Talk:Timeline of the name Palestine

Tagging
Chesdovi needs to attempt a justification for all the tags added to this article today, or they will be removed. Can I please ask anyone commenting on this article overall to first review the external references section of the article, in particular: Oncenawhile (talk) 17:34, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Jacobson
 * Feldman
 * Gerber
 * Also, Edward Said's A Question of Palestine
 * I am concerned that you have gathered from early sources, however these being only translations. i.e. I doubt very much whether in Jewish Midrash the word Palestine appears. It is only referred to as such by the translator, but does not appear in the original text. It seems in this case, it appears only in the notes. The whole page needs to be based on tertiary sources. Chesdovi (talk) 00:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:PSTS, which says that articles should be based primarily on secondary sources whilst primary sources can be used with care so long as any interpretation is supported by secondary sources.
 * This article is based primarily on secondary sources - in particular, the four listed above. Where primary sources have been used, no interpretation is given - only the source quote.
 * To your point on the midrash, you only needed have read the secondary sources above - see e.g. Feldman who says "...the Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 90.6), commenting on the word "land" in Genesis 41:54, presumably as Krauss mentions, reflecting official nomenclature, explains that the reference is to three lands in the region - Phoenicia, Arabia and Palestine."
 * Nice talking to you as always. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:54, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To my amazement, I have checked the original Hebrew midrash text and lo and behold the word Falastini indeed appears! So I am sorry and acknowledge that I should have checked first. Thanks is also due, as now I can use this piece of infomation elsewhere. Regards and speak to you soon, Chesdovi (talk) 22:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My pleasure - thanks for letting me know. Speak soon. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Even though Chesdovi was mistaken in this instance, his general point is valid. Very few traditional Jewish sources use the name "Palestine". A few years ago I asked a friend who is an expert on this sort of thing, and he came up with these examples of "Palestine" or "Palestinians": Zerotalk 04:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * 3-4 uses in Midrash Rabbah
 * one quote from Midrash Rabbah around 1300 CE
 * R' Saadya Gaon (around 900 CE) in his Arabic commentary to the Torah
 * R' Ashtory HaParchi (around 1300CE) in his travel book Kaftor VaPerach calls the city of Ramleh "Palestine" (this is known from non-Jewish sources too).

Unsourced claim
IP 74.240.225.109 has just added the following: "It is important to note that the root is traced to a meaning that means, "usurper" or "invader", and that the Biblical Phillistines did not refer to themselves by that name. This is how the term "invaders" is spelled in Hebrew: פולשים. It has the same F/P-L-S semetic root. It is a fact that is routinely ignored by Palestinian nationalists, who are either too ignorant, or afraid of the truth. In reality, it is beyond amusing that any modern people would choose to refer to themsleves as "invaders". Why on earth would you willingly refer to yourself in your own language, by a term that literally means "invaders", and was a deragatory term used by a non-Arab people to refer to another non-Arab people who are completely unrelated to you? That makes no sense." Can anyone provide a reputable source for any of this? Oncenawhile (talk) 18:04, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

This claim of the origin of the word "Philistine" (by Zionist propaganda) is not supported and only thrown out by "Biblical scholars" and even the root itself is not certain at all and can possibly mean migrant as well. The real scholarly view (putting aside so-called "Biblical scholars", an oxymoron to be sure) is the following that Philistine comes from "Jacobsohn and supported by others, is that the name derives from the attested Illyrian locality Palaeste, whose inhabitants would have been called Palaestīnī according to normal grammatical practice". And this fits with the other scholarly fact about the title Caphtor where the Philistines are said to be originally from according to the "Bible" that "Scholars variously identify the land of Caphtor with Cyprus and Crete and other locations in the eastern Mediterranean." Illyria is around the generic term eastern Mediterranean and the Philistines movements are impossible to document other than again somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean so it could very possibly be a Philistine migration from Illyria (the Balkans, modern day Albania, etc) were they started out and then say Crete or Cyprus and then to Canaan (Palestine).

Also being called something by someone else and having the word stick is not "unique" at all in world history anyway even IF this propaganda claim the person above posted from an infamous Zionist propaganda source was supposedly "true" at all. Just see for an unrelated example (that makes this point) the word "Christian" being something enemies of what the New Testament says were the Apostles of Jesus, first called the "Christians" as an insult in Antioch and the name stuck clearly Christianity; Acts 11:26- ... And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. (KJV)

And then just finally to conclude, Palestinians are shown to be mostly related to the old indigenous people of the land (in this Canaan, Palestine, Israel, etc) as even Israeli academics and geneticists have largely acknowledged themselves http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2000/10/30-01.html. The whole issue about Palestinians being Semites or Arabs today has to do with them having been Arabized culturally and linguistically, regardless of where the Philistines (who most certainly have given DNA to the Palestinians as the Palestinians have the DNA of all the people who have lived in the region throughout history be they Philistines, Canaanites, Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Mamluks, Kurdish Ayyubids, etc etc). If one holds say Jewish people to the statements this piece of Zionist propaganda mentiond above gives, then even according to Zionist mythology and the "Bible"; the Hebrews (putting aside nobody on earth can prove if they are descended from the Biblical Abraham much less most Jews who have lived with and intermarried in Europe in particular for centuries) the Hebrews themselves won't have originally been Semites as Abraham is said in religious lore (in particular the Bible) to have come from Ur (Iraq) which was not a Semitic place at that point either. Just see the Sumerian language in old Mesopotamia it wasn't Semitic! Meaning even Abraham, the Patriarch admired by three world religions, would not have been Semitic himself even and would've had to undergo a process of being turned Semitic culturally and linguistically (as terms like Arab, Jewish, are not "races" they are cultures and linguistic groupings, obviously more so Arab then a term like Jewish which just denotes a follower of Judaism and one can convert to the religion of Judaism, etc)Historylover4 (talk) 02:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

For a start where are your sources for this claim of Palestinians being decedents of Peleshet or Philistines that you mention above? Secondly your use of the term "Zionist propaganda" is rather telling seen as anyone who supports the self determination of Jews in the world is technically a Zionist. For your information there is no Cabal of "Zionist Elders" and Zionism is only a dirty word to Islamists and antisemites on both the extreme right and the extreme left. 82.25.201.64 (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

This is the biggest load of islamist propaganda I have ever seen. 69.22.242.52 (talk) 06:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC) Regardless of being Zionist or not, the fact the root PLŜ comes from "INVADER" is even supported by the Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%A9. --Wolfman12405 (talk) 01:10, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary is not a reliable source for our purposes and anyway the Philistines are not mentioned there. On the other hand, whatever use is made of the "invader" theory today, I don't believe it is a Zionist invention. It comes from the days when every word in the bible was provided with a Hebrew etymology regardless of how strained it was.  Scholarship has moved past that point. Zerotalk 01:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The root of the name "philistines" comes from PLŠ (פלש) which in both Canaanite and Hebrew (a Canaanite dialect) means: "Invader" (פולש). ANYONE WHO SPEAKS HEBREW, YES EVEN NON-ZIONISTS, KNOWS THIS! all u haters - Try to hold ur breath if it makes u feel uncomfortable, because NON-ZIONIST GENETICISTS have also found that the "palestinians" are not homogenous group and that most of them are identical to arabians unlike Jews, Druze and lebanese for instance.--Wolfman12405 (talk) 03:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Strong's Concordance disagrees:
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 07:14, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, one needs to be careful with modern (and even Mishna) Hebrew - modern concepts, such as invade (as opposed to war), are often grafted onto prior roots. These are the non-Philistine attestations in the bible - all of which are wallowing/rolling in dirt -
 * אַֽל־תִּשְׂמְחִ֤י פְלֶ֙שֶׁת֙ כֻּלֵּ֔ךְ כִּ֥י נִשְׁבַּ֖ר שֵׁ֣בֶט מַכֵּ֑ךְ כִּֽי־מִשֹּׁ֤רֶשׁ נָחָשׁ֙ יֵ֣צֵא צֶ֔פַע וּפִרְי֖וֹ שָׂרָ֥ף מְעוֹפֵֽף׃
 * הֵילִ֤ילִֽי שַׁ֙עַר֙ זַֽעֲקִי־עִ֔יר נָמ֖וֹג פְּלֶ֣שֶׁת כֻּלֵּ֑ךְ כִּ֤י מִצָּפוֹן֙ עָשָׁ֣ן בָּ֔א וְאֵ֥ין בּוֹדֵ֖ד בְּמוֹעָדָֽיו׃
 * בַּת־עַמִּ֤י חִגְרִי־שָׂק֙ וְהִתְפַּלְּשִׁ֣י בָאֵ֔פֶר אֵ֤בֶל יָחִיד֙ עֲשִׂ֣י לָ֔ךְ מִסְפַּ֖ד תַּמְרוּרִ֑ים כִּ֣י פִתְאֹ֔ם יָבֹ֥א הַשֹּׁדֵ֖ד עָלֵֽינוּ׃
 * הֵילִ֨ילוּ הָרֹעִ֜ים וְזַעֲק֗וּ וְהִֽתְפַּלְּשׁוּ֙ אַדִּירֵ֣י הַצֹּ֔אן כִּֽי־מָלְא֥וּ יְמֵיכֶ֖ם לִטְב֑וֹחַ וּתְפוֹצ֣וֹתִיכֶ֔ם וּנְפַלְתֶּ֖ם כִּכְלִ֥י חֶמְדָּֽה׃
 * וְהִשְׁמִ֤יעוּ עָEthnopunk (talk) 15:00, 20 March 2022 (UTC)לַ֙יִךְ֙ בְּקוֹלָ֔ם וְיִזְעֲק֖וּ מָרָ֑ה וְיַעֲל֤וּ עָֽפָר֙ עַל־רָ֣אשֵׁיהֶ֔ם בָּאֵ֖פֶר יִתְפַּלָּֽשׁוּ׃
 * בְּגַת֙ אַל־תַּגִּ֔ידוּ בָּכ֖וֹ אַל־תִּבְכּ֑וּ בְּבֵ֣ית לְעַפְרָ֔ה עָפָ֖ר (התפלשתי) [הִתְפַּלָּֽשִׁי]:
 * Icewhiz (talk) 07:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Icewhiz (talk) 07:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

It seems more likely that the Egyptians were referring to the Peleshet as the 'Sea People'. An unknown people who came from the Aegean, often taking prisoners, or engaged in wars with Egypt and only really known about due to Egyptian records. There is no real connection proven between the Peleshet and later Philistines, if they even exist.

I find it troubling that the source for the term is the Tanakh.

For example, a page from the online Jewish Library "then the name is believed to be derived from the Egyptian and Hebrew word peleshet, which appears in the Tanakh no fewer than 250 times. Roughly translated to mean rolling or migratory, the term was used to describe the inhabitants of the land to the northeast of Egypt – the Philistines. The Philistines were an Aegean people – more closely related to the Greeks and with no connection ethnically, linguistically or historically with Arabia – who conquered the Mediterranean coastal plain that is now Israel and Gaza in the 12th Century BCE."

