To most, the Philistines were nothing more than characters in Bible stories. They were the army that sent Goliath to fight David, the nation that dominated Israel during the time of Samson, and not much more than that. They are, to most of us, nothing more than a religious story, accepted or rejected on faith.
Recently, though, archaeologists have started unearthing little pieces of their lives. The Philistines, we’ve learned, were real people—and they played a much bigger role in history than we could have realized.