Editing Philistines (section)

===Religion===
{{Main|Canaanite religion}}

The deities worshipped in the area were [[Baal]], [[Ashteroth]] (that is, [[Astarte]]), [[Asherah]], and Dagon, whose names or variations thereof had already appeared in the earlier attested [[Canaanite religion#Deities|Canaanite pantheon]].<ref name="Fahlbusch and Bromiley, p. 185"/> The Philistines may also have worshipped [[Qudshu]] and [[Anat]].<ref>Gitin, Seymour, and Mordechai Cogan. "A New Type of Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron." ''Israel Exploration Journal'', vol. 49, no. 3/4, Israel Exploration Society, 1999, pp. 193–202, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27926893.</ref> [[Beelzebub]], a supposed hypostasis of Baal, is described in the Hebrew Bible as the patron deity of Ekron, though no explicit attestation of such a god or his worship has thus far been discovered, and the name ''Baal-zebub'' itself may be the result of an intentional distortion by the Israelites.<ref>{{cite book |quote=It is not as probable that b'l-zbl, which can mean "lord of the (heavenly) dwelling" in Ugaritic, was changed to b'l zbb to make the divine name an opprobrius epithet. The reading Beelzebul in Mt.&nbsp;10:25 would then reflect the right form of the name, a wordplay on "master of the house" (Gk oikodespótēs). |chapter=Baal-Zebub |editor-first=Geoffrey W.|editor-last= Bromiley| editor-link=Geoffrey W. Bromiley|orig-date=1988 |year=2002 |volume=1 |title=The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia |edition=Revised (381) |publisher=[[Eerdmans]]|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan|isbn=978-0-8028-3785-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=An alternative suggested by many is to connect zĕbûl with a noun meaning "(exalted) abode". |chapter=Beelzebul |editor-first= David Noel |editor-last=Freedman|year=1996 |volume=1 |title=The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary |edition=639 |location=New York City| publisher= Doubleday |isbn=978-0-300-14081-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=In contemporary Semitic speech it may have been understood as 'the master of the house'; if so, this phrase could be used in a double sense in Mt.&nbsp;10:25b. |chapter= Baal-Zebub, Beelzebul |editor1-first=Alan R.|editor1-last=Millard |editor2-first=I. Howard|editor2-last=Marshall |editor3-first=J.I.|editor3-last=Packer|editor4-first=Donald|editor4-last= Wiseman| editor-link4= Donald Wiseman|date=1996 |title=New Bible dictionary |edition=3rd (108) |location=Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Illinois|publisher=InterVarsity Press|isbn=978-0-8308-1439-8}}</ref> Another name, attested on the [[Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription]], is PT[-]YH, unique to the Philistine sphere and possibly representing a goddess in their pantheon,<ref name="Ben2019">{{cite journal |title=Philistine Cult and Religion According to Archaeological Evidence |journal=Religions |last=Ben-Shlomo |first=David |issue=2 |volume=10 |page=74 |doi=10.3390/rel10020074 |year=2019 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref> though an exact identity has been subject to scholarly debate.

Although the Bible cites Dagon as the main Philistine god, there is a stark lack of any evidence indicating the Philistines had any particular proclivity to his worship. In fact, no evidence of Dagon worship whatsoever is discernible at Philistine sites, with even theophoric names invoking the deity being unattested in the already limited corpus of known Philistine names. A further assessment of the Iron Age I finds worship of Dagon in any immediate Canaanite context, let alone one which is indisputably Philistine, as seemingly non-existent.<ref name="Emanuel">Emanuel, J. P. (2011). Digging for Dagon: A Reassessment of the Archaeological Evidence for a Cult of Philistine Dagon in Iron I Ashdod. In Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA.</ref> Still, Dagon-worship probably wasn't completely unheard of amongst the Philistines, as multiple mentions of a city known as ''[[Beth Dagon]]'' in Assyrian, Phoenician, and Egyptian sources may imply the god was venerated in at least some parts of Philistia.<ref name="Emanuel" /> Furthermore, the inscription of the [[sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II]], dating to the 6th century BC, calls [[Jaffa]], a Philistine city, one of the "mighty lands of Dagon",<ref>{{cite book| title = Ancient Near Eastern texts relating to the Old Testament | last = Pritchard | first = James | year = 1969 | publisher = Princeton University Press | publication-place = Princeton, N.J | isbn = 978-0-691-03503-1 | oclc = 382005 | page = 662 }}</ref> though this does little in the way of clarifying the god's importance to the Philistine pantheon.

The most common material religious artefact finds from Philistine sites are goddess figurines/chairs, sometimes called ''Ashdoda''. This seems to imply a dominant female figure, which is consistent with [[Minoan religion|Ancient Aegean religion]].<ref name="Ben2019" />