The article even contradicts the page on Philistines. The reference and usage here is tenuous at best and should be removed, since its really just an attempt to place Palestinians in Egypt as an alternative to a well-known foundation story surrounding the Hebrews and the Bible in order to fulfil the objectives of replacement theology. See also Supercessionism. Ethnopunk (talk) 15:00, 20 March 2022 (UTC)


 * "just an attempt to place Palestinians in Egypt" — in decades of reading on this topic I have never heard of this interpretation. I think you are on the wrong track altogether. Zerotalk 04:15, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

genesis 21:34 needs inclusion
Genesis 21:34 refers to Abraham dwelling in Palestine, used to refer to the entire country, and should be referenced as it would predate the rest of these sources.129.215.130.11 (talk) 13:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Added as requested. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:00, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Correction: Genesis 21.34 refers to Abraham living "in the land of the PLISHTIM for many days". In Genesis 21.32, Abraham and Abimelekh having "made a treaty in Beer-sheba", Abimelekh then "left [Beersheba] and returned to the land of the PLISHTIM". Ts-lin09 (talk) 08:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Problem with lack of context of pre-Hadrian usages
There may be a lack of context problem with the way the pre-Hadrian "Palestine" uses are presented. While it's interesting to give a complete (and they do look fairly complete) list of Greek/Roman citations, they could mislead the casual browser to think that "Palestine" was common pre-Hadrian, it wasn't. It's misleading that Strabo's non-use of the term is not mentioned given Strabo is the main Herod-the-Great era geographical source on the area. The article needs to show more clearly that "Palestine" jumped from not being a very common name for the region to the common name with Hadrian. Inserting a comment on Strabo would be a good way to do that. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem in principle, but I don't find in any of the three sources you gave a clear statement that Strabo never used the word. I only found statements that Strabo used "Coele Syria". Did I miss something? If not, it seems like original research. Zerotalk 04:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

What I've seen in this historical account is an evidence based record of what this land has been called in a timeline throughout history, not to "mislead the casual browser to think that "Palestine" was common pre-Hadrian" as what you're saying is that there is evidence in the article that states that the name Palestine was a common name pre-Hadrian, show where in the article that makes a clear indication of someone making a case that the name Palestine was a common name pre-Hadrian as all I see is an evidence based article, not an opinionated, preachy one.

You must also understand that what you're saying is misleading as you're making a statement that is not backed by evidence, that "mislead the casual browser to think that "Palestine" was common pre-Hadrian, it wasn't." do you have any evidence that supports that the name "Palestine" was not a common name of this land pre-Hadrian? If not, was this only based on your opinion? As if you make this sort of statement without evidence you could mislead people into believing something that is not true, as what if many people of this area referred to this area in their dialect as their variation of the word "Palestine"? Is your concern with only the Greek/Roman or do you also disagree with the Assyrian dialect "Pa-la-áš-tu", "pa-la-as-ta-a-a" or ancient Egyptian "P-r-s-t"? Can you give a good argument to delete most of the article to only show Hadrian and onward or have another opinion that should be apart of this article? Maybe you want to add to the article that "We don't mean to mislead you to believe that this land was called "Palestine" pre-Hardian? What's your goal? Tell us it and maybe it can be achieved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkL22137 (talk • contribs) 17:32, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

sources missing
There are two references to "Lewis, 1993" but no such source is identified. Similarly for "Kaegi, 1995", "Sharon, 1988", "Marshall Cavendish, 2007", "Lassner and Troen, 2007" and "Room, 1997". Maybe others too. I guess some things got lost in past page splitting. "Studies in Hellenistic Judaism ：Louis H. Feldman" needs page number. Zerotalk 12:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The details for most of the short citations seem to be available in the Bibliography section of the Palestine article so they could be copied over if there is agreement to include this material. The crystalinks source doesn't look like it qualifies as an RS. I can't tell what the Jastrow 2005 is meant to be as the link doesn't go anywhere. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language link doesn't go anywhere useful. The enotes ref is a circular Wikipedia reference. I don't have any view about whether this material should be included (other than that the unsuitable sources should be replaced) but I've watched the edit warring over this material develop. I hope Tritomex stops trying to put it back until the issues are resolved and there is consensus for inclusion. Tritomex, please can I encourage you stop returning this material to the article until all issues have been resolved and there is consensus. Sean.hoyland  - talk 14:34, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

. Most of my previous information's are given here as well. If my previous sources are questioned (although my previous source provided much deeper perspective to the etymology of the name Palestine, I can use this source too. I don't think that I should agree in self-censorship, as I gave valid links to all facts mentioned.As the books are currently unavailable I will replece part  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex (talk • contribs) 18:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

palestinefacts.org is a self-published web site that fails WP:RS. We can't use it here, and we aren't allowed to copy sources from places like that either. is entirely out of the question as it is a wikipedia mirror. There is only one thing that needs fixing in the article as far as I can see. When the Hebrew usage of the word Peleshet is mentioned in the lead, the word "Philistines" doesn't appear; that seems to be a mistake. Zerotalk 21:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

1RR violation
By my count, Tritomex has violated WP:1RR three times, and has refused to attempt to gain consensus for the proposed addition. I would note that I warned the editor two months ago about WP:ARBPIA. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:55, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Etymology - the whole article?
There have been repeated attempts to add an "etymology" section to this article. The proposed section says that the word Palestine means the Biblical Philistines, and that these Philistines were not Arabs or Semites. The section does not make any sense in this article for the following reasons: (1) This whole article is about etymology. Having it begin with a section on one person's interpretation of where the word came from is absurd (2) The sources being the Seattle Times and Palestine Facts are not experts in etymology, they are experts in politics (3) This article is not the right place to talk about who the Philistines were, where they came from, or what they called themselves (4) Focusing only on the biblical interpretation, versus the whole history of the word (which began in Egypt, before the bible was written) is not NPOV. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree except that Palestine Facts is not expert on anything. It is just some private propaganda site that obviously fails RS. One thing that can be added to the article (though not in this way) is an expert opinion of how the name "Palestine" came into English.  When I get a chance, I'll cite the Oxford English Dictionary for that. Zerotalk 23:19, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll repeat what I wrote on my talk page: Seattle Times is a reliable source, they frequently publish scientific articles, and unless anyone here wants to go to the RS noticeboard and gain consensus disproving them as such, the reference should stay. The origin of the name has nothing to do with the modern definition, it is a sourced fact, and attempts to conceal that are plain agenda pushing. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 01:18, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * No, actually it is you who has to justify the insertion. I having nothing against the Seattle Times as a newspaper, but it is embarrassing to have a newspaper feature used as source in an article that otherwise relies on professional historians.  The article already has a whole section on the Philistines.  If you spend some time looking at serious sources, you will find that nobody knows what "Peleshet" originally meant, or even if it was a Semitic or Indo-European word. You will find that scholars have many different theories. You will also find that "Kaftor" is usually taken to mean "Crete", but that isn't known for sure either. These questions belong at Philistines anyway. Zerotalk 09:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The burden requirement has been fulfilled by providing a reliable source, now it's up to you to discredit what has been already established as credible... or are you suggesting I need to reinvent the wheel every time another editor has doubts against established consensus? Hearfourmewesique (talk) 16:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Hearfourmewesique, I understand that your comments are made in good faith, but what you said on your talk page suggests you think there is not good faith on the other side? I find this hard to understand - please could you respond to each of Zero's points in his post above as it might help us understand where you are coming from. Also please have a look at the External References in this article. And please explain exactly what part of the Seattle Times article is saying something different to what is currently in this article - personally I don't even understand what specific point you are so focused on. Oncenawhile (talk) 19:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Rabbinical refs
''Rabbinical literature is full of apophthegms that express the positive passion of the teachers of Israel for the soil, the air, the water, the physical being of the national land. 'Whosoever walks four cubits in Palestine is assured of the world to come.' 'It is better to dwell in a Palestine desert than to live in a land of plenty abroad.' 'To live in the land of Israel outweighs all the commands of the Torah.' 'The air of Palestine makes men wise.' 'Even the chatter of Palestine is worthy of study.' 'Palestine is the microcosm of the world.' 'Rabbi Abah used to kiss the rocks of Palestine. Rabbi Chazah used to roll in the dust of Palestine.' The whole doctrine of the rabbis in regard to the national home is summed up in the sentence: 'God said to Moses, "the Land is me and Israel is dear to me. I will bring Israel who is dear to me to Land that is dear to me.' Here is the triple thread which is Judaism -- God, the Jewish people, the Jewish land. What the rabbis taught and felt, the Jewish people believed and felt.'' Quotes from here should be added  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.50.114.94 (talk) 19:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Possible inaccuracy with respect to pre-135 A.D. uses
At a minimum, the Pausanias reference seems to be inaccurate, since Pausanias referred to Judea as being "above" Palestine (i.e. in the hills inland from the coast), and not "in" Palestine. The Greek words huper tês Palaistinês υπερ της Παλαιστινης "above Palaistine" can be seen at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0159%3Abook%3D10%3Achapter%3D12%3Asection%3D9 . As far as I can tell, among those who had specific knowledge of the area (as opposed to those dependent on secondhand reports from coastal-sailing merchants, at a time when Judea did not extend to the coast), the word Παλαιστινη / Palaestina predominantly referred to the coastal plain area (old Philistia) before 135 A.D. AnonMoos (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you make of Philo and Josephus' uses then?! They were Judeans / Jews. If you want to understand this you should read the Jacobson reference. He states very clearly "In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense." Oncenawhile (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Re your quote, I have added a translation used by two unrelated specialist scholars in to the article. Oncenawhile (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Pausanias again
The article seems to be completely rewritten (and have a different title) since I left the remarks above, but it still omits the fact that Pausanias refers to the Hebrews as being "on" or "above" Palestine (i.e. living in the hills inland from the coast -- the coastal plain being the commonest meaning of the term Peleshet/Palaistine before 135 A.D., especially among those who knew the area firsthand). See the Perseus@Tufts link above... AnonMoos (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi AnonMoos, did you see the scholarly sources I added to support the translation?
 * To your second point re "commonest meaning ... before 135 AD" you are incorrect - the sources here show that clearly. I suspect what you mean is "commonest meaning as used in the bible", in which case you would be right if you judged commonness by "number of uses of the word" and wrong if you judged commonness by "number of books the word is used in". Oncenawhile (talk) 08:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The sources here only show anecdotal evidence the term was used. Does any of them explicitly support this was the common term, or is that just what this article is designed to lead a reader to believe? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi NMMNG, I think you might misunderstand the debate here (the first point). My second comment was as an aside - we do not write this anywhere in the article. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what those are, or whether they're supposed to be loose indirect paraphrases or actual translations. Click on the box on the Perseus site if you want to see what was printed in the famous series of green-backed books -- which was definitely a direct translation, and says "above Palestine"... AnonMoos (talk) 06:00, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Zionist propaganda
All references to Zionist propaganda must be removed as deeply offensive. 'Zionists' do not publish false information. The Torah commands the Jews to not bear false witness, the Koran commands Moslem's to use Al Teqiyya (false witness)in the furtherance of Islam. Who would you believe? John, London, UK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.167.78 (talk) 20:45, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume you are referring to HistoryLover's comments above? I'm not sure whether that breaches policy, I defer to others on that. I am sure however that your last sentence was obscene racism, and is totally unacceptable here. Oncenawhile (talk) 11:57, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't know about "obscene racism" (whatever that means), but it's pretty dumb, since taqiyya is mainly a Shi`ite thing, while the majority of Muslims in the Levant and Egypt are Sunnis -- and taqiyya actually mostly deals with dissimulation for self-protection in the face of persecution, anyway. There's plenty of lying in the claims of some Arab nationalists (the "map on the wall of the Knesset" etc. etc. ad nauseam magnam) but I'm not sure whether there's more lying than in other forms of nationalist historiography, and the great majority of it has nothing to do with Qur'anic doctrines... AnonMoos (talk) 15:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Totally agree with you. My reference to obscene racism is based on the user's suggestion that adherent muslims are untrustworthy. His inference is as clear as daylight, and there is no place for such absurd generalisations about any race, religion or peoples in wikipedia. Oncenawhile (talk) 02:12, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit by Mainstreamegypt
User:Mainstreamegypt added a new source (here in "A Commentary on Herodotus") in order to justify the statement: "Scholars are divided on whether his usage of the term only refered to the coastal strip (Philistia)".

