Originating out of Phoenicia (Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast of Syria), the Phoiniki'im, who became the Carthaginian Punics in Greek, and later - one branch anyway - the Pelishtim (פלשתים in Yehudit), were tremendous colonisers, and appear to have been the originators of both Dana'an and Pelasgian Greeks. They colonised the Mediterranean coast of southern Kena'an (Canaan) and north-eastern Mitsrayim (Egypt) over a period of several centuries, and almost certainly provided Yisra-El with the tribe of Dan, as well as with its moon-goddess Io and sun-god Phoroneus, who become Yah (יה) and Ephron (עפרון) in the Tanach. They also colonised the islands of Crete and Cyprus, both of which scholars have identified as Kaphtor, though without solid evidence for either. Others prefer Cappadocia.
Genesis 10:13-14 lists the tribes who came out of Mitsrayim as Ludim, Anamim, Lehavim, Naphtuchim, Patrusim, Kasluchim - whence went forth the Philistines - and Kaphtorim. Philistines are rendered as Pelishtim (פְּלִשְׁתִּים).
Deuteronomy 2:23 informs us that it was the Kaphtorim who destroyed the Avim (עוים) in the hamlets of Azah (עַזָּה - Gaza) and in Chatserim (חֲצֵרִים - which probably isn't the name of a place at all, but means both "green areas" and "enclosures", which infers the farmed pastureland around Azah) and settled there; almost certainly a reference to the early Philistine settlements.
Jeremiah 47:4 and Amos 9:7 make it a country, and again state that the Pelishtim came from there; Gesenius takes it as an Egyptian colony (because of Genesis 10:14), and therefore suggests Cappodocia. Yirme-Yahu (Jeremiah) however makes it an island, possibly Crete, less likely Cyprus.
Kaphtor literally means "a crown" or "chaplet"; Exodus 25:31 ff makes it an ornament of the golden candlestick and Josephus makes it the pomegranate. There may well be some mileage in trying to identify it zodiacally.
Traditional Jewish scholarship believes the Kaphtorim to have been the inhabitants of Pelusium, in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Nile Delta, roughly where Port Said (pronounced Say'id) stands today. This however can only be another colony, and not their place of origin.
Kaphtor literally means "a crown" or "chaplet"; Exodus 25:31 ff makes it an ornament of the golden candlestick and Josephus makes it the pomegranate. There may well be some mileage in trying to identify it zodiacally.
Traditional Jewish scholarship believes the Kaphtorim to have been the inhabitants of Pelusium, in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Nile Delta, roughly where Port Said (pronounced Say'id) stands today. This however can only be another colony, and not their place of origin.
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