Palestine

image from the Terra satellite
shows the Mediterranean Sea (left)
and portions of the Middle East.

(Hebrew: פלשת Pĕlesheth "land of sojouners") is one of several names for the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River with various adjoining lands. Many different definitions of the region have been used in the past three millennia.

The region in the 9th century BCE. Notice the coastal land of Philistia, from which the name "Palestine" derives. Ancient Egyptian texts call the entire levantine coastal area R-t-n-u (conventionally Retenu), which stretched along the Mediterranean coast in between modern Egypt and Turkey.

It subdivided into three regions. Retenu's southern region (called Djahy) approximates modern Israel with the Palestinian Territories, the central region Lebanon, and the northern region (called Amurru) the Syrian coast as far north as the Orontes River near Turkey.

The term "Palestine" derives from the word Philistine, the name of a non-Semitic ethnic group, who inhabited a smaller area on the southern coast, called Philistia, whose borders approximate the modern Gaza Strip. Philistia encompassed the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. The Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines (Hebrew: פלשתי Pĕlishtiy "immigrants"), usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote they were descendants of Mizraim, one of the sons of Ham who immigrated from Caphtor (Hebrew: כַּפְתּוֹר Kaphtor)  to the the original home of the Philistines, perhaps on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, maybe in Egypt or close by, or more probably on the island of Crete.

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Syria

Syria (Arabic: سوريا ‎or سورية ), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ), is a country in the Middle East, bordering Lebanon to the west, Palestine to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria attained independence from the French mandate of Syria in 1946, but can trace its historical roots to the fourth millennium BC; its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.

Isaiah 17: An Oracle Concerning Damascus

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¹ An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city
and will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer are deserted;
they will be for flocks,
which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.
³ The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus;
and the remnant of Syria will be
like the glory of the children of Israel,

declares the LORD of hosts.

⁴ And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.
⁵ And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain
and his arm harvests the ears,
and as when one gleans the ears of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Gleanings will be left in it,
as when an olive tree is beaten—
two or three berries
in the top of the highest bough,
four or five
on the branches of a fruit tree,

declares the LORD God of Israel.

⁷ In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. ⁸ He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

⁹ In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.
¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;
therefore, though you plant pleasant plants
and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,
¹¹ though you make them grow on the day that you plant them,
and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,
yet the harvest will flee away
in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹² Ah, the thunder of many peoples;
they thunder like the thundering of the sea!
Ah, the roar of nations;
they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!
¹³ The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,
but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind
and whirling dust before the storm.
¹⁴ At evening time, behold, terror!
Before morning, they are no more!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
and the lot of those who plunder us. —Isaiah 17 ESV

Syria has a population of 19 million, of whom the majority are Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims, as well as 16% other Muslim groups, including the Alawi, Shiite, and Druze, and 10% Christian.

Since 1963 the country has been governed by the Baath Party; the head of state since 1970 has been a member of the Assad family.

Syria's current President is Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.

Historically, Syria has often been taken to include the territories of Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and parts of Jordan, but excluding the Jazira region in the north-east of the modern Syrian state. In this historic sense, the region is also known as Greater Syria or by the Arabic name Bilad al-Sham (بلاد الشام ). Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel administers the disputed Golan Heights to the southwest of the country; a dispute with Turkey over the Hatay Province has subsided.

The name Syria comes from the ancient Greek name for the former colonial territories of Assyria such as Canaan and Aram.

At the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt and Arabia to the south and Cilicia to the north, stretching inland to include Mesopotamia, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including from west to east Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene, "formerly known as Assyria" (N.H. 5.66).

By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire (but politically independent from each other): Judaea (or "Judea" and later renamed Palestina in AD 135—the region corresponding to the modern states of Israel and Jordan and the Palestinian territories) in the extreme southwest, Phoenicia corresponding to Lebanon, with Damascena to the inland side of Phoenicia, Coele-Syria (or "Hollow Syria") south of the Eleutheris river, and Mesopotamia.

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Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid (uh-kee-muh-nid) Empire (Old Persian: Hakhāmanishiya) was a dynasty in the ancient Persian Empire with high cultural and economical achievements during its highest power [After Achaemenes, legendary ancestor of Cyrus II the Great, founder of the dynasty.] At the height of their power, around 500 BC, the Achaemenid rulers of Persia ruled over territories roughly encompassing today's Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Bulgaria, eastern parts of Greece, Egypt, Syria, much of what is now Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Caucasia, Central Asia, Libya, and northern parts of Arabia. The empire ruled by Persia eventually became the largest empire of the ancient world.

