a reality). And now the Yahweh-alone exiles were coming back, and they were more self-righteous than ever - Yahweh had delivered them, using Cyrus as his instrument! (Remember that Isaiah calls Cyrus the messiah, meaning the God-anointed king over Israel).

The fourth and final act was what happened when the exiles and the non-exiles met in Jerusalem in the last decades of the 6th century and the early 5th. There were questions to sort out, notably who really, truly owned all that land. The exiles had the upper hand - the Persians had recognised them as the rightful rulers of the province of Yehud (see Ezra-Nehemiah). The exiles effectively laid down the law to the non-exiles: join us and worship Yahweh and generally follow us, or else. They were Israel (holy community of Yahweh), everyone else, whether Judahite or not, was Canaan ... which was quite true, because they were indeed Canaan, but not the sort of Canaan that had or has any significance outside the history of the formation of early Judaism.

That's my personal potted version. I'd like to point you to the books that led me to this view, but it's not easy to find it set out like this. Some of the names you could look up are Albertz, Grabbe, Ska, and Blenkinsopp. Til would call them minimalists, but they're not - minimalists hold that the bible was complete fiction written in Hellenistic times or later, while these people agree that it was written first the mid-1st millennium and then revised heavily in the Exile and immediately after. That's mainstream these days.

Anywa, Ti will be delighted to hear that I'm trying very hard to give up Wikipedia - time is too precious, Wikipedia is too impermanent, and I fear I show addictive personality traits. PiCo (talk) 14:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I just think the records of the Hebrews, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, etc. about Canaan are all like pieces of one jigsaw puzzle, and I didn't think some of the pieces need to be segregated on some kind of ideological basis; I also continue to dispute statements like 'that's mainstream these days' being thrown about such controversial / contentious matters -- whose mainstream? Everyone it seems claims to be 'mainstream' these days. And being a wikipedian editor isn't that bad, you can make time for it without giving it up entirely. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Basically, Til, I agree. The analogy of a jigsaw puzzle is apt; the problem is that the jigsaw has been chewed by the dog, the kids have lost a lot of the pieces, and the instructions were written in a language meant for someone else and then seem to have put through the washing machine. I also agree that we shouldn't just throw around statements about what's mainstream. Personally I try to find books that are recent (recent because theories change over time, as new evidence and techniques come available), from people from solid academic backgrounds, and inside those I try to find statements along the lines of "Many scholars today believe...". That's not always possible.

I don't want to segregate the bible on the basis of any ideology of my own; I want to recognise that the biblical authors had their ideology, and treat what they wrote in the same spirit they wrote it. In other words, as a very good guide to their ideas of what Israel, the holy community set apart by God, was.

And make time? They've stopped making time! The clock ticks on, relentless. PiCo (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that is basically one of the few main theories going around. The problem is it is one of a few main theories, not the one and only main theory (there seems to be about 3 big ones when generalized, without splitting hairs). I can easily see another (or more) article(s) on Canaanites if it/they center(s) of the concept of one of the generalized theories (something like "The xxx Theory of Biblical Canaanites"). Such an article I think would be strong as long as its more than just a stub article.

However, it's a little more difficult (though, not impossible) for me to see another article on Canaanites if it is along the idea of article A is about "historical" Canaanites and article B is about "fictitious" Canaanites (something like "Canaan" as A and "Canaan (biblical)" as B). Such a split I think would eventually get remerged not too far down the road.

If there isn't enough material — to prevent it from being in a stub status — for a "Theory of..." type article like the first example it may work better as a dedicated section in this current article (multiple theories could fall into such a section to help reënforce the idea of the section, perhaps each as a subsection).

Just a comment regarding the comment on finding new/recent books. A problem I frequently see in many scientific fields is the concept people appear to have is that when a recent book/study comes out, even citing new evidence or logic concerning the interpretation of old evidence, they make an assumption that this new study "settles the argument" and that the concept in it is the new consensus. This is rarely ever the case, but rather just a new interpretation that may take decades to be decided on (usually after hundreds of other papers and books comment, tease-out, put it to trial, and deconstruct it). Old theories still can hold water, and are likely to not have as much written about them as newer ones just because the older one is felt to be strong and unneeding of prolific comment. New hypothesis, theories, books, studies, evidence is good, but doesn't necessarily nullify everything that preceded it. I, too, like to find new/recent thoughts/evidence, but I can be harsh/critical of them regardless of whether it supports a new concept or an old one, regardless if it supports a concept that I think has weight or one that I don't. Just some thoughts of mine. — al-Shimoni (talk) 06:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no argument that the Hebrew sources reflected then-current Hebrew ideology. It's just that the Egyptian sources like the Merneptah stele reflect Egyptian ideology, and the Assyrian sources reflect Assyrian ideology, etc. etc... What exactly would be the logical or neutral basis for saying "we like everybody else's sources, but the Jews are fictitious"? (Which has also been a recurrent theme in ideology over the millennia, since at least Vespasian, btw) Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Hang on Til, when I said the Biblical Canaanites were fictitious I didn't mean they didn't exist, I hope that should be clear from what I wrote above. I meant that the Bible's definition of "Canaanite" was highly idiosyncratic, because of the way the Bible tries to create a very sharp distinction between the Holy People and the rest. For the Bible-authors and editors of the time of Ezra, a Canaanite was anyone living in the immediate area who refused to accept their view of what was right - a great many Judahites must have ended up being branded as Canaanites, just because they refused to divorce their non-Israelite (read "not just back from Babylon with the right family connections") wives.

Leaving that aside, I've just had a look over the article and I'd like to suggest a few structural adjustments, not too radical, that might satisfy everyone.

• Nomenclature is fine but needs to be drastically shortened.
• History is probably fine with some revision to make it more inclusive - it's a bit too Israel-centred.
• New sections needed on religion and literature.
• Biblical Canaan can stay but needs review.

Just a suggestion. PiCo (talk) 10:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Revisions

I've made a few edits/additions - most importantly, I've created a new subsection called "Overview" within the History section, plus added new subsections for two periods that were previously not mentioned at all.

I think the History section is too long and mentions so many details that the main story is lost. I'd like to cut it back somewhat.

I'd also like to add sections on other aspects of Canaan - literature and religion, especially. PiCo (talk) 04:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)