Palestine (region): Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Geographic region in West Asia}}

{{About|the region|the country|State of Palestine|other uses of Palestine|Palestine (disambiguation)}}

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{{Infobox country

| conventional_long_name = Palestine

| name =

| image_map = 1750 map of Palestine published by Homannsche Erben.jpg

| capital =

| membership_type = Countries

| languages_type = Languages

| languages = [[Levantine Arabic|Arabic]], [[Modern Hebrew|Hebrew]]

| ethnic_groups = [[Arabs]], [[Jews]], [[Samaritans]]

}}

 

 

The first written records referring to Palestine emerged in the 12th-century BCE [[Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt]], which used the term ''[[Peleset]]'' for a neighboring people or land. In the 8th century BCE, the [[Assyria]]ns referred to a region as ''Palashtu'' or ''Pilistu''. In the [[Hellenistic period]], these names were carried over into Greek, appearing in the ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' of [[Herodotus]] in 5th century BCE as ''Palaistine''. The [[Roman Empire]] conquered the region and in 6 CE established the province known as [[Judaea (Roman province)|Judaea]], then in 132 CE in the period of the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] the province was expanded and renamed [[Syria Palaestina]].{{sfn|Lehmann|1998}} In 390, during the [[Byzantine]] period, the region was split into the provinces of [[Palaestina Prima]], [[Palaestina Secunda]], and [[Palaestina Salutaris|Palaestina Tertia]]. Following the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant]] in the 630s, the military district of [[Jund Filastin]] was established. While Palestine's boundaries have changed throughout history, it has generally comprised the southern portion of regions such as [[Southern Syria|Syria]] or the Levant.

As the birthplace of [[Judaism]] and [[Christianity]], Palestine has been a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the [[Bronze Age]], it was home to [[Canaan]]ite city-states; and the later [[Iron Age]] saw the emergence of [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|Israel and Judah]]. It has since come under the sway of various empires, including the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]], the [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]], the [[Achaemenid Empire]], the [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonian Empire]], and the [[Seleucid Empire]]. The brief [[Hasmonean dynasty]] ended with its gradual incorporation into the Roman Empire, and later the Byzantine Empire, during which Palestine became a center of Christianity. In the 7th century, Palestine was conquered by the [[Rashidun Caliphate]], ending Byzantine rule in the region; Rashidun rule was succeeded by the [[Umayyad Caliphate]], the [[Abbasid Caliphate]], and the [[Fatimid Caliphate]]. Following the collapse of the [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], which had been established through the [[Crusades]], the population of Palestine became predominantly [[Muslims|Muslim]]. In the 13th century, it became part of the [[Mamluk Sultanate]], and after 1516, spent four centuries as part of the [[Ottoman Empire]].

 

 

