re: #98 Wild Knight

All right. I’ve got a problem. Perhaps someone can help me with it. I’m a Classics student and I’ve been wondering where the word Palestine came from. Yes, I know that the British mandate used this term but most British officials at the time had a classical education. They got the name from the Roman province of Palaestina which is derived from the Greek Παλαισ&# x03C4;ίνη. Now, some people claim that the Greeks got this word from the Philistines or the Hebrew word for the Philistines. I’m not convinced. Παλαισ&# x03C4;ίνη is mentioned by Herodotus and I’d like to know whether Herodotus:

1) Coined the word himself
2) Derived it from a purely Hellenic combination
3) Used a foreign derivative.

My Liddell and Scott doesn;t even cite Παλαισ&# x03C4;ίνη so I have no dependable source to which to turn. Any ideas?

I absolutely promise you that if you choose any of the 3 above, there will be at least one “historian” around who will rip you a new one, sounding very authoritative in the process.

Meaning, you can’t win.