The Moabites were enemies of the Israelites, so I take it our story is not about Philistia conquering Israel, or not directly. I thought perhaps it was the result of a linguistic shift over the centuries, like how the region was known as Palestine from the Roman conquest through the British mandate.
This had me thinking that Tabitas was not David because David was an Israelite. But he was also a great-grandson of Ruth. Maybe the real POD is Bethlehem Ephrathah (perhaps among other territories, maybe even the entire nation) going from Israelite to Moabite hands some time between the lifetimes of Boaz and David. David self-identified as Moabite. That might also explain Tabitas and Evraioi instead of David and Bethlehem Ephrathah. Not sure if the Moabite language works that way but a transfer between two peoples who spoke two different languages was sure to result in some name changes. Turtle Fan 05:01, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- The above logic is pretty well sound. TR 15:02, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- Aww, what a sweet thing to say. Turtle Fan 16:27, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I certainly see nothing worth disputing. I had assumed that the Israelites=the Moabites for similar reasons the Philistines=the Palestinians. And certainly, David's status as Moabite could create the conditions which lead to a conflation of the Israelites and the Moabites in this story (if it is indeed David). TR 16:33, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- So then the POD would be something toward the end of the period covered by Judges. In Chapter 3 of that book (which, true, is toward the beginning rather than toward the end) Moab has conquered Israel. God sends the southpaw judge Ehud to assassinate the Moabite king and liberate His people. Perhaps in this timeline Ehud never goes, or fails, or is captured on the way out of the palace and can't get back to Israel to tell the Jews it was time for them to attack.
- You know, one reason HT is my favorite AH writer is that forcing us to guess what the POD might be is exactly the sort of game he does not play. Since no one's read the whole story maybe I'm being premature in leveling that criticism, but we often know the PoD as soon as we know the story is upcoming. I guess TV-WSW is an exception. Turtle Fan 16:43, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, let's wait to read the story before critiquing it.
- Yes, I suppose we should. We're justified in our skepticism that WtE will be worthwhile, since it follows from HW; but the short stories are mostly pretty solid these days. Turtle Fan 18:33, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- And even the TV-WSW things seems to have been done with a purpose. The expedition seeks an answer, and gets a partial one. Now, that reflects reality--much of history is unknown, and probably unknowable. The ending then, is "realistic". Granted, once I found out there was never a concrete answer, I lost all interest in reading that book, which is a shame, because I was very excited about it when it was announced, and anticipated its release more eagerly than HT's works from that year. TR 17:19, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
- Good for realism. Very bad for drama. He probably should have structured the story differently if he wanted to demonstrate the unknowability of history.
- I hate to risk a jinx but you're similarly excited about this story, and it too has a POD which is very likely to brush up against the unknown and unknowable qualities of the subject. The Old Testament provides the only surviving account to speak of from that region at that time, and it's crawling with obvious exaggerations and surely is thoroughly mixed with elements better described as mythological. If it weren't of religious significance to Judaism and Christianity it would be as lost as whatever records the Moabites, Philistines, et cetera kept, records which were surely equally problematic. Here we are trying to suss out a POD from among events which may not have happened at all and almost certainly didn't happen as they're remembered. Turtle Fan 18:33, April 6, 2010 (UTC)