President Obama appeared this morning, the 87^th day of the Gulf oil spill, to discuss the spill and BP’s relief efforts. According to the Heritage Foundation, today was the first time since June 22 that Obama had publicly acknowledged the spill’s existence. If you’re keeping score, that’s 24 days of publicly ignoring the spill’s existence, beginning 7 days after Obama used his first Oval Office address to tell us all what a tragedy this disaster was, and how its occurrence somehow meant that we needed to pay his government significantly more in taxes.

I guess he was so busy in the intervening 24 days — nearly a month — looking for an “ass to kick,” he couldn’t find the time to mention the ongoing spill. Or maybe he was just too busy playing the latest of the 10 rounds of golf he’s enjoyed since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster — nearly half the number of rounds his predecessor, George W. Bush, played in his entire 8 year tenure.

Obama’s decision to finally acknowledge, for the first time in nearly a month, that oil is still spewing into the Gulf is a very good sign for BP’s current relief effort. His 24 days of silence on the topic suggest that there’s no way Obama would be talking oil spill now if he hadn’t been assured that there was some major ongoing, or imminent, improvement in the situation he could safely take credit for.

And speaking of energy taxes and dependence, here’s something worth noting: even the backward (to say the least) Islamic “Republic” of Iran is taking significant steps to reduce its dependence on foreign fuel sources, upping its refining capacity in hopes of cutting gasoline imports by up to 75% in the next five years. Score one for the Persian state, which has shown itself, in at least one area, to be more truly “progressive” than the rigid ideologues currently attempting to lead America while permanently sojourning in energy independence fantasyland.

A real – and “comprehensive,” to use a pet liberal term in its correct setting – solution to America’s imported energy problem can be found in more efficient use of our domestic fossil fuel sources, and in expanding our use of nuclear energy. However, rather than seeking to implement actual solutions to our energy problem, the American left remains obsessed with their radical – and incredibly unrealistic ideas of what so-called “clean energy” should be. This, unfortunately, will do nothing but further increase our dependence on foreign energy sources, while further driving down an already failing Obama economy.

Speaking of backward nations, the world’s largest gathering of them — the United Nations — finally came to a decision on what action to take with regard to North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan, which resulted in the deaths of 46 ROK sailors.  Unsurprisingly, that decision was to condemn the act, but to make no mention whatsoever of the culprit. The Presidential Statement released by the UN Security Council paid lip service to South Korea’s claim of North Korean culpability, but then proceeded to “[take] note of the responses from other relevant parties, including from the DPRK, which has stated that it had nothing to do with the incident.”

The result, according to the statement, was that “the Security Council condemns the attack which led to the sinking of the Cheonan” — whoever the unnamed culprit might be.  Unsurprisingly, the former community organizer’s administration declared this milquetoast condemnation of an act with no mention of its culprit to be a strong, bold move against the out of control regime in Pyongyang.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the UNSCR’s statement “sends a clear message that such irresponsible and provocative behavior … will not be tolerated.”  North Korea, on the other hand, declared the non-condemnation condemnation a “great diplomatic victory” for Pyongyang.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which party — Obama administration official Hillary Clinton, or the Pyongyang regime — hit closer to the actual truth with their post-Presidential Statement spin.

Via good friend Dan McLaughlin, it looks like Mitt Romney is polling better with disaffected Obama voters than he is with Republicans.  This tells me two things about those respective groups of potential voters: (1) That the former hope-and-changers who are now disaffected Obama voters remain as gullible as ever, and that Republican voters are more knowledgeable about their potential candidates in general, and the architect of the RomneyCare disaster in particular, than we often give them credit for.  I’ll look with interest for further degradation of Romney’s numbers among Republicans in the next week, now that an “adviser” of his has been reported as saying former Alaska Governor, and current Tea Party/activist Republican darling, Sarah Palin is “not a serious human being.”

If you need a crystal-clear sign of how radioactive Democrats have become during their period of governmental dominance under President Obama (D-IL), Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), look no further than South Carolina, where the idea of supporting the Democrat establishment candidate was so distasteful to voters that they nominated an unemployed veteran with a dishonorable military discharge who had no campaign apparatus, and no cash on hand other than a stack of unemployment checks (thanks, Democrats!) he saved up to afford the $10,440 qualifying fee.

The fact that Rep. Clyburn (D-SC) and his allies in the crumbling Democrat establishment have called Greene a “Republican plant” speaks to just how out of touch the Democrats in government really are with those they purport to represent. Expect a lot more of this kicking, screaming, and Obama-style reflexive finger-pointing this November, when the American people exercise their right and their desire to throw out the dictocrats who are currently piloting our ship of state into the rockiest shoreline they can find.

Even The Politico has woken up to the fact that the New Great Communicator Barack Obama, and his administration as a whole, have turned out “to be not especially good at politics or communications.” Add to that the fact that more people are realizing that, as NRO’s Andy McCarthy put it, “race obsession of the Obama administration is a sight to behold,” and the public perception woes of this administration may only increase in the near future.

I was at Turner Field last night for the Atlanta Braves’ 2-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.  Like a fair number of Braves fans this year, I watch the team as much to see rookie phenom Jason Heyward as anything else.  The young man — at 20 years old, he just barely qualifies as a “man” — is not only a phenomenally talented baseball player, but his striking level of humility, poise, and maturity sets him apart from his peers.  Compare this young man, who is the consummate team player and who goes about his business on the field and off with maturity and professionalism, to those in his age cohort who are (or in some cases were) playing college football up GA Highway 316 at my alma mater, the University of Georgia, and the difference between a young man raised to have humility, and those who have been raised to feel 100% entitled, could not be made more clear.

Is there a better metaphor for Barack Obama’s out-of-touch presidency than his statement this morning that he didn’t feel the record earthquake that shook DC this morning? Okay, okay — there are plenty of metaphors for Obama’s amazing lack of a connection with the American people, but this is a pretty good one.

In the interest of time, space, and your sanity, that’s it for now. I’ll be back next week with more food for thought.

The last three defendants in “longest and costliest terrorism prosecution in British history,” the Sports Drink Suicide bomb plot case, were convicted yesterday in London of “plotting to commit murder” (good report at the NY Times). Prosecutors were unable to obtain a conviction on the charge of plotting to blow up airliners (more on that below).

The terrorists had hoped to detonate airliners in-flight with “liquid explosive inserted by syringes into plastic soft-drink bottles.” Their plot, which was pooh-poohed by cable news joke Keith Olbermann as a nonserious effort which “involved would-be hijackers who were under constant surveillance and had neither passports nor plane tickets” (a description invoked as part of a rant in which Olbermann was accusing Vice President Dick Cheney of “doing the work of terrorists”), was actually of such a severity that hearing MI-5’s report on it “would make your hair stand up,” according to Mark Mershon, then-head of the FBI’s New York field office.

The plot actually consisted of the following:

The seven flights singled out by the plotters for attack on a single day — scheduled to take off from Heathrow Airport near London within a two-and-a-half-hour span — were all flown by American or Canadian airlines and destined for New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal. Prosecutors said the intention was to sequence the attacks so closely that none of the aircraft had enough warning to overpower the plotters aboard or make emergency landings.

The terrorists’ plan for those planes, according to Mershon, was “to blow [them] up over U.S. cities to maximize casualties” for the purpose of “maximizing the potential loss of life and economic effect.” (TheTimes‘ report of prosecutors predicting “1,500 to 2,000″ dead had the plot been successful appears to address only the casualties who would have been on board those flight — not those on the ground had the planes been detonated over the major cities to which they were flying).

Despite federal knowledge of the terrorists’ intent, and despite “extensive e-mail and telephone evidence implicating the men accused in the case — some of it broadcast in television documentaries” — connecting the accused terrorists to their plot to detonate passenger-filled airliners, prosecutors couldn’t convict them on that main charge because “the law in Britain, unlike in United States and many other Western countries, does not allow the introduction of evidence gained by electronic intercepts.” Due to this law, the jury wasn’t allowed to consider any of the staggering electronic evidence for the terrorists’ guilt — a fact which allowed defense attorneys to succeed in making their case “that the prosecution failed to prove that [the defendants] knew that the targets of the bombings were to be aircraft.”

Though the evidence gathered through electronic surveillance was inadmissible in court, long-term monitoring carried out by British authorities (with significant American assistance) did play a major role in the tracking and eventual rolling up of the terrorists involved in the plot.

According to the Times, Jurors were allowed to view “martyrdom videos” by several defendants, including a video of terrorists Waheed Zaman, who said, “I warn you today so that you will have no cause for complaint…Remember, as you kill us, you will be killed; as you bomb us, you will be bombed.”

The case, which was a high-profile victory for US and UK counterterror efforts during the last years of the Bush and Blair administrations, highlighted the vulnerability of Western nations to the threat of Pakistan-based radical Islamist terror not just in the hinterland of Central Asia, but in their own sphere. It also served to illustrate the absurdity of a legal system in which massive quantities of evidence about terror plots and efforts cannot be admitted into court due to ultra-liberal court rulings prohibiting the admission of terrorist surveillance data into evidence.

In the end, all but two of the ten terrorist plotters brought to trial (of the 25 originally arrested) were convicted. “Three other men, including the plot’s alleged overseer in Britain, …were convicted of the airliner bombing charge at the second trial last year and sentenced to life in prison. Two other men were convicted last year of the conspiracy to murder charge, after being acquitted earlier on the airliner bombing charge.” These three, also convicted on the latter charge but not on the former, may be facing “life” sentences as well.

In order to take advantage of the resources and opportunities offered by their proximity to the fertile eastern Pacific Ocean, prehistoric inhabitants of the Andean coast of South America developed several types of watercraft.  Chief among these was the log balsa, a raft constructed of balsa tree trunks lashed together with henequen, covered with one or more decks of cane or reed, and fitted with crescent-rigged sails and guaras, or centerboards.  Though the seaworthiness of the balsa (along with the seafaring aptitude of those who built and sailed it) has been the subject of critically biased, often conflicting accounts over the nearly five centuries since contact, an assessment of its aboriginal design and construction demonstrates that this craft was both exceptionally seaworthy and admirably suited for its purposes.  The latter included fishing and coastal trade, and may also have included lengthier voyages of commerce and exploration.  The balsa logs used for the deck, which maintained excellent long-term buoyancy after an initial period of water absorption, kept the raft afloat on rolling seas and allowed seawater to wash through the structure, preventing it from swamping.  The upper decks imposed on the log frame allowed for sensitive cargo to be kept high and dry during ocean voyages, and the straw huts and cooking pits integrated into the decking of many balsas allowed seafarers access to subsistence and comfort while at sea.  The combination of highly aerodynamic crescent-rigged sails and guaras, long wooden foils which protruded from the bottom of the raft‟s deck at fore and aft, and which were raised and lowered below the waterline in tandem with sail adjustments to make course adjustments, made the balsa a highly maneuverable craft that was capable of efficiently sailing in any direction with respect to wind.  Though these rafts appeared primitive to many of the ship-sailing Europeans who saw and wrote about them, the aboriginal balsas of the pre-Columbian Andean coast were both well-designed and admirably suited for their purposes.