==Etymology==

The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between [[Phoenicia]] and [[Late Period of ancient Egypt|Egypt]] was in 5th century BCE [[ancient Greece]],{{efn-lr|"The earliest occurrence of this name in a Greek text is in the mid-fifth century B.C., Histories of Herodotus, where it is applied to the area of the Levant between Phoenicia and Egypt." ...&nbsp;"The first known occurrence of the Greek word Palaistine is in the Histories of Herodotus, written near the mid-fifth century B.C. Palaistine Syria, or simply Palaistine, is applied to what may be identified as the southern part of Syria, comprising the region between Phoenicia and Egypt. Although some of Herodotus' references to Palestine are compatible with a narrow definition of the coastal strip of the Land of Israel, it is clear that Herodotus does call the whole land by the name of the coastal strip." ...&nbsp;"It is believed that Herodotus visited Palestine in the fifth decade of the fifth century B.C." &nbsp;..."In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense." {{harv|Jacobson|1999}}}}{{efn-lr|"As early as the Histories of Herodotus, written in the second half of the fifth century BCE, the term Palaistinê is used to describe not just the geographical area where the Philistines lived, but the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt—in other words, the Land of Israel. Herodotus, who had traveled through the area, would have had firsthand knowledge of the land and its people. Yet he used Palaistinê to refer not to the Land of the Philistines, but to the Land of Israel" {{harv|Jacobson|2001}}}} when [[Herodotus]] wrote of a "district of Syria, called ''Palaistinê''" ({{lang-grc|Συρίη ἡ Παλαιστίνη καλεομένη}}){{sfn|Herodotus 3:91:1}} in ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|The Histories]]'', which included the [[Judean mountains]] and the [[Jordan Rift Valley]].{{sfn|Jacobson|1999|p=65}}{{efn-lr|In ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|The Histories]]'', Herodotus referred to the practice of [[History of male circumcision|male circumcision]] associated with the Hebrew people: "the [[Colchis|Colchians]], the [[Egyptians]], and the [[Ethiopians]], are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The [[Phoenicia]]ns and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians&nbsp;... Now these are the only nations who use circumcision." {{harv|Herodotus|1858|pp=Bk ii, Ch 104}}}} Approximately a century later, [[Aristotle]] used a similar definition for the region in ''[[Meteorology (Aristotle)|Meteorology]]'', in which he included the [[Dead Sea]].{{sfn|Jacobson|1999|pp=66–67}} Later Greek writers such as [[Polemon of Athens|Polemon]] and [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] also used the term to refer to the same region, which was followed by Roman writers such as [[Ovid]], [[Tibullus]], [[Pomponius Mela]], [[Pliny the Elder]], [[Dio Chrysostom]], [[Statius]], [[Plutarch]] as well as [[History of the Jews in the Roman Empire|Romano-Jewish]] writers [[Philo of Alexandria]] and [[Josephus]].<ref name=Robinson /><ref>Louis H. Feldman, whose view differs from that of Robinson, thinks that Josephus, when referring to ''Palestine'', had in mind only the coastal region, writing: "Writers on geography in the first century [CE] clearly differentiate Judaea from Palestine. ...&nbsp;Jewish writers, notably [[Philo]] and [[Josephus]], with few exceptions refer to the land as ''Judaea'', reserving the name ''Palestine'' for the coastal area occupied [formerly] by the Philistines." (END QUOTE). See: p. 1 in: {{harv|Feldman|1990|pp=1–23}}.</ref> The term was first used to denote an official province in c.&nbsp;135&nbsp;CE, when the [[Roman Empire|Roman authorities]], following the suppression of the [[Bar Kokhba Revolt]], renamed the province of Judaea "[[Syria Palaestina]]". There is [[circumstantial evidence]] linking [[Hadrian]] with the name change,{{sfn|Feldman|1996|p=553}} but the precise date is not certain.{{sfn|Feldman|1996|p=553}}

 

 

