The Land of Israel has been a historical topic for at least 6000 years. Israel is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands more commonly know as Canaan.
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Some terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land include Canaan, Greater Israel, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea Province, Judea, Israel, “Israel HaShlema”, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael or Ha’aretz), Zion, Retenu (Ancient Egyptian), Southern Syria, and Syria Palaestina.
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Hebrew: ארץ־ישראל, Eretẓ Yisra’el; formerly ארץ–כנען, Eretẓ Kena’an; also פלשׂתינה, Palestina; Arabic: فلسطين Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn) (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Christian English translation; Palestine
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In Christian tradition the events of the Four Gospels take place almost entirely in this country, which thereafter became known as The Holy Land.
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In the Qur’an, the term الأرض المقدسة (Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah, English: “Holy Land”) is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel: “O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.” (Surah 5:21)
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In Ancient Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu is record of a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset) among the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III’s reign. The Hebrew name Peleshet (פלשת Pəléshseth) – usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote the southern coastal region that was inhabited by the Philistines to the west of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.
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The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the same region Palashtu or Pilistu in his Annals. In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus wrote in Ancient Greek of a ‘district of Syria, called Palaistinê” (hence Palaestina).
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According to historical text, Palaestina was commonly used to refer to the coastal region and shortly thereafter, the whole of the area inland to the west of the Jordan River. The latter extension occurred when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba rebellion in the 2nd century CE, renamed “Provincia Judea” (Iudaea Province; originally derived from the name “Judah”) to “Syria Palaestina” (Syria Palaestina), in order to complete the dissociation with Judea.
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During the Byzantine period, the entire region (Syria Palaestina, Samaria, and the Galilee) was named Palaestina, subdivided into provinces Palaestina I and II. The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutaris, sometimes called Palaestina III. The Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II, also known as Palaestina Prima, “First Palestine”, and Palaestina Secunda, “Second Palestine”), have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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The Arabic word is (commonly transcribed in English as Filistin, Filastin, or Falastin). Moshe Sharon writes that when the Arabs took over Greater Syria in the 7th century, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration before them, generally continued to be used such as Palaestina.
Hence, he traces the emergence of the Arabic form Filastin to this adoption, with Arabic inflection, of Roman and Hebrew (Semitic) names.
Under Arab rule, Filastin (or Jund Filastin) was used administratively to refer to what was under the Byzantines Palaestina Secunda (comprising Judaea and Samaria), while Palaestina Prima (comprising the Galilee region) was renamed Urdunn (“Jordan” or Jund al-Urdunn).
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The boundaries of the Holy Land have varied throughout history. Prior to its being named Israel, Ancient Egyptian texts (c. 14 century BCE) called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey R-t-n-u (conventionally Retjenu). Retjenu was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, Djahy, shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel, including also Syria and Lebanon and disputed territories.
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The following map identifies the tribal clans that inhabited the Middle East. There are no tribes identified specifically as “Palestinian“.
Map of the southern Levant, c.830s BCE.
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The archaeological evidence supports the biblical story of there having been a Kingdom of Israel of the United Monarchy that reigned from Jerusalem. It is thought the Kingdom of Israel ruled some time starting from the Iron Age I (1200 BCE to- 135 CE) over an area approximating modern-day Israel but inclusive of the ancient territories, extending farther westward and northward to cover much (but not all) of the greater Land of Israel. Review the archaeological evidence provided some with photos on several categories of Bible Discovered.
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Philistia, emerged circa 1185 BCE and its northern border was the Yarkon River, the southern border extending to Wadi Gaza, its western border the Mediterranean Sea, with no fixed border to the east. By 722 BCE, Philistia had been subsumed by the Assyrian Empire, with the Philistines becoming ‘part of the local population,’ prospering under Assyrian rule during the 7th century despite occasional rebellions against their overlords. In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the Babylonian empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away, and the history of the Philistines as a distinct people effectively ended.
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The use of the name Palaestina became “Palestine” in English and thus more common after the European renaissance. The name was officially revived and used after the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1517–1917) and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine [using the English translation]. In conclucion of all the documentation there was no tribal clan or historical nation called Palestinians.
Part of the reason for this resurgence of the term Palaestinia was the settlement of Christian churches within the region from the common era on to date. Thus a Christian stance alien to Judaism’s historical Kingdom and the Torah. In addition agreements were made by Christian heirarchy with the Muslim Caliphs after the fall of he Ottoman Empire which involved trades of churches for mosques and vive versa. Many were centered around the Holy City of God known as Jerusalem. The British Mandate required the state of Israel to agree to accept certain Christian churches already established in the land of Israel.
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The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to the coast north of Mount Carmel.
Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palaestina from the Phoenicians, he refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt.
Josephus used the name Παλαιστινη only for the smaller coastal area as, Philistia. Pliny, writing in Latin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria that was “formerly called Palaestina” among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.
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An archaeological textual reference concerning the territory of Israel is thought to have been made in the Merneptah Stele, dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a recount of Egyptian king Merneptah’s victories in the land of Canaan, mentioning place-names such as Gezer, Ashkelon and Yanoam, along with Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.
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Another famous inscription is that of the Mesha Stele, bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC Moabite King Mesha, discovered in 1868 at Dhiban (biblical “Dibon,” capital of Moab) now in modern Jordan. The Stele is notable because it is thought to be the earliest known reference to the sacred Hebrew name of God – YHWH. It also notable as the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to historical Israel.
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In the Biblical account, the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah ruled from Jerusalem a vast territory extending far west and north of Canaan for some 120 years. Archaeological evidence for this period is very rare, however, and its implications much disputed.
The Hebrew Bible calls the region Canaan (כּנען) (Numbers 34:1–12), while the part of it occupied by Israelites is designated Israel (Yisrael). The name “Land of the Hebrews” (ארץ העברים, Eretz Ha-Ivrim) is also found, as well as several poetical names: “land flowing with milk and honey”, “land that [God] swore to your fathers to assign to you”, “Land of the Lord”, and the “Promised Land”.
The Land of Canaan is given a precise description in (Numbers 34:1) as including all of Lebanon, as well (Joshua 13:5). The wide area appears to have been the home of several small tribal nations such as the Canaanites, Hebrews, Hittites, Amorrhites, Pherezites, Hevites and Jebusites.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the land of Canaan is part of the land given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which extends from the “river of Egypt” to the Euphrates River (Genesis 15:18) – some identify the river of Egypt with the Nile, others believe it to be a wadi in northern Sinai, cf. Numbers 34:5; Joshua 15:3-4; Joshua 15:47; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 24:7.
In Exodus 13:17, [English translation] “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.”
