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Hittites: Biblical Hittites
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Given the casual tone in which the Hittites are mentioned in most of these references, Biblical scholars before the age of archaeology traditionally regarded them as a smaller tribe, living in the hills of Canaan during the era of the Patriarchs. This picture was completely changed by the archaeological finds that placed the center of the Hatti/Hattusas civilization far to the north, in modern-day Turkey. Because of this perceived discrepancy and other reasons, some Biblical scholars reject Sayce's identification of the two people, and believe that the similarity in names is only a coincidence. In order to stress this distinction, E. A. Speiser called the Biblical Hittites Hethites in his translation of the Book of Genesis for the Anchor Bible Series.
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The Biblical Hittites are said to be a great power who dwell "in the mountains" and "towards the north" of Canaan. Some scholars, on the basis of the Documentary Hypothesis which holds that the Hebrew Bible was redacted well after the fall of the Hittite Empire, assume these Biblical references may be to the "Neo-Hittite" (Luwian) polities.
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The Hittites played a prominent role in Old Testament history. They interacted with biblical figures as early as Abraham and as late as Solomon. They are mentioned in Genesis 15:20 as people who inhabited the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 10:29 records that they purchased chariots and horses from King Solomon. The most prominent Hittite is Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. The Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. Prior to the late 19th century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible, and many critics alleged that they were an invention of the biblical authors.
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Hittites or more recently, Hethites is ... the common English name of a Biblical people (חתי or HTY in the consonant-only Hebrew script ), who are also called Children of Heth (×‘× ×™-חת, BNY HT ). These people are mentioned several times in the Old Testament , from the time of the Patriarch s up to Ezra 's return from Babylonian captivity ; see Hittites in the Bible . The archaeologists who discovered the Anatolian Hittites in the 19th century initially believed the two peoples to be the same, but this identification remains disputed.
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Hittites first became known from the bible as a small group from Northern Syria living in the hills of Canaan during the era of the Patriarchs. The earliest finds related to the biblical Hittites were hieroglyphic scripts found at Aleppo and Hamath in Northern Syria. The script matched the script on a monument at Boghazkoy by an Indoeuropean "People of the Land of Hatti" whose rule was then hastily identified by Archibald Sayce as that of the biblical Hittites. Although it has since been discovered that the language & people commonly referred to as Hittite cannot actually be the same as the Biblical Hittites, as T. Bryce states the name has stuck for convenience sake (Oxford 1998).
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The term "Hittites" is taken from the KJV translation of the Hebrew Bible, translating ???? HTY, or ???-??? BNY-HT "Children of Heth". The archaeologists who discovered the Anatolian Hittites in the 19th century initially identified them with these Biblical Hittites. Today the identification of the Biblical peoples with either the Hattusa-based empire or the Neo-Hittite kingdoms is a matter of dispute.
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Biblical Hittites