Read the entire paper here: http://www.jeffemanuel.net/files/Emanuel_Pre-Columbian-Seafaring-in-the-Andean-World.pdf

Dāgôn, the Philistines, and the Ultimate ‘Other’

The twelfth and eleventh centuries BC (the Iron Age I) made up a critical formative period both for the Israelites (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; Machinist, 2000) and for the Philistines (Machinist, 2000; Stone, 1995), one of a number of invading tribes of “Sea Peoples” (Pritchard, 1974, p. 262) who came to the Levant (Figure 1) from elsewhere in the Mediterranean world.[1] At this time, the Philistines were arriving in the coastal plain of southern Canaan and establishing the cities of their Pentapolis in the area that bears their name to this day (Stager, 1995), while the Israelites were settling in the highlands above the Philistine plain (Dever, 1998) and looking toward the coast in hopes of one day dominating the entirety of the region they viewed as their Promised Land (Joshua 1:2-4).  Both groups were striving for autonomy over their respective geographic areas and the people within them, while struggling to maintain their own distinctive cultures (Machinist, 2000; Stone, 1995).

It was at this time that the conflict raged between these two cultures that would feed centuries of negative biblical portrayals of the Philistines, a people who to the Israelites represented ultimate “otherness” (Machinist, 2000, p. 69).  Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Philistines are represented by various authors as the principal example of the anti-Israelite “other,” guilty of virtually every quality, trait, and action that the Israelites find unsettlingly different or abhorrent, including (inter alia) paganism, idol worship, lack of circumcision, eating pork, and consuming the blood of animals.  Some of the biblical authors’ accusations were true of the Philistines, some were not, and some were characteristic of far more people in and around Canaan than just this single group of immigrants.  However, the biblical effort to paint every counter-Israelite trait onto this “ideological foe” (Gordon, 2004, p. 22), was so thoroughly and completely accomplished that the term “Philistine” is still used to this day to refer to an uncultured or uneducated individual or population.  The portrayal of the Philistines as “the ultimate ‘other’” (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994) can be seen in multiple micronarratives within the biblical text, including the portion of the “Ark Narrative”[2] presented in 1 Samuel 4:1b-7:1, which tells of the capture and return of the sacred Ark of the Covenant by the pagan Philistines.

This paper will examine the archaeological record to determine whether existing evidence supports the biblical picture of Philistine religion as Ashdod- and Dāgôn-centric in the Iron Age I, as it is portrayed in the portion of the Ark Narrative contained in 1 Sam. 5:1-5.

The Ark Narrative

Dāgôn, whom the Bible portrays as a major Philistine god (Judg. 16:23; 1 Sam. 5:1-8) – perhaps even the chief deity of a Philistine amphictyony (Hedley, 1929; Machinist, 2000; McCarter, 1980; Rahtjen, 1965; Singer, 1992) – plays a key role in the Ark Narrative account, as does his temple at the southern Levantine city of Ashdod, one of the five that made up the Philistine Pentapolis (Josh. 13:2-3).  1 Sam. 5:1-8 tells of the events that befall both god and city after the Philistines rout the Israelites in battle, capture the Ark[3], and set it up in Dāgôn’s temple.[4] The priests of Dāgôn arrive at the temple the morning after the Ark’s placement there to find (the cult image of) their god prostrate before this symbol of YHWH, and the next morning to find Dāgôn’s head and hands broken off[5] and lying on the temple threshold, and his body again on the floor (vv. 3-4).  Following this, plagues break out in Ashdod, spurring the people to “summon [their] lords” in an effort to save their city from YHWH’s vengeance, which is “hard upon [the Ashdodites] and upon Dāgôn, [their] god” (vv. 7-8).  Finally, the Ark is transferred from Ashdod in accordance with the wishes of the Philistine serenim and of the people of Gath, who willingly receive this vessel of YHWH and go on to become the Israelite God’s next victims (vv. 8-9).

Background

The Philistines settled on the southern Levantine coast at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Stager, 1995; Ussishkin, 1998), building complex cultural and commercial centers on the ashes of the Canaanite cities they conquered (Barako, 2000; Cross & Stager, 2006; T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; Stager, 1995).[6] One such Canaanite city that was destroyed and re-founded by the Philistines was Ashdod, a center of international trade in the Late Bronze Age (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; Doumas, 1998) and at one point a key Egyptian stronghold in Canaan (M. Dothan & Porath, 1993).  Philistine inhabitation of Ashdod at this time is attested by contemporary literary sources, such as the Egyptian Onomasticon of Amenope (Gardiner, 1947), as well as by architectural, ceramic, and other material evidence, including faunal remains showing the Philistine introduction of pork and beef into the Levantine diet (T. Dothan, 1982, 1992, 1998; Finkelstein, 1995; A. Mazar, 1985b; Stager, 1995, 2006).  Excavations have revealed detailed evidence of mud-brick fortifications constructed in the twelfth century BC (T. Dothan 1982; T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994), planned growth in the eleventh century (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; M. Dothan & Porath, 1993), and tenth century destruction (T. Dothan, 1982) in the phases of the city dating to the Iron Age I (represented archaeologically by strata XIIIb-X; Figure 2).  Between the first phase of Philistine settlement and the city’s destruction at the end of the Iron Age I, Ashdod thrived as an urban center that, like the other cities of the Pentapolis, was home to “a diverse community of warriors, farmers, sailors, merchants, rulers, shamans, priests, artisans, and architects” (Stager, 1995, p. 345).

Despite possessing this information on Philistine Ashdod in the Iron Age I, we have very little specific information about Philistine culture during this time, either in Ashdod or in the remaining four cities – Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza – which combined to make up the Philistine Pentapolis, outside of the “meager” (Singer, 1992, p. 435) information provided in the Bible (T. Dothan, 1982; Machinist, personal communication, Feb. 24, 2010).  This extends in large part to the objects, locations, and practices of their cult, which is portrayed in the Ark Narrative as being centered on Dāgôn.  Though clear documentation of this key aspect of Philistine culture is lacking, however, the archaeological record does contain some clues to cultic practices in Iron I Ashdod, as well as some vocal silences.

Previous Scholarship

Philistine culture has been the subject of numerous twentieth and twenty-first century works of evidence-based archaeological scholarship.  When addressing the topic of Philistine cult within this genre, though, a striking number of scholars cite the biblical authors’ accounts in the books of Judg., 1 Sam., and 1 Chronicles as the sole factor in their acceptance of the existence of a prominent cult of Dāgôn among the Philistines.[7] This is based in part on the assumption that, as a part of the process of acculturation, the immigrant Philistines adopted a handful of Semitic gods from the myriad present in the Canaanite pantheon, of whom they made Dāgôn their chief god, as the biblical account appears to suggest.  A chief exception to this line of thought is A. Mazar (2000), who acknowledges that the Bible’s only direct references to Philistine cult are “embedded in…extensively redacted legendary and saga-like narratives…, making their reliability most questionable” (pp. 228-9), and who comments on the clear lack of a “satisfactory explanation” (p. 233) for the disparity between the archaeological record and the biblical account of Philistine cult.

II. The Biblical Account and the Archaeological Record

Dāgôn and Dāgān

In the Hebrew Bible, the god Dāgôn is associated exclusively with the Philistines (Judg. 16:22; 1 Sam. 5:2-5, 7; 1 Chron. 10:10).  In fact, as Machinist (2000) points out, the passages in which this god appears are written in such a way as to “make it clear that Dāgôn is not to be associated with any other group but the Philistines” (p. 59).  However, this portrayal does not reflect historical reality.  In fact, Dāgôn, or “its linguistically earlier and more widespread form, Dāgān” (Machinist, 2000, p. 59) was an established deity in the Ancient Near East long before the Philistines’ arrival in the Levant.  A father (along, contradictorily, with El) of the storm god Ba^cal in Ugaritic mythology, Dāgān was present in various pantheons in the Middle and Upper Euphrates regions as early as the reign of Sargon I of Akkad in the late third millennium BC (Gelb, 1935; Luckenbill, 1926a; Montalbano, 1951).  His presence in West Semitic lands in 1400 BC is attested by stelai bearing the god’s name, which were found on the ruins of the acropolis of ancient Ugarit (modern Tell Ras Shamra, in Syria) near a monumental temple that may have been dedicated to Dāgān himself (Artzi, 1968; Dussaud, 1935; Yon, 1992).

With the cult of Dāgān having been so widespread by the time of their arrival, it is perhaps no surprise that scholars have expressed the expectation that the interloping Philistines would have accepted this Semitic god as the tenured lord of the land they came to occupy (Ahlström, 1983-4).  However, this expectation is undermined by the fact that there are currently no known Bronze Age sources which mention Dāgān in relation to the southern Canaanite territory that would become the home of the Philistines (Artzi, 1968; A. Mazar, 2000; Singer, 1992).  Further, extrabiblical evidence – including material remains – connecting the Philistines with the male god Dāgān is, to date, entirely absent from the archaeological record (M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; A. Mazar, 2000).  Instead, all available archaeological evidence points to Philistine cult in the Iron I as being centered on a very different deity than Semitic Dāgān, father of Ba^cal.

‘Ashdoda’ and the Great Mother Goddess

The most common cultic find in Philistia is a terra cotta representation of a female whose body is integrated into a chair, and who is sometimes portrayed holding an infant (A. Mazar, 1986).  Pieces of these schematic figurines have been found at Tell Miqne (ancient Ekron), Aphek, and Tell Qasîle (A. Mazar, 1985b, 2000; Vanschoonwinkel, 1999).  However, the best of these finds, in terms of both density and stratification, have been made at Ashdod (T. Dothan, 1982).  The finds at Ashdod include numerous body fragments and three- and four-legged statuette bases resembling miniature offering tables (M. Dothan & Freeman, 1967), as well as the lone complete figure found to date (T. Dothan, 1982).  The birdlike heads, elongated necks, and spreading poloi of these figures are Mycenaean in character (T. Dothan, 1982; Vanschoonwinkel, 1999).  In some cases, features like eyes, nose, and ears formed of small clay pellets have been applied to the heads (M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; A. Mazar, 1986).  Their stylization suggests that Philistine design and coloration were used to present a Mycenaean concept in material form, but with significant enough alterations – particularly in the integration of body and seat (A. Mazar, 2000) – so as to make this style of figure uniquely reflective of the culture responsible for its creation (Vanschoonwinkel, 1999).