Having read the source, it is silent on this question, and the user is making an WP:OR argument from silence. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:07, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I haven't followed the Google books link, but Herodotus did use the word Palaistine to encompass Judea. However, since Herodotus appears to have gotten his information from coastal traders, and knew almost nothing about inland areas in that part of the world (he was certainly dismally ignorant about Jews), this therefore provides very little evidence as to how someone with more solid and detailed knowledge of the area (inland, not just the coast) would have used the word.  As the usage of Pausanias etc. suggests, the more knowledgeable people often tended to use the term mainly to refer to historic Philistia, (i.e. the southern coastal plain), which is also the etymologically original meaning of the word... AnonMoos (talk) 09:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Article title
I think it is illegal to use "" tags in wikipedia article title. Anyways shouldn't the name be Etymology of Palestine ?Greyshark09 (talk) 20:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Etymology has more to do with ultimate name origins... AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess then it should be Name of Palestine, in accordance with other articles titled "Name of ".Greyshark09 (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Almost all of those are redirects to etymology sections of main country articles. Zerotalk 22:25, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

GreyShark you had it right, Etymology of Palestine. -- Etymology is the correct term = "A history of a word". Please punish AnonMoos. He is trying to hide the existence of this page and corrupt wikipedia, on many "Palestine" talk pages, he is posting that Hadrian invented the name Palestine after exiling the Jews 135CE. AnonMoos in on a Religious Crusade to keep this article from coming to light. -- 20:19, 31 January 2014‎ User:DigDeep4Truth


 * Whatever -- I haven't edited this article at all, as far as I remember. What I have done is call attention (on this talk page) to a highly-relevant quote from Pausanias, which the self-appointed apparent article "owner" refuses to include.  And it's nonsense to say that the Emperor Hadrian "invented" the word Palestine, and I never claimed any such thing.  Instead, I pointed out that before about 135 A.D. the word most commonly meant the southern coastal plain (i.e. Philistia), and that some of those who extended the meaning of the word beyond the coastal plain were those who were most ignorant about anything inland (this includes Herodotus).  The emperor Hadrian made the previously less-common extended meaning of the word official in Roman administrative terminology. AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You opposed Greyshark09 's insightful Motion to fix the article title and blocked his Motion recognize this article as an "Etymology of Palestine" -- "The History of a Word". And even though you have read this article you posted on Multiple other Palestine related Talk pages that Palestine did not exist before Rome and Jesus. DigDeep4Truth (talk) 08:09, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Your wrath would appear to be misdirected, since I've had basically zero influence over the text of the article up to this point. And if this article were renamed "Etymology of Palestine", then it would be much more narrowly focused on the ultimate origin of the term, and there wouldn't be too much to say other than that it was came from the name of the "Philistines", of unknown original meaning.  The word Palestine or slight variants of it certainly goes back to 1000 B.C. or so, but before 135 A.D. it more commonly meant "Philistia" than "Palestine" in the modern sense... Furthermore, I've removed pointless and meaningless remarks of yours which are in violation of WP:NPA and WP:AGF. -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:16, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Lassner and Troen quote
The sentence from Lassner and Troen in the lead "Jacob Lassner and Selwyn Ilan Troen offer a different view, writing that Jund Filastin, the full name for the administrative province under the rule of the Arab caliphates, was traced by Muslim geographers back to the Philistines of the Bible" is incorrect / misleading. They do not "offer a different view" to that of Moshe Sharon. The source states simply that Muslim geographers made the etymological connection to the Philistines, but the source does not say either (a) that this connection was made at the time they first started calling the region Jund Filastin, or (b) that the making of this connection was the reason they called it Jund Filastin. Frankly, we don't even know who the Muslim geographers being referred to were and / or when they wrote.

Removing the WP:OR synthesis of "offer a different view" makes the sentence redundant, as the fact that some geographers who happened to be Muslim at some point made a possible etymological connection between Filastine and the Philistines does not appear notable, at least not without more specificity regarding who / when / what context. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:14, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. There are definitely better sources for etymologically connecting Palestine to the Philistines. For example, as Moshe Gil has pointed out,* the connection was made by Epiphanius, who died in 402 CE, well before the dawn of Islam. Citing a 2007 work to make a similar point smacks of WP:RECENTISM. -- Kendrick7talk 03:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Article purpose
What is the actual purpose of this article? IMHO it is nothing more than an attempt to establish a "Palestinian" claim to SW Asia through a name that may or may not fit any of the current inhabitants thereof. The whole subject is fraught with controversy yet nothing is said of this controversy in the article. Things like all the above differences on where Filistia actually was at any one point. Just saying.--Degen Earthfast (talk) 16:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To provide a list of historical references to the name in English, in line with scholarly studies on the subject from at least the last 300 years. See the bibliography section: e.g. Reland, Noth, Gerber, Jacobson and Grief.
 * The controversy is about the name in Hebrew, not the name in English. It is referred to in the article in the entries for 1920, 1926 and 1936.
 * To my knowledge there is no controversy about the name in English, and none of the scholars in the bibliography refer to one.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * @Degen Earthfast, you make a Straw man claim that this article is something that it is not —If the cited sources do have "differences on where Filistia actually was at any one point" then this article is truly a fraught-full "attempt to establish a 'Palestinian' claim to SW Asia". 96.28.43.27 (talk) 07:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

MM edits
To clarify (its a bit hard to tell), in the first paragraph I added the identification of Peleset with the Philistines by scholars, the hebrew word for the Philistines, and the region of the Philistines as described in the Hebrew Bible. --Monochrome _ Monitor  21:06, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Please self revert as you have crossed 1RR.
 * Then please explain ALL of the parts of your edit, one by one, on this page. Much of what you added contradicts properly sourced material already on this page. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:04, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

@Monochrome Monitor 96.28.43.27 (talk) 08:29, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Why did you remove the term 'geopolitical entities' ?
 * 2) Are your edits appropriately concise for the lead section ?

Tacitus. Removed for discussion

 * c.100: Tacitus, Histories: In describing Palestine, Tacitus says that in all it productions it equals Italy, besides possessing the palm and the Balm of Gilead (Hist. 5:6).
 * Tacitus isn't discussing 'Palestine' in this passage. He is discussing Judea/Samaria, the Jewish part, which he locates with Arabia to the east, Egypt to the south, Phoenicia and the Mediterreanean sea to the West, and Syria to the north.
 * 'in all its productions it equals Italy' is crap, a dog-Latinist garbling of the original.
 * "Rari imbres, uber solum: exuberant fruges nostrum ad morem, praeterque eas, balsamum et palmae. Tacitus, Histories IV:6"
 * "'Rains are rare; the soil is fertile: its products are like ours, save that the balsam and the palm also grow there.'"
 * I.e., Judea produces all the things Italy produces save for balsam and the palm.Nishidani (talk) 07:17, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Given that regional geography is a moot point, the following wry note is on regional geography;"salubria: this and uber solum would refer more especially to Galilee. Judaea itself was far less fertile, although a 'land of milk and honey' in contrast with the surrounding deserts. (, Image of p. 272 at Google Books)"96.28.43.27 (talk) 00:05, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Lrm
The bot, User:Yobot, removed  from "פלסטיני&#x200E;&amp;#8206;". What is the correct use of Unicode Character 'LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK' (U+200E) ? -thanks 96.28.43.27 (talk) 11:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC) and copyedit 96.28.43.27 (talk) 11:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Consider using Lrm. -- Yobot (talk) 08:39, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Palaestina ex monumentis

 * Several items are not yet parsed out or translated from Palaestina ex monumentis. Chapter 7. Palestine. Take a crack at it, as you may. 96.28.43.27 (talk) 14:47, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying Units of measurement
There are two occurences of lieues in the article which are currently referenced as "lieues", giving no hint on what it means. This pre-1789 Revolution unit of measurement has no meaning but for a handful of French reading scholars. I propose to change this for a link to League_(unit), which would help further understanding of what it means. Input request as this would remove the present "French:" annotation. --kozaki (talk) 17:34, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:19, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree and if possible use the silent form of the template  74.136.159.171 (talk) 00:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Create a link between Palashtu and this article!
Palashtu seems to be the more probable form, but WP has decided to give precedence to Palastu: Palastu, not Palashtu, is automatically linked to this article! Several other articles use Palastu. I suggest at least ALSO creating an automatic link between Palashtu and this article. Arminden (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2015 (UTC)Arminden
 * You don't need to suggest. It's called be bold. Click the Palashtu redlink and paste there the same source text as in Palastu. trespassers william (talk) 11:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Vespasian coins
Thanks to IP 96... for bringing the Vespasian coin references. This is really interesting, because it seems to contradict the common view that Palestine was not an official Roman name prior to 135. I have seen a number of references to these coins in old books written between the 17th and 19th centuries, but not in modern books. I also can't find any photos of these coins. Oncenawhile (talk) 15:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

General Info 96.29.176.92 (talk) 13:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC) && 03:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * PALESTINIAN CITY COINS
 * 1797 Britannica:Roman Coins, a-x
 * 1797 Britannica: Roman Colony Coins
 * Roman province of Armenia, the Roman Senate issued coins: ARMENIA ET MESOPOTAMIA IN POTESTATEM P.R. REDACTAE
 * Obelisk of Montecitorio: Aegypto in potestatem populi romani redacta soli donum dedit
 * Not here: Vespasian+Pal compare +IVD
 * Curiously, there is one not-ruled-out-as-1st-C-ce inscription from Caesarea: trespassers william (talk) 01:03, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I now removed this. For the record:


 * * c.70: Vespasian, Coins stamped PALESTINA IN POTESTATEM P. R. REDACTA and PALESTINA COLONIA PR (Populi Romani)

The refs are from 1649, 1714, and 1829. Needless to say the interest in Palestine didn't diminish after that. If someone wants to explore Reland's opinion in French rather than Latin, here.

Here someone said the phrase was of a Trajan coin:, and as linked above, there is certainly a coin "ARMENIA ET MESOPOTAMIA IN POTESTATEM P.R. REDACTAE". Palestina might have been conflated into this text. It would also be strange if the Empire issued both this and Judaea Capta coinage. BTW, Check out the paragraph about acceptable forgery of medals in early modern time, here. trespassers william (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

, I looked in a lot of places. Already the Lexicon ref says it's suspicious, and Lepsius ups this :. It appears nowhere on newer catalogs or in a heap of monographs about Roman Palestine and the like. You know, an answer might be more interesting than a revert. trespassers william (talk) 01:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Is this article supposed to document the use of the name Palestine or the ethnonym/toponym Palestinian?
Because some of these quotes mention "Palestinians" and not "Palestine", which makes the whole endeavor feel motivated more by modern nationalism. History of the term "palestinians" would also be interesting, but without context it's not appropriate to hyperlink to modern Palestinians (as is done twice in this article), as the term has meant Syrians and Jews. However, quotes where Jews are referred to as Palestinians are not included. There needs to be a standard or else anyone can mine quotations they like. For instance, the quotation "Jerusalem is still regarded as the capital of Palestine" is used to bolster claims not made before the 70s, while the quotation from the same work describing the region Palestine that includes the word "Judea" is not used. Some works are listed but not quoted, some quoted works are not translated. There must be a better way to do this. Like searching for the term in google books and using the first quotation in the work with the word, or only using sources with X number of references. While this article is called "Timeline of the name 'Palestine'", by it's usage a more apt title would be "Timeline of the name 'Palestine' as related to modern Palestinians".--Monochrome _ Monitor  22:21, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I have never read it in that way, but that perception is not how this article should be so feel free to edit it and make it broader as you see fit. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This talk page needs to be archived. It took me like a minute to find this section. XD--Monochrome _ Monitor

Dux Palaestinae
The following units or detachments of units, and a prefect and his legionary unit, are listed as being under the command of the Duke of Palestine (the numbers in front of the names refer to Ingo Maier's numbering scheme):
 * Dux Palaestinae
 * 59.11 Equites primi felices sagittarii indigenae Palaestini, at Sabure or at Veterocariae (see notes)

along with the following units from a "lesser register":
 * 59.29 Cohors IIII Palaestinorum, at Thamana


 * THE ROMAN ARMY AT DURA-EUROPOS —The marriage contract of a soldier of the Cohors XII Palaestinorum (P. Dura 30, in Greek with Latin witness signatures), for example, was deposited in Dura in 232 CE.

