Judea

 ( Historical Regions In Israel ) 

Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Israel and the West Bank. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the present day; it originates from Yehudah, the Hebrew name of the tribe, called Juda(h) in English. Yehudah was a son of Jacob, who was later given the name "Israel" and whose sons collectively headed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Yehudah's progeny among the Israelites formed the Tribe of Judah, with whom the Kingdom of Judah is associated. Related nomenclature continued to be used under the rule of the (the Yehud province), the Persians (the Yehud Medinata), the Greeks (the Hasmonean Kingdom), and the Roman Empire (the Herodian kingdom and the Provincia Iudaea = Judaea province).

Under the Hasmoneans, the Herodians, and the Romans, the term was applied to an area larger than Judea of earlier periods. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt (c. 132–136 CE), the Roman province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina.

Gordon Clouser (2025). 9781462061211, iUniverse. . ISBN 9781462061211

Bernard Spolsky (2025). 9781107055445, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9781107055445

(2025). 9780805499353, B&H Publishing Group. . ISBN 9780805499353

The term Judea Most of the region of Judea was incorporated into what the Jordanians called ad-difa'a al-gharbiya (translated into English as the "West Bank"), though "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and occupied by Israel in 1967. The Israeli government in the 20th century used the term Judea as part of the Israeli administrative district name "Judea and Samaria Area" for the territory that is generally referred to as the West Bank of the Jordan River.

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Etymology The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the Hebrew name Yehudah (Hebrew יהודה, "Judah"), which originally encompassed the territory of the Israelite tribe of that name and later of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. Nimrud Tablet K.3751, dated 733 BCE, is the earliest known extra-biblical record of the name Judah (written in Assyrian cuneiform as Yaudaya or KUR.ia-ú-da-a-a).

Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, including parts beyond the river Jordan. In 200 CE Sextus Julius Africanus, cited by Eusebius ( Church History 1.7.14), described "Nazara" (Nazareth) as a village in Judea."A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour. Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible." (Eusebius Pamphili, Church History, Book I, Chapter VII,§ 14) The King James Version of the Bible refers to the region as "Jewry".For example at and

"Judea" was a name used by English speakers for the hilly internal part of Mandatory Palestine until the Jordanian rule of the area in 1948. For example, the borders of the two states to be established according to the UN's 1947 partition scheme were officially described using the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" and in its reports to the League of Nations Mandatory Committee, as in 1937, the geographical terms employed were "Samaria and Judea". Jordan called the area ad-difa'a al-gharbiya (translated into English as the "West Bank"). "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

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Historical boundaries

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Roman-era definition The first century Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote ( The Jewish War 3.3.5):

In the limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath, which is also named Borceos.Based on Charles William Wilson's (1836–1905) identification of this site, who thought that Borceos may have been a place about 18 kilometers to the south of Neapolis (Nablus) because of a name similarity ( Berkit). See p. 232 in: . This identification is the result of the equivocal nature of Josephus' statement, where he mentions both "Samaria" and "Judea." Samaria was a sub-district of Judea. Others speculate that Borceos may have referred to the village Burqin, in northern Samaria, and which village marked the bounds of Judea to its north. This is the northern boundary of Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if they be measured lengthways, are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of Arabia; the Jews that dwell there call it Jordan. However, its breadth is extended from the Jordan River to Jaffa. The city Jerusalem is situated in the very middle; on which account some have, with sagacity enough, called that city the Navel of the country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come from the sea, since its maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais: it was parted into eleven portions, of which the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the neighboring country, as the head does over the body. As to the other cities that were inferior to it, they presided over their several toparchies; Jifna was the second of those cities, and next to that Acrabatta, after them Khirbet Tibnah, and Lod, and Emmaus, and Pella, and Idumea, and Ein Gedi, and Herodium, and Jericho; and after them came Yavne and Jaffa, as presiding over the neighboring people; and besides these there was the region of Gamla, and Golan Heights, and Batanaea, and Trachonitis, which are also parts of the kingdom of Agrippa. This last country begins at Mount Lebanon, and the fountains of Jordan, and reaches breadthways to Lake Tiberias; and in length is extended from a village called Arpha, as far as Julias. Its inhabitants are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with all possible brevity, described the country of Judea, and those that lie round about it.

