Judea

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See also Judea (Roman province) and State of Judea
Coordinates 3141'56?N 3518'23?E

Map which shows Judea (south of Samaria and the Galilee)

Judea or Juda (d?u?'di?.?;[1] from Hebrew ???????, Standard Y?huda, Tiberian Y?h?
ah, Greek ???da?a, Ioudaa; Latin Iudaea, Arabic ???????, Yahudia) is the ancient
Hebrew and Israelite biblical, the exonymic RomanEnglish, and the modern-day name
of the mountainous southern part of Canaan-Israel. The name originates from the
Hebrew name Yehudah, a son of the Jewish patriarch JacobIsrael, and Yehudah's
progeny forming the biblical Israelite tribe of Judah (Yehudah) and later the
associated Kingdom of Judah, which the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia dates from 934
until 586 BCE.[2] The name of the region continued to be incorporated through the
Babylonian conquest, Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods as Yehud, Yehud
Medinata, Hasmonean Judea, and consequently Herodian Judea and Roman Judea,
respectively.

As a consequence of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in 135 CE the region was renamed and
merged with Roman Syria to form Syria Palaestina by the victorious Roman Emperor
Hadrian. A large part of Judea was included in Jordanian West Bank between 1948 and
1967 (i.e., the West Bank of the Kingdom of Jordan).[3][4] The term Judea as a
geographical term was revived by the Israeli government in the 20th century as part
of the Israeli administrative district name Judea and Samaria Area for the
territory generally referred to as the West Bank.[5]

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Historical boundaries
3 Geography
4 History
4.1 Early Iron Age
4.2 Persian and Hellenistic periods
4.3 Roman conquest
4.4 Bar Kokhba revolt
4.5 Byzantine period
5 Timeline
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Etymology
The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the name Judah, which originally
encompassed the territory of the Israelite tribe of that name and later of the
ancient Kingdom of Judah. Nimrud Tablet K.3751, dated c.733 BCE, is the earliest
known record of the name Judah (written in Assyrian cuneiform as Yaudaya or KUR.ia-
-da-a-a).

Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, including parts beyond
the river Jordan.[6] In 200 CE Sextus Julius Africanus, cited by Eusebius (Church
History 1.7.14), described Nazara (Nazareth) as a village in Judea.[7]

Judea was a name used by English-speakers for the hilly internal part of Palestine
until the Jordanian occupation of the area in 1948.[citation needed] For example,
the borders of the two states to be established according to the UN's 1947
partition scheme[8] were officially described using the terms Judea and Samaria and
in its reports to the League of Nations Mandatory Committee, as in 1937, the
geographical terms employed were Samaria and Judea.[9] Jordan called the area ad-
difaa al-gharbiya (translated into English as the West Bank).[10] Yehuda is the
Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and
occupied by Israel in 1967.[11]

Historical boundaries

The Judean hills

The classical Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote

In the limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath, which is also named
Borceos. This is the northern boundary of Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if
they be measured lengthways, are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of
Arabia; the Jews that dwell there call it Jordan. However, its breadth is extended
from the river Jordan to Joppa. The city Jerusalem is situated in the very middle;
on which account some have, with sagacity enough, called that city the Navel of the
country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come from the sea, since
its maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais it was parted into eleven portions,
of which the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the
neighboring country, as the head does over the body. As to the other cities that
were inferior to it, they presided over their several toparchies; Gophna was the
second of those cities, and next to that Acrabatta, after them Thamna, and Lydda,
and Emmaus, and Pella, and Idumea, and Engaddi, and Herodium, and Jericho; and
after them came Jamnia and Joppa, as presiding over the neighboring people; and
besides these there was the region of Gamala, and Gaulonitis, and Batanea, and
Trachonitis, which are also parts of the kingdom of Agrippa. This [last] country
begins at Mount Libanus, and the fountains of Jordan, and reaches breadthways to
the lake of Tiberias; and in length is extended from a village called Arpha, as far
as Julias. Its inhabitants are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with
all possible brevity, described the country of Judea, and those that lie round
about it.[12]

Geography

Mediterranean oak and terebinth woodland in the Valley of Elah, southwestern Judea.
Judea is a mountainous region, part of which is considered a desert. It varies
greatly in height, rising to an altitude of 1,020 m (3,346 ft) in the south at
Mount Hebron, 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Jerusalem, and descending to as much as
400 m (1,312 ft) below sea level in the east of the region. It also varies in
rainfall, starting with about 400500 millimetres (1620 in) in the western hills,
rising to 600 millimetres (24 in) around western Jerusalem (in central Judea),
falling back to 400 millimetres (16 in) in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around
100 mm in the eastern parts, due to a rainshadow effect (this is the Judean
desert). The climate, accordingly, moves between Mediterranean in the west and
desert climate in the east, with a strip of steppe climate in the middle. Major
urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Jericho and
Hebron.[13]

Geographers divide Judea into several regions the Hebron hills, the Jerusalem
saddle, the Bethel hills and the Judean desert east of Jerusalem, which descends in
a series of steps to the Dead Sea. The hills are distinct for their anticline
structure. In ancient times the hills were forested, and the Bible records
agriculture and sheep farming being practiced in the area. Animals are still grazed
today, with shepherds moving them between the low ground to the hilltops as summer
approaches, while the slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing.
The Jewish Revolt against the Romans ended in the devastation of vast areas of the
Judaean countryside.[14]

Mount Hazor marks the geographical boundary between Samaria to its north and Judea
to its south.
History
Early Iron Age
Main articles History of ancient Israel and Judah and Kingdom of Judah

Map of the southern Levant, c.830s BCE.

Kingdom of Judah
The early history of Judah is uncertain; the Biblical account states that the
Kingdom of Judah, along with the Northern Kingdom, was a successor to a united
Kingdom of Israel, but modern scholarship generally holds that the united monarchy
is ahistorical.[15][16][17][18] Regardless, the Northern Kingdom was conquered into
the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah remained nominally
independent, but paid tribute to the Assyrian Empire from 715 and throughout the
first half of the 7th century BCE, regaining its independence as the Assyrian
Empire declined after 640 BCE, but after 609 again fell under the sway of imperial
rule, this time paying tribute at first to the Egyptians and after 601 BCE to the
Neo-Babylonian Empire, until 586 BCE, when it was finally conquered by Babylonia.

Judea is central to much of the narrative of the Torah, with the Patriarchs
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob said to have been buried at Hebron in the Tomb of the
Patriarchs.

Persian and Hellenistic periods

Hasmonean Kingdom at its greatest extent under Salome Alexandra

Main article Yehud Medinata
The Babylonian Empire fell to the conquests of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE.[19]
Judea remained under Persian rule until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332
BC