Darius I was the first to speak of Achaemenes, who he claimed was an ancestor of Cyrus the Great, (ca. 576 - 529 BC) and therefore the progenitor of the entire line of Achaemenid rulers. However, some scholars hold that Achaemenes was a fictional character used to legitimize Darius' rule, and that Darius the Great usurped the Persian throne.

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History of Jerusalem

The earliest traces of human occupation in Jerusalem go back to the late Chalcolithic Period and Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC). The Egyptian Execration Texts (c. 1900-1800 BC) and the Amarna letters (14th century BCE) show that the city was under the power of ancient Egypt. In one of the Amarna letters the city's governor, Abdi-Heba, asks for help from Egypt to fight the Habiru (possibly identical to the Hebrews).

This city has known many wars, and various periods of occupation. According to Genesis 14:18-20, the city (named as Salem) was ruled by king Melchizedek, a priest of God. According to one Jewish tradition reported by the midrash, it was founded by Abraham's forefathers Shem and Eber.

Later, according to the Biblical narrative of the Books of Samuel, it was controlled by the Jebusites, a group that scholars generally believe to have been Hittite.

It is probable that Melchizedek was himself a Jebusite; the -zedek part of the name occurring in other rulers such as Adonizedek, and in some biblical references to Jerusalem itself, such as neweh zedek (Jeremiah 31:23, where it is often translated as home of righteousness).

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The Holy Land

The expression "The Holy Land" (Hebrew: ארץ הקודש generally refers to the Land of Israel, otherwise known as the region of Palestine (sometimes including parts of Jordan, Syria and Egypt). It concerns the areas that hold significant religious importance to any or all three monotheistic Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Holy Land is the territory where the Biblical stories took place, those described by the Tanakh or those by the New Testament.

The concept had its evolution in the same Scriptures. For some Biblical authors the territory was marked by the concept of Promised Land, but for others it refers to those events in any place related to the People of Israel.

Although the Zionism movement, the current State of Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict are largely political, the dispute around the control of the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem is based on religious beliefs. Some have proposed the founding of a Federal Republic of the Holy Land as a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[1]

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History of Palestine

The History of Palestine is the account of events in the greater geographic area in the Southern Levant known as Palestine, which includes the West Bank, and Gaza ^[]. Historically "Palestine" referred to a larger area, including what became modern day Israel ^[] and parts of Jordan and Syria, more or less approximating the Jewish Judean kingdom of ancientdom that was destroyed by the Romans and then renamed. The name "Palestine," in the form of the Greek toponym Palaistinê (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, see below) is derived from the Greek "Philistia" and is recorded in the work of the Ionian historian Herodotus, circa the 5th century BCE. He uses it to denote all of the coastal land of the Mediterranean Sea, including Phoenicia, down to Egypt.

Greek:
όρος Παλαιστίνη μπορεί να αναφέρεται:

• Στην ιστορική περιοχή της Παλαιστίνης
• ή στο μη αναγνωρισμένο, ισχυριζόμενο Κράτος της Παλαιστίνης.
  

Translation:
Palestine term may refer:

• In the area of historic Palestine
• Or unrecognized, arguing State of Palestine.
  

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Decapolis

The Decapolis (Greek: deka, ten; polis, city) was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Syria and Judea (renamed Palestine in 135 AD). The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status.

The Decapolis cities were centers of Greek and Roman culture in a region that was otherwise Semitic (Jewish, Nabatean, and Aramean).

With the exception of Damascus, the "Region of the Decapolis" was located in modern-day northeastern Israel, northwestern Jordan, and southwestern Syria. Each city had a certain degree of autonomy and self-rule.

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The Holy Land

The expression "The Holy Land" (Hebrew: ארץ הקודש) generally refers to the Land of Israel, otherwise known as the region of Palestine (sometimes including parts of Jordan, Syria and Egypt). It concerns the areas that hold significant religious importance to any or all three monotheistic Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Holy Land is the territory where the Biblical stories took place, those described by the Tanakh or those by the New Testament.

The concept had its evolution in the same Scriptures. For some Biblical authors the territory was marked by the concept of Promised Land, but for others it refers to those events in any place related to the People of Israel.

The name "Holy Land" is related to a sacred concept of religiosity according with the Judeo-Christian idea.

The "Land" becomes "Holy" or "Sacred" when it comes in contact with the plan of salvation of God. In this same way, we can talk about "holy men and women" and "holy sites and objects". The origin of the Holy Land concept is found in the renaming of the Land of Canaan as the Land of Israel (e.g. Genesis 15:18-21).

The concept of the land being holy is especially prominent in the Book of Numbers. Horst Seebass argues that the book is "indeed pervaded by the theme of the holy land." The land is also considered holy in the Hebrew Bible because God's "holy people" settle there.

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