Why “Palestine”
A Clarification of Choice
In my last post I talked about why we need a history of Palestine. But one might also ask, “why Palestine”? Why not a “History of Israel”?
The question would be understandable, considering the political implications of using “Palestine,” and I want to explain the use of Palestine and not, for example, Israel or even Judea. To do so, we need to dive into the history of the use of “Palestine” as a name for the area we concern ourselves with.
While there is an interesting discussion to be had about the roots of the name Palestine, we will not go into that here. Our focus is the use of Palestine and what that name means for our studies.
The Early Examples of Palestine
The first use of the name Palestine was by the Greek historian Herodotus, who used it to describe an area in Syria, in his historical work “The Histories.” This happened in the 5th century BCE, long before the Romans would use the name for the area, and describes an area in Syria, where we also find Ashkelon (Book 1, chapter 105, Book 2, chapter 106), inhabited by Syrians who are practicing circumcision (Judeans?) (Book 2, chapter 104), which is the only way into Egypt from the north, of which the cities Cadytis (Jerusalem?) and Gaza are part of (Book 3, chapter 5), it was part of the “fifth province” (for tax purposes), which also included Phoenicia and Cyprus (Book 3, chapter 91), and bordered Egypt (Book 7, chapter 89).
Other later Greek and Roman writers use the term, such as Aristotle who in his Meteorology talked about “the lake of Palestine”:
“Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them.” (Book II, part 3)
This sounds like he is describing the Dead Sea. It is, however, important to keep in mind that he does not refer to something he, himself, has seen, but to a place he has been told of. Still, if he has been told about a “lake of Palestine,” which fits the description, then this mostly likely is the Dead Sea that he has been told of.
Ovid wrote in the year 2 CE about “the seventh-day feast that the Syrian of Palestine observes” in his Ars Amatoria, which sounds like he is referring to a Jew.
Philo of Alexandria, himself a Jew, wrote in 40 CE that “Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which countries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits.” (Every Good Man is Free 12:75).
In 78 CE Pliny the Elder wrote that “… Syria occupies the coast, once the greatest of lands, and distinguished by many names; for the part which joins up to Arabia was formerly called Palaestina, Judaea, Coele, and Phoenice. The country in the interior was called Damascena, and that further on and more to the south, Babylonia.” (Natural History, Vol 1, Book V).
Also, Josephus, the Jewish-Roman historian, mentions Palestine, though he also mentions that this is the use of Herodotus, who must have been talking about the Jews, when he mentioned the circumcised Syrians (see above).
Many other cases can be presented of Greeks and Romans using “Palestine” about the area we are concerned with. However, there are those who insist that the use of Palestine about the area was first done by Hadrian as a reaction to the Jewish rebellion in 132-135 CE known as the Bar Kochba revolt, to remove any evidence of the Jewish connection to Judea.
Palestine under Rome
However, as we can infer from the examples above, the area was already known as Palestine though this might not have been the only name used for the same area. While it certainly might be the case that Hadrian, if he was the person to decide so, insisted on the “name change” for the area because of his anger against the Jews. But, maybe more plausible, the reason might be more connected to a change of administrative areas, where the roman province of Judea, Galilea and Syria were merged and then known as “Syria Palaestina”, not to remove the connection between Jews and Judea, but in order to describe this new administrative area with a name which was popular used in the Latin and Greek speaking world, which also covered a larger area than Judea alone did.
The name was used until the fourth century CE, where a reorganization of the administrative led to the creation of three Palestinian areas, Palaestina Prima, roughly covering the central parts and the cost, Palaestina Secunda, covering the northern part of Palaestina, and Palaestina Salutaris, which covered modern day Negev, parts of Sinai, and the western part of modern-day Jordan (see the article ADMIN ARA PALE).
The name would be continued to be used about the area even after the Muslim conquest in the 7th century CE, though in different forms.
The Use of Palestine Through the Years
In the early 11th century the Islamic preacher Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wasiti quoted the 8th century Islamic scholar Thawr ibn Yazid for having stated that:
“The most holy spot [al-Quds] on earth is Syria; the most holy spot in Syria is Palestine; the most holy spot in Palestine is Jerusalem [Bayt al-maqdis]; the most holy spot in Jerusalem is the Mountain; the most holy spot in Jerusalem is the place of worship [al-masjid], and the most holy spot in the place of worship is the Dome.” (Fada’il Bayt al-Muqaddas)
In the early 10th century, the Alexandrian patriarch Eutychius talked about how in Palestine, at times the Jews rose upon the Christians, mentioned in his Eutychii Annales.
