Judea

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Hills in the Judean desert.

Judea or Judæa (Hebrew: יהודה, Standard Yəhuda Tiberian Yəhûḏāh, "praised, celebrated"; Greek: Ιουδαία, Ioudaía; Latin: Iudaea) is the name given to the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל‎ Eretz Yisrael), an area now divided between Israel and the West Bank (itself partly under Palestinian Authority administration and Israeli military rule).

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. The area was the site of the Hasmonean Kingdom and the later Kingdom of Judah, a client kingdom of the Roman Empire. In modern times, Jordan renamed Judea and Samaria the West Bank. The name "Yehudah" may be used by Hebrew speakers to refer to a large southern section of Israel and the disputed territories. The combined term Judea and Samaria, refers to land alternatively called the West Bank.

Location and historical boundaries

The Judean hills.

The original boundaries were "Bethsûr" (near Hebron), on the south; Beth-horon (today Beit 'Ur al Fawka on the West Bank), on the north; Latrun or Emaüs, on the west (22 kilometres west of Jerusalem); the Jordan River on the east. The classical historian Josephus used a more expanded definition, encompassing the lower half of what is now the West Bank in the north down to Beer Sheba in the south, and bordered on the east and west by the Mediterranean and the Jordan river.^{[citation needed]} Coordinates: 31°41′56″N 35°18′23″E / 31.69889°N 35.30639°E / 31.69889; 35.30639

Geography

A farmer ploughs his fields in Judea, 1913.

Judea is a mountainous and arid region, much of which is considered to be a desert. It varies greatly in height, rising to an altitude of 1,020 m (3,346 ft) in the south at Mount Hebron, 19 miles (30 km) southwest of Jerusalem, and descending to as much as 400 m (1,312ft) below sea level in the east of the region. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion (including Beitar Illit and Efrat), Jericho and Hebron.^{[citation needed]}

Geographers divide Judea into several distinct 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 (which have more rainfall) as summer approaches, while the slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing. The region dried out over the centuries and much of the ancient tree cover has since disappeared.^{[citation needed]}

History

Human settlement in Judea stretches back to the Stone Age and the region is believed by paleoanthropologists to have been one of the routes through which Homo sapiens travelled out of Africa to colonise the rest of the world around 100,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence of human settlement dates back 11,000 years in the case of the city of Jericho, believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the world. In historic times, the region was inhabited by a number of peoples, most famously the Israelites. 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.

Judea was ruled by the Kingdom of Judah, a client kingdom of Persia^[1], and later the Seleucid dynasty of Greece who were eventually expelled from the region by Judas Maccabeus. The Maccabean family established the Hasmonean dynasty of Kings who ruled in Judea for over a century. ^[2]

Roman conquest

Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, by becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered again in 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome. Queen Alexandra Salome had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompeius restored Hyrcanus but political rule passed to the Herodian family, first as procuratores and later as client kings. In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the province of Iudaea. Eventually, the Jews rose against Roman rule in 66 CE in a revolt that was unsuccessful. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE and much of the population was killed or enslaved. ^[3]

Bar Kokhba revolt

The Jews rebelled again 70 years later under the leadership of Bar Kokhba and established the last Kingdom of Israel, which lasted three years, before the Romans managed to conquer the province for good, at a high cost in terms of manpower and expense.

After the defeat of Bar Kokhba (132-135 CE) the Roman Emperor Hadrian was determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea, and reverted to using the name Palastina from the writings of Herodotus who reported the name of the region as Palestine and the people there referred to themselves as the Palestine-Syrians. Until that time the area had been called "province of Judea" by the Romans. At the same time, he changed the name of the city of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more into slavery; many Jews departed into the Jewish diaspora, but there was never a complete Jewish abandonment of the area. ^[4]

20th century

Bedouins live in the desert around Judea.

Chronology

Map of the southern Levant, c.830s BCE.      Kingdom of Judah      Kingdom of Israel      Philistine city-states      Phoenician states      Kingdom of Ammon      Kingdom of Edom      Kingdom of Aram-Damascus      Aramean tribes      Arubu tribes      Nabatu tribes      Assyrian Empire      Kingdom of Moab

• 18th century BCE? - 11th century BCE — province in Canaan
• 1004 BCE? — Jewish conquest
• 11th century BCE - 930 BCE — part of the Kingdom of Israel
• 930 BCE–586 BCE — Kingdom of Judah
• 586 BCE -539 BCE — Babylonian Empire
• 539 BCE -332 BCE — Persian Empire
• 332 BCE - 305 BCE — Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great
• 305 BCE - 198 BCE — Ptolemaics
• 198 BCE - 141 BCE — Seleucids
• 141 BCE - 37 BCE — The Hasmonean state in Israel established by the Maccabees, after 63 BCE under Roman supremacy
• 37 BCE - 70 CE — Herodian Dynasty ruling Judea under Roman supremacy (37 BCE-6 CE, 41-44 CE), interchanging with direct Roman rule (6-41, 44-66). This ended in the first Jewish Revolt of 66 - 73, which saw the Temple destroyed in 70.
• 73 — Fall of Masada
• 115–117 — Kitos War
• 132–135 — Bar Kokhba's revolt
• 135 — Emperor Hadrian reverts to the name Syria Palaestina first used by Herodotus.
• 400–638 — Byzantine Christian province
• 638 — Muslim rule established
• 1099 — The Crusaders conquer the region
• 1187 — Expulsion of the Crusaders from Judea and reassertion of Muslim rule after Battle of Hattin
• 1516 — Beginning of Ottoman rule
• 1917 — Defeat of the Ottomans; beginning of British rule
• 1947 — United Nations partition plan allocates parts of the area to a new Jewish state
• 1967 — The area comes under Israeli control

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judean Desert

• The Jewish History Resource Center Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Judea and civil war
• The subjugation of Judea
• Judaea 6-66 CE
• Judea photos

v • d • e Judea and Samaria Area Cities Ariel · Beitar Illit · Ma'ale Adumim · Modi'in Illit Regional committees Hebron Local councils Alfei Menashe · Beit Aryeh-Ofarim · Beit El · Efrat · Elkana · Giv'at Ze'ev · Har Adar · Immanuel · Karnei Shomron · Kedumim · Kiryat Arba · Ma'ale Efrayim · Oranit Regional councils Gush Etzion · Har Hebron · Mateh Binyamin · Megilot Dead Sea · Shomron · Southern Jordan Valley (Bik'at HaYarden) Regions: Judea · Samaria Other sub-divisions: Center District · Haifa District · Jerusalem District · North District · South District · Tel Aviv District See also: Population statistics