THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
JUDEA, ju-di'a.
I. The Name and the Territory. History (§ 1).
Boundaries of Judea Proper (§ 2). II. Detailed Description. 1. The Territory of Judah.
Limits, Population and Divisions
(§1). The Shephelah (§ 2).
I. The Name and the Territory: Judea is the term applied from about 300 b.c. by Greeks and Romans to the land inhabited by the Jews. The limits of the country are to be gathered from passages in Nehemiah (iii. and vii.) and in I and II Maccabees. These reports, while not entirely accordant, yet supplement each other, and start from the point of view either of governmental rule, of tribal possession, or of relationship to the religious community. The boundaries are i. History, fairly well indicated in Neh. iii.; on the south Bethzur marked the border, in the north Bethhoron, and on the west Emmaus, and these are approximately the limits implied in the Books of Maccabees (cf. the list of fortresses '' in Judea" in I Mace. ix. 50 sqq.). Under the Persians, as under the Greeks, this region shared the fate of southern Syria. After the death of Alexander the Great it fell into the hand of the Ptolemies (q.v.), who held control of it almost continuously till 198 b.c. It was a part of the province of " Celesyria " (I Mace. x. 69) or of " Celesyria and Phenice " (II Mace. iii. 5). The inhabitants, on account of their religion, were granted many privileges until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, but the payment of tribute was enforced, if necessary, by the presence of garrisons, a situation which the Maccabean revolution brought to an end (I Mace. x. 25-45). The Greek name for this territory, loudaia, as well as the adjective loudaios, is not to be derived from the Hebrew Yehudhi but from the Aramaic Yehudhay (Ezra iv. 12; Dan. iii. 8). The earliest sure traces of the use of this name are found at the end of the fourth century b.c, contemporaneously with the beginning of Greek control of the Orient. In I Maccabees the usage is divided between the normal Greek form and a Hebraizing form Iouda, with a preference for the latter. As a result of the Hasmonean uprising (see Hasmoneans) the territory was enlarged and the name had both a narrow and a wider content. The extension of territory was begun by Jonathan, when in 147 b.c. Alexander Balas gave to him the city of Ekron with its surrounding territory. In 145 B.C. Demetrius II. added three districts in the north and west which had belonged to Samaria (I Mace. xi. 28, 34, 57), named " Apherema, Lydda, and Ramathem " after the names of their chief cities. Apherema is probably the Ephraeim or Efraea of the Onomasticon (ecliv. 118, eclvii. 121), about twenty Roman miles north of Jerusalem; Lydda corresponds to the Lod of the Old Testament (Ezra ii. 33) ; and Ramathem was about nine miles northeast of Lydda and six west of Thamna. The probable reason for this grant was that the population was largely Jewish. Soon after, Bethzur was taken away from the Seleucidse (I Mace. xi. 66), and in 142 b.c. Joppa was
The Hill Country (§ 3). Hebron (§ 4). Mamre (§ 5).
Other Cities of Josh. xv. (§ 6). Places Named in Later Records (§ 7). 2. The Territory of Benjamin.
General Description; Jericho (§1). The First Group of Benjamite Cities (§2).
The Second Group (§ 3). Other Places of Note (§ 4).
3. The Judean Territory of Dan.
4. The Judean Territory of Eph-
raim.
5. Cities on the Western Plain.
6. The Eleven Toparchies of Judea
According to Josephus.
taken and then Judaized (I Mace. xii. 33), and the same happened to Gezer (I Mace. xiii. 43 sqq.). John Hyrcanus took Medaba and Samega across the Jordan, also Samaria and Scythopolis, and in the south the territory of the Idumeans. Aristobulus conquered from the Itureans a part of their territory. Alexander Jannseus annexed considerable territory across the Jordan and Raphia, Anthedon, and Gaza on the Mediterranean. In 63 b.c. Pompey restricted Judea to strictly Jewish territory. Herod came into possession of Samaria, Batanea, Auranitis, Trachonitis, and the region of the Jordan sources. During the first century of the Christian era the changes in apportionment of the territory were numerous. In the second century Judea came to be called Syria Palestina, and after the fourth century simply Palestina. Josephus distinguishes Judea from Samaria, makes Judea stand for the region under Hyrcanus or Herod, or for the district ruled by procurators after 6 a.d., or for the region granted to Vespasian. When he extends the use of the word, he uses the phrase " all Judea," equivalent to the " Canaan " of the Old Testament.
Judea as treated in this article is the smaller region as distinguished from Samaria, Galilee, and Perea, defined partly in Josephus and in the Talmud. Josephus (Ant. XIV., iii. 4) makes Koreae, the modern Karawa, the most northern city, and includes the regions of Thamna, Gophna,
2. Boun- and Akrabattine (that is, the Akrab-
daries of bein of the Onomasticon ccxiv.), while Judea Josephus draws the line of the northern
Proper, boundary through Anuath Borkaios, possibly the 'Othnay of the Talmud. The Talmud also locates Antipatris as a boundary city, possibly the modern Kalat Ras al-A'in northwest of Jaffa and north of Lydda. Whether Judea at the beginning of the Christian era included a part of the coast is doubtful. Joppa had been in the possession of the Jews and Jamnia had a large Jewish population, but the way in which Josephus mentions these places {War, III., iii. 5) implies that they were not regarded as strictly Judean. The fact that the seat of Roman government was at Caesarea does not involve that any portion of the seacoast was properly within the territory of Judea. The western boundary was not stable, varying in different periods. Only at times was any part of the Philistine territory under the Jews, as when Gaza or Ekron or Ashdod was under Jonathan or Herod. On the south, Judea was bounded by the toparchies of Idumea and Engedi, but the exact limits fluctuated. The eastern boundary was the Dead Sea and the Jordan.
II. Detailed Description.— 1. The Territory of Judah: According to the Old Testament this re-