Elsewhere, Josephus wrote that "Arabia is a country that borders on Judea."Josephus, Antiquities XIV.I.4. ( 14.14)

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Geography Judea is a mountainous region, part of which is considered a desert. It varies greatly in height, rising to an altitude of in the south at the Hebron Hills, southwest of Jerusalem, and descending to as much as below sea level in the east of the region. It also varies in rainfall, starting with about in the western hills, rising to around western Jerusalem (in central Judea), falling back to in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around in the eastern parts, due to a rain shadow: this is the Judaean Desert. The climate, accordingly, moves between Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of semi-arid climate in the middle. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Jericho and Hebron.

Geographers divide Judea into several regions: the Hebron hills, the Jerusalem saddle, the Bethel hills and the Judaean Desert east of Jerusalem, which descends in a series of steps to the Dead Sea. The hills are distinct for their anticline structure. In ancient times the hills were forested, and the Bible records agriculture and sheep farming being practiced in the area. Animals are still grazed today, with shepherds moving them between the low ground to the hilltops as summer approaches, while the slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing. The Jewish Revolt against the Romans ended in the devastation of vast areas of the Judean countryside.

Mount Hazor marks the geographical boundary between Samaria to its north and Judea to its south.

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History

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Biblical Era According to the biblical story of the Patriarchs, Genesis 12 Abraham came to the Land of Canaan as commanded by God and moved around in the hill country (Judaea and Samaria) and the Negev. The country is described as populated by Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites and other population groups. This pattern continued with his son Isaac, his son Jacob and his 12 sons and daughter, Dina and their families. Genesis 12.1-50.26 The Patriarchs Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob were buried at Hebron in the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Gensis 23.1-20 according to Genesis and Exodus.

After the Conquest of Joshua the Israelite tribes conquered and lived in most of the land west of the river Jordan and in the nothern part east of that river for close to 400 years.

The biblical account in the Books of Kings describes how King Saul and later King David and his son Solomon (Shlomo) succeeded in fighting the last remenants of non-Israelite populations and unified the tribes into one united monarchy. According to our understanding of the text as well as recent archeological findings, this was to a large degree possible through the Israelite adaption of Iron Age technologies. Scholarship has been divided as to the historical veracity of the existence and extension of a kingdom that unified Judea and Samaria, but archeological excavations of the last 30 years have time and again found solid evidence that confirms the bibilcal descriptions.

Finkelstein, Israel, and Silberman, Neil Asher, The Bible Unearthed : Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Simon & Schuster, 2002. Thompson, Thomas L., 1999, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past, Jonathan Cape, London, p. 207

Regardless, the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE and parts of the population of the 10 nothern tribes exiled. The nothern Kingdom of Judah remained nominally independent, but paid tribute to the Assyrian Empire from 715 and throughout the first half of the 7th century BCE, regaining its independence as the Assyrian Empire declined after 640 BCE, but after 609 again fell under the sway of imperial rule, this time paying tribute at first to the Egyptians and after 601 BCE to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, until 586 BCE, when it was finally conquered by Babylonia, the temple in Jerusalem destroyed and many of the inhabitants of Judea exiled to Babylonia.

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Persian and Hellenistic periods The Babylonian Empire fell to the conquests of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. Judea remained under Persian rule until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, eventually falling under the rule of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire until the revolt of Judas Maccabeus resulted in the Hasmonean dynasty of kings who ruled in Judea for over a century.

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Early Roman period Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a Roman province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered in 63 BCE, at the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when the proconsul Pompey ("Pompey the Great") stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome, including his siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE. Queen Salome Alexandra had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompeius restored Hyrcanus, but political rule soon passed to the Herodian dynasty, who ruled as client kings.

