Talk:Yehud Medinata

Untitled

translated from Hebrew Wikipedia --Midrashah (talk) 15:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

... which shows in the choice of the title, not used anywhere in English scholarship, and rightfully so, as it is just Aramaic for "province Yehud", a name used already by the Neo-Babylonians. Arminden (talk) 13:44, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Terminology

Does this term have any currency in the English language? I've never heard of it before. There are only two google books search results for it, and none in google scholar. I'm not sure what this article should be called, but it evidently should not be called "Yehud Medinata". john k (talk) 17:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Yehud Province or even just Yehud are the more common English terms for the Persian province. 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's an example: "Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period (Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies)". 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yehud is more commonly the city, so some ambiguity with that term. 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

[1]: "The long-held view that the Persian period in Israel (known as Yehud) was a historically derivative era that engendered little theological or literary innovation has been replaced in recent decades by an appreciation for the importance of the Persian period for understanding Israel’s literature, religion, and sense of identity. A new image of Yehud is emerging ..."75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be Yehud (Persian province). 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Why not Judah (Persian province)? If we must have "Yehud," your suggestion is certainly an improvement on the current situation. john k (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Could be Judah (Persian province) or Judea (Persian province). Yehud is the technical term in use among historians. The term itself tells you it's Persian (or Aramaic, the language in use in Persia at the time). Personally, I don't really care what wikipedia decides to call it and I'm sure most professionals in the field couldn't care either. Maybe Yehud is too unfamiliar a term to a general audience such as wikipedia? 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You can see a wikipedia use at Yehud#History. I added the link to Yehud Medinata, presumably it would be changed to whatever the new name for the article will be. 75.14.217.143 (talk) 20:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Its is based on the biblical verse from Book of Ezra 5:8 (see here)

Book of Ezra 5:8 [2] ---> parlal Hebrew/English) --93.173.0.184 (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Etymology of Yehud

I deleted this from the lead: The name "Yehud" derives from its Hebrew/Canaanite (the two languages were virtually, if not completely, identical) designation for the area, Har Yehudahor "mountain (district) of the gorge(s)".

I've never heard of this, although it sounds plausible. But it really needs a source. Can anyone provide one? (By the way Canaanite is usually seen as a group of related languages/dialects, not a single language, with Hebrew as one of its members).PiCo (talk) 00:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Little on Google/Google Books, apart from a Dieter Wolfgang Schmidt using the phrase in an apparently familiar and offhand way on the old ANE list in January 1997 [3], 'the "Mountains of the Gorges" Har Yehudah'. So it may have some history. Jheald (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Medinata or medinta?

Are we sure the Aramaic term is medinata, with two a's? This looks like a plural form, while we would expect the singular medinta (i.e., without the first a): see http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/oneentry.php?lemma=mdynh%20N&cits=all. The vocalization in Ezra 5:8 confirms this: The Aramaic text there reads מְדִֽינְתָּא֙ m(ə)ðīntā (see http://tanach.us/Tanach.xml?Ezra5:8). Of course, that vocalization was added by the Masoretes in the Middle Ages and may have differed from the actual pronunciation at the time of Ezra. It is possible that a historical short a was still pronounced between the n and t, meaning that "medinata" reflects singular *m(ə)ðīnatā (short a) rather than the plural m(ə)ðīnātā (long ā), and perhaps this was the form in which it was borrowed into Persian. But as far as my knowledge of Aramaic goes, I see no reason to assume such speculations, and would expect the correct form to be singular "medinta". Can someone look into this? Drabkikker (talk) 11:38, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

To editor Drabkikker: You are most probably right. The name is wrong as it is, so it will only show in the text once I change the title, but please go on with it and amend the article text accordingly. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 13:46, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Done. It seems to be preferred by some Israeli scholars, based on their reading of Ezra 5:8. I don't know what arguments they have to support this vocalisation rather than the other and nobody in the West adopted this reading, but it's about the Hebrew Bible and top publishers have published their work, so now both forms are in the lead. Arminden (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

To editor Arminden: Hi there, thanks! I haven't been around much lately, so apologies for not replying earlier. Nice that someone picked up on this five years after my comment. :) Drabkikker (talk) 21:08, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Moving to 'Yehud (Persian province)'

Yehud Medinata (or maybe Medinta) is Aramaic for "province Yehud", a name used already by the Neo-Babylonians, so not specific to the Achaemenid-Persian period and therefore not appropriate as an article name. Aramaic was used as a lingua franca for centuries by the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid (Persian) empires, until it was replaced by Greek. Also, there is not a single English-language occurrence for "Yehud Medinata" as a name in scholarly works popping up on Google. Crotty's is the only one where it shows up, but not as an administrative name as such, but as a translation, and followed immediately by "or simply 'Yehud'". None of the coins discovered, which are arguably the best historical source for this quite silent period, is inscribed with 'Yehud Medinata'; only with 'Yehud'.

Since we already have Yehud (Babylonian province) (again: the name was identical in both periods), I will use that as a template and move the article to 'Yehud (Persian province)'.

Please check with Google: our work has real-life repercussions, there are several amateurish books on sale at Amazon etc. based on English Wiki material, and dozens of blogs, websites and articles parroting the name as a given. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 14:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree, your title makes much more sense. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)