Laterculus Veronensis - Oriens: [1] Libya Superior; [2] Libya Inferior; [3] Thebais; [4] Aegyptus Iovia; [5] Aegyptus Herculia; [6] Arabia (Nova); [7] Arabia; [8] Augusta Libanensis; [9] Palaestina;...

74.138.106.1 (talk) 23:04, 27 August 2017 (UTC) && 03:18, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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editorializing
The usage of "only" here is editorializing. "There is cirsumstantial evidence of X" and "there is only circumstantial evidence of X" are not the same thing. The source doesn't use "only" here and neither should we. We are explicitly not allowed to "produce implications that are not supported by the sources". See WP:EDITORIAL No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree we should follow what the source say--Shrike (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * We are following what the source says.
 * The source says:
 * ”While it is true that there is no evidence as to precisely who changed the name of Judaea to Palestine and precisely when this was done, circumstantial evidence would seem to point to Hadrian himself”
 * We write:
 * ”There is only circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change and the precise date is not certain.”
 * The alternative is to write:
 * ”There is no evidence as to who was responsible for the name change, but circumstantial evidence links Hadrian to it, and the precise date is not certain.”
 * It is much less elegant, despite having exactly the same meaning.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 21:03, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I like the second, more detailed version better. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:15, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Pomponius Mela
Hello.

I fall in this talk page without reading anything and maybe I come with "stupid" comments. I add that I have not read any single 2nd source on the topic.

I just point out that if Pomponius Mela (just a few years before Bar Kochba revolt) draw this map: File:Karte Pomponius Mela.jpg where both Judea and Palaestina are mentioned together simultaneously, then I would conclude (in pure WP:OR) that at the time :


 * Palestine refers to the Kingdom/area of the Philistins [I think this idea is controversed and even refuted by scholars (?)] ;
 * After Bar Kochbah, Hadrien wiped Judea and decided to merge both regions using only one of the name.

If not, how to explain this ?

And this also fits Josephus's sentence that we discuss here: Talk:Palestine (region) where both words are used in the same sentence even if the translation can be discussed...

Nb: I really hope not unearthing a topic which has been solved for years...

Pluto2012 (talk) 05:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi (also pinging ), some initial thoughts from me on the above:
 * The Pomponius Mela map is a modern creation. They based it on the quote shown in this article (see 43AD), which is not entirely clear, so the map may or may not show what Pomponius Mela had in mind.
 * The Palestine = Philistia topic is complex. They are cognates, but which came first is unclear. As Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22 shows, usage in the 5 books of the Torah do not define the term, and they could well be referring to the whole country. The Judges period clearly uses the smaller coastal definition, but they had previously defeated them and pushed them into a small corner. Herodotus and Aristotle clearly use the wider usage. So whether wider or narrower represents the "original" usage is unclear.
 * The Hadrian story is a modern invention with no proof. See the references in 135AD in this article.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 20:44, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * When you complied this page you omitted many mainstream views. I guess that is fine since you did cited those authors work which anyone can read.Jonney2000 (talk) 22:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for tagging me. I think that what lends to confusion in this arcane topic is that the Romans (Byzantines), in the 4th and 5th centuries of our Common era, were already giving the name "Palestina" to the entire country of Israel (Galilee and Judea included), just as we see in this reproduction of the Tabula Peutingeriana map of the world (click here and scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the map to see "Palestina"). Earlier, in Jewish parlance of the 1st and 2nd centuries, Judea was the midland country, as attested by the Mishnah (Tractate Shebiit 9:2) and by Josephus (Wars of the Jews, 3.51), while Samaria was a little further north of that, and Galilee a little further north of that, whereas "Palestina" was restricted to the coastal region of Judea, to places formerly inhabited by the 5 Philistine city-states (confederacy). Davidbena (talk) 03:16, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Your last sentence is incorrect. That area was called Paralia at the time. Even at the time of Samson et al, the term Philistine did not refer to just that corner - it referred to "non-Israelites of the Promised Land" (See Robert Drews). There is an analogy with the colloquial confusion between Britain/England, Netherlands/Holland and Persia/Iran.
 * On the other topic, see Timeline of the name "Judea". Onceinawhile (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I'm very sorry, but you seem to be confusing the place names given by the Greeks (e.g. Paralia) for this region of our country and which name was not used by Hebrew/Aramaic speaking Jews. Jews at that time would have still called the coastal area by its appellation, "Palestina", just as we find it used by Josephus himself in his work, Antiquities 13.174 (13.5.10), and which area extended as far as Ashqelon, just as he reiterates there. In fact, the Midrash Rabba (Lamentations Rabba - Eikha Rabba 1:32) mentions one of four auxiliaries who fought against Israel alongside the Roman army in 68 CE, and which army unit was called "Filasṭīnī" (Heb. פלסטיני), meaning, "the Palestinian unit". The other three auxiliaries named there were the Arabians, the Alexandrians and the Mauretanians (i.e troops enlisted from the Roman provinces of North Africa). You see, the language employed by the indigenous peoples differed from that employed by the Greeks in their daily usage. Therefore, "Palestine" in the 1st-century CE ought to be viewed as a specific district in Judea, just as "Upper Idumaea" was a specific district in Judea, and referred to as such by Josephus in Antiq. 12.8.6, Wars 4.9.7, ibid. 4.9.6, Antiq. 12.9.4, ibid.. 13.9.1, Wars 1.2.5, Antiq. 13.9.1, Wars 1.2.5, ibid. 4.9.9, ibid. 4.8.1, et al.Davidbena (talk) 10:29, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi David, there are two major problems with this: (1) most Jews at that time spoke (and many wrote in) Greek, so it’s impossible to draw the distinction you just did; and (2) there are many sources which treat Judea as part of Palestine but none which treat Palestine as part of Judea, so your last claim cannot be right.
 * Separately, what did you think of the analogy to the modern confusion around terms like Holland, England and Persia? Onceinawhile (talk) 12:14, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, only the intelligentsia spoke and wrote in Greek, such as Josephus, Agrippa II, Justus of Tiberias, Philo and the Alexandrian Jews. The vast majority did not speak Greek, but Aramaic and Hebrew, just as our writings from that period attest. Greek and Latin loanwords did, however, creep into the colloquial language spoken by Jews at that time. As for the confusion of words and terminologies, this is well-known to me. I see this all the time in Hebrew etymology. The meanings of the words "Judea" and "Palestine" have evolved over the years. Nothing surprises me here. It all depends on which period in history you are talking about.Davidbena (talk) 14:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Re: Josephus and Greek. "Josephus frequently uses the name Judaea. This name sometimes has a political significance in his writings, referring to Provincia Iudaea, created and named by the Roman administration. At other times Judaea signifies those areas of Palestine whose inhabitants are Jews, and it may also signify the area which was the biblical inheri tance of Judah. Yet it seems that Josephus also uses the term to signify "the land of the Jews," indicating the territorial area of the country which, according to Josephus' ideology, belongs to the Jewish state. This sometimes conforms with the biblical utopian vision en compassing all the territory allocated to the Jews-Eretz Israel-and sometimes refers only to a part. I shall use "Judaea" to refer to this last option, unless otherwise stated. "Palestine" will be used to signify the whole region connected with the land of Israel in Josephus' time, including the coastal region, although at that time the term was restricted to the southern part of the coastal region. " (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1454789)
 * "When Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.E. mentions Palestine he refers only to the coastal area, so called because it had been inhabited by the Philistines... Moreover, writers on geography in the first century clearly differentiate Judaea from Palestine. Even vicious anti-Jewish writers, such as Apion, Chaeremon, and Seneca in the first century, generally do not use the term Palestine. Jewish writers, notably Philo and Josephus, with few exceptions refer to the land as Judaea, reserving the name Palestine for the coastal area occupied by the Philistines....Occurrences of the adjective Palestinian in such poets as Tibullus, Ovid, and Statius are due to metrical considerations; Palestinian as a noun does not occur in all antiquity.... Josephus also (Antiquities 1.136) refers to Palestine, but this, too, is in connection with the land of the Philistines. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/23508170)
 * I also noticed a reference to Herodotus in the article, but strangely, the text said the exact opposite of what Louis Feldman wrote, and didn't note the dispute. Similarly, the lead states that Josephus called the land of Israel Palestine, even when we have sources explicitly saying that's not true. Even with one going into every mention of Palestine by Josephus, and putting it into context. While I haven't read the entire article, I'm getting a strong sense of bias and misleading sourcing from what I've seen.Drsmoo (talk) 13:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, User:Drsmoo, for sharing with us this very important information, especially the articles that treat on this subject!Davidbena (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Care needs to be taken with Feldman. As Foster writes on p.105 (footnote): "Feldman worked hard  to  ram  his  thesis  into  his  sources.  He  claimed  that  Pomponius  Mela  “clearly differentiates  Judaea  from  Palestine,”  since  Pomponius  Mela  wrote:  “here  is  situated  Palestine  [presumably only  a  minor  part  of  Syria],  where  Syria  touches  the  Arabs…”  Louis  H.  Feldman,  Studies  in  Hellenistic Judaism  (Leiden:  Brill,  1996),  560.  Feldman  seems  to  force  his  thesis  onto  the  evidence  with  Philo  as  well. “The  one  passage  that  is  difficult  to  explain  is  the  one  (Quod  Omnis  Probus  Liber  Sit  12.75)  in  which  he [Philo]  declares  that  Palestinian-Syria  has  not  failed  to  produce  high  moral  excellence.  He  states  that  a considerable  part  of  the  Jews  live  there,  and  cites  as  an  example  the  Essences.”  (ibid,  563-4).  It  is  only “difficult  to  explain”  if  one  presupposes  the  erasure  hypothesis  from  the  outset. Feldman describes evidence  that  undermines  his  argument  as  a  “problem”  in  another  instance  as  well:  “the  one  passage  in Josephus  which  seems  to  present  a  problem  is  the  one  at  the  very  end  of  the  Antiquities  (20.259),  where  he says  that  his  work  contains  a  record  of  the  events  “that  befell  us  Jews,  Egypt,  Syria  and  in  Palestine”  (ibid, 564-5). On his  point  about  the  “correct”  use  of  the  word  Palestine,  see  ibid,  576." In ’s recent edit, in what is now footnote 16, Feldman says “with few exceptions”, which is a crucial point currently missing from the new sentence added to the lead. He then says “reserving the name Palestine for the coastal area occupied by the Philistines” without evidence, apart from the reference to Antiquities, which was not referring to the contemporary region, but to ancient (Biblical) times. The same is true in footnote 12, where Feldman writes “A problem arises in the passage where Herodotus asserts that the Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine acknowledge of themselves that they learnt the custom of circumcision from the Egyptians”; again this “exception” is nowhere mentioned in the new sentence added to the lead.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I have now been through the three other sources added by :


 * The 200-year old Beloe quote does not support any specific interpretation of how Herodotus used the word, since he equates it with the Arab (wider) use of the term as well.


 * Tuell does not state whether or not he believes Judea is part of or adjacent to Palestinian Syria. His thesis is that “Two arguments can be raised for placing the eastern border of Abar-Nahara at the Jordan. First is the fact that...” (excised from the quote added) and as to Judea he says that “Particularly to be noted, however, is that the piece of Syria in which the Phoenicians are said to have settled, called here Palestine, is also explicitly said to be ("next to, alongside of, the sea"). According to Herodotus, the satrapy of Abar-Nahara, which consisted largely of Phoenicia and Palestinian Syria, was a strip of coastland. As we know that the satrapy included Yehud, and hence the central highlands, the mountains are not the eastern border. The next logical, geographical border is the Jordan— as described in Herodotus 2.106.” (some of the wording is similar but different to Drsmoo’s quote - I must have a different version of the same text). And finally the words: “"Palestinian Syria" as a Coastal Region in Herodotus” are not in the source (at least not the one I have). Either way, he does not state at any point whether or not he considers Judea is separate from Palestine Syria. The mainstream view of other scholars is that Herodotus considered Judea within Palestine per his circumcision reference, but Tuell does not comment on this point.


