Talk:Caesarea Maritima

Untitled

It was a far from universal practice to build Christian churches on the sites of pagan temples. It sometimes happened because the temple occupied the most prominent spot in a city which the Christian community would naturally feel to be more suitable for a church, or because a temple's podium was a convenient pre-built foundation. Some of the more exceptionally beautiful pagan temples, such as the Pantheon in Rome or the Parthenon in Athens, were simply taken over intact. But the Christians of the time were more likely to regard a pagan temple site as accursed. They never regarded it as sacred because of its former use. Csernica 09:26, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is uninformed, as everyone who knows any details of the founding of any Christian church in the first five or six hundred years will immediately realize. Think of any church, large or small, founded before ca 800. A large class of exceptions, however, are churches built on the sites of shrines over the tombs of prominent figures (the Basilica of Saint Peter etc) or developing from abbeys. This is a historical phenomenon not without interest. There is no need to disguise it. --Wetman 15:26, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I can think of a great many churches founded before that date that were not founded on the sites of pagan temples. As I said, some were, but this was because of the desireable location and not because the site was thought to be sacred somehow. Primary sources such as we have evince quite the opposite attitude about pagan temples. By your logic all the holiest pagan places ought to have been Christianized -- yet the great temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Oracle at Delphi, the temple of Zeus at Olympia, the temple to Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and even the temple to the same god on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, were all allowed to simply fall into ruin along with the vast majority of other less magnificent shrines. There are far more counterexamples refuting your notion than examples supporting it.

I'm aware that your POV is a popular one in some circles, but the preponderance of the documentary and archaeological evidence does not support it. Csernica 18:43, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Taking the above with a grain of salt, the informed reader might want to add a further category, of early Christian churches that were adapted from the basilicas of private individuals to the categories of those founded on consecrated pagan sites or to mark shrines. --Wetman 05:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC))

The current edit is perfectly acceptable. Csernica 22:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Merge tag

I have remove the mergeto tag. They shouldn't be merged. One is an archaeological site, the other a modern city. Cheers, Tewfik^Talk 17:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Golan Heights dispute

According to the Caesarea Philippi article, Caesarea Philippi is in the Golan Heights which is disputed between Israel and Syria. Saying that it is in Israel is not NPOV. Sowelilitokiemu 03:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Israel holds the Golan Heights. Syria has sour grapes about losing a war they started; that doesn't make their whining fact. Regardless, this is not the article on Caesarea Philippi, so why mention it here? Rogue 9 14:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Caesarea photos & review

 Anyone have a Map available, like the vast majority of other wiki articles on cities and nations?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.81.245.172 (talk) 01:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC) 

Dubious

“ After the revolt of Simon bar Kokhba, which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and expulsion of Jews, Caesarea became the center of Early Christianity in Palestine. ”

According to whom? In my reading, sources have not regarded it as such. Instead, they typically mention that it later become a center of Christian scholarship (one of many), due to Origen, such as mentioned by PBS Frontline's website.[1] --Vassyana (talk) 06:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia: Jerusalem (A.D. 71-1099): "As the rank of the various sees among themselves was gradually arranged according to the divisions of the empire, Caesarea became the metropolitan see; the Bishop of Ælia [Jerusalem as renamed by Hadrian] was merely one of its suffragans. The bishops from the siege under Hadrian (135) to Constantine (312) were:". 75.15.201.5 (talk) 21:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Date formatting

In the lead section alone we have four different styles: 133 AD, A. D. 70, CE 134 and 6. Unlike (apparently) vast numbers of Wikipedians, I don't have particularly strong views on which of these styles is best... but I think some consistency would be in order. Loganberry (Talk) 13:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

What region is this in?

The content currently states that Cesaeria Maritima is in Judea. It is in the Haifa district of Israel, not Judea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jreitsema (talk • contribs) 19:11, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

References

Blacklisted Links Found on Caesarea Maritima

Cyberbot II has detected links on Caesarea Maritima which have been added to the blacklist, either globally or locally. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed or are highly inappropriate for Wikipedia. The addition will be logged at one of these locations: local or global If you believe the specific link should be exempt from the blacklist, you may request that it is white-listed. Alternatively, you may request that the link is removed from or altered on the blacklist locally or globally. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. Please do not remove the tag until the issue is resolved. You may set the invisible parameter to "true" whilst requests to white-list are being processed. Should you require any help with this process, please ask at the help desk.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:

• http://www.bible-history.com/empires/