Judea

Judea, Judaea or Judah (dʒuːˈdiːə or dʒuːˈdeɪə; from יהודה, Standard Yəhūda, Tiberian Yehūḏā; Ἰουδαία, ; Iūdaea) is a mountainous region in the southern Levant traditionally dominated by Jerusalem, and now part of the modern States of Palestine and Israel. The name is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and modern-day term originating from the Hebrew name Yehudah, a son of the biblical patriarch Jacob/Israel, with Yehudah's progeny forming the biblical Israelite tribe of Judah (Yehudah) and later the associated Kingdom of Judah. Related nomenclature continued to be used by the Babylonians, Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods as the Babylonian and Persian Yehud, Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea, and consequently Herodian and Roman Judea, respectively. Under Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman rule, the term was applied to an area larger than the historical region of Judea. In 132 AD, the province of Judaea was merged with Galilee into an enlarged province named Syria Palaestina. The term Judea was revived by the Israeli government in the 20th century as part of the Israeli administrative district name Judea and Samaria Area for the territory generally referred to as the West Bank. The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the name "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 c. 733 BCE, is the earliest known 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. The King James Version of the Bible refers to the region as "Jewry". "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.