The Septuagint instead used the term "allophuloi" (άλλόφυλοι, "other nations") throughout the Books of Judges and Samuel,{{sfn|Jobling|Rose|1996|p=404a}}<ref name=Drews49>{{harvnb|Drews|1998|p=49}}: "Our names 'Philistia' and 'Philistines' are unfortunate obfuscations, first introduced by the translators of the LXX and made definitive by Jerome's Vg. When turning a Hebrew text into Greek, the translators of the LXX might simply—as Josephus was later to do—have Hellenized the Hebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּים as Παλαιστίνοι, and the toponym פְּלִשְׁתִּ as Παλαιστίνη. Instead, they avoided the toponym altogether, turning it into an ethnonym. As for the ethnonym, they chose sometimes to transliterate it (incorrectly aspirating the initial letter, perhaps to compensate for their inability to aspirate the sigma) as φυλιστιιμ, a word that looked exotic rather than familiar, and more often to translate it as άλλόφυλοι. Jerome followed the LXX's lead in eradicating the names, 'Palestine' and 'Palestinians', from his Old Testament, a practice adopted in most modern translations of the Bible."</ref> such that the term "Philistines" has been interpreted to mean "non-Israelites of the Promised Land" when used in the context of Samson, Saul and David,<ref name=Drews51>{{harvnb|Drews|1998|p=51}}: "The LXX's regular translation of פְּלִשְׁתִּים into άλλόφυλοι is significant here. Not a proper name at all, allophyloi is a generic term, meaning something like 'people of other stock'. If we assume, as I think we must, that with their word allophyloi the translators of the LXX tried to convey in Greek what p'lištîm had conveyed in Hebrew, we must conclude that for the worshippers of Yahweh p'lištîm and b'nê yiśrā'ēl were mutually exclusive terms, p'lištîm (or allophyloi) being tantamount to 'non-Judaeans of the Promised Land' when used in a context of the third century BCE, and to 'non-Israelites of the Promised Land' when used in a context of Samson, Saul and David. Unlike an ethnonym, the noun פְּלִשְׁתִּים normally appeared without a definite article."</ref> and Rabbinic sources explain that these peoples were different from the Philistines of the [[Book of Genesis]].{{efn-lr|"Rabbinic sources insist that the Philistines of Judges and Samuel were different people altogether from the Philistines of Genesis. ([[Midrash Tehillim]] on Psalm 60 (Braude: vol. 1, 513); the issue here is precisely whether Israel should have been obliged, later, to keep the Genesis treaty.) This parallels a shift in the Septuagint's translation of Hebrew pelistim. Before Judges, it uses the neutral transliteration phulistiim, but beginning with Judges it switches to the pejorative allophuloi. [To be precise, Codex Alexandrinus starts using the new translation at the beginning of Judges and uses it invariably thereafter, Vaticanus likewise switches at the beginning of Judges, but reverts to phulistiim on six occasions later in Judges, the last of which is 14:2.]" {{harv|Jobling|Rose|1996|p=404}}}}

During the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine period]], the region of Palestine within [[Syria Palaestina]] was subdivided into [[Palaestina Prima]] and [[Palaestina Secunda|Secunda]],{{sfn|Kaegi|1995|p=41}} and an area of land including the [[Negev]] and [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai]] became [[Palaestina Salutaris]].{{sfn|Kaegi|1995|p=41}} Following the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant|Muslim conquest]], [[Place names of Palestine|place names]] that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic.{{sfn|Sharon|1988|p=4}}<ref name=Marshallp559>Marshall Cavendish, 2007, p. 559.</ref> The use of the name "Palestine" became common in [[Early Modern English]],{{sfn|Krämer|2011|p=16}} was used in English and Arabic during the [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem]]{{sfn|Büssow|2011|p=5}}{{sfn|Abu-Manneh|1999|p=39}}{{efn-lr|For example, the 1915 ''Filastin Risalesi'' ("Palestine Document"), an Ottoman army ([[VIII Corps (Ottoman Empire)|VIII Corps]]) country survey which formally identified Palestine as including the sanjaqs of [[Acre Sanjak|Akka (the Galilee)]], the [[Nablus Sanjak|Sanjaq of Nablus]], and the [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem|Sanjaq of Jerusalem (Kudus Sherif)]]<ref name=Risalesi>{{harvnb|Tamari|2011|pp=29–30}}: "Filastin Risalesi, is the salnameh type military handbook issued for Palestine at the beginning of the Great War... The first is a general map of the country in which the boundaries extend far beyond the frontiers of the Mutasarflik of Jerusalem, which was, until then, the standard delineation of Palestine. The northern borders of this map include the city of Tyre (Sur) and the Litani River, thus encompassing all of the Galilee and parts of southern Lebanon, as well as districts of Nablus, Haifa and Akka—all of which were part of the Wilayat of Beirut until the end of the war."</ref>}} and was revived as an official place name with the [[Mandate for Palestine|British Mandate for Palestine]].

 

 

==History==

===Overview===

{{main list|Time periods in the Palestine region}}

{{Timeline of Palestine Sovereign Powers}}

 

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| image1 = British Mandate Palestinian passport.jpg

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