The one complete figurine discovered to date, a 17 cm high, anatomically-decorated, schematic statuette of brown clay nicknamed “Ashdoda” by M. Dothan, the excavator who discovered it (M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; Figures 3 & 4), was found in stratum XII (twelfth century BC) of Area H (Figure 5) at Ashdod (M. Dothan, 1971).  The figurine is covered in a white slip, over which is painted a design of alternating horizontal bands and vertical triangles.  The triangles are a stylization of the Egyptian lotus flower motif (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994); further, between its appliquéd breasts is painted a necklace from which a lotus flower pendant is suspended (M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994). Also found in the vicinity of Ashdoda (in stratum XI) was a cylinder seal bearing, along with cryptic linear symbols that may be an example of elusive Philistine writing (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005; M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; A. Mazar, 1985b), an anthropomorphic stick-figure design which features an integration of legs and seat that is reminiscent of the Ashdoda figurine (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005).

The combination of this female deity’s ubiquity (it has been found throughout, though rarely outside of, the Philistine Pentapolis) and her Mycenaean attributes (M. Dothan, 1988; T. Dothan, 1982; A. Mazar, 2000; Vanschoonwinkel, 1999) support the theory that she represents a form of the Mycenaean Great Mother goddess which the Philistines brought with them from their place of origin (M. Dothan, 1971; Singer, 1992), and which was previously unknown in Canaan (T. Dothan, 1982).  Whatever its source, Ashdoda is the first – and, to date, still the only – archaeological evidence of any Philistine deity (M. Dothan, 1971; T. Dothan, 1982; A. Mazar, 2000) in the Iron Age I.  Her presence in the archaeological record shows that, whatever other deities may have been in their pantheon, the Philistines were still worshipping a goddess of Mycenaean origin at this time (M. Dothan, 1971; T. Dothan, 1982).  Further, archaeological finds in late Iron Age Ashdod have provided evidence of significant cult continuity (M. Dothan & Freedman, 1967; Hachlili, 1971).  This cross-stratigraphic occurrence of Ashdoda-style objects (Hachlili, 1971; M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; A. Mazar, 1986) suggests that the cult surrounding this deity, which began in Ashdod in the twelfth century BC, continued there until the end of the eighth century, when the city was conquered by Sargon II of Assyria in 712 BC (M. Dothan, 1971; Luckenbill, 1926b).

The Samson Saga and the Temple at Tell Qasîle

The Bible mentions two temples of Dāgôn, but it only offers a physical description of one: the temple at the Philistine city of Gaza, which is featured in the Samson saga.  The temple of at Ashdod, first mentioned in the Bible at 1 Sam. 5:1, is held in biblical tradition to have survived in some form from the early Iron Age into the late Hellenistic period, when it was burned to the ground by Jonathan Maccabeus (1 Macc. 10:84).  However, few details are provided about this temple in the biblical narrative; we are simply told that it housed (the cult statue) of Dāgôn which sat on a raised platform, before or beside which the Ark was placed after its capture (1 Sam. 5:2-3).  As a result, if detailed information on a Philistine temple of Dāgôn is to be found within the pages of the Hebrew Bible – which is, to date, the only source that mentions the existence of such a structure – we must look to the Samson saga.  In the book of Judges, the Deuteronomistic historian describes the temple of Dāgôn at Gaza as being supported by two pillars (16:26), and says that, at the time of Samson’s last stand, the temple was full of men, women, and the Philistines’ political leaders, and that an additional 3,000 people were standing on the roof of the structure (v. 27).  It is by pushing these pillars down that Samson fells the building, killing the thousands of Philistine people on and in the temple – “more than he ever killed in life” (v. 30) – along with himself (vv. 29-30).

This description of a Philistine temple whose roof was supported by two pillars calls to mind a temple at Tell Qasîle, a city founded by the Philistines in the late twelfth century BC (A. Mazar, 2000).  Like the Bible’s temple of Dāgôn at Gaza, this cultic structure, discovered in 1972 by A. Mazar, had a roof that was supported by two columns (A. Mazar, 1973).  Further, despite incorporating multiple styles including Canaanite and Egyptian elements (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; A. Mazar, 1980), this temple was Mycenaean in character in two key ways.  First, it was built into the city plan and bounded on multiple sides by other buildings, rather than being a free-standing construction in the Canaanite tradition (A. Mazar, 1980, 2000).  Second, at 8 x 14.5 m., it was of modest size, unlike its monumental Canaanite counterparts (A. Mazar, 1980, 2000).  This latter fact poses a problem when attempting to apply the Tell Qasîle temple to the Samson story, as 116 m² is obviously insufficient space for three thousand people.  Of course, numerative exaggeration is not uncommon in the Bible. Two examples in the Ark Narrative itself are the claim of thirty thousand Israelite soldiers being killed by the Philistines at the battle of Aphek (1 Sam. 4:10), and the gloss (McCarter, 1980) of “fifty thousand men” dying before the Ark upon its return from Philistia (6:19).  Explanations of battle figures, such as those in the former example, have been proposed that would alter the status of the term “thousand” from a numeric figure to the designator of a group of certain size, perhaps 5 to 14 men (McCarter, 1980; Mendenhall, 1958).  However, in the case of the Samson saga, this explanation does not appear to fit the narrative.  The biblical claim that Samson’s death brought about the deaths of more Philistines than this hero had ever killed in life (Judg. 16:30) seems to make it unlikely that the specificity of the number and character of the Philistines present at the temple at the time of Samson’s last stand was unintentional, or that it was given with an ulterior meaning intended.  However, numerative exaggeration in v. 27 cannot be ruled out, so the temple at Tell Qasîle cannot be altogether discounted as an archaeological blueprint for the one temple of Dāgôn for which a biblical description exists, nor of the other, for which no such description is offered.

In Search of a Temple at Ashdod

Archaeologists lack any blueprint for temple of Dāgôn at Ashdod of the sort that the book of Judges provides for the structure at Gaza.  As a result, any search for a temple of Dāgôn in this city must be conducted without literary guidance, though to date that dearth of detail has proved to be largely immaterial.  For, like the cult of this Semitic god, the archaeological record also lacks evidence for a temple of Dāgôn in any form at Ashdod in the Iron Age I.

Extensive structures from this period have been uncovered over the course of several years of excavations.  However, only one building complex that appears to have had a cultic function (T. Dothan, 1982) has been unearthed thus far.  Like the Ashdoda figurine, this complex, the main area of which is composed of a structure remnant designated Building 5233 (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 1995; Figure 6), was found in area H of Ashdod.  It dates to the twelfth century (stratum XII) and contains a “quasi-apsidal structure, built above a regular substructure” (T. Dothan, 1982, p. 41; M. Dothan, 1971) on its southern end.  B5233 is bounded on the northern end by a complex made up of two rows of rooms, which straddle a court or central hall that features a double floor of crushed lime and kurkar and two round stone bases for columns.  Attached to the western column base is a 1.75 by 1.30 m. kurkar brick structure faced with white plaster-coated bricks (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005; T. Dothan, 1982).  This seems to have been an Aegean-style free-standing hearth and central hall (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005).  Though the columns, like those at Tell Qasîle, are reminiscent of the biblical temple of Dāgôn at Gaza, and though T. Dothan and Cohn (1994) refer to the kurkar structure as an altar for offerings, M. Dothan and Ben-Shlomo (2005) see this hearth complex, designated Building 5337, as being a residential building which is of common – if relatively upscale – design in Ashdod, particularly in this stratum, across multiple areas of the city (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005; M. Dothan & Porath, 1993).  Further, though B5233, with its apsidal southern end, and B5337, with its columns and hearth, are adjacent to each other, no doorway or other route of access between the two structures has been located.  Rather, they appear “to be two separate buildings, built back to back” (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005, p. 30), with an 8 m. wall separating the two structures.

The proximity of B5233 to building 5032, the location where the complete Ashdoda figurine was discovered (M. Dothan, 1971; Figure 7), has naturally led to the theory that this apsidal building may have had a role in the cult of the female deity, despite the fact no other temples with apses are known in Canaan from this time (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994).  Unfortunately, a lack of diagnostic finds has so far made it impossible to conclusively determine the purpose of this complex, or of its unique apsidal southern end (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005; T. Dothan, 1982).  Further, the residential nature of the structure in which the complete Ashdoda was discovered, and the similar circumstances in which several other figurine fragments have been found, suggest that the deity may have had a domestic, rather than public, function (A. Mazar, 2000).  This theory is further supported by the goddess’s conspicuous absence from buildings which are known to be Philistine temples, such as those in Tell Qasîle and Tell Miqne/Ekron Field IV (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005; A. Mazar, 1980, 2000).  The potential domestic function of Ashdoda may mean that B5233 had no cultic function at all.  A third option is that B5233 served as the temple of a deity for which evidence has not yet been discovered.

III. Making Sense of the Existing Evidence

Exposure and Acculturation

Despite the imposition of newly-constructed Philistine cities on the ashes of their Canaanite predecessors, it is clear that a sizable population of Canaanites remained in Philistia after the initial building period.  The actual ratio of Philistines to Canaanites in Iron I is a matter of debate.  Stager (1991, 1995), for example, argues for a Philistine emigration to the Levant so massive that it made the members of this “Sea Peoples” tribe an overwhelming majority in Philistia.  This theory is apparently supported by the presence of noncombatants, including women and children riding in ox-drawn carts, in Ramesses III’s relief at Medinet Habu of the great land battle between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples (T. Dothan, 1982; Pritchard, 1969; Stone, 1995).  Conversely, A. Mazar (1985a) and Bunimovitz (1998) cite ceramic and cultural continuity from the Late Bronze Age as evidence for their claim that the Philistines served as a ruling minority within the land they controlled (Stone 1995).  The former is borne out at Ashdod, where Strata XIII and XII, which represent the Iron Age IA and IB, contain greater deposits of Canaanite pottery than that in the Mycenaean IIIC:1, Aegean, and Philistine Bichrome styles (M. Dothan & Freedman, 1967; M. Dothan, 1971; M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005).  It is only in the Iron IB, in fact, that the combination of Mediterranean and Philistine styles surpasses Canaanite pottery as a majority of ceramic remains at Ashdod (M. Dothan & Ben-Shlomo, 2005).

