Talk:Coele-Syria

Name
Per Ngram and Google Scholar (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), this page is in the right place but "Celesyria" is so uncommon it's basically infra dig. and "Caelesyria" is simply a misspelling and not an actual alt form. "Coelosyria", however, merits inclusion. — Llywelyn II   12:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I note that the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (New Revised Standard Version) uses the spelling "Coelesyria" in 14 passages of the apocrypha (1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, and 3 Maccabees). — Plateblock (talk) 21:21, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Etymology
This article has it the other way around. The favorite theory (here disregarded) is that Coele-Syra comes from the Greek "Hollow Syria" (the hollow area between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains) and the less favored theory (here presented as a fact) is that it comes from the Aramaic kul, hence meaning "all of Syria".

From Strabo's Geography, 16.2.16-16.2.21:

Here are two mountains, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, which form Coele Syria, as it is called."

This was evidently the original Hallow Syria. The paradox is that, starting from the premise that "Coele" means "All" rather than "Hollow", this article claims that Strabo is somehow distorting/restricting the concept of Hollow Syria because...he applies it to the Hollow part of Syria! That's a very weird claim. All of Syria was simply called "Syria"; by a rapid check in the Naturalis Historia it's not true that Pliny uses Coele-Syria to describe "All of Syria" or "All of Syria except Phoenicia", he uses this term to describe a smaller part of it like Strabo.Barjimoa (talk) 13:07, 6 November 2023 (UTC)