Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
In Israel, archeologists began a dig this week at the remains of the Philistine city of Gath. Long regarded in the Hebrew Bible as the “bad guys” of the ancient world, the Philistines are emerging as a complex civilization with Hellenistic roots. In fact, the Philistines arrived from ancient Greece about 1200 BCE, and gained control of the major seaports of Ashkelon and Ashdod, as well as the Gaza strip. The ancient city of Gath stood on the far frontier of the coastal-bound Philistine empire and adjacent to the Israelites, who occupied the inland hills. Gath had been inhabited since prehistoric times and the conquering Philistines were all too happy to take up residence in a ready-made encampment.
Section four of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as the public debt clause, states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” The clause was included to prevent Southerners or their sympathizers from preventing payments owed to Union soldiers or their widows. However, the language goes beyond the narrow issue of Civil War debts.