Whatever its size, it stands to reason that the existence of a Canaanite population in these newly-established (or, more correctly, reestablished) Philistine cities, combined with a lack of Philistine contact with their cultural point of origin (Stone, 1995), should have acted as an accelerant on the acculturation process for this Mediterranean people.  However, despite living among, and having constant contact with, the indigenous Semites, ceramic evidence may suggest that the Philistines made an effort to resist acculturation for the first century or two of their occupation (Stone, 1995).  If there is a “golden age” of Philistine culture and influence to be spoken of, it is the Iron I – the time in which the biblical narratives, including the Ark Narrative, are set (M. Dothan & Freedman, 1967; A. Mazar, 1985b).  It was in the second half of this phase, in the late twelfth and the eleventh centuries, that the Philistines reached their peak in economic and political power, as a result of controlling both coastal and inland trade routes.  It was also during this time, which has been called the “Pax Philistea” by B. Mazar (1974, p. 158), that the Philistines’ cities grew to their largest sizes, and that new cities, such as Tell Qasîle, were founded (A. Mazar, 1985b, 2000; Stager, 1995).

By the Iron II, beginning ca. ninth century BC, the situation had changed: the Philistines’ influence had waned to such a degree that they were no longer a leading power within the Levant.  With that waning, more outside influences were drawn into its cultural and material practices (Gitin, 1992; Stone, 1995), though the centuries-long continuity of the Ashdoda cult suggests that resistance to acculturation continued to a greater degree and for a longer period than many have maintained (Deger-Jalkotzy, 1998; Stone, 1995).  Eventually, though, the Philistines did lose both identity and autonomy (Bunimovitz, 1990; Gitin, 1992; T. Dothan, 1998), as Philistia was first subsumed into the Assyrian empire in the eighth century (T. Dothan, 1982; Luckenbill, 1926b), and then conquered by the Neo-Babylonians at the end of the seventh century BC (Cross & Stager, 2006; Wiseman, 1956).

Dāgān and the Philistines

The fact that a temple and cult of Dāgān was present at Ugarit, where merchants from Canaanite Ashdod were active during the Late Bronze Age (M. Dothan, 1971), makes it seem logical that the Philistine would have come into contact with that cult upon their arrival in the Levant.  However, as mentioned above, despite the Ashdodites’ extensive contact with the people of this city in modern-day Syria – some traders even lived in the city proper or in its nearby harbor town (M. Dothan, 1971) – as well as with Mesopotamia (T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994), no Bronze Age sources referencing Dāgān’s presence in southern Canaan are known (A. Mazar, 2000; Singer, 1992), and the extensive excavations that have been carried out at Ashdod (Dever, 1973) have failed to discover evidence of a temple or cult of Dāgôn in the remains of the Iron I Philistine city.  Further, despite the strong assertions in Judg., 1 Sam., and 1 Chron. that Dāgôn was a Philistine deity, the Bible is not entirely free of internal confusion on the subject of Philistine cult.  Machinist (2000) points out, “Judg. 10:6 suggests that their pantheon was distinctive among the peoples of ancient Palestine.  Yet the three deities specifically mentioned [Dāgôn, Ashtaroth, and Ba^cal-Zebub] all have, it appears, West Semitic names and all are known elsewhere in the West Semitic world contemporary with and earlier than the period of ancient Israel” (p. 59).  I. Singer (1992) parses this verse to come up with the explanation that Ba^cal and Ashtaroth were intended to be associated with the Canaanites, while the Philistine pantheon was meant to be separate.

As also mentioned above, though, current archaeological evidence appears to point to a female fertility deity having been central to Iron I Philistine culture (A. Mazar, 2000), with little evidence of other cults having been present at this time.  Attempts have been made to reconcile this record with the biblical account of the male Dāgôn as god of the Philistines.  M. Dothan (1971) has proposed a Philistine suppression of the cult of Dāgān on the southern coast of Canaan in the first century of occupation, during which worship of the Great Mother goddess, represented by Ashdoda, was established and enforced.  He suggests that by the eleventh century, the Philistines’ cultural ties with their Canaanite neighbors may have improved enough to result in and ending of the suppression of this Semitic cult, and the construction of a temple of Dāgôn in Ashdod.

Singer (1992), on the other hand, has suggested that the Mycenaean goddess may actually have served as the forerunner of Philistine Dāgôn, positing that the function of the Middle and Upper Euphratean god Dāgān was so closely matched to the function of the Philistines’ own chief deity that the difference in sex between the Semitic god and the Mycenaean Great Mother goddess was a syncretistic nonfactor.  He arrives at this conclusion in part through a comparison of the genealogies of Greek gods with those of the pantheons of Ugarit and Phoenicia, in which Dāgān is named as a father of the storm god Ba^cal, therefore making him the pseudo-equivalent of the Cretan Rhea, wife of Kronos and mother of Zeus (or of a deity made up of Kronos and Rhea merged into one).  Singer’s proposal also derives from the assumption that lion(ess)-headed cups in the style of Mycenaean or northern Canaanite libation vessels found elsewhere in Philistia are related to the cult of the Great Mother goddess, who in turn can be equated with Dāgān.  These “head cups” (Maeir, 2006, p. 338, n. 1), sometimes described as rhyta (A. Mazar, 2000), make up the bulk of non-Ashdoda cultic objects found in Iron I Philistia.  They have been found, among other locations, at Ashdod (Dothan and Dothan 1992), Megiddo, Tell Miqne/Ekron, Tell Qasîle, and Zeror (Maeir, 2006; A. Mazar, 2000), though the greatest number has been found at Tell es-Safi/Gath (Maeir, 2006), a site Dāgôn is not specifically affiliated with in the biblical narrative.  A. Mazar (2000, p. 223) calls Singer’s proposal that the lion-head cups are affiliated with the cult of the Great Mother goddess “unsubstantiated.”  However, Maeir (2006) finds the likelihood that these “head cups” do depict lionesses to be a point in Singer’s favor, making his suggestion “acceptable” – though he does provide the caveat that this “is not contingent upon identifying Dāgôn specifically as this goddess” (p. 341).  As A. Mazar (1980, p. 133, n. 15) points out, “the lion motif was popular in all branches of Near Eastern and Aegean art, and thus no particular statement should be made concerning its role in the…Philistine cult” at all, let alone that associated with Ashdoda.  Further, these “head cups” do not match the Ashdoda-style figurines’ cross-stratigraphic occurrence; instead, they are only found in association with twelfth through tenth century Philistine culture (Maeir, 2006).

In defense of his theory that Semitic Dāgān and the Mycenaean goddess Rhea (or her Anatolian counterpart, Kybele) merged into a single male deity – Dāgôn – in the Philistine pantheon, Singer suggests that such syncretic gender transformation has widespread precedent in the ancient world.  However, while there are examples of similar deities taking on male and female gender roles in different cultures, such as the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash and his Canaanite equivalent, the sun goddess Shapash (Machinist, personal communication, Feb. 23, 2010), this argument is not supported by the archaeological record, which to date contains little or no evidence of such a syncretic shift.[8] In fact, Singer himself admits that his proposal would require the Philistines, for a time, to have worshipped “their chief deity as a goddess, despite her equation with [male] Dāgôn” (p. 445), before swapping genders yet again and making their chied goddess a male.  I personally like to refer to this unlikely theory of transgendered worship as “the emasculation of Philistine Dāgôn,” and find Singer’s argument, though intriguing and well thought out, to be unpersuasive.

IV. Archaeological Silence and the Question of Historicity

The biblical portrayal of the Philistines as the Israelites’ ultimate ideological and martial foe makes the former the ideal antagonist for a story like the Ark Narrative, with its triumphant tale of YHWH meting out humiliation and defeat on a pagan people and their chief deity, all of whom lack a proper respect for the one true God.  Some of the details presented in the narrative, including those having to do with Philistine culture, may reflect historical reality,[9] though the narrator’s accounts of events that take place within Philistia, such as conversations between Philistine individuals and the nocturnal goings-on in the temple of Dāgôn, are almost certainly not historically accurate.  This naturally begs the question of just what within the portion of the Ark Narrative presented in 1 Sam. 5:1-8 actually is an accurate depiction of historical fact – and whether that definition applies to author’s claim of a  Dāgôn-centric cult at Ashdod.

Based solely on material remains and extant inscriptions, the biblical claim of a cult and temple of Dāgôn at Ashdod during the Iron I, the time in which the events of the Ark Narrative are set, appears to be unsubstantiated.  This is not to declare that Philistine Dāgôn and his temple at Ashdod were figments of a Deuteronomistic historian’s imagination, or that the Ark Narrative’s portrayal of Philistine culture is unquestionably wrong.  However, the possibility that accounts such as this may be less than accurate in both large and small details must be considered, particularly given the age of the events their authors claim to be recounting, as well as the Israelite penchant for assigning faults and traits alike to the Philistines that are not necessarily supported by the archeological and historical records.  In such a case as the Ark Narrative, where no archaeological evidence has been found to corroborate the biblical description of Philistine cult, the next step is not to discount the story as a worthless piece of fiction, but to consider why the author told the story the way he did, if it was not simply to recount a factual series of events.[10]

Even Singer (1992, p. 435) acknowledges that “the historicity of some of these [biblical] passages…is quite doubtful,” though he summarily dismisses any “doubts concerning the credibility of [the] scarce information provided by the Israelite sources,” declaring that “there is no reason to assume any author in any period would deliberately misquote the name of the Philistines’ main deity.”  However, this is not necessarily the case.  Historiographical conveyance of true fact, as we understand history today, has not always been the purpose of pseudo-historical texts – a statement which is particularly accurate when applied to the pre-modern world (Stager, 2006; Urton, personal communication, March 3, 2010; Zender, personal communication, Dec. 16, 2009).  The Ark Narrative’s power and purpose are not lessened by a lack of historical accuracy any more than the points of the Exodus or of Noah’s flood are lessened by their questionable historicity.  In fact, depending on the author’s purpose in writing such an account, portrayal of historical fact may or may not have been his intention at all.  Further, any mythohistorical account, be it a biblical story like the Ark Narrative or the Samson saga, or the product of another culture like the Iliad, is bound to incorporate certain measures of inadvertent inaccuracy and artistic license (A. Mazar, 2000), both of which are likely to grow – thereby reducing the detailed accuracy of the narrative (A. Mazar, 1985b) – in the telling.

V. Conclusion

Arguments from “archaeological silence” must be undertaken delicately, as proving a negative through material remains – particularly those which, if they are to be located, recovered, and interpreted, must have survived multiple millennia under ever-increasing layers of destruction, debris, and new building – is something which can rarely be done either effectively or convincingly.  Therefore, drawing accurate, permanent, and unquestioned conclusions based on the absence of evidence, be they concerning the record of a long-deceased king or the temple and cult of an ancient god, is a task which borders on the impossible.  After all, despite some who would claim the contrary (Steiner, 1998) an absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.  Further, when the lack of something is held out to prove one’s case, the standard for disproving that conclusion is very low indeed.  In the case of Dāgôn and Ashdod, the discovery, for example, of a single inscription or stele of the type found at Tell Ras Shamra/Ugarit could negate centuries of archaeological silence, and cast the Iron Age I Philistine religion, as well as the historicity of a portion of the Bible’s Deuteronomic History, in a brand new light.

