Palestine

Definition: Palestine (a term used on this site to refer to the Greco-Roman geographical area) is located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The word is related to the word Philistine. It may be referred to as the Levant from a French word for rising, just like Anatolia and Orient. (All these terms refer to the idea that the sun rises in the East. The Levant or Anatolia or Orient are east of the people writing about them.)

The Greeks referred to Palestine as part of Syria* and the Romans referred to the administrative unit as Judaea until the second century A.D. Earlier, Provincia Judaea had been made an annex of Syria under Augustus (r. c. 31 B.c. - A.D. 14) becoming part of Provincia Syria. Then, in the second century the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) renamed it Palaestina. It is from Palaestina that we get the name Palestine.

See Origin of the name Palestine, Palestine History.

*_{There is controversy here over whether the same area we moderns think of as Palestine was sometimes called Palestine by the Greeks. Hadrian did not just pull the name Palestine out of thin air. There was an historical reason Hadrian named the province Palaestina. Herodotus 3.5.1 writes:}

_{ἀπὸ γὰρ Φοινίκης μέχρι οὔρων τῶν Καδύτιος πόλιος ἐστὶ Σύρων τῶν Παλαιστίνων καλεομένων
the country from Phoenicia to the borders of the city Cadytis [Gaza] belongs to the people called the Palestine Syrians
Perseus for the Greek/Rawlinson translation}

_and

_{Φοίνικες δὲ καὶ Σύροι οἱ ἐν τῇ Παλαιστίνῃ καὶ αὐτοὶ ὁμολογέουσι
The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine
Macauley translation}

_{If this topic interests you, please consult:}

• _{"Palestine and Israel"
  David M. Jacobson
  Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74}
• _{"Palestine: On the History and Geography of a Name"
  Bernard Lewis
  The International History Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 1-12}