Just who were the Hittites?

When this question began to be asked a little more than a century ago, our only knowledge of the Hittites came from the Hebrew Bible.¹ Abraham buys a burial plot for his wife Sarah from “Ephron the Hittite” (Genesis 23:3–20). King David falls in love with Bathsheba, the wife of “Uriah the Hittite,” as he watches her bathe (2 Samuel 11:2–27). David’s son Solomon chooses “Hittite women” to number among his wives (1 Kings 11:1).