However, the preponderance of archaeological evidence available at this point suggests that the cult of the Semitic god Dāgān/Dāgôn had not yet reached Ashdod by the Iron Age I.  The only cultic evidence that has been found to date in that Philistine city is small female statuary in the mold of M. Dothan’s “Ashdoda.”  Despite the efforts of some scholars to equate this deity with Dāgôn in some fashion (Singer 1992), or to explain her exclusive presence in the Iron I record as a brief hiatus in the ongoing worship of Dāgôn in Canaan (M. Dothan, 1971), archaeological evidence for either of these proposals is nonexistent.  Similarly, despite the Ark Narrative’s placement of the temple of Dāgôn in Ashdod in the Iron I, the only structural remains of possible cultic association dating to this period lack any visible connection to this god.  It is still possible that the biblical portrayal of Philistine cult at this time is, in fact, accurate.  However, given the lack of evidence for a temple or cult of Dāgôn at Ashdod in the Iron I, as well as the Israelite penchant for painting the enemy Philistines with traits and beliefs that do not appear to actually have applied to them, the possibility that this account represents something other than an accurate portrayal this coastal people’s religious beliefs, locations, and practices is something that should be considered by scholars engaging in future study of this topic.

Figure 1. Coast of the Southern Levant at the end of the Iron Age I (10^th century BC), from Gaza in the South to Tell Qasîle in the North.[11]

Figure 2. Chart depicting the stratigraphy of Ashdod, along with the date range that each stratum represents and the archaeological phase(s) each stratum contains.[12]

Figure 3. “Ashdoda” figurine from Stratum XII, Area H at Ashdod.[13]

Figure 4. “Ashdoda” figurine from Stratum XII, Area H at Ashdod.[14]

Figure 5. Map of Tell Ashdod’s archaeological zones. Building 5233 and the complete Ashdoda figurine were both discovered in Area H, at top left.[15]

Figure 6. Map of Ashdod, Area H, Stratum XII. [16] Building 5233, the structure featuring an apsidal construction that may have cultic significance, is located in grid R-7.  B5337, featuring two column bases and a kurkar hearth, is in grids S-10 and T-10.

Figure 7. Area H, Strata 4-1 (Equivalent to Strata XI-VI; cf. Figure 2).[17] The building where the complete Ashdoda was discovered is Building 5032, a polygonal structure located in grid R-6.  The southern end of B5233, the apsidal structure, is just north of B5032 in R-7.

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Kassis, H. E. (1965). Gath and the Structure of the ‘Philistine’ Society. Journal of Biblical Literature, 84(3), 259-271.

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Stone, B. J. (1995). The Philistines and Acculturation: Culture Change and Ethnic Continuity in the Iron Age. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 298, 7-32.

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[1] Theories abound on where the “Sea Peoples” as a whole, and the Philistines specifically, originated from. These theories include southwestern or western Anatolia (Albright, 1975; Mellaart, 1984; Singer, 1988, 1992; Zangger, 1995), the Illyrian coast of the northern Balkans (Bonfante, 1946; Herbig, 1940; Liverani, 1963; Mertens, 1960), and the “world of the Mycenaean Greeks” (Stager, 2006, p. 378), which was made up of the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands, and Crete (Barako, 2000; Barnett, 1975 Bunimovitz, 1998; M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; T. Dothan, 1982; Drews, 1993; Heurtley, 1936; Hrouda, 1964; Jones, 1972; A. Mazar, 2000; Stager, 1995, 2006; Waldbaum, 1966). Based on the prevalence of Mycenaean ceramics and other elements of material culture, as well as physical representations of ritual and ideology, present at Ashdod, Ekron, and Ashkelon in the first phase (twelfth century BC) of Philistine settlement (T. Dothan, 1982, 1994; A. Mazar, 1988; Stager, 1995), the correct answer appears to be a Mycenaean cultural center on the Greek mainland or elsewhere in the nearby Aegean world (Niemeier, 1998).

[2] The term “Ark Narrative” refers to the story of the Ark of the Covenant’s transfer from Shiloh under the Elide priesthood to Jerusalem under the Davidic monarchy (1 Sam. 4:1-7:1 & 2 Sam. 6:1-19).  It was coined by Leonhard Rost (1965), who saw this as a cohesive narrative predating the surrounding portions of the book of Samuel.

[3] The Ark Narrative is rife with standard Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) motifs, of which this is a prominent example. Here, the Ark functions as the Israelites’ version of a divine cult image.  Taking these images in battle was a common practice in the ANE, as their capture was seen as being akin to capturing those gods themselves.  Some of the best examples of this motif in the Iron Age I and II come from Assyrian annals, such as prism inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I (Luckenbill, 1926a).  An example with a direct bearing on the Philistine world comes from the late eighth century annals of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukia, which say, “Ashdod, Gath, and [Ashdod-by-the-sea], I besieged, I captured. The gods dwelling therein…I counted as spoil” (Luckenbill, 1926b, pp. 13-14).

[4] I Sam. 5:1-2.  Captured cult images were routinely set up in the temples of the conquering deities in the ANE, either as gifts to the gods of the victors or as lesser deities to be worshipped alongside those already present in the conquerors’ pantheon.  This is especially attested in Assyrian annals; see, inter alia, the prism inscription of Tiglath-Pileser and the quay-wall inscription of Adad-Nirari II (Luckenbill, 1926a).

[5] YHWH’s severing of Dāgôn’s hands reflects a combat motif common in ANE tradition (Kang, 1989).  The practice of cutting off the hands of combat victims is attested over a broad period of time in the region. For examples, see, inter alia, the annals of Pharaoh Thutmose III at Karnak, in which “hands” are listed among the “plunder” taken by the pharaoh’s men after the ca. 1468 BC battle of Megiddo (Pritchard, 1974, p. 237), the mid-twelfth century reliefs of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, which feature images of Egyptians counting the severed hands of slain enemies (Pritchard, 1969; Yadin, 1963), and the ninth century bronze reliefs on the Gates of Shalmaneser III at Balawat, which depict live victims’ hands and feet being severed (Yadin, 1963).

[6] The Philistines may also have served in small numbers as mercenary soldiers for the Egyptian pharaohs in their early years (Albright, 1975; T. Dothan, 1957, 1958, 1982; T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; Singer, 1988, 1994; Wright, 1959).  The opposing view holds that Ramesses III responded to the Philistine invasion of Canaan by retreating to established garrisons outside the borders of the land that would become Philistia, and that the Philistines established the five cities of their Pentapolis “at key positions along the perimeter” (Stager, 1995, p. 342; Bietak, 1993; Bunimovitz, 1998).

[7] The list of scholars and publications includes (but is far from limited to): Ahlström, 1983-4; Albright, 1922; M. Dothan & Dothan, 1992; T. Dothan, 1982; T. Dothan & Cohn, 1994; Habachi, 1961; Macalister, 1914; Rahtjen, 1965; Steibing, 1970.  I. Singer (1992), on the other hand, agrees that Dāgôn was chief god of the Philistines, based on the biblical account, but does not accept that a cult of Dāgān existed in Canaan before the Philistines’ arrival.  Instead, he argues that the Philistines introduced this god to the area they came to occupy, suggesting that the Philistines originally adopted this god in Syria as they were making their way down the Levantine coast, or adopted him later from the Phoenicians.

[8] By the Iron Age II, male figurines in the style of Ashdoda are present in the archaeological record, and by the ninth century they begin to outnumber female figures (T. Dothan, 1982).  However, the continued presence of female figures (M. Dothan, 1971; T. Dothan, 1982; A. Mazar, 2000) makes it highly unlikely that a high-ranking female deity underwent a complete shift into male form, as Singer suggests happened with the Mycenaean Great Mother goddess and Dāgôn.

[9] General accuracy within the oral and early written traditions was certainly not unheard of at this time.  Stager (1995, 2006) points out that the eighth and seventh century prophets Amos (9:7) and Jeremiah (47:4) recall Caphtor, or Crete, as the origin of the Philistines, a “tradition [which] conveys a certain amount of historical memory about their Mycenaean origins, some four centuries earlier” (1995, p. 332), and recognizes (2006) accurate details nestled within the biblical portrayal of Philistine cultural history.  Bloch-Smith (2003) takes this a step further, saying, “Regarding Israelite-Philistine relations, the texts mirror the archaeological remains with only slight distortion” (p. 424) – a true statement when compared to the accuracy of textual representations of Philistine culture, but a significant generalization all the same.

[10] This, however, is another paper.

[11] From Bible History Online. http://www.bible-history.com/geography/maps/map_palestine_coastal_plain_south.html. Accessed April 19, 2010.

[12] After Dothan, M. (1971). Ashdod II-III: The Second and Third Seasons of Excavations 1963, 1965, soundings in 1967. ‘Atiqot English Series IX-X, 24; and Dothan, M., & Ben-Shlomo, D. (2005). Ashdod VI: The Excavation of Areas H and K (1968-1969). Israel Antiquities Authority Reports, 24, 9.

[13] From Dothan, M., & Dothan, T. (1992). People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. New York, NY: Macmillan, 155

[14] From Dothan, M. (1971). Ashdod II-III: The Second and Third Seasons of Excavations 1963, 1965, soundings in 1967. ‘Atiqot English Series IX-X, Plate LXXXII.

[15] From Dothan, M. (1993). Ashdod. The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Vol. 1, p. 94). Jerusalem, Israel: Israel Exploration Society.

[16] From Dothan, M., & Ben-Shlomo, D. (2005). Ashdod VI: The Excavation of Areas H and K (1968-1969). Israel Antiquities Authority Reports, 24, 22.  Cropped for size.

[17] From Dothan, M. (1971). Ashdod II-III: The Second and Third Seasons of Excavations 1963, 1965, soundings in 1967. ‘Atiqot English Series IX-X, 160.

Introduction

The purpose of “A Statue of a ‘Triton’ from Gaza,” by Labib Habachi, was to explore, using close observation and consideration of historical sources, whether an artifact discovered in Gaza could be a representation of Dāgôn, the biblical deity of the early Iron Age (late second millennium BC) Philistines whose temple was mentioned in Judges 16:21-23.  The object in question, a 65 cm (25.5 in.) high basalt statue of a bearded male form with a human torso and head, but with fish tails in place of human legs, was the only one of its kind ever to be “found either in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine.”  Confiscated from a private residence in Gaza in March 1953, the object, referred to in the article as the “Massâ^cîd statue” or the “triton of Massâ^cîd,” was originally discovered in a well in the village of Massâ^cîd, approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) south of Gaza.