In the first half of the 12th century, the Frankish priest Rorgo Fetellus wrote about “the city of Jerusalem”, which was “situated in the hill-country of Judea, in the province of Palestine” in an account about his pilgrim travels.
In a manuscript known as “Guidebook to Palestine” from 1350 CE it is said that “It [Jerusalem] is built on a high mountain, with hills on every side, in that part of Syria which is called Judaea and Palestine, flowing with milk and honey, abounding in corn, wine, and oil, and all temporal goods“.
Mujir al-Din al-‘Ulaymi, a 15th century qadi (Islamic judge) and historian from Jerusalem used the term “Filastin” (Palestine) about the area that stretched from Anaj, to Lajjun, south of the Esdraelon valley, which is an area roughly going from around al-Arish in the west past Rabba in Jordan, and all the way up to Nazareth.
In more modern times the name has been used to refer to “the Promised Land” or “the Holy Land”, as for example in the Brockhous Enzyklopädie” where it defines “Palästina” as “wegen der, den Nachkommen Abraham’s gegebenen Verheißung, das gelobte Land genannt, nimmt die syrische Küste am mittel länd, Meere vom Libanon südwärts bis an die Grenzen Ägyptens.” That is, “Called the Promised Land because of the promise made to the descendants of Abraham, goes from the Syrian coast on the central land, from the Lebanon southwards to the borders of Egypt.”
In 1838 the chemist Humphrey Davy wrote that “Palestine, a name supposed to be derived from the ancient Philistine coast, has been applied, from the earliest of modern ages, to the territory anciently assigned as the portion of the twelve tribes. The dimensions of this country do not correspond to its fame: it may be 150 miles in length north and south, and nearly as much in extreme breadth. It is bounded on the west by the Mediterranean; on the north it ranges along the southern skirts of Libanus; while on the east and south it passes into the Arabian desert, amid long ranges of rocky hills.”
In 1858 the Presbyterian minister, Josias Leslie Porter wrote the following in his “A handbook for travellers in Syria and Palestine”:
“The modern inhabitants of Southern Palestine may be divided into two classes—the Bedawin, or wandering tribes who dwell in tents, and the Fellahin, who reside in villages.”
Even the early Zionists described the area as Palestine, as in the goal of the Zionist Movement, as expressed in the Basel Program, adopted in the First Zionist Congress in 1897:
“Zionism seeks to establish a home in Palestine for the Jewish people, secured under public law.”
In short, Palestine has been used as a name broadly since at least the fifth century BCE all the way through history until today. The examples provided above are only a fraction of the examples that could be provided to emphasize this fact. Furthermore, the name has never been used solely about specific people, religions, or civilization, but has been used broadly by people of different religions and civilization through time. And while the area that was described by “Palestine” has differed in size, the focus has always been the same.
Conclusions on Palestine
To conclude, as can be seen from the above examples, Palestine has been used as a name for the area we are dealing with for at least 2,500 years and by several different groups of people. The area is sometimes used interchangeably with Judea, sometimes for Judea and other areas next to it, sometimes for areas next to Judea but not for Judea itself, and sometimes for all of it, even beyond what traditionally has been considered “the Promised/Holy Land.” It is a name used to refer to both local Jews and non-Jews, without any specific consideration for either, that is, the name has traditionally been used as a neutral determinator for the area and the people living there.
In contrast to this, when using the names Israel or Judea, we are either a) referring to specific entities at specific times, or we are b) taking one specific religious tradition into consideration. Talking about “a History of Israel” or “a History of Judea” would be limiting, both in scope of area covered as well as which group of people would be in focus. It would be “a History of the Israelites,” “a History of the Judeans,” or “a History of the Jews.”
However, this limited scope is not what we want to concern ourselves with here, especially because this land has been home not only for Israelites/Judeans/Jews, but for a wide range of people and traditions. Despite the contested symbolism of “Palestine” in context of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict, traditionally the name covers and embraces an area which goes from the borders of Sinai, the Negev, the eastern parts of the Aravah and Jordan Valley, all the way up north of the Lebanese border, including the Golan, and of course everything in between, just as it embraces all the people that have been part of this land.