 * Rosenfeld states “at that time the term was restricted to the southern part of the coastal region”, but he does not say that Josephus used it in that way. In fact, of Josephus he says “At other times [Josephus’s use of the term] Judaea signifies those areas of Palestine whose inhabitants are Jews”, ie Judaea he thinks is in Palestine.

Onceinawhile (talk) 11:48, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * These sources were already in the article, I merely cited them correctly. Please actually read the sources before commenting on them. Only a few sentences later Rosenfeld explicitly says ""Palestine" will be used to signify the whole region connected with the land of Israel in Josephus' time, including the coastal region, although at that time the term was restricted to the southern part of the coastal region." Similarly, Feldman, who is highly esteemed as a scholar of Josephus, and who you claimed was "without evidence", devotes two pages to going through every mention made by Josephus and how they were references to Philistines/the coastal area. Regarding the mainstream view of scholars, the consensus that I've observed is that Herodutus used the word Palestine to describe the coastal area Drsmoo (talk) 12:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My third bullet above includes the exact quote you have bolded above, which you claimed I did not read. Rosenfeld does not say that Josephus himself uses the term in that way, and explicitly gives an example of where Josephus uses the wider definition.Onceinawhile (talk) 13:12, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, no. The quote is clear and explicit that the term used in the time Josephus was writing only applied to the coastal region.. And if you need further confirmation, the citation Rosenfeld uses for that statement is Feldman, who as you now know, provides a whole page of examples about how the references are describing to the coastal region/philistines. Drsmoo (talk) 15:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The consensus re Herodotus, as you rightly say, is that Palestine describes the coastal area. That same consensus considers that coastal area to extend inland to include Judea, on the basis of the circumcision quote and also Aristotle’s later Dead Sea reference. Only Feldman takes a different interpretation, and he acknowledges the contradictions or “problems” in doing so.
 * That's incorrect. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40105058 "The form Palestine, used by Greek and Latin authors, is first attested in the history of Herodotus, and occurs in a number of later classical texts.2 It occasionally appears as a noun, but more commonly as an adjective in apposition to Syria. In normal usage Palaistine Syria or Syria Palestina seems to have meant the coastal plain formerly inhabited by the Philistines. It was sometimes extended to include territories further but was not usually applied to Judaea, which in Roman times was still officially and commonly known by that name
 * http://www.jstor.org/stable/1357657 The map here shows Palestine as being distinct from Yehud.
 * There are additional sources which do describe uses of Palestine for the interior region, though they start after Herodotus. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24669108 "The earliest occurrence of this name in a Greek text is in in the mid-fifth century bce, Histories of Herodotus, where it is applied to the area of the Levant between Phoenicia and Egypt. Josephus [1st century ce] explicitly links this name to the land of the Philistines and modern consensus agrees with him. However, the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch chose Philistieim rather than Palaistinoi to describe the Philistines. In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense. A reappraisal of this question has given rise to the proposition that the name Palestine, in its Greek form Palaistine, was both a transliteration of a word used to describe the land of the Philistines and, at the same time, a literal translation of the name Israel. This dual interpretation reconciles apparent contradictions in early definitions of the name Palaistine and its compatible with the Greeks' penchant for punning, especially on place names)"
 * Another reference to the word Palestine in a wider sense occurring after Herodotus and being a non-offical name http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnd22.5 "Palestine is first mentioned in the extant Greek sources by Herodotus, who referred to the “Syrians who are in Palestine” (2.104 [also quoted by Josephus, CAp 1.169], 7.89) and the “Palestinian Syrians” (3.5; cf. 1.105). Herodotus used the term to describe a subsection of Syria, in particular, the coast as far as Egypt (7.89). It was similarly used by Pliny (NH 5.68) and Josephus (AJ 1.137; cf. also 13.180, where he distinguished between Palestine and Judaea), both of whom lived in the first century a.d. Nevertheless, it could also be used to refer to the interior region as well. Aristotle, writing at the end of the fourth century b.c., described a lake in “Palestine” where “if there were any truth to the stories they tell about the lake in Palestine . . . they say if you bind a man or beast and throw him into it he floats and does not sink beneath the surface; and that the lake is so bitter and salty there are no fish in it and that if you wet clothes in it and shake them out it cleans them.”47 Philo, who lived in the first century a.d., equated ancient Canaan with “Palestinian Syria” (De Abrahamo 13, De Vita Mosis 1.163). And finally, Arrian, who was writing in the second century a.d., said of Alexander’s conquests in this area that except for Gaza all of “Syrian Palestine, as it is called” (ta; me;n a[lla th¸ˇ Palaistivnhˇ kaloumevnhˇ Surivaˇ, 2.25.4), came over to the Macedonian king. Nevertheless, it is important to note that despite its appearance in various literary texts of and pertaining to the Hellenistic period, the term “Palestine” is not found on any extant Hellenistic coin or inscription. In other words, there is no attestation for its use in an official context in the Hellenistic period. Even in the early Roman period its use was not especially widespread. For example, Philo and Josephus generally used “Judaea” rather than “Palestine” to refer to the area.48 Furthermore, “Palestine” is nowhere attested in the New Testament. “Palestine” did not come into official use until the early second century a.d., when the emperor Hadrian decided to rename the province of Judaea; for its new name he chose “Syria Palaestina.”49 The new name took hold. It is found thereafter in inscriptions, on coins, and in numerous literary texts.50 Thus Arrian (7.9.8, Indica 43.1) and Appian (Syr. 50), who lived in the second century a.d., and Cassius Dio (e.g., 38.38.4, 39.56.6), who lived in the third, referred to the region as “Palestine.” And in the rabbinic literature “Palestine” was used as the name of the Roman province adjacent to Phoenicia and Arabia (e.g., Bereshith Rabbah 90.6). Drsmoo (talk) 15:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you Drsmoo I do not have time to read those sources added them to the article would be helpful for readers. Jonney2000 (talk) 15:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I wish we could speak over the telephone instead of having to write everything down, because it is easier to avoid misunderstandings.
 * I think we are saying the same thing. These sources are explicitly agreeing with my position, and seemingly you consider them to be in agreement with you too.
 * Perhaps I can try explaining a different way: all scholars consider Palestine or cognates to be a coastal region. As to whether Judea was considered to be in that region or not, it is clear scholarly consensus that both Herodotus and Joesphus are considered to have included Judea on some occasions. So then the question is, on other occasions, did they exclude it?
 * Do you agree that this is what the debate is about?
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * My impression is that this is a serious omission and not very precise. A misinterpretation of Herodotus became used by foreign sources which Josephus may have been aware of and may have used but rarely. But in no way was this the only way that the term was used. Nor was this rare usage officially usedJonney2000 (talk) 15:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The following URL with its content may be a little "outdated," as its author was born in the early 17th-century of our Common Era, it still carries a lot of pertinent information. Highly recommended to read this.Davidbena (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Josephus
per this edit, it is a plain fact that Josephus included Judea in Palestine, at least in some of his writings. See below two crystal clear quotes:
 * c. 94: Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews: "...these Antiquities contain what hath been delivered down to us from the original creation of man, until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, as to what hath befallen us Jews, as well is Egypt as in Syria, and in Palestine" (see The Antiquities of the Jews/Book XX)
 * c. 97: Josephus, Against Apion: "Nor, indeed, was Herodotus of Halicarnassus unacquainted with our nation, but mentions it after a way of his own... This, therefore, is what Herodotus says, that "the Syrians that are in Palestine are circumcised". But there are no inhabitants of Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Jews; and, therefore, it must be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much concerning them." (see Against Apion/Book I) Onceinawhile (talk) 08:02, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, Josephus, when concluding the writing of his Antiquities, mentions "Syria and Palestine," just as the Greeks would have known the country. Syria is sometimes used by Josephus to refer to Greater Syria, and which would include all of Galilee and Judea, just as we see in Josephus' account of Antiochus V Eupator, the Seleucid king, who invaded Judea in 161 BCE with eighty elephants (others say thirty-two), some clad with armored breastplates, in an attempt to subdue the Jews who had sided with the sixth Ptolemy. Antiochus Eupator and his father vied with Ptolemy VI over the control of “the whole country of Syria” (see Josephus, Wars i.i.§1). So, by this account, Josephus in his conclusion of his Antiquities (Book xx), may have simply been referring to the entire country, with its specific regions. Note that he does not use the name typically employed by Jews in their native language for the country, ie. "Judea" (Heb. יהודה - Aramaic: יהוד), a name that appears for the country in the Mishnah and in the Aramaic Scroll of Antiochus, but rather uses the words "Palestine" and "Syria." It seems that, here, Josephus is appealing to a non-Jewish audience, the Greeks, who would have known the country by those names, and just as he writes explicitly in the very same paragraph where he mentions Palestine: "[no one could have] delivered more accurately these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books." (see The Antiquities of the Jews/Book XX). Elsewhere, he mentions together "Judea and Palestine" (see: Antiquities 13.174 (13.5.10). There were colonies of Grecians living along the coast in Palestine. Anyway, the matter is quite complex as we see, and as we shall discuss later. Here, accuracy would demand of us to have no superficial readings of Josephus.Davidbena (talk) 18:27, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That makes sense to me. As you rightly say, Josephus was writing for a Greco-Roman audience. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why the arguments its about interpretation of primary sources its not our job instead find secondary sources that discuss it.--Shrike (talk) 09:14, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, why complain about an edit to a different article on the wrong talk page? Drsmoo (talk) 11:31, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * ,, and friends, this is for your information: With respect to Josephus and how that he mentions in one breath "Syria" and "Palestine" in the 20th book of his Antiquities, I found where Josephus expressly states what he means by writing "Syria." Josephus, when writing about Titus' movements with the Roman army, marks the stations he passed while en route from Egypt to Jerusalem, saying that the city Rafah (a place south of Gaza) was "the beginning of Syria" (see: Wars 4.11.5; 4.656). So, here, once again, Josephus distinguishes between the "Land of Israel" (i.e. "Syria"), and the smaller enclave within the boundaries of the "Land of Israel" (i.e. "Palestine"). You may also wish to see how the name "Palestine" has evolved over the years by reading what the Christian Hebraist, John Lightfoot, had to write about this name in his opus magnum, The Works of Lightfoot, condensed here in this recent publication,From the Talmud and Hebraica (vol. 1). There, he cites THE ENACTMENTS OF JUSTINIAN, THE NOVELS (ch. CIII), written by Justinian I (c. 482– 565 CE), who says: "Palestine, at first, only constituted a single province, but when it was divided into three parts, it did not retain the Proconsulate, but was placed under the jurisdiction of an ordinary magistrate," among other things.Davidbena (talk) 14:51, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Per this edit I agree something like that is helpful. I am not comfortable with the exact form of words, because we have other scholars saying the opposite and numerous first century primary sources which explicitly include Judea or the Dead Sea. I think we need a sentence which is more precise on the specific point being made if possible. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:11, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

What is going on?
your recent revision needs urgent discussion. I am holding back from reverting as I want to avoid an edit war. But please slow down.