The author’s hypothesis was that this statue, which was dated stylistically to the Hellenistic period, was somehow connected to Philistine Dāgôn, perhaps being a Greco-Roman “rendering” of “the power of the old Oriental god Dāgôn,” or having been “set up in a Hellenistic successor of the Philistine Dāgôn temple at Gaza.”  The brief attempt was then made to support this hypothesis by invoking historical descriptions of Dāgôn and tying them, wherever possible, to the Massâ^cîd statue.  Though the author performed a detailed, if cursory, close observation of the object, the article’s discussion of the statue’s possible status as a late representation of Philistine Dāgôn suffered from a lack of objectivity, instead being colored by an apparent desire on the part of the writer to make the available historical and archaeological evidence support his desired outcome.

Methodology

The method of close observation was used to describe the Massâ^cîd statue in detail, from the “four separate curls” on its beard, to the direction of the remaining piece of left arm, to the inlaid eyes.  Three clearly labeled grayscale images of the statue – front, back, and three-quarter view – were presented along with the description.  Following this, the author ventured into the realm of interpretation, beginning with the statement that, “The question arises whether this statue could represent the…principal god of the town, Dāgôn.”

In order to test this hypothesis, the author drew on select historical mentions of Dāgôn as a Gazan deity, all of which used the Bible (specifically, Judges 16:21-23 and I Samuel 5:2-7) as their sole original source for proof of Dāgôn’s existence in Palestine. Accepting, in the absence of extrabiblical evidence, that Dāgôn did in fact exist in the early Iron Age as a Philistine deity, the author then proceeded speculate whether the triton of Massâ^cîd represented that deity in much later form.  The evidence called on to support such speculation came from a minority of scholars who, reading the deity’s name as the nominative form of the Hebrew root dāg, which means “fish,” held that Dāgôn was once portrayed in ichthyomorphic form.

Argument

As the author acknowledged, “there is almost no [existing] information as to how the god Dāgôn was shown,” as “no statue or other representation of him has yet been discovered.”  Further, rather than being a rendering of the Hebrew term for fish, a much more straightforward look at the context surrounding Philistine Dāgôn suggests that, if indeed he existed, this deity was a West Semitic version of the North Mesopotamian deity called Dāgān (the ā > ô shift is common in the transition from Middle Euphrates to West Semitic pronunciation.)  This god, whose name was a rendering of the Semitic term for “grain,” was known throughout the region from the early third millennium BC.   Such evidence, the author wrote, made it “difficult to interpret the newly discovered statue as a rendering of Dāgôn himself.”

Additional evidence for the triton of Massâ^cîd being representative of something other than a former chief deity of the region was considered in the article.  The statue’s pose, which was “not that which one would expect the cult statue of a major deity to be given,” suggested a “sea creature…forced to his knees by his opponent, his defeat closely mirrored in his face.”  Further, despite the statue’s status as the only one of its kind ever found in Palestine, the author acknowledged that several iconographic parallels to the triton of Massâ^cîd in Greek statuary were known elsewhere in the Hellenistic world.

However, having presented a strong case against his own hypothesis, the author concluded by ignoring this evidence and continuing his attempt to force the Massâ^cîd statue into the clearly ill-fitting mold – whatever shape it may have been – of association with Dāgôn.  This figure, the author wrote, “could have been adopted in Palestine during the syncretistic Greco-Roman period as a way of rendering the power of the old Oriental god Dāgôn.”  He concluded, “Perhaps the triton of Massâ^cîd was originally set up in a Hellenistic successor of the Philistine Dāgôn temple at Gaza” – a temple for which no extrabiblical evidence is known to exist.

The fact that “no similar statue has ever been found either in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine” made the close observation and photographs of the Massâ^cîd statue contained in the article a source of valuable new information to the study of Hellenistic iconography in the Ancient Near East.  However, the author’s efforts to draw tenuous links between the Massâ^cîd statue and a Bronze and early Iron Age Semitic deity whose physical form is unknown, and whose very existence in Palestine is unattested outside of three biblical passages, was an unnecessary theoretical addition to the publication of an archaeological find.  The author’s dedication of so much space within the article to a quest to force the Massâ^cîd statue into an ill-fitting mold was unfortunate, as this find was important in its own right due to its workmanship and its status as the only one of its kind ever found in Palestine.

Conclusion

The close observation performed in the article, combined with the author’s photographs, provided the reader with a clear picture of the Massâ^cîd statue. However, the author’s attempt to associate this object with the Philistine god Dāgôn was far short of convincing.  In the absence of any extant statue or representation of Dāgôn, and of any extrabiblical evidence of this deity’s existence among the Philistines, attempting to associate any image with the supposed onetime chief deity of Gaza would have been a difficult undertaking.  This fact, combined with the tenuous etymological evidence for Dāgôn’s ichthyomorphic nature and the admitted similarities between the triton of Massâ^cîd and Greek iconography known elsewhere in the Hellenistic world, suggest that a more objective look at the evidence would have resulted in a different conclusion had the author of this article not been so determined to associate an important find with an early Iron Age deity for whose very existence there is precious little evidence.

To fully understand what a massive PWNing of the Left this was, it’s necessary to briefly look back at the last couple weeks of hype and debate over this ad. When it was reported that Tim Tebow (who, despite being a dirty, jeanshorts-wearing Florida Gator, is a model citizen and upstanding individual) was appearing in a Focus on the Family commercial with his mother which was being aired for the purpose of encouraging people to Choose Life, the Leftists in the media (a redundancy, I know) and in the political sphere went into a frenzy.

Is Tim Tebow endangering his NFL career by being political? asked ESPN, which features columns almost weekly that engage in political discussion by decrying racism in sports (such as accusing a college football teams of not scheduling an in-state school because of a fear of black people), patronizing blacks as inferiors who need Benevolent White Folks’ help to have a chance in life (see “Rooney Rule”), and by delving into plenty of other issues that have nothing to do with sports. Columnist Tim Keown even claimed that Tebow’s status as a Christian meant he was guaranteed to be exploited by “extreme-right fundamentalist groups that would love to trot him out as their hood ornament.”

NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and others went much farther in response to what they expected to be an affront to their pet issue — promoting abortion — and demanded that CBS refuse to accept Focus on the Family’s $2.5 million and turn away an ad whose whole purpose, they said, was “to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned.”

“The spot, which has not been released, is said to feature Tebow…and his mother telling the story of her decision 23 years ago to ignore medical advice and continue a risky pregnancy,” reported the Washington Post. This, of course, was an untenable situation for these groups. “Focus on the Family has cynically set it up so they can say anyone who disagrees with airing this ad is disrespecting one woman and her choice!” declared NOW’s Terry O’Neill, in between frantic checks under her bed and in her closet for George W. Bush and Karl Rove.

When CBS refused to pull the ad, pro-abortion activists ratcheted up their alert level to DEFCON 1, and went into full character-assassination mode (for evidence, just peruse the 284,000 results of a Google search for “Pam Tebow liar”) while defending the decision to abort a baby as every bit “as tough and courageous a decision as is the decision to continue a pregnancy” in the pages of the Washington Post.

Needless to say, these tactics — in the face of silence from anybody at Focus or in the Tebow family — rubbed a good portion of the American population the wrong way. A good example of this was Sally Jenkins, the self-described pro-choice sports columnist at the Washington Post who wrote, “Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion.”

At that point, as Jenkins said, the ad hadn’t even run yet, and the pro-abortion left was already driving people away from their side with their growing cacophony of smears, outrageous claims, and demands that those who pick the “life” side of the “Choice” coin be silenced.

Then, after all of that buildup, the ad aired, and the pro-abortion left was revealed in all their horribly humiliated glory:

That — that — was the ad that caused the pro-abortion crowd to go into a frenzy of censorship advocacy, character assassination, and mask-slipping demonization of mothers who dare choose life over death for their unborn children.

In one fell swoop, Focus on the Family and the Tebows exposed the real pro-abortion left to a larger audience than, perhaps, had ever seen them in their natural state: as abortion-loving autocrats who despised Choice almost as much as (infant) life itself — all without really having to do anything.

Brilliant.

The fact that the commercial was not overtly pro-life (or anti-abortion) made the PWNing even sweeter, and likely brought far more people over to the Life side of the issue (or, at least, divorced them from the pro-abortion side) than an overtly anti-abortion spot would have. This is, in part, because the pro-abortion left used the run-up to the Super Bowl to reveal themselves to a massive audience as being solidly anti-Life and pro-abortion, and because the ad that actually ran demonstrated how laughably needless the left’s character assassination and censorship efforts really were.

On top of all that, the absence of an abortion message in the ad meant the pro-abortion left had to bear the entire burden of publicizing such a divisive and touchy issue all by themselves.

This was made possible, in part, by a brilliant non-information campaign. The ad’s contents were kept entirely secret until last night, with only the aforementioned media summary having been allowed to go public. In this absence of detail, the pro-abortion left immediately assumed the worst, treating the ad as though it would approach the issue as they do: by getting in people’s faces and shoving views down their throats.

The fact that Focus on the Family did nothing of the sort made the pro-abortion left’s smear-and-silence campaign into a massive overreaction — and made Focus’s effort an EPIC WIN for the pro-life side of the aisle.

The New Testament book of Matthew contains a well-known allegorical tale known as the “Parable of the Talents.” In this story, Jesus told of a man who entrusted his property to three servants while he was away. One servant was given five silver talents; another two; and a third one. The first two servants put that which their master had given them to good use, and doubled his money while he was away. The third servant, who had been given but one talent, buried the valuable quantity of silver to preserve it until his master returned, neither risking its safety nor putting it to good use while its owner was away.

Upon his return, the two servants who had taken that which he had entrusted them with and used it wisely during his absence presented their master with their earnings. He replied to each, “Well done, my good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”

The third servant, who had merely protected that portion of his master’s wealth with which he had been entrusted, presented the single talent upon the man’s return. Seeing this, the master flew into a rage, chastising the “wicked, lazy servant” for allowing cowardice and irresponsibility to prevent his putting the master’s money to good use and ordering the servant to surrender his talent to the servant who had proved his resourcefulness and trustworthiness by doubling his master’s five talents.

The moral of this New Testament parable — be a good steward of a little and you will be trusted with more, but poor stewardship will lose you the privilege of being trusted with anything in the future — is recalled to mind by the federal government’s current attempt to take over the American health care system. The 33 years Medicare has been in existence have provided the federal government with an opportunity to demonstrate what type of steward its legislators and bureaucrats will be of a national health care program millions of Americans are trusting for their coverage and care.

“Medicare is… a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with,” said President Obama, at a late July town hall meeting in an effort to defend Medicare as a popular and successful example of government health care at its best.

A simple look at the numbers is enough to rebuff Obama’s claim that the program is an example of the federal government being a good steward of American health care dollars and coverage, while also serving to demonstrate the government’s inability to accurately predict the future costs of its programs (a very important fact to keep in mind in light of Congress’ claims that a health care overhaul can be undertaken without costing future generations trillions).

