Why 1st Century Palestine Never Existed
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: Bible, History, Israel | Tags: 1st Century, academia, Galilee, Israel, Israelites, Jesus, Jew, New Testament, Palestine, Syria Palaestina 4 Comments »Commas save lives.
“Let’s eat, Mum” or “Let’s eat Mum” have two very different meanings.
Language is also important. When language is misused, misinformation can spread quickly.
As most of you will know, when we say ’1st century’ we are talking about years between 0 and 100CE.
The word Palestine traces back to the word Philistine – the ancient enemy of the Israelites.
The territory today defined as Israel/Palestine was never called Palestine until 135CE. 35 years after the ’1st century’.
Before that, it was called Israel by the Jews, and Judea and Galilee by the ruling power – the Romans. We have the Bibilical record for that.
From my research, it’s fair to say the entire New Testament was completed by 70CE as that is when the temple was destroyed and not a single New Testament (NT) writer mentions that catastrophic event. So it makes sense to assume the event hadn’t happened yet, and that’s why they weren’t writing about it. Although this is an argument from silence, it would have be the equivalent of the media not mentioning 9/11 in the year following 2001.
But even if you don’t find that argument convincing, the majority of scholars will tell you the NT was completed by 100CE at the latest. Nowhere in the NT do any of the writers reference “Palestine”. They only ever mention the land of Israel. So if the people living there at the time said they lived in Israel, why in our academic literature, do we say they lived in Palestine?
I am not making a political point here, I’m explaining that Palestine simply didn’t exist until the Romans renamed Israel as Syria Palaestina in 135CE. So by all means talk about 2nd century Palestine all you want. But 1st century Palestine never existed.
I hope this explanation has been clear. I find it hard to believe that so many academics have got something so important, totally wrong. And like everything I write – I’m open to correction should it come in the comments below.
NB. For those of you with Bibles, flick to the back where you’ll most likely have some maps. Many of them title the maps ‘Palestine in the time of Jesus’, or equivalent. Now, I know Jesus ascended to heaven and is still alive today, but he was not walking the earth in 135CE, and his book had also been finished by then! Jesus died and ascended around 33-35CE. So ‘Palestine in the time of Jesus’ is 100% untrue. It was Israel in the time of Jesus.
Read my Dissertation Here
Posted: May 16, 2011 Filed under: Ethical Issues, Israel, Journalism | Tags: dissertation, History of Israel, Israel, Middle East, Objectivity, Palestine, Reporting, The Guardian, Thesis Leave a comment »Well it’s been a long year, but my dissertation was handed in a couple of weeks ago and I’m now making it available for you to download, read, pass on and do whatever you want with. It’s presented as a PDF.
The title is
“A Critical Evaluation of The Guardian’s reporting of the Israel/Palestine situation”
When Will There Be Peace in Israel?
Posted: November 26, 2010 Filed under: History, Israel, Justice | Tags: Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East, Palestine, Palestinian people, peace, West Bank 2 Comments »Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve blogged specifically about Israel.
Most of you will know it’s a subject close to my heart and over the last few years of working part time for Christian Friends of Israel and Isrelate.com I’ve built up a bit of knowledge about the current struggles in the Middle East.
This week I had the privilege of being filmed for Channel 4′s 4thought.tv on the subject of ‘How can Jews and Muslims find peace’. It will be broadcast early January and I’m hoping and praying they edit it well and don’t make me look stupid, arrogant or unreasonable!
In my research for the filming I stumbled upon Hamas’ slogan. Hamas are recognised by US, EU and Israel as a terrorist organisation but they have also been democratically elected as the government of the Gaza Strip. What is the slogan of this democratically elected government?
Dear Socialist Workers Party
Posted: June 3, 2010 Filed under: Israel, Isrelate.com, News, Personal, Politics | Tags: Aggressive, arguing, Gaza, Israel, Isrelate, Marxist, Palestine, Party, Policy, Socialist, Southampton, Workers, Zionist 4 Comments »
Dear Socialist Workers Party,
How can I ever support your party when…
- Within 30 seconds of walking up to your stand in the town centre titled “Free Palestine” and gently saying a few words in support of Israel I am told “people like you are disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself”?
- This man’s very first words to me were (after sniffing the air sarcastically) “What’s that? I smell a dirty, rotten Zionist!”?
- This Socialist Workers Party supporter (member?) stated that Israel have let hardly any aid into Gaza (completely untrue…)?
- He said Israel are an apartheid regime (completely untrue…)?
- Your Socialist Workers Party materials on the stand claimed the current blockade of Gaza is illegal (completely untrue…)?
Although this man who represented your party was incredibly rude, I was grateful to have a very civil and intelligent discussion with another person (about my age) who was on your stand. We listened to each other and debated the rights and wrongs of the current situation. I made it clear I do not support everything the Israeli government does and in turn tried to show him that having a terrorist organisation (Hamas) in charge of anything (especially Gaza) was always going to be a bad idea.
unfortunately this conversation was interrupted by yet another person on your stand. This 3rd person was Jewish and told me “Israel should be destroyed”. Needless to say he felt his people had no heritage to the land and on the Jewish claim to Israel I was surprised to hear him say: “Oh yeah a few thousand years ago there was this guy called David in charge of a village”, and that was “virtually all the evidence to support the Zionist claim”.
Although such words were shocking, I was unsurprised to discover some of his other claims originated from The Guardian newspaper.
Sadly this man (like the first) started to shout and be aggressive. I’m not one for drawing attention to myself in public places so I let him rant about the Israeli government and turned back to continue my conversation with the man who was willing to listen to the other side of the story.
The first man (who called me a ‘dirty rotten Zionist’) did try to interrupt my polite discussion with the young chap but to no avail. After a couple more minutes he called the guy I was speaking to over to one side. It was obvious from what I overheard and the body language that this man was trying to get rid of me and was telling his colleague to stop talking to me.
The funny thing was just before the aggressive man called his polite colleague over, the conversation between the polite chap and me had moved on and all we were talking about was Solent university and a Marxist convention in London he was inviting me to.
I knew it was time to go. I did quietly and politely suggest to the young man that if they wanted to attract people to sign their petition and take an interest his colleagues shouldn’t be so confrontational. The response from the first man who eavesdropping and STILL trying to ‘butt in’? “Go away we dont want to ‘attract’ people like you”.
I got the message and left.
I don’t write this out of malice and I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m not writing to threaten to sue you or to vent. I just wish people in your party would be more open. I have great debates and discussions with all kinds of people about all kinds of things in my day to day life. It doesn’t do anyone any good when things get nasty. I’m not perfect- heck my views on this situation may even be mis-informed. Who knows? I may have over stepped the mark and got too passionate. For that I apologise, but I never reacted with aggression…
What’s important is I think both myself and the younger guy proved to each other we could have a polite discussion on emotive issues and end with shaking hands and talking about something completely unrelated.
Please could you have more people like him on your stands in the future?
Yours sincerely,
Sam Hailes
Aka a disgusting (un)ashamed dirty rotten Zionist.
