Why was Israel called Israel?

Yahweh's consort was Asherah. Multiple references remain in the Bible, such as Josiah cutting down the statue(s) of Asherah in the Jerusalem temple which Solomon had built. (2 Kings 23:14). Manessah had a statue built to Asherah too, and there are various references to Asherah poles.

There's also a surviving inscription in the Sinai which refers to Yahweh and his Asherah.
Yessss, there is a key thing there. Josiah CUTTING DOWN the trees. As in it was during the time Solomon was following the practices of his wives and doing things that were heretical, blasphemous, etc.
 
Yessss, there is a key thing there. Josiah CUTTING DOWN the trees. As in it was during the time Solomon was following the practices of his wives and doing things that were heretical, blasphemous, etc.
If the statue of Asherah had been standing in the Jerusalem temple from Solomon's time all the way to Josiah, it's plain that it was an accepted part of worship in Judah for pretty much the whole kingdom's existence, barring the last handful of years.
 
If the statue of Asherah had been standing in the Jerusalem temple from Solomon's time all the way to Josiah, it's plain that it was an accepted part of worship in Judah for pretty much the whole kingdom's existence, barring the last handful of years.
Yes, it was kind of the downward slide for the Israelites at that point. They did it but they weren't supposed to. Or at least their King did it and people went along with it.
 
I wonder if they considered simply using what was the most common name for the region at the time, and call the newly-independent Jewish state the "Republic of Palestine".
 
I wonder if they considered simply using what was the most common name for the region at the time, and call the newly-independent Jewish state the "Republic of Palestine".
I highly doubt it, as the Romans first described the area as Palestine officially after a Jewish revolt, which was in response to the renaming of Jerusalem and building the temple to Jupiter I touched in earlier on the Temple Mount. Basically it was the cumulation of over a century of strife, in which the Romans threw most Jews out of the region.
 
I wonder if they considered simply using what was the most common name for the region at the time, and call the newly-independent Jewish state the "Republic of Palestine".

I highly doubt it, as the Romans first described the area as Palestine officially after a Jewish revolt, which was in response to the renaming of Jerusalem and building the temple to Jupiter I touched in earlier on the Temple Mount. Basically it was the cumulation of over a century of strife, in which the Romans threw most Jews out of the region.

There's something appropriate about a discussion on Israel where one person suggests something relevant to the present day and another person goes on about something almost 2,000 years ago.
 
I highly doubt it, as the Romans first described the area as Palestine officially after a Jewish revolt, which was in response to the renaming of Jerusalem and building the temple to Jupiter I touched in earlier on the Temple Mount. Basically it was the cumulation of over a century of strife, in which the Romans threw most Jews out of the region.
Well, yes, the term "Palestine" was originally a colonialist name used by the Romans to hide the Jewish connection to the land. But by the early 20th century, as far as I know, it was simply a neutral geographic term used by everyone to refer to the region also known as the Land of Israel. I believe the term "Palestine" was often used by the Jews to refer to this region prior to the declaration of Israeli independence, and it didn't have any negative connotations.

Of course in OTL, for political reasons, in the middle of the 20th century the meaning of the term "Palestinian" changed from being a neutral geographic term and demonym referring to everyone from that region, to being only about Arabs from that region and their descendants. But with a PoD prior to Israeli independence this situation could easily be changed.
 
If they had called the state Judea or some variant it would, at the time, have contained little if anything of Judea. Calling the state "Palestine" would have implied a claim on the East Bank.
 
Yahweh's consort was Asherah. Multiple references remain in the Bible, such as Josiah cutting down the statue(s) of Asherah in the Jerusalem temple which Solomon had built. (2 Kings 23:14). Manessah had a statue built to Asherah too, and there are various references to Asherah poles.

There's also a surviving inscription in the Sinai which refers to Yahweh and his Asherah.

Edit: And Baal originally was a general title which meant "lord" and was probably used as a title for Yahweh (though there's disagreement over that point), but was later used for the name of more specific deities.

Better than this. If you have not already read it, I strongly recommend to you the book the Bible unearthed written by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

And other in the Bible itself is the other name given to the God of the hebrews : Elohim. Elohim is a plural, like for the city of Athens (Athinai in greek while the goddess is called Athina) is a plural. Singularité would be Eloha. This is the proof of some kind of religious synecism. And there are obviously 2 traditions in the Bible : the yahwist tradition and the elohist tradition.
 
I wonder if they considered simply using what was the most common name for the region at the time, and call the newly-independent Jewish state the "Republic of Palestine".

Hebrew and Yiddish literature almost never used the term Palestine, using Land of Israel basically exclusively. Going back continuously since the Second Diaspora.

In English and German, Zionists did often refer to the region as Palestine (though also as "Eretz Yisrael" - "Land of Israel" in Hebrew). A lot of earlier Zionist literature does use the term Palestine (for example, Auto-Emancipation and Altneuland).

But by the time of the establishment of the state, the language of the Zionist shadow government was Hebrew. Plus, the Mandate of Palestine was being split to establish two state, and it was presumed that the Arab state would call itself Palestine.

If they had called the state Judea or some variant it would, at the time, have contained little if anything of Judea.

Meh; not sure how relevant, though I have always found it a little ironic that modern Israel does not contain the heartland of ancient Israel (the Judean Hills, which is more or less geographically the same as the West Bank)

Calling the state "Palestine" would have implied a claim on the East Bank.

Ancient Israel also included land on the east bank of the Jordan, which not including most of the Negev, and a large portion of what is now the coast of Israel, both to the north (where it was controlled by Phoenicians) and the south (Philistines).

Some Zionist factions pushed for the entire Mandate (including what would become Transjordan), some for anything they could get (the Peel Commission plan had a good amount of support, and would have made a Jewish state in the Galilee plus a narrow strip along the coast, with the rest being Arab except for an international corridor from Jerusalem to Jaffa)
 
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