Canaan

For other uses, see Canaan (disambiguation).

Canaan
𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 (Phoenician)
כְּנַעַן‎ (Hebrew)
Χαναάν (Biblical Greek)
كَنْعَانُ (Arabic)
Historical region
Map of Canaan by John Melish (1815)
Map of Canaan by John Melish (1815)
Coordinates: 32°N 35°E / 32°N 35°E / 32; 35
Polities and peoples
  • Phoenician city states
  • Phoenicians
  • Philistines
  • Israelites
Canaanite languages

Canaan (/ˈkeɪnən/; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – KNʿN;[1] Hebrew: כְּנַעַן – Kənáʿan, in pausa כְּנָעַן‎ – Kənāʿan; Biblical Greek: Χαναάν – Khanaán;[2] Arabic: كَنْعَانُ – Kan'ān) was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BC) as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.

The name "Canaan" appears throughout the Bible as a geography associated with the "Promised Land". The demonym "Canaanites" serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled and nomadic-pastoral groups—throughout the regions of the southern Levant.[3] It is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible.[4] Biblical scholar Mark Smith, citing archaeological findings, suggests "that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture ... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature."[5]: 13–14 [6]

The name "Canaanites" is attested, many centuries later, as the endonym of the people later known to the Ancient Greeks from c. 500 BC as Phoenicians,[7] and after the emigration of Phoenicians and Canaanite-speakers to Carthage (founded in the 9th century BC), was also used as a self-designation by the Punics (as "Chanani") of North Africa during Late Antiquity.

  1. ^ British Museum. Department of Coins and Medals; Sir George Francis Hill (1910). Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phoenicia. order of the Trustees. p. 52. OCLC 7024106.
  2. ^ The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : Dt. Bibelges., 2006 ISBN 978-3-438-05119-6. However, in modern Greek, the accentuation is Xαναάν, while the current (28th) scholarly edition of the New Testament has Xανάαν.
  3. ^ Brody, Aaron J.; King, Roy J. (1 December 2013). "Genetics and the Archaeology of Ancient Israel". Wayne State University. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  4. ^ Dever, William G. (2006). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 219. ISBN 9780802844163. Canaanite is by far the most common ethnic term in the Hebrew Bible. The pattern of polemics suggests that most Israelites knew that they had a shared common remote ancestry and once common culture.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference JonTubb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Smith, Mark S. (2002). The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9780802839725. Archived from the original on 29 April 2024. Retrieved 9 October 2018. Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BC). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period.
  7. ^ Drews 1998, pp. 48–49: "The name 'Canaan' did not entirely drop out of usage in the Iron Age. Throughout the area that we—with the Greek speakers—prefer to call 'Phoenicia', the inhabitants in the first millennium BC called themselves 'Canaanites'. For the area south of Mt. Carmel, however, after the Bronze Age ended references to 'Canaan' as a present phenomenon dwindle almost to nothing (the Hebrew Bible of course makes frequent mention of 'Canaan' and 'Canaanites', but regularly as a land that had become something else, and as a people who had been annihilated)."