Judaea
/dʒuːˈdiːə/noun
An ancient region of the southern Levant centered on Jerusalem and historically associated with the kingdom and people of Judah.
Did you know?After the Bar Kokhba revolt in the second century CE, the Roman administration renamed the province Syria Palaestina, a change widely understood as an attempt to weaken its association with Judaea and the Jewish people.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic
*yhd
“Reconstructed root associated with the personal name Judah; the exact original sense is debated.”
Iron Age
Hebrew
יְהוּדָה (Yəhūdāh)
“Judah, the personal name of the biblical ancestor and the kingdom named after him.”
6th–4th Century BCE
Aramaic
יְהוּד (Yəhūd)
“Yehud, the Persian-period province corresponding broadly to the former kingdom of Judah.”
5th–3rd Century BCE
Greek
Ἰουδαία (Ioudaía)
“Judaea or the land of the Judeans; the Greek territorial form derived from Judah.”
1st Century BCE
Latin
Iūdaea
“Judaea, the Roman Latin name for the region.”
Modern English
English
Judaea
“The conventional historical English name for the ancient region, especially in biblical and Roman contexts.”