We need to understand that there never was a Palestinian people or a nation called Palestine. The Arabs invented the term after the fact. The so-called Palestinians lived mostly in Jordan and Syria. Yasser Arafat, the leader of the so-called Palestinians, is actually an Egyptian! Palestine was one of the areas settled by people of Greek origin. The newcomers settled in the Phoenician cities of the Mediterranean coast and founded new Greek cities inland, whose administration, economy, legal system and official cult were based on the Greek model. Palestine in Jesus’ day was part of the Roman Empire, which controlled its various territories in a number of ways. In the East (eastern Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt), territories were governed either by kings who were “friends and allies” of Rome (often called “client” kings or, more disparagingly, “puppet” kings) or by governors supported by a Roman army. When Jesus was born, all of Jewish Palestine, as well as some of the neighbouring Gentile areas, was ruled by Rome’s able “friend and ally” Herod the Great. For Rome, Palestine was important not in itself but because it lay between Syria and Egypt, two of Rome’s most valuable possessions.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:15:44 +0000
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