Editing Hittites (section)

==Biblical Hittites==
{{Main|Biblical Hittites}}

The Bible refers to people as "Hittites" in several passages. The relationship between these peoples and the Bronze Age Hittite Empire is unclear. In some passages, the Biblical Hittites appear to have their own kingdoms, apparently located outside geographic Canaan, and were powerful enough to defeat Syrian armies in battle. In these passages, the Biblical Hittites appear to refer to the Iron Age [[Syro-Hittite states]]. However, in most of their appearances, the Biblical Hittites are depicted as a people living among the Israelites{{snd}}Abraham purchases the Patriarchal burial-plot of Machpelah from [[Ephron (biblical figure)|Ephron the Hittite]] and Hittites serve as high military officers in [[David]]'s army. The nature of this ethnic group is unclear, but has sometimes been interpreted as a local Canaanite tribe who had absorbed Hittite cultural influence from the Syro-Hittite kingdoms to the north.{{sfn|Bryce|2005|pp=355–356}}<ref name="Woudstra1981">{{cite book|last1=Woudstra|first1=Marten|author-link=Marten Woudstra|title=The Book of Joshua|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BfG1svPVYyQC&pg=PA60|year=1981|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0802825254|page=60|access-date=19 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516073138/https://books.google.com/books?id=BfG1svPVYyQC&pg=PA60|archive-date=16 May 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

Other biblical scholars (following [[Max Müller]]) have argued that the Bronze Age Hittites appear in Hebrew Bible literature and apocrypha as "[[Kittim]]", a people said to be named for a son of [[Javan]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/HittitesMittanisAryansIndoAryanSuperstrateInMitanniInternet/Hittites,%20Mittanis%20&%20Aryans%20Indo%20Aryan%20superstrate%20in%20Mitanni%20Internet_djvu.txt|title=Full text of "Hittites, Mittanis & Aryans Indo Aryan Superstrate in Mitanni Internet"|website=archive.org|language=en|access-date=2018-08-14}}</ref>