In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the southern part of the province of Judaea, although Jews living there still maintained some form of independence and could judge offenders by their own laws, including capital offences, until c. 28 CE.Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 8b; ibid, Sanhedrin 41a The Hashmonean kingdom, after Pompey's conquest, was divided in 57 BCE by Gabinius, the governor of Syria, into five administrative districts (Synedrion or toparches), as mentioned by Josephus, later on the region of historical Judaea proper being further divided; the exact number of Judaean districts (in the end ten or eleven according to Josephus and Pliny) and their location is disputed, Schürer amending the ancient authors' list as follows: Jerusalem in the centre, later becoming the district of Orine "Orine Judaea'); Jifna, Akrabatta north of it; Khirbet Tibnah and Lydda to the northwest; Emmaus (possibly future Nicopolis/Imwas, although other towns in the region also bore that name) to the west; Bayt Nattif (rather than Josephus' Pella) to the southwest; Idumaea to the south; Engaddi and Herodeion to the southeast; and Jericho to the east. Schürer dismisses Pliny's listing of "Jopica" (Jaffa) and Josephus' of Pella, as these were, in his opinion, independent cities not included in Judaea proper. Cf. Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 3:51 at perseus.tufts.edu.Josephus, Antiquities Book 14, chapter 5, verse 4

Other regions outside Judaea proper, which had belonged to the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms and came under Roman dominance and then direct rule, remained or became also split into districts with regional capitals, these being Galilee (with the capital at Sepphoris and later Tiberias), and Perea in Transjordan (with Amathus); however, a district administered from a certain Gadara is also mentioned, which can be in three different locations - either in Perea (at or near Al-Salt), in the Decapolis at Umm Qais,: "And when he had ordained five councils (συνέδρια), he distributed the nation into the same number of parts. So these councils governed the people; the first was at Jerusalem, the second at Gadara, the third at Amathus, the fourth at Jericho, and the fifth at Sepphoris in Galilee.""Josephus uses συνέδριον for the first time in connection with the decree of the Roman governor of Syria, Gabinius (57 BCE), who abolished the constitution and the then existing form of government of Palestine and divided the country into five provinces, at the head of each of which a sanhedrin was placed ("Ant." xiv 5, § 4)." via Jewish Encyclopedia: Sanhedrin:

(1982). 9780310392101, Zondervan Publishing House. . ISBN 9780310392101

Getzel M. Cohen (2006). 9780520931022, University of California Press. . ISBN 9780520931022

or - which is relevant for Judaea - at biblical Gezer in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains, mentioned by Josephus under a Hellenised form of its Semitic name, Gadara, edited to "Gazara" in the Loeb edition

Eric M. Meyers (1999). 9781575060408, Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575060408

).

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Jewish–Roman wars and Late Roman period

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First Jewish–Roman War In 66 CE, the Jewish population rose against Roman rule in a revolt that was unsuccessful. Jerusalem was besieged in 70 CE. The city was razed, the Second Temple was destroyed, and much of the population was killed or enslaved.

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Bar Kokhba revolt In 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) broke out. After an initial string of victories, rebel leader Simeon Bar Kokhba was able to form an independent Jewish state that lasted several years and included most of the district of Judea, including the Judean Mountains, the Judean Desert, and northern Negev desert, but probably not other sections of the country.

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Aftermath When the Romans finally put an end to the uprising, most of the Jews in Judea were killed or displaced, and a sizable number of captives were sold into slavery, leaving the district mostly depopulated. Jews were expelled from the area surrounding Jerusalem.

J. E. Taylor (2012). 9780199554485, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780199554485

No village in the district of Judea whose remains have been excavated so far has not been destroyed during the revolt.

