Monday, March 13, 2017

There Goes "Palestine"

Well, not the fictitious ancient ("since time immemorial") Arab entity of "Palestine".  That will continue to be around as an instrument of the Arab conflict against Jewish nationalism.

But it seems the trend in academia, as in the specific field of archaeology, to avoid the term.

What is used?

South Levant.

As in here, for example:

Chronological Conundrums: Egypt and the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant
Felix Höflmayer, Susan L. Cohen

Radiocarbon Evidence from Tell Abu en-Ni'aj and Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan, and Its Implications for Bronze Age Levantine and Egyptian Chronologies
Steven E. Falconer, Patricia L. Fall

A Radiocarbon Chronology for the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant
Felix Höflmayer


Reevaluation of Connections Between Egypt and the Southern Levant in the Middle Bronze Age in Light of the New Higher Chronology

As Wikipedia has it:

The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and/or the Sinai Peninsula. As a strictly geographical description, it is sometimes used by archaeologists and historians to avoid the religious and political connotations of other names for the area.

And it sure looks like the former Palestine Mandate:




 As a footnote there explains:

the adoption of this term by many scholars has been, for the most part, simply the result of individual attempts to consider a wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus than that which is suggested by the use of terms like Canaan,Israel, or even Syria-Palestine. Regardless of the manner in which the term has come into common use, for a couple of additional reasons it seems clear that the Levant will remain the term of choice. In the first place scholars have shown a penchant for the term Levant, despite the fact that the term ‘Syria-Palestine’ has been advocated since the late 1970s. This is evident from the fact that no journal or series today has adopted a title that includes ‘Syria-Palestine’. However, the journal Levant has been published since 1969 and since 1990 Ägypten und Levante has also attracted a plethora of papers relating to the archaeology of this region. Furthermore, a search through any electronic database of titles reveals an overwhelming adoption of the term ‘Levant’ when compared to ‘Syria-Palestine’ for archaeological studies. Undoubtedly, this is mostly due to the fact that ‘Syria-Palestine’ is, correctly speaking, the title for a Roman administrative division of the Levant created by Hadrian (Millar 1993). The term ‘Syria-Palestine’ also carries political overtones that inadvertently evoke current efforts to establish a full-fledged Palestinian state. Scholars have recognized, therefore, that—for at least the time being—they can spare themselves further headaches by adopting the term Levant to identify this region.

Of course, Land of Israel, Eretz-Yisrael, etc. has also been tossed out of the conversation.

Then again, "Israelite" is still employed in academic journals reviewing the Biblical period as in


Title: Israelite Embassies to Assyria in the First Half of the Eighth CenturyAuthor(s): ASTER, Shawn ZeligJournal: BiblicaVolume: 97   Issue: 2   Date: 2016   Pages: 175-198

Abstract :

This article shows that the kingdom of Israel sent ambassadors on an annual basis to the Assyrian empire during much of the reign of Jeroboam II, and it explores the implications of these contacts for the interpretation of Isaiah 1-39 and Hosea. These diplomatic contacts are based on points Fales has raised regarding Nimrud Wine List 4 (ND 6212), whose importance for biblical studies has hitherto not been recognized. The recipients of the wine rations in this list are to be identified as ambassadors of weaker kingdoms, among them Samaria, who visited Assyria to pay tribute.




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