At its inception in 1966, Medicare carried an annual price tag of $3 billion. Its Congressional founders predicted that cost would rise to $12 billion a year by 1990 — a figure that accounted for inflation.

The true cost of Medicare is stunning. In 1990, rather than costing American taxpayers $12 billion, Medicare cost $107 billion — an increase of 800% over the government’s best guess at the program’s cost 23 years before. That cost has increased exponentially as the years have passed since 1990. This year, $484 billion will be spent on mandatory Medicare outlays; by 2018, that number will be $885.1 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The total amount owed Medicare beneficiaries (American workers who are at least 22 years old and who have paid into the system, meaning they are due Medicare coverage upon retirement) is a staggering $32.3 trillion — an amount over twice America’s GDP, and nearly five times the publicized national debt.

The fact that the federal government has allowed a key health coverage program with which it has been entrusted to fall over thirty trillion dollars in debt should send a powerful message about Washington’s ability (or, more correctly, inability) to be a good steward of Americans’ health care dollars and coverage.

Further, the fact that Congress has refused to do away with a law requiring seniors to enroll in Medicare or forfeit their Social Security benefits — a regulation that is currently being challenged in federal court by a group of plaintiffs led by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey — for fear of losing massive numbers of seniors to private health coverage serves to reinforce the undesirability of the government-run program. It also demonstrates the federal government’s willingness, when given the opportunity, to force citizens onto the rolls of government care by denying them the opportunity to choose their coverage.

Medicare, the chief example of health care as run by the federal government, is an utter mess that is losing doctors, resorting to anti-choice laws to keep seniors enrolled, and hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars by the trillions. President Obama and his allies in the Democratic-led Congress should demonstrate their ability to be good stewards of the people’s health care dollars and coverage by fixing their own Medicare mess before they seek to expand their grip on America’s health care system as a whole.

]]> http://jeffemanuel.net/2009/08/wicked-lazy-servants-government-should-clean-up-its-own-medicare-mess-before-asking-to-be-trusted-with-the-entire-health-care-system/feed/ 1 http://jeffemanuel.net/2009/08/5-myths-about-health-care-reform/ http://jeffemanuel.net/2009/08/5-myths-about-health-care-reform/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:00:07 +0000 Jeff Emanuel http://jeffemanuel.net/?p=477

The debate over health care reform — what constitutes it and what public opinion of such reform really is — has become more polarizing as the summer has gone on. Below are five key liberal talking points about health care “reform” and an accompanying dose of truth their peddlers so desperately need to hear.

1. Republicans, who either believe the health care status quo is perfectly acceptable or are in the pockets of lobbyists who pay them to say so, are opposed to the very idea of reform and want to block any effort to fix our health care system.

This is, of course, entirely untrue. Anybody can look at the American health care system — which is and continues to be the best in the world — and spot areas that are in need of improvement. Left and right differ in their views of what those problems are and how they are best dealt with. Republicans and conservatives only oppose “reform” outright if the term is limited to meaning the government-centric overhaul that the president and congressional Democrats are pushing.

Actual reform — a reduction in the dependence on third-party payers, increase in patient choice, reduction of costs, increase in personal freedom and control of health care dollars, added portability of health coverage, and reduced governmental interference — is almost universally supported on the right.

The two sides also differ in their approach to the other’s ideas. Conservatives look at the left’s proposals for “reform” and argue that — based on simple mathematics and economics, as well as on the physical evidence provided by states and countries who have already implemented the Democrats’ proposed solutions — implementing them will only make things worse. Liberals’ knee-jerk reaction to conservative counterproposals is to discard them out of hand because they do not rely on greater government influence and increased regulation to solve the health care system’s issues.

This is followed by accusations that those on the right either favor the status quo or are being paid by lobbyists and “big insurance” to spread the falsehood that “everything is fine” in American health care. The latter deserves no more attention than the brief moment it takes to point out how insulated a worldview is required to believe, as many on the left do, that their proposals and beliefs simply cannot be honestly opposed, and therefore any who publicly disagree with their policies must be getting paid off to do so.

Of course, the right is not defending the status quo in any way, shape, or form in the health care debate. Rather, conservatives are simply offering alternative, market- and individual freedom-friendly solutions while seeking to prevent a fundamental shift in our nation’s economy from being enacted without the relevant legislation even having been read or carefully considered first.

In fact, it is the left that has a recent history of declaring the status quo sufficient during a period of debate over reform. In 2005, when President Bush was pushing a partial privatization of Social Security in order to provide retirees with more control over their retirement dollars and to stave off the program’s looming bankruptcy (Social Security currently sits $20 trillion in the red), Democrats fought tooth-and-nail against the proposed overhaul, citing their belief that the program was not yet in “crisis” and therefore that no action whatsoever was needed.

2. President Obama’s health reform proposal is vastly popular among the people, representing the “collective will” of the American population.

This may be the number one myth driving the left’s passionate defense of their view of health “reform,” and the one which most reinforces their belief that opponents of President Obama’s proposal are in the pockets of Big Insurance or other special interests who pay them well for their active opposition. However, a simple look at public opinion polls will suffice to burst this bubble.

Support for Obama’s health overhaul proposal, which has been declining for months, is only 44 percent of Americans, according to Rasmussen. This is down from 46 percent who supported it in July, which is itself down from 50 percent in June. Further, 53 percent of Americans are now opposed to the Democrats’ “reform” plan that many liberals think represents the “collective will” of the American population.

The fact is, the more time that passes, and the more Americans learn about the Democrat proposal, the less popular it becomes — a key factor in Obama’s failed effort to rush his “reform” legislation through Congress as quickly as possible.

3. Everybody in America hates their insurance provider and has stories of themselves or someone they know being screwed over by an insurance company.

This assertion is so widely assumed to be true among Democrats that it formed the basis for a significant shift in presidential messaging on health care. Throughout his campaign and the first few months of his presidency, Barack Obama referred almost exclusively to “health care reform.” With fewer Americans supporting the idea of a top-to-bottom overhaul of the health care system, Obama and his fellow Democrats changed tack and went for a target they were certain every American could support fighting: so-called Big Insurance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a public speech in which she referred to HMOs (which, lest we forget, were created by that now-arch-enemy of Big Insurance, Senator Ted Kennedy) as “villains” (though she has said she will not give back the money insurers have given to her campaign over the years), and President Obama himself has replaced the phrase “health care reform” with “health insurance reform.”

The problem with this assumption by Obama and the Democrats is that the sampling they relied on for this messaging shift is about as representative as that Pauline Kael consulted before her famous 1972 declaration that “everybody [she] knew” voted for George McGovern for president!

Generalizations and assumptions like this are a major reason why rigidly ideological leftists like Obama are genuinely mystified at the failure of their ideas and proposals to sweep through and inflame the populace like wildfire. Were Democrats to listen to those they purport to represent, rather than simply relying on that which they “know” to be true, they would know that going after individuals’ health insurers and providers is a losing proposition in this country.

Simple polling shows this to be the case. A July 1 Quinnipiac poll found that 85 percent of Americans are “satisfied” with their health insurance plan, with almost 58 percent of those being “very satisfied.” A June 20 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 77 percent were satisfied with their health care. Further, that same NYT/CBS poll found that 77 percent of insured Americans found health care “affordable.” At the end of May, a Rasmussen poll found that a comparatively paltry 70 percent of Americans rate their health coverage “good” or “excellent.” Much like the Obama “reform” plan has grown less popular as people have found out more about it, Americans’ opinions of their own coverage and care have improved as they have gotten a better look at the government-run alternative.

Further, not only do fewer people than Democrats expect have stories of being “screwed over” by their insurance company, but there are myriad examples of people being denied treatment and care by government-run health care programs and so-called “public options” of the type Obama and his allies wish to implement here. State governments have even gone to court here in the U.S. in an effort to have bureaucrats ruled more competent arbiters of medical decisions than medical professionals themselves.

Pointing out such facts almost invariably elicits the rebuttal “private insurance rations/denies care, too” — a response that is a complete non-starter as long as the goal posts in the health care reform debate remain where the Democrats laying out the playing field initially put them. The rationale for a government-centric health care overhaul has from the beginning centered on the ability of government to somehow do health care better — more humanely, more fairly, and more universally — than the pseudo-free market we currently have. Sadly, empirical evidence shows that such is not the case.

4. Republicans and “opponents of change” are employing scare tactics and peddling misinformation about the cost or contents of the health reform legislation in Congress and about President Obama’s proposal.

This has been the party line for the Democratic National Committee, MoveOn.org, the SEIU, and the Obama administration since opposition to their health care overhaul proposals began to take root among the general population. However, the actions of those pro-ObamaCare organizations — which amount to employing actual scare tactics and waging a misinformation campaign against those citizens who have turned out at town hall meetings across the country to express their concerns about the proposed health overhaul — have not been those of victimized policy proponents, but of professional agitators whose only experience dealing with people is as part of smear campaigns and astroturfing efforts, and whose knee-jerk reaction to dissent is to declare it “dangerous” and to quash it.

The information being repeated by opponents of President Obama’s health overhaul proposal comes from cost analyses published by the officially non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and from testimony by CBO director (and joint Nancy Pelosi/Robert Byrd appointee) Doug Elmendorf, as well as from ordinary citizens actually reading the health overhaul bills — an exercise many in Congress (and the president himself) have turned up their noses at repeatedly.

Publicly stating the contents of legislation, and asking those who will vote on whether that legislation becomes the law of the land, is neither an illegitimate scare tactic nor a misinformation campaign. On the other hand, sending union thugs to threaten protesters, calling on American citizens to turn their fellow men and women in to the government for questioning the president’s policy proposals online or in “casual conversation,” and rallying Democratic supporters by repeatedly and publicly referring to civic-minded citizens as a “dangerous mob” that must be countered and stopped are examples of both scare tactics and misinformation.

It’s just not coming from Republicans, or from those nefarious “opponents of change.”

5. Republicans are preventing health reform from taking place despite the best efforts of President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

The persistence of this myth speaks to both the lack of civics education in our school systems and the prevalence of partisan finger-pointing in the political discourse. The Democratic Party currently has 60 seats in the U.S. Senate — a filibuster-proof supermajority. If Senate Democrats actually want to pass a health overhaul bill, there is absolutely nothing the few Republicans in that body can do to stop them.

Further, Democrats have a 70-seat advantage in the House of Representatives. As Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) pointed out in July, this means every Republican representative could bring their surviving parents to a House vote and still not have a large enough contingent to defeat the Democrats on any legislation the latter wished to pass.