Hanan Eshel (2025). 9780521772488, Cambridge. ISBN 9780521772488

Roman emperor Hadrian, determined to root out Jewish nationalism, changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria Palaestina.Ben-Sasson, H.H. (1976). A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature." The province's Jewish population was now mainly concentrated in Galilee, the coastal plain (especially in Lydda, Jaffa, and Caesarea), and smaller Jewish communities continued to live in the Beit She'an Valley, the Mount Carmel, and Judea's northern and southern frontiers, including the southern Hebron Hills and along the shores of the Dead Sea.Goodblatt, David (2006). "The political and social history of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel", in William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.) The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge University Press, pp. 404–430 (406).

Menahem Mor (2025). 9789004314634, Brill. ISBN 9789004314634

The suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt led to widespread destruction and displacement throughout Judea, and the district saw a decline in population. The Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina, which was built on the ruins of Jerusalem, remained a backwater for the duration of its existence. The villages around the city were depopulated, and arable lands in the region were confiscated by the Romans. Having no alternative population to fill the empty villages led the authorities to establish imperial or legionary estates and monasteries on confiscated village lands to benefit the elites and, later, the church.Seligman, J. (2019). "Were There Villages in Jerusalem's Hinterland During the Byzantine Period?" In Peleg- Barkat O. et. al. (eds.), Between Sea and Desert: On Kings, Nomads, Cities and Monks. Essays in Honor of Joseph Patrich. Jerusalem: Tzemach. pp. 167–179. This also initiated a process of romanization that took place during the Late Roman period, with pagan populations penetrating the region and settling alongside Roman veterans. There was only a revival of village settlement on the eastern edges of Jerusalem's hinterland, on the transition between the arable highlands and the Judaean Desert. Those settlements grew on marginal lands with vague ownership and unenforced state land dominion.

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Byzantine period Judea's decline only came to an end in the fifth century CE, when it developed into a monastic center, and Jerusalem became a major Christian pilgrimage and ecclesiastical hub. Under Byzantine Empire rule, the regional population, composed of pagan populations who had migrated there after Jews were driven out following the Bar Kokhba revolt, gradually converted to Christianity.

The Byzantines redrew the borders of the land of Palestine. The various Roman provinces (Syria Palaestina, Samaria, Galilee, and Peraea) were reorganized into three dioceses of Palaestina, reverting to the name first used by Greek historian Herodotus in the mid-5th century BCE: Palaestina Prima, Secunda, and Tertia or Salutaris (First, Second, and Third Palestine), part of the Diocese of the East.Shahin (2005), p. 8 Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the Paralia, and Peraea with the governor residing in Caesarea. Palaestina Secunda consisted of Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley, the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis with the seat of government at Scythopolis. Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Jordan—once part of Arabia—and most of Sinai Peninsula, with Petra as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris. According to historian H.H. Ben-Sasson,H.H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, 1976, , p. 351 this reorganisation took place under Diocletian (284–305), although other scholars suggest this change occurred later, in 390.

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Crusader period

The mostly French army of the First Crusade conquered Jerusalem from the Seljuks in 1099 and expanded the territory they held in the following years. According to Ellenblum, the Franks tended to settle in the southern half of the region between Jerusalem and Nablus since there was a sizable Christian population there.

Ellenblum Ronnie (2025). 9780511585340, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511585340

Michael Ehrlich (2025). 9781641892223, Arc Humanities Press. ISBN 9781641892223

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Mamluk period

Most of the people living in the northern portion of Judea in the late 16th century were Muslims; some of them resided in towns that today have significant Christian populations. According to the 1596–1597 Ottoman census, Birzeit and Jifna, for instance, were wholly Muslim villages, while Taybeh had 63 Muslim families and 23 Christian families. There were 71 Christian families and 9 Muslim families in Ramallah, although the Christians there were recent arrivals who had moved from the Al-Karak area only a few years previously. According to Ehrlich, the region's Christian population decreased as a result of a combination of factors including impoverishment, oppression, marginalization, and persecution. Sufism took place in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, which most likely pushed Christian villagers in the region to convert to Islam.