You wrote two plainly false sentences: Onceinawhile (talk) 16:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * “The first use of the term Palestine as a place name was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" in The Histories.[7][8][9]” => This is directly contradicted by the prior paragraph!
 * “Herodotus was describing the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines, but also called "the whole land by the name of the coastal strip" => the sources you attached say the opposite (Rainey and Jacobson).
 * Incorrect, the first sentence is supported by multiple reliable sources, and incidentally, does not appear to contradict the prior paragraph.
 * The sources attached support the sentence they're citing accurately. Rainey, btw, is cited for the first sentence, not the second, but supports both just the same. Rainey is so clear as to literally include a map which shows Palestine as being in the southern coastal region and distinct from Yehud. Please actually read the sources. What is "going on" btw, is that the article is actually being treated in a scholarly fashion, rather than using message boards as sources and misrepresenting other sources Drsmoo (talk) 16:58, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The prior paragraph is a description of how the term was used as a place name in the prior eras. Then you amend the first sentence of the next paragraph to say it was not?! And Rainey says almost exactly what you deleted (“...the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt”)
 * Rainey specifically describes it as being between Phoenicia and Egypt, ie, the coast. He didn't say between Phoenicia and Arabia. In any case, it's a moot point as Rainey literally includes a map that shows Palestine in Herodotus' time as being distinct from Yehud and restricted to the coast. It seems clear you don't have access to the source. I'd include a screenshot of it, but think that might be against copyright/wikipolicy. Regarding the first paragraph, "Palestine" comes from the Greek Palaestine, a name used extensively by Herodotus in his History (fifth century BCE) (The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics, Volume 2). Both the 1999 and 2001 Jacobson papers have as their thesis that the word Palestine was created by Herodotus as a combination of names for the area of the Philistines with a direct translation of Hebrew. ie., that the name didn't exist before then. All three of these sources are saying that the first use of Palestine is from Herodotus. I didn't remove the earlier paragraph regarding Peleset, as it's useful to indicate the "proto version" of the name, but they are different names. Drsmoo (talk) 13:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Rainey specifically describes it as being between Phoenicia and Egypt, ie, the coast. He didn't say between Phoenicia and Arabia. In any case, it's a moot point as Rainey literally includes a map that shows Palestine in Herodotus' time as being distinct from Yehud and restricted to the coast. It seems clear you don't have access to the source. I'd include a screenshot of it, but think that might be against copyright/wikipolicy. Regarding the first paragraph, "Palestine" comes from the Greek Palaestine, a name used extensively by Herodotus in his History (fifth century BCE) (The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics, Volume 2). Both the 1999 and 2001 Jacobson papers have as their thesis that the word Palestine was created by Herodotus as a combination of names for the area of the Philistines with a direct translation of Hebrew. ie., that the name didn't exist before then. All three of these sources are saying that the first use of Palestine is from Herodotus. I didn't remove the earlier paragraph regarding Peleset, as it's useful to indicate the "proto version" of the name, but they are different names. Drsmoo (talk) 13:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * As for the second sentence, you outrageously ignored a quoted source (which you knew was there as you moved it yourself ) that states the exact opposite of what you wrote (Jacobson: “As early as the Histories of Herodotus, written in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E., the term Palaistinê is used to describe not just the geographical area where the Philistines lived, but the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt—in other words, the Land of Israel. Herodotus, who had traveled through the area, would have had firsthand knowledge of the land and its people. Yet he used Palaistinê to refer not to the Land of the Philistines, but to the Land of Israel”)
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 20:43, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

any comments? In the meantime, here are a bunch of further sources which confirm the text as it was before your recent edits:
 * Martin Sicker: “The name later appears in the Persian Wars of the Greek historian Herodotus in the form of an adjective describing "the Philistine Syria," which presumably was intended to include all of Cis-Jordan. ”
 * James Rennell: “Herodotus, as we have said, had visited Palestine, if not Phoenicia also. The city of Jerusalem he names Cadytis, doubtless meant for the Arabian name Al Kads, the holy : in effect, a translation of the other. He says, Thalia, 5, " that it is a city belonging to the Syrians of Palestine; and in his opinion, equal to Sardis."”
 * Gosta Ahlstrom “The Greek historian Herodotus (1.105, 3.5) called Cisjordan the Palestinian Syria or sometimes only Palaestina. Thus, there is a tradition from at least the fifth century BCE for the use of this name”
 * Jewish Encyclopaedia: “As early as Herodotus, who is followed by other classical writers, as Ptolemy and Pliny, the phrase Συρίε ἡ Παλαιστίνη (Syrian Palestine, Palestine of Syria) denotes both the littoral and the neighboring inland region (Judea and Palestine), as well as the entire interior as far as the Arabian desert”
 * Nur Masalha: “Herodotus uses the name accordingly and Aristotle, for example, used the term in a way that includes the regions of Transjordan, or 'Eastern Palestine', beyond the Jordan Rift Valley. Herodotus' conception of Palaistine included the Galilee and applied to Palestine in the wider sense.” Onceinawhile (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Your objection makes no sense. Jacobson says that Herodotus described both specifically the coastal area and a wider area. "not just" = both Herodotus was describing the coastal strip, but also occasionally used the word to describe a wider area. This is consistent with scholarship. Jacobson states this more clearly in his 1999 article, which is already cited in the article. "The first known occurrence of the Greek word Palaistine is in the Histories of Herodotus, written near the mid-fifth century B.C.4 Palaistine Syria, or simply Palaistine, is applied to what may be identified as the southern part of Syria, comprising the region between Phoenicia and Egypt.5 Although some of Herodotus' references to Palestine are compatible with a narrow definition of the coastal strip of the Land of Israel, it is clear that Herodotus does call the "whole land by the name of the coastal strip." (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1357617) "The form Palestine, used by Greek and Latin authors, is first attested in the history of Herodotus, and occurs in a number of later classical texts.2 It occasionally appears as a noun, but more commonly as an adjective in apposition to Syria. In normal usage Palaistine Syria or Syria Palestina seems to have meant the coastal plain formerly inhabited by the Philistines. It was sometimes extended to include territories further but was not usually applied to Judaea, which in Roman times was still officially and commonly known by that name" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/40105058) "Herodotus used the term to describe a subsection of Syria, in particular, the coast as far as Egypt (7.89). It was similarly used by Pliny (NH 5.68) and Josephus (AJ 1.137; cf. also 13.180, where he distinguished between Palestine and Judaea), both of whom lived in the first century a.d. Nevertheless, it could also be used to refer to the interior region as well. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnd22.5)  Hence, when Herodotus (3.91), the first classical writer to mention Palestine speaks of the fifth province of the Persians as including Phoenicia and the part of Syria called Palestine and Cyprus; the part of Syria called Palestine either refers only to the coastal area, so called because it had been inhabited by the Philistines, or he is speaking loosely, since the only part of the area that he had visited was apparently along the coast. Hence he called the whole land by the name of the coastal strip." (http://www.jstor.org/stable/23508170) From Zachary Foster, ""Herodotus used the term multiple times to refer to the entire coast from Egypt to Phoenicia, and potentially the interior as well." In other words, he did use Palestine to describe a wider area, but his actual descriptions were only of the coast. Hence he was "describing the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines, but also applied the name of the coastal strip to the inland region." as is now in the article. Drsmoo (talk) 13:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As I said above, I think we have been saying the same thing all along. I'm not sure there is much disagreement after all. I have fixed the first sentence by making the point about borders instead, and moving your toponym point into the first paragraph. On the second sentence, the piece I didn't like was the reference to "inhabited by the Philistines", because even the coast which Herodotus explicitly described is a much larger region than the cities of the "five Lords of the Philistines" described in the Bible. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:55, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Zachary J. Foster dissertation cites oncenawhile
From Zachary J. Foster dissertation

"Millions of contributors to Wikipedia made the most comprehensive encyclopedia we have ever known, as well as the most comprehensive timeline of the history of the name Palestine. Special thanks go to the Wikipedia alias oncenawhile, who created and maintains that page with painstaking diligence and resourcefulness. Whoever you are—and I know you do prefer to remain anonymous—shukran alf marra."

This does not give me the warm fuzzys. I think the source should be replaced by another source. Otherwise we end up with a wiki circular citation.Jonney2000 (talk) 02:13, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I second that. "Thanks a thousand times" - Todah rabbah elef pe'amim, to our friend Onceinawhile who created this article. Hopefully, we'll reach a consensus about the evolving nature of the word "Palestine." BTW: Today the word is often used "politically," with a clear political-geographical connotation. Maybe we can all work together to somehow change this and restore its more pure, sublime and apolitical connotation throughout Wikipedia articles. For obvious reasons, Arabs do not like using the word "Israel," while Israelis do not like using the word "Palestine" because of what these words conjure up in their minds.Davidbena (talk) 04:43, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks both. How refreshing for (all of) our work to be recognized like that.
 * The explicit acknowledgement gives me much more comfort as to the quality of the work. This is Princeton University, one of (if not the) most prestigious universities in the world. The fact that he publicly acknowledged Wikipedia in his work must have attracted a great deal of extra scrutiny from his supervisor and reviewing panel. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * By the way, I also created Timeline of the name "Judea" - given the passion shown here in recent weeks, it would be great if interested editors would help build that article out as well. There are lots of secondary sources which describe the history of that name as well, and the overlap versus this article will be fascinating to compare. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree that Foster shouldn't be used, as it' too much of a feedback loop. Especially given that sections of the paper seem to mirror the wikipedia article very closely (and the wikipedia article itself here used a message board as a source, for example). Drsmoo (talk) 11:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I suggest opening a discussion at RSN, as a follow on to Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_240. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

First century authors
"It has been contended that in the first century authors still associated the term with the southern coastal region." This is in contradiction to Philo, who wrote in the first century "There is a portion of those people called Essenes." The Essenes according to Pliny lived "on the west side of the Dead Sea, away from the coast... [above] the town of Engeda" which is NOT in the Southern Coastal region Philo also writes "[Moses] conducted his people as a colony into Phoenicia, and into the Coele-Syria, and Palestine, which was at that time called the land of the Canaanites, the borders of which country were three days' journey distant from Egypt." The "land of the Canaanites" was not generally referred to as only being part of the "southern coastal region". Pliny was a Jewish writer writing for Jews and would presumably only have used proper place names that the Jews of the time (early first century CE) would have related to and used themselves. Therefore "It has been contended that in the first century authors still associated the term with the southern coastal region." is demonstrably false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michardav (talk • contribs) 17:01, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Edit warring
Much ado about nothing. The entire paragraph is spurios and should be deleted (and the entire article rewritten). Ancient Egyptians named people from Palestine and Syria "kharu". There's no trace of either "peleset" or "p-r-s-t" in Budge's dictionary, and it is doubtful whether these names refer to Palestine, assuming the quoted sources have been correctly cited. Herodot's Palestine is the Biblical Philistia פְלֶשֶׁת (pɘlešet) (Assyrian Palastu, Pilistu). Polesh (פלש) means dig/break open/through in New Hebrew, but its etymology is dubious (see Brown-Driver-Briggs). The Jewish Encyclopedia (or Judaica) article on Palestine nicely sums it up. --83.137.1.208 (talk) 22:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The people called Peleset in multiple Egyptian sources (mostly from the time of Zerotalk 00:11, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Linguistics root of the name - sources
Let me make this clear - we can't use Wiktionary as a source anymore than we could use another of our articles. www.morfix.co.il also clearly fails WP:RS. Please use academic sources. Doug Weller talk 18:28, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

root of the term "Philistines"
I can't revert as I'd break 1RR, but the source added today is a self-published book by a fringe author. Doug Weller talk 13:47, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if it's self published self-published ( - 1st Book Library seems to be a prior incarnation of AuthorHouse) - and it does not seem to be a WP:RS. Reverted. Icewhiz (talk) 13:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I don't know why he thought it was an academic source. In any case, the bottom line here seems to be that we don't know the answer. Doug Weller  talk 14:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Timeline of the name "Palestine" - it is probably either from wallowing in dirt (an act of grief - in this case - the grief caused by the Philistines to the locals) or possibly from burrowing under walls of a city (which eventually morphed into the more modern invade). I've seen a few sources around to this effect (in Hebrew) - though not of a caliber I think I would want to introduce here to the article (this is mainly discussed in bible commentary). The "invade" meaning of פלש, is to my understanding, more modern (not biblical Hebrew (-2500 to -3000). Possibly Mishna (-2000) or later). For modern speakers פלש is used almost only for invade (the exception would be an inflection used for pigs wallowing in mud (and the like) - which sounds different) - so it is not surprising that there are various modern speakers (including the SPS used as a source) who cast the modern meaning onto the biblical name.Icewhiz (talk) 14:14, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * LOL I came here to see the whinings, I am a native speaker of Hebrew there is a difference between "to be cover with" which is "Lehitpalesh" (להתפלש) and "to invade" = "Liflosh" (לפלוש) where the root of the term Philistine and palestine come from, it was in the Biblical Hebrew and even in it's ancestor tongue the Canaanite language. u can cry about it and debate it in this section and wherever but it won't change the fact that this term comes from the defaming name "invaders" towards the Sea People who invaded this land while the Ancient Indigenous Canaanites were pushed away and eventually took part in the formation of the Israelites in the hill-country; don't believe me? try to ask any linguistics schooler or just look at a Hebrew dictionary. --Wolfman12405 (talk) 15:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I've pointed out to this editor (who was blocked for a week for violating 1RR on this article) that we expect civility and assumption of good faith on talk pages. User:Wolfman12405 referring us to a dictionary is pointless, we aren't talking about modern Hebrew and if you mean "scholar" it's pretty clear that sources debate the meaning of the word and that the consensus you suggest doesn't exist. And that's ignoring your dubious claim about the formation of the Israelites in the hill-country from Sea Peoples. Doug Weller  talk 17:25, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * LMAO thanks for that! I have said that the Sea People/Philistine INVASION had caused the movement out of refuge of the Coastal Plain INDIGENOUS Canaanites to the hill-country, that's where many Canaanite refugees from various city-states in Southern Canaan and Shasu setteling down became the Israelites. do me a favor and learn how to read. It's not a theory, it is the historic truth. Philistine = Invader.--Wolfman12405 (talk) 17:30, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