The Democrats got what they wished for — total control of Washington, D.C., and of the lawmaking and enforcing branches of government. However, liberals traditionally specialize in owning intentions, not results or consequences, meaning many are having difficulty accepting responsibility for enacting those policies they so steadfastly claim to support.

In the end, Democrats’ problems passing a health care overhaul bill are theirs and theirs alone, as are their problems enacting any other aspects of the sweeping liberal agenda so many of them — including the president — campaigned for office on.

Originally published by PajamasMedia.com

A series of recent polls showing that his health care proposal has fallen out of favor with a plurality of the American people — and that a majority are no longer predisposed to support a “universal” health care plan as they were before finding out that such a sweeping program would cost them money — has caused President Barack Obama to shift the focus of his health care overhaul evangelism.

Cast for the duration of his presidential campaign and the first six months of his presidency as a solution to the no-longer ignorable “crisis” of the 45 million American uninsured, Obama abruptly abandoned so-called “universal coverage” as the raison d’être for his single-minded pursuit of a health care overhaul, deciding instead to focus on the cost of health care for all, insured or not.

On July 13, Rasmussen Reports released a poll showing that more people (49 percent) opposed Obama’s health care proposal than favored it (46 percent) — the first time a major poll had produced this result. Further, according to a Rasmussen poll published July 18, 61 percent of Americans believe high costs are the biggest problem the nation’s health care system is currently facing. By contrast, only 21 percent had a lack of so-called “universal coverage” as their chief concern. Ten percent cited quality as the biggest problem with the health care system, and 2 percent said inconvenience in getting care.

These poll results seem to show that our health care system really isn’t in as much trouble as some would like us to think it is. After all, if the cost of lifesaving health treatments, rather than the quality of those treatments and access to them, is the biggest worry of a population, things just aren’t so bad, no matter what demagogues in Washington may say.

These Rasmussen polls also seem to show the folly of adopting the style of socialized medicine practiced in countries like Great Britain, where the cost of health care is far down the list of concerns, but where the quality of and access to lifesaving and life-prolonging treatments are incredibly serious problems.

Anecdotes revealing the high human cost associated with government-run health care gone wrong, United Kingdom-style, are endless. Emergency room patients have been left in ambulances outside hospitals for over 8 hours, in order for administrators to technically (and perversely) comply with a government decree that patients be seen by a physician within four hours of entering the hospital. Disabled children are being made to wait up to 2 years for wheelchairs because the government can’t — or won’t — provide them in a timely manner. The average wait is five months, and which children even receive such equipment then is determined by government lottery.

Women are being prevented from giving birth by cesarean section because bureaucrats in charge of health care have decided the procedure is too expensive — a rationale being offered by the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness for its rationing of care and denial of dozens of lifesaving and life-extending drugs, treatments, and procedures.

Earlier this year, a three-year-old girl had a heart operation delayed for the third time because of a lack of hospital beds.

Earlier this month, a veteran of the British military had to pull out 13 of his own teeth with pliers because he didn’t win the national lottery held to see which National Health Service patients would get a chance to see a dentist this year.

These stories, and more like them, are commonplace events in the government-run National Health Service (which Obama adviser and former nominee for Health and Human Services secretary Tom Daschle has openly said he wants the U.S. system to emulate).

The fact that polls are showing that the vast majority of Americans’ biggest concern is cost, not access, begs the question of what in the world makes Obama and congressional Democrats think trading America’s problem for Britain’s problems — inaccessible care that is low-quality at best when it can even be obtained — would bear the remotest of resemblances to a good idea.

With his newfound focus on costs, Obama — the supposedly post-political politician — is simply doing what politicians do: tailoring the sales pitch to what polls show the American people want to hear. Obama’s health care overhaul proposal hasn’t changed as a result of its new, cost-centric packaging; rather, the bills being demanded by the president and written by Congress will still do even less to bring down health care costs than they will to cover the 45 million uninsured.

The fact is, poll results that stark made the Obama administration’s decision to forsake the millions of uninsured in favor of beating the drum of cost-deflating legislation an easy one to make, despite the high level of energy and political capital the president had invested in playing up the plight of those uninsured.

Obama’s switch in emphasis hasn’t lessened the force with which he is advocating for government-run health care, nor has it curbed his sense of urgency about the passage of his overhaul proposal. On Monday, July 20, he repeated his demand that Congress pass a government-centric health care overhaul bill by the beginning of the August 1 recess, despite the fact that none of the three bills currently being worked on in the House and Senate have been completely written. In that address, Obama also emphatically declared that lowering health care costs is — and always has been — his number one priority. “I’ve said this before,” he said. “Let me repeat: The bill I sign must reflect my commitment and the commitment of Congress to slow the growth of health care costs over the long run.”

Unfortunately for the 45 million uninsured, the sudden jolt they and their supporters just felt was the presidential carpet being yanked out from under their feet, as Obama recognized that he couldn’t ride their plight to legislative victory. Further, an analysis of the House and Senate health care overhaul bills by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that they would enable only about a third of Americans (about 16 million) currently lacking insurance to gain coverage — something that, along with the Rasmussen poll results, made Obama’s decision to drop their predicament from its place of honor at the center of his health care overhaul stump speech all the easier.

Unfortunately for President Obama and for the 62 percent of Americans who see high costs as the number one problem with our system, the bills that have been put forth by the congressional Democratic majority would increase taxes while doing nothing to lower health care costs. You don’t have to take my word for it; CBO director Doug Elmendorf reported in his July 16 testimony before the Senate Budget Committee that those bills would add significantly to the national deficit, while doing nothing to “reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”

Unfortunately for the 100 percent of Americans who are consumers of health care, President Obama appears disinclined to back off his rigid insistence on trading the U.S.’s cost problem for Britain’s access, disease, and death problems — and on doing so as quickly as possible.

Were he to succeed in doing so, it would be an unfortunate outcome for all involved.

In an attempt to defend the trillion-dollar health care overhaul bills currently being marked up in Congress and to shift attention from his own actions to those of his predecessor, President Barack Obama (D-IL) declared in his July 18 radio address that “the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue — believe it or not — that health reform will lead to record deficits. That’s simply not true.”

Leave aside for the moment the fact that any deficit-spending records set in “the past eight years” were wiped out by Obama himself within a single month of taking office. Also leave aside the fact that the president’s ire was misdirected (it was the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorf, who made that indictment of the health care overhaul bills currently in Congress). The truth is, Obama’s claim to suddenly care about deficit spending at all is belied by his actions and his administration’s statements on a range of issues, from nationalized health care to the so-called “stimulus” package.

In that radio address, Obama urged legislators to “seize this opportunity — one we might not have again for generations — and finally pass health insurance reform this year.” He issued what was intended to sound like a warning along with that plea, saying, “I want to be very clear [that] I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.”

While this statement was carefully worded to sound like an admonition to legislators against producing a health care overhaul bill that isn’t revenue-neutral, the phrase “deficits over the next decade” is a direct reference to the recommended “Pay-As-You-Go” (or “PayGo”) policy Obama asked Congress to pass in June.

Room for One Man’s Priorities

At the time, Obama called on Congress to “to rein in deficits by addressing [current] challenges in a manner that is fiscally responsible.” This, Obama said, meant offsetting each new “expenditure” (including both spending and tax cuts) with a corresponding increase in revenue. The latter, of course, is poorly-disguised code for tax increases, generally targeted at the top 1% of wage earners who are already paying well over half of total taxes in America.

Though Republicans governed under pay-as-you-go guidelines from 1995 until 2001, Democrats added the policy to House budgeting rules shortly after taking control of the Congress in 2007. However, the policy has been waived or ignored several times since due to an unwillingness on the part of Democratic leaders to meet rising entitlement spending with corresponding budget cuts.

Obama’s stated hope is that the policy being enshrined into law will make it more difficult for Congress to waive or bypass it in the future when they want to fund pet projects without cutting spending in other areas. However, the proposed PayGo legislation he transmitted to Congress does allow for the rule to be bypassed in key areas important to Obama — like his trillion dollar health care overhaul.

Under Obama’s PayGo proposal, lawmakers would have free rein to run up massive deficits in the first several years following passage of health care-nationalizing legislation. In fact, as long as their legislation contained a plan for neutralizing those deficits over the ten-year horizon — even if they had no intention of actually letting the necessarily massive spending cuts or tax increases ever come into being — Congressional Democrats could pass as costly a health care overhaul bill as they wanted. Obama would be free to sign such a bill, as well, without breaking his pledge to veto it, having lived up to his promise not to give the thumbs-up to “any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.”

Deficits Suddenly Matter?

Obama’s sudden focus on reining in that deficit spending not associated with his multi-trillion dollar health care overhaul may come as a surprise to those who recall the rushed passage of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or “stimulus package.” Funded entirely by deficit spending — every one of the $787,000,000,000.00 spent by that legislation was borrowed and went directly onto the debt side of the nation’s balance sheet — the “stimulus” gave the (at the time) month-old Obama administration the record for an annual American deficit, blowing past the roughly $450 billion rung up in the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

This new record deficit came only months after then-candidate Obama twice looked America in the eye during presidential debates and promised a net cut in federal spending. Since the “stimulus” was passed and signed into law (without being read in its entirety by a single voting member of Congress or by the president who signed it), Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have attempted to evade responsibility for the astronomical debt it created, as well as for the utter failure of that massive exercise in deficit spending to create jobs or bring about any semblance of economic recovery.

Passing the Buck

The administration “misread how bad the economy was,” said Biden, in a lame effort to excuse the failure of the three quarters of a trillion dollars he, Obama, and the Democratic Congress added to the nation’s deficit to create jobs and stimulate recovery. Obama added to that a claim that there was a “lack of information” during the first days of his presidency about just how bad an economic situation he had “inherited” from Bush. The obvious question of why the administration didn’t wait until they actually had reliable information on the economy before setting a new debt record in one fell swoop went predictably unaddressed.

Further, Biden’s words seem to run counter to Obama’s new found belief in balanced budgets — and of proof of positive outcomes. “We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt,” the vice president declared at an Alexandria, Virginia, town hall sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

“We’re doing things that we know are going to save you, your children and your grand children billions of dollars over the next years,” Biden said, “but we’re not able to prove it.”

Will “we’re right, but we just can’t prove it!” still be the rallying cry of the Obama administration when the entirety of the borrowed “stimulus” money has been spent and jobs still haven’t materialized? Or when Congress predictably decides not to offset the trillions in deficit spending Obama’s PayGo exception is allowing them to engage for the purpose of enacting health care “reform”? Or when the American health care system becomes the costly wreck that is Great Britain’s utterly failed National Health Service, as a result of a poorly-thought out, government-centric health care overhaul being pushed through Congress and signed into law without any serious consideration of the consequences?

For now that remains an open question. If history is any guide, though, the answer to that question will be a resounding “yes.”