What was the ancient name of the country now called Israel?

Answer 1

The Bible refers to the land of the Canaanites, or perhaps Canaan, although strictly speaking there never was a country called Canaan. Among the Canaanites, each city was a nation-city, completely independent of the others, although often in alliance. The Canaanites occupied the rich coastal plains and foothills from the Egyptian border northwards.

For some centuries prior to the thirteenth century BCE, the mountainous hinterland was practically unhabited so could scarcely be called a country. With the arrival of the Hebrews, an area somewhat larger than the present-day West Bank became home to the Hebrew people, with the nation of Judah occupying the southern portion and Israel occupying the northern region.

Also arriving in the thirteenth century BCE, the Philistines occupied the coastal strip south of present-day Tel Aviv. Their nation is referred to as Philistia. The Negev Desert remained inhabitable until much later, when the Nabataean Arabs invented cisterns to collect and store rainwater.

This area, with its patchwork of nationalities, acquired its first ancient name in the first millennium BCE, when the Greeks called it Palestine after the Philistines whom they found along the coast. The Greeks were unaware that another ethnic group occupied parts of the remote inland.