The name Israel arose from the incident in which Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:25–27). Jacob received the name Israel (Yisra’el in Hebrew) because he “wrestled (sarita’) with the Lord (El).” In the Septuagint, the Greek verb epalaien (he wrestled) is used to describe Jacob’s struggle with the stranger.14 The etymological similarity between epalaien and Palaistinê raises the possibility that Palaistinê may somehow be linked to the name Israel through this Biblical episode. Jacob’s wrestling with the angel, which explained the origin of the name of the people and of the Land of Israel, would have struck a chord among Greeks who came into direct contact with Jews in the Near East at least as early as the sixth century B.C.E.15 Greeks, well versed in the epics of their heroes, would have been intrigued by the Biblical explanation of the name Israel, as transmitted to them by Jews, probably in anecdotal form and almost certainly in Aramaic, the most widely spoken tongue in the Near East during the early classical period.16 The central event of a wrestling contest by the ancestor of this Semitic people against a divine adversary is likely to have made a deep impression on them. Wrestling was easily the most popular sport among the Greeks, and it formed an essential part of a Greek education. Its popularity is demonstrated by the frequency with which metaphors drawn from wrestling crop up in Greek literature, especially in poetry.17 And wrestlers are commonly portrayed in Greek decorative art. In addition to appearing on numerous vases, a wrestling pair is depicted on the silver coins of two important Greek cities from the fourth to the second century B.C.E., Aspendus in Pamphylia and Selge in Pisidia.18 Although Yisra’el means “wrestler with God,” and not merely “wrestler,” it is easy to see how the deity may have been omitted from a Greek translation of this word. Place-names with the generic name for god (theos in Greek) are very rare before the Christian era. The only settlement with such a name that occurs in Greek literature at such an early date is Theodosia (“gift [or offering] to the gods”),19 on the north coast of the Black Sea, at the very edge of the Greek world.20 The prefix theo- is used here in the plural, meaning deities in general. While places were named after individual deities—Athens after Athena, Apollonia after Apollo and Heraklea after Herakles—the Jewish God was different. His name could not be uttered by believers. With their abstract concept of the divine being, the Jews were often mistaken for atheists by the Greeks.21 It is thus easy to understand how the Greeks, who had heard stories about the Israelite patriarchs, might have thought of Jacob/Israel as a great hero-wrestler who had stood up to an ethereal adversary who was unknown and unknowable. The ancient Greeks loved wordplay, puns and double meanings. Take the comedies of the fifth-century B.C.E. playwright Aristophanes: They are studded with double meanings, some quite subtle. Some even include place-names. For example, the name Kardia, a city on the Gallipoli peninsula, is similar to the word for “heart.” In his comedy The Birds, Aristophanes mentions Kardia in connection with a character to indicate that he is without “heart” (that is, without courage).22 Similarly with coins: The coins of Side, on the coast of southern Asia Minor, feature a pomegranate (side). And the earliest silver pieces of nearby Aspendus show a sling (spendonê, punning on the town name). Coins of Melos pun on the similarity between that name and the word for apple (melon), which appears on the coins of this Aegean island. There are many other similar examples. The striking similarity between the Greek word for “wrestler” (palaistês) and the name Palaistinê—which share seven letters in a row, including a diphthong—is strong evidence of a connection between them. Adding to this the resemblance of Palaistinê to Peleshet, it would appear that the name Palestine was coined as a pun on Israel and the Land of the Philistines. In Greek eyes, the people of Israel were descendants of an eponymous hero who was a god wrestler (a palaistês); the name wrestler also puns on the name of a similar-sounding people of the area known locally as Peleshet. This double meaning finds support from Josephus, who uses the term Palaistinê to denote both the Land of the Philistines and the much larger entity, the Land of Israel. Hadrian officially renamed Judea Syria Palaestina after his Roman armies suppressed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (the Second Jewish Revolt) in 135 C.E.; this is commonly viewed as a move intended to sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland.23 However, that Jewish writers such as Philo, in particular, and Josephus, who flouris hed while Judea was still formally in existence, used the name Palestine for the Land of Israel in their Greek works, suggests that this interpretation of history is mistaken. Hadrian’s choice of Syria Palaestina may be more correctly seen as a rationalization of the name of the new province, in accordance with its area being far larger than geographical Judea. Indeed, Syria Palaestina had an ancient pedigree that was intimately linked with the area of greater Israel. Thus, we have a perfectly logical explanation of how Palaistinê originated as a pun on Israel and the Philistines—and eventually became Palestine.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 01:04:30 +0000
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