This study of the Philistines during the first quarter of the first millennium BC has two aims: to examine in detail a number of ancient texts, mainly biblical, until the rise of the neo-assyrian empire, while evaluating each text in its own right as a potential historical source; and to offer a synthetic reconstruction of the course of Philistine history between 1000-730 BC, employing the results the textual study in conjunction with those of recent archaeological excavations in Philistia.