 * If your writing is ambiguous don't be surprised if you're misunderstood. Doug Weller  talk 19:50, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Wolfman12405, you lost this argument here, doing the same thing and expecting a different result has a technical term for it, but regardless you may not use what you think you know in an encyclopedia article. We use reliable sources, and you are emphatically not one. Revert again and I will request you be topic-banned, this discussion along with the one at Talk:Palestine (region) provides ample evidence as to your inability to both follow our content policies and to edit collaboratively.  nableezy  - 17:57, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Which school of research holds that repetition of claims, aided by a measure of scoffing, is all that's needed to establish them as facts, and that "everybody knows" is a magical incantation that allows one to ignore the people against whom one is debating who, quite obviously, don't "know" it? Largoplazo (talk) 18:06, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


 * On his talk page I asked him to be more civil and assume good faith. He says he won't back down and suggests that the motivation of some editors may be evil. Discretionary sanctions apply to behavior on talk pages... Doug Weller  talk 19:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Article contents
The lead section claims This article presents a list of notable historical references to the name Palestine. I don't believe the article does that. It seems to be a catch-all of every pre-20th century book that can be found which includes the word Palestine. Without some reduction and/or more focus on why the listed claims are important, I don't think this is an encyclopedia article at all; it's a card catalog / inverted index. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 05:49, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree - this also ventures into WP:NOTESSAY as well as WP:NOTDICTIONARY (or etymology).Icewhiz (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
 * See the article's Bibliography, which includes many lists of notable uses of the name, mostly in essay or monograph format.
 * In our article we explain the notability for many of the uses, others are implied.
 * I agree however that it could well do with some pruning. If notability cannot be established for a particular usage, either individually or in conjunction with other usages, it shouldn't be here.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 09:02, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems like wp?
I didn’t understand your edit comment - what does “seems like wp” mean? Onceinawhile (talk) 11:40, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * "willed propaganda".--Wolfman12405 (talk) 17:56, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I still don’t understand in the context of your reversion of a single citation. Please explain properly? Onceinawhile (talk) 19:06, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Just as u folks keep going on and on against the fact that the very root PLSH which "palestine" comes from means "invders" and reverting these edits, I'll stop ur z grade sources propaganda.--Wolfman12405 (talk) 05:27, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Give reliable sources that establish as a confirmed fact that the name comes from that root, or stop calling it a fact. The question of where the /t/ comes from is the first thing that should put you off your hypothesis, unless you're going to argue that the putative invaders were women. Largoplazo (talk) 12:53, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

The terms Philistia and Palestine have existed in parallel
Jacobson writes: "[In the LXX]... the Land of the Philistieim. Bearing in mind that the word Palaistinē had already entered the Greek vocabulary, one might have expected the translators of the Septuagint Pentateuch to have selected that word when mentioning the country of the Philistines..."

He is explicitly stating that the terms existed in parallel.

Onceinawhile (talk) 01:06, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * We can not say that they exited in parallel in Wikipedia's voice without evidence. At best you have a source that debates why the translators did not use Palaistínē. Many possibilities exit as to why they did not. The Septuagint may have been simply translated too early.


 * 1: What was the first use of Palaistínē by Hellenized Jews Philo?
 * 2: Does any source exist that uses both terms? If it was used by Jews there should be a whole host of cites from the Pseudepigrapha.


 * If the LXX had translated Israel as Palaistínē that would be strong evidence for Jacobson's theory. As it is his etymology is extremely speculative.Jonney2000 (talk) 12:32, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, I think I understand what you are saying. We could stay closer to the source and state that “The terms Philistia and Palestine coexisted in the Greek vocabulary around the same time”?
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 20:18, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * LMAO, That was never the case. Until the destruction and renaming of Judea which was this land's name since the Persian era, there was not even a scratch of memory from the Philistines left in the region's history. Or do u believe in that BS claim that "palestine" is here since the Natufians? LOL--Wolfman12405 (talk) 05:24, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Footnote cleanup needed
Came here from cleanup page. Footnote 10 (after "Jordan Rift Valley" in the text ) should be separated into four separate footnotes and proper form used. I can't edit the page, if someone else would do the honors...thank you173.217.182.134 (talk) 03:57, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Confusion of the names Palestine and Plishtim
There seems to be a terrible confusion (or simply lack of differentiation) between the words Palestine (as the whole region was known by the Arab conquorers) and Plishtim, the land of the Greek/Mediterranean Philistines, whose base between Ashkelon and Gaza. I think someone would do well to clarify or clean up this confusion of terms - it is incredibly misleading. 2A00:23C8:169B:D901:15A9:61E6:5297:1BFA (talk) 10:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The word "plishtim" isn't present in the article so I don't understand what the confusion is about? Im The IP  (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 June 2021
The origin of the word Palestine/Palestinians is most probably related to the region around the area of the river Strymon, which was once named Palaestinus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaestinus (Ancient Greek: Παλαιστῖνος) after the homonymous mythical king who drowned there from grief after the death of his son. During the Ancient Dark ages the Sea Peoples invaded and overrun all of the East Mediterranean except Egypt, Some of those Sea Peoples survived in the area forming the Philistine Pentapolis, until they were fully absorbed into the neighboring Semitic peoples.

There is already enough evidence to suggest a small migration from European settlers during the early Iron age in the original Philistia, which has been incorporated in the wikipedia article for the Philistines, so the claim is by no means far fetched, while almost all of the Sea Peoples' origins are being speculated according to the similarity of their name to Greek/Italian/Anatolian tribes or specific geographic locations as pointed out in the wikipedia article for the Sea Peoples (Denyen - Danaians, Ekwesh - Achaians, Lucca - Lycians, Shekelesh - Sicels, Sherden - Sardinians, Teresh - Tyrrhenians, Tzeker - Teucrians, Weshesh - Achaeans e.t.c.) Sikader (talk) 00:38, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:20, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 18 July 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus is to move the articles and italicize the article titles as proposed using DISPLAYTITLE (that is, as "Timeline of the name Palestine" and "...Judea"). (closed by non-admin page mover)  SkyWarrior  03:52, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

– Please place your rationale for the proposed move here. –LaundryPizza03</b> ( d c̄ ) 23:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Timeline of the name "Palestine" → Timeline of the name Palestine
 * Timeline of the name "Judea" → Timeline of the name Judea

Per MOS:ITALIC, the names Palestine and Judea should be italicized when referred to as a name, which can be accomplished by dropping the quotation marks and using DISPLAYTITLE. This discussion is subject to WP:ARBPIA sanctions. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 23:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

<div style="padding-left: 1.6em; font-style: italic; border-top: 1px solid #a2a9b1; margin: 0.5em 0; padding-top: 0.5em">The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * comment Don't really understand this. You want to italicize the entire title? Why? I am assuming there is some policy thing why Palestine is in quote marks? If not, why not just remove them? Plus I don't see why these two names in particular are being considered together on this page, they should be separated.Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * No, the nominator proposes to italicize only the word Palestine in the title: Timeline of the name Palestine, which is something that DISPLAYTITLE can do. And it only makes sense to discuss these two moves together, since they're proposed for the same reason and their outcomes should be consistent with each other. Lennart97 (talk) 12:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Lennart97 (talk) 12:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * No Move to Timeline of the name Palestine (no italics), Judea or any other case should be discussed on the applicable page.Selfstudier (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This article discusses the name Palestine, not the region or political entity. Per MOS:WAW, that means Palestine should be italicized. The same is the case for the Judea timeline. Lennart97 (talk) 17:11, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Makes sense.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 16:42, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. I wish we could reach a project-wide consensus on whether MOS:WAW applies to titles, since I've encountered some resistance in adding them to titles of certain articles about words and phrases. There doesn't seem to be any consistency issue here with . I generally think italics just better, and quotation marks can read as "scare quotes". --Sangdeboeuf (talk) Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:53, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Support: Italic is better than quote marks, at least for a single word like this. —&#8288;&#8202;&#8288;BarrelProof (talk) 05:44, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Etymology
would you be ok to merge the new section with the two existing sections “Biblical references” and “Etymological considerations”? There is a lot of duplication between the three and I think they would be best merged into one. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I see no problem with that. Just give me a little while as I'm currently in the middle of something, and I'll make the change. Zhomron (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Article is missing the point
Who used the name and why? Endless lists only manage to reproduce the pattern of kindergarten fights: I have more pebbles! No, I do!

The name comes from the Philistines. Where did they settle? Until when did their civilisation survive? Why did the Greeks name the land all the way to the Jordan Rift Valley after them even after their demise? Romans picked it up from the Greeks and we're still living in the aftermath of their civilisation, so from Herodotus onwards it's largely a waste of breath.

The rest are secondary questions, such as:

Why didn't Canaan survive as a name?

Why didn't Israel survive as a name outside Jewish culture?

A logical argument looking for causality is very different from a "list article" or rhetorical punch that aims to drown a supposed adversary under piles of vaguely connected "facts". Arminden (talk) 00:21, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * We can certainly improve it. This article follows the sources which track the development of the name via quotations from ancient history to the modern day. Why those sources choose to do this is in the eye of the beholder.
 * A couple of comments on what you wrote:
 * The idea that the name “came from” the Philistines has scholarly consensus, but what the Philistines were does not. I was reading something on this a couple of days ago which we might add here:
 * There are some who claim that the name was not used by the Ottomans or modern Arab Palestinian inhabitants prior to the 20th century; a number of scholars have shown that to be untrue, and this article includes the quotes they identify
 * Canaan was a bigger region, and Judea was a smaller region. They are not true synonyms of Palestine. I agree though that is would be interesting to state in the respective articles why and when they were phased out as contemporary geographical terms
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 02:41, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Typo in the "Roman Aelia Capitolina period" section
"established by the merge of Roman Syria and Roman Judaea"

the word "merge" should be "merger"

✅ Zerotalk 00:34, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Typo in the "Roman Aelia Capitolina period" section
In the sentence
 * The common view that the name change was intended "sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland" is disputed.

the word "to" is missing. The text should read: ...was intended to "sever the connection..." (unsigned)


 * ✅ Zerotalk 04:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

request- add lang tags to the german
Please put  before this entry: "1607: Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach, Enchiridion Orientalischer Reiß Hanns Jacob Breunings, von vnnd zu Buchenbach, so er in Türckey, benandtlichen in Griechenlandt, Egypten, Arabien, Palestinam, vnd in Syrien, vor dieser zeit verrichtet (etc.)" TreeReader (talk) 11:04, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

129 AD
The first sentence of the first bullet point under "Roman Aelia Capitolina period" reads "c. 129 or 135: Syria Palæstina was a Roman province between 135 and about 390." but the sources only mention 135 for the date of the founding of Syria Palestina. There are sources which say the date of the change is unknown but 129 seems to be picked out of a hat. Unless there's a source for it it should say something like "around 135". Anothracountiges (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Typo needs fixing
Replace "Land of Phylistieim (Γη των Φυλιστιειμ)" with "Land of the Phylistieim (Γη των Φυλιστιειμ)". The text in question comes from a quoted reference, and in the text of the longer quote, the definite article "the" appears before "Phylistieim". Evidently a typo -- as will also be evident to those who know Greek.
 * Done. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Caption suggestion
Under Historical references > Classical antiquity, the Herodotus map caption reads:
 * Palestine c.450 BCE according to Herodotus (1897 reconstruction)

I recommend instead:
 * 1897 map of the world as understood by Greek historian Herodotus ca. 450 BCE. “Palæstina” is shown.

