Bibliography
| Title: Some Observations on the Name of Palestine Secondary Title: HUCA Volume: 61 Pages: 1-32 Type: Journal Article Year: 1990 Abstract: "Un parcours érudit des sources classiques mène F. à conclure que le nom officiel de la région, jusqu'à Téroque d'Hadrien, était Judaea; avant le décret d'Hadrien qui aurait changé le nom de la région, le nom de Palestine était employé d'une façon correcte uniquement quand il servait à désigner l'ancienne région philistine de la côte".
"The name Palestine is correctly used only when applied to the land of the ancient Philistines along the coast fo the Mediterranean. The official name of the area, whether in Jewish or non-Jewish sources, including official data such as inscriptions and coins, is Judea. This term, apparently, is used by pagan writers as early as 300 B.C. Were it not for Hadrians' deliberate attempt to eliminate all traces of Jewish sovereignty after the Bar Kokhba revolt, the name would have remained Judea, as it did, despite the official change, in many literary and even official documents". - C.R.M.
"When Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.E. mentions Palestine he refers only to the coastal area, so called because it had been inhabited by the Philistines; or he is speaking loosely, since the only part of the area that he had visited was apparently along the coast. During the Persian and Ptolemaic periods, the entire area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean from Cilicia to Egypt is called Coele-Syria. The term Judaea, as used by such writers as Hecataeus of Abdera, Clearchus of Soli, and even the anti-Jewish Manetho in the early third century B.C.E. refers to that part of the area inhabited predominantly by Jews. That the official term for this region is Judaea may be seen from military diplomas and other inscriptions, as well as from coins, prior to the time of Hadrian. It is so designated in the official letter of the Emperor Claudius to the Alexandrians in the first century, as well as by such writers as Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius at the beginning of the second century. Moreover, writers on geography in the first century clearly differentiate Judaea from Palestine. Even vicious anti-Jewish writers, such as Apion, Chaeremon, and Seneca in the first century, generally do not use the term Palestine. Jewish writers, notably Philo and Josephus, with few exceptions refer to the land as Judaea, reserving the name Palestine for the coastal area occupied by the Philistines. It is only centuries later, in perhaps the fifth century, that we find the name Palestine in a rabbinic work. Occurrences of the adjective Palestinian in such poets as Tibullus, Ovid, and Statius are due to metrical considerations; Palestinian as a noun does not occur in all antiquity. Coins of Hadrian issued befor the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132 C.E. refer to Judaea; within a few years after the rebellion the name of Judaea was officially changed to Palestine, the aim being to obliterate the Jewish character of the land, with the name of the nearest tribe being applied to the entire area. Yet, even after the name was officially changed, some inscriptions, as well as such literary figures as Galen and Celsus in the second century, Dio Cassius and Origen in the third century, and Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth century, still refer to Judaea". Keywords: Archaeology, topography, local and regional history |