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Timeline

• Around 1800-1500 BCE Period of Patriarchs. Stone Age.
• Around 1200 BCE Conquest of Joshua and period of Judges. Bronze Age.
• Around 900–586 BCE: Kingdom of Judah. Iron Age.
• 586–539 BCE: Yehud, Babylonian Empire
• 539–332 BCE: Yehud Medinata, Persian Empire
• 332–305 BCE: Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great
• 305–198 BCE: Ptolemaic Egypt
• 198–141 BCE: Seleucid Empire
• 141–37 BCE: The Hasmonean kingdom established by the Maccabees, under the Roman Empire after 63 BCE
• 63 BCE: Pompey's conquest of Jerusalem
• 37 BCE – 132 CE: Herodian dynasty ruling Judea as a vassal state of the Roman Empire (37–4 BCE Herod the Great, 4 BCE – 6 CE Herod Archelaus, 41–44 CE Agrippa I), interchanging with direct Roman rule (6–41, 44–132)
• c. 25 BCE: Caesarea Maritima is built by Herod the Great, replacing Jerusalem as the capital
• 6 CE the Roman Empire deposed Herod Archelaus and converted his territory into the Roman province of Judea.
• Census of Quirinius, too late to correspond to census related to Jesus' birth
• 26–36: Pontius Pilate prefect of Roman Judea during the Crucifixion of Jesus
• 66–73: First Jewish–Roman War, includes Destruction of the Second Temple in 70
• 115–117: Kitos War
• 132: Judea was merged with Galilee into the enlarged province of Syria Palaestina.

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Selected towns and cities

Judea, in the generic sense, also incorporates places in Galilee and in Samaria.

+ Place Names of Judea
Jerusalem	ירושלם	Ιερουσαλήμ	Herusalem (Aelia Capitolina)	القدس (al-Quds)
Jericho	יריחו	Ίεριχω	Hiericho / Herichonte	أريحا (Ariḥa)
Shechem / Nablus	שכם	Νεάπολις (Neapolis)	Neapoli	نابلس (Nablus)
Jaffa	יפו	Ἰόππῃ	Ioppe	يَافَا (Yaffa)
Ashkelon	אשקלון	Ἀσκάλων (Askálōn)	Ascalone	عَسْقَلَان (Asqalān)
Beit Shean	בית שאן	Σκυθόπολις (Scythopolis) Βαιθσάν (Beithsan)	Scytopoli	بيسان (Beisan)
Bayt Jibrin /Maresha	בית גוברין	Ἐλευθερόπολις (Eleutheropolis)	Betogabri	بيت جبرين (Bayt Jibrin)
Lajjun	(לגיון) כפר עותנאי	xxx	Caporcotani (Legio)	اللجّون (al-Lajjûn)
Peki'in	פקיעין	ΒακὰJosephus, The Jewish War 3.3.1	xxx	البقيعة (al-Buqei'a)
Yibna	יבנה	Ιαμνεία	Iamnia	يبنى (Yibna)
Samaria / Sebaste	שומרון / סבסטי	Σαμάρεια / Σεβαστή	Sebaste	سبسطية (Sabastiyah)
Banias	פנייס	Πάνειον (Καισαρεία Φιλίππεια) (Paneion)	Cesareapaneas	بانياس (Banias)
Acre / Ptolemais	עכו	Πτολεμαΐς (Ptolemais) Ἀκχώ (Akchó)	Ptoloma	عكّا (ʻAkka)
Emmaus	אמאוס	Ἀμμαοῦς (Νικορολις) (Nicopolis)	Nicopoli	عمواس ('Imwas)

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See also

• Timeline of the name Judea
• Seleucid Empire versus Maccabean Revolt
• History of Palestine
• Ioudaios
• Kitos War
• Judaea (Roman province)
• State of Judea

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External links

• Judea and civil war
• The subjugation of Judea
• Judaea 6–66 CE
• Judea photos

Categories: Historical Regions In Israel, Historical Regions In Palestine, Geography Of Palestine, Hebrew Bible Regions, New Testament Regions, West Bank

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