— ℜ ob C. alias ALAROB 16:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Jacobson's portmanteau
Re edits: 1, 2, 3.

@Mistamystery, will you help me find that further audience of Jacobson (1999) commentary? In Rainey (2001) that is cited next to it, we read only: "It remains to note a recent suggestion (Jacobson 1999) that the Greeks associated Παλαιστίνη with παλαιστής "wrestler" in meaning as well as in spell- ing. The kind of spelling convention mentioned by Noth (1939: 133) is acceptable, but the idea (Jacob- son 1999: 68-69) that the association was made be- cause the Greeks knew that Jacob had wrestled with the Angel of the Lord (Gen 32:24-28) requires un- warranted credulity. And according to Josephus, Philistia is just where we know it from biblical and Assyrian texts of the Iron Age...." trespassers william (talk) 17:06, 18 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Per google scholar, the Jacobson paper has been cited at least 30 times since 1999 by many well established voices across a number Middle Eastern studies disciplines, including Joan Taylor, Nur Masalha, Kevin Burrell, Avraham Faust, Hans Leander, Robyn LeBlanc, and others.
 * Reviewing the bunch, the paper has been relied upon heavily for its authoritative awareness of Herodotus and the history of the use of the term Palestine, and in almost 25 years, there has yet to be a single critique of Jacobson's work here (and this prominently includes Nur Masalha, who has cited it on more than one occasion).
 * Jacobson is a widely regarded scholar of classical archaeology and the work here (first by Noth and carried forth by Jacobson) is extensive and convincing imho. While obviously we don't have many receipts from the late Iron Age, the various assessments are thoroughly investigated and laid out, and it doesn't appear that the critical community (while well aware of the work) has sought to critique or debunk it at all.
 * Knowing the western academic obsession with Josephus for the past two millennia, it's powerful to learn that he essentially was responsible for the popular convergence of what were two etymologically distinct terms. Rich stuff. Mistamystery (talk) 03:27, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And your recent edit adjustment is fine by me.
 * Also, let us forget the word "portmanteau" ever graced our shores. Mistamystery (talk) 03:29, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * On a second thought (and lookup), portmanteau does fit both theories, if we are clear that the idea is that the Greek inserted Palaistes intentionally. But the Jacobian theory still lacks a theophoric component to the name, which would make it much more convincing.
 * trespassers william (talk) 11:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have nothing against the first part of the paper, it is quite useful. I am not sure what you mean by convergence. Noth's Aramaic ethnonym (*pelištāˊīn = "Philister") + the noun palaistês =Palaistī́nē ? Yes very convincing. And it's good to be able to cite Jacobson on the tendency for punning. The "Jacobian" theory, the *pelištāˊīn (presumably)+Yisrael > *pelištāˊīn + palaistês = Palaistī́nē ? Not at all convincing, or substantiated, or influential.
 * trespassers william (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There is strong argumentum ex silentio here. The academic community would not be citing this paper uncritically with such consistency if anyone had any problems with the core thesis presented. I actually just think - given the preponderance of supporting details - short of its potential political considerations, academics just haven’t found this a revolutionary observation (especially given that its well established that the “Syrians of Palestine” that Greek writers were abundantly referring to were Israelites). At minimum, Masahla would have lit garbage cans on fire if he had a problem here. Instead, he’s just using Jacobson as a reliable citation.
 * The lack of presence of a theophoric element is addressed and makes sense given the time period and general Greek naming conventions.
 * Also, I think there’s a slight misunderstanding of this this “Noth-Jacobian” theory as it’s laid out here. It’s not simply that *pelištāˊīn =  Palaistī́nē. It’s that the former was first encountered solely in reference to the southern coastal plain (Philistia) and then was used as a lexical anchor for the further naming of the general region as Greek writers became more familiar with the place and its people. What’s powerful in the argument is that in the hunt to convey the literal meaning of foreign place names (which apparently was a Greek thing), no etymological meaning for Philistia was found then, as is still the case today.
 * On those grounds - best I understand, there is no portmanteau present, which would be if the two terms were glossed into something like peliš-tī́nē. That’s what that term means - to bridge two halves, and that has not happened here.
 * I’m not king linguist so am using “convergence” (as in: two terms overlaying into one) for the time being to describe what is presumed to have happened here. I’m sure there’s a more proper, in-field technical term and I’ll hunt it down. Mistamystery (talk) 14:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The sentiments of scholars are interesting but you can't cite silences as secondary sources... Such argument can work both ways - why haven't writers of the "other party" twisted that knife at any time to mess with modern national sympathies to the Philistines?
 * At first I heard this silence as an awkward one, that only Rainey bothered to b break. But then I checked through about 3 pages of citations in Google scholar, and the results are, that virtually no author discusses Jacobson per se. The great majority cite him briefly as to the geographical extension of "Palestine" or "Syria Palestine", either specifically in Herodotus or in the period generally. None mention etymological considerations. One or two cite him for context next to a different view. The only one who goes into any detail of Jacobson's arguments is Faust, and then only contra the conviction that Philistines were uncircumcised at all times.
 * But then, back to humbly assessing his theory, the silence goes deeper, to where you expect to find the evidence. If the association of the widely used, internationally flavoured, name with Jacob was anywhere within grasp of Josephus or Philo, they remain silent about it. The latter even wrote specificially on that biblical episode, in what sounds like a very relevant work, but Jacobson is only able to use it to this anaemic effect: "The central event of a wrestling contest by the progenitor of this Levantine people against a divine adversary is likely to have made a deep impression on them. For the hellenized Philo of Alexandria, the change of name from Jacob to Israel was the most significant incident in Jacob's career and it is associated with his wrestling victory (Philo, On the Migration of Abraham 200-201; On the Change of Names 81; see also Earp in Philo, Vol. 10 1962".
 * Jacobson is able to cite about two hellenizing parallel for (roughly) the biblical Jews, that is even shared with non Jewish authors btw, and then neither is  based on the name Israel as a patriarch, but on "Solmytes". And yet this is not a story about wrestling... (Other than that, iirc, foreign writers would turn most often to Moses, the law giver, as father of the nation) The Septuagint, which scintillates between literal and loose translation apparently never pick up on the possibilities, although Israel is not an infrequent word in the bible. A look at Stern ''Greek & Roman Authors" shows no reference to genesis 32, even though his scope extends to authors that go details on some biblical stories.
 * Contra Jacobson, regarding the Greek audience at pelaides.org I found several other toponyms with initial "Theo". Personal names with this component are plentiful and well known, and why shouldn't they count? The Greeks did not shy away from interpreting El (deity), and he found various parallels when the Ugaritic mythology was transmitted to them, and preserved over many centuries. (As an aside, now it seems to me pretty clear tha the name came through contact with Phoenician informants rather than Jewish one: *pelištāˊīn being in the plural, in a semitic form, retention of an old name that doesn't correspond to realities of the time, using a large scale perspective that draws a rough line from a point on the coast, not using Iudeaios to delimit it, not having much detail on their own mythology and identity...) El of the bible, on the other hand, was at the time regarded as an appellation and excited the Septuagint to translate it merely as "theos", not as a sacred name (like YHWH). And then you have all the other lovely biblical and other names that were preserved in identifiable form through Greek.
 * There are strange assumptions behind what you call powerful in the argument: a. that if they sometimes translated names, they were committed to it, and do it literally. And b. that if they modified a local name to a with a Greek word, they had to have a story go with it. And thus, that whenever they inserted a Greek word to modify a direct transliteration, it has to be a reliable translation. They can't do one instead of the other. I.e. that when they called a foreign land Fighterland, it had to be about that fighter. Where is the fun in that?
 * trespassers william (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's not a portmanteau, and your revision there was wholly unsupported. (it never even existed in any of the original sources)
 * Let's start with that. Will you revert to an earlier edit (or hunt down the appropriate term) so we may proceed from there? Mistamystery (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * A portmanteau can be a little flexible with the order of components, specifically there is an overlapping overlapping type. Wp has examples:
 * adorable + dork → adorkable
 * Smoke + fog → smog
 * Can you clarify what never existed where?
 * trespassers william (talk) 19:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Update: Philo is an interesting case. He definitely does portray Jacob as a gymnast and a wrestler, an archetypal Man of Practice, Practicing Soul. But he consistently translates his name "Israel" as the one who sees God. (Presumably, YeshurEl?). On the change of names: 81-84; On dreams: I, 129; 171; II, 173. In Loeb classical library, Philo, vol 5, orig 1934.
 * trespassers william (talk) 22:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you have a link to the greek? Mistamystery (talk) 23:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The Loeb edition has it. I used Libgen.
 * trespassers william (talk) 09:12, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Add entry
Perhaps add this map (date: 1729). According to Kurşun 2020, p. 93, FN 39, this is "the first appearance of the name Palestine in Ottoman maps." The heartland of Palestine is called Eyalet Sham, the heartland of Egypt Amlak Miṣr, and on the border of the heartland of Palestine and the Negev stands ارض فلسطين (Arḍ Filasṭin, "Land of Palestine"). DaWalda (talk) 05:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

FYI: I wanted to check whether the map was already included in Çelebi's manuscript or was only created in the print edition that Kurşun refers to. But this cannot be verified; apparently, there are only two manuscripts: The first one (SOAS, MS 139868) is undated and not yet accessible, while the second one (Bodleian, MS. Sale 67) has not yet been digitized and is from 1726; thus, the evidence could only be dated back three years anyway. DaWalda (talk) 08:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Katip Çelebi 1656 Mediterranean Sea map from Asfar il-bihar.jpg
 * Thank you . I have found a better (color) version and uploaded the maps to Commons:Category:Asfār al-Bihār - here is the one you linked to. The author of that paper (Kurşun) is oversimplifying - Çelebi's Cihânnümâ was written between 1648–1657, whereas Asfār al-Bihār was apparently published in 1656. The map of the Arabian peninsula which Kurşun mentions was published in the Cihânnümâ, not the Asfār al-Bihār. Note in this article the relevant Çelebi entries 1648–57, c. 1649, and the image of the Arabian Peninsula map. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Cool. Nice work :)
 * good news - the website you linked to shows only the manuscripts held in the UK. I would expect that more manuscripts are available at the Turkish Directorate of State Archives. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:50, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You are right again. Hagen has a list of manuscripts. I have looked at some of them. The map is probably not from Çelebi, but I cannot be sure yet. There are two major editions of the work (A + B), and of both, there exist manuscripts without (1) and with (2) maps. Here are four exemplary links: A1, A2, B1, B2. In none of the manuscripts I have found so far (most manuscripts are Topkapi manuscripts, thus not accessible online) is there a corresponding map. It is further complicated by the fact that the maps vary according to the date of copying, as the maps were adapted to the current political conditions (see Hagen's notes on manuscript G). Maybe there are manuscripts in which our map can also be found; I have not found them so far. My suggestion: Leave it as it is for now; to falsify this, archival studies in Turkey would need to be conducted. DaWalda (talk) 11:39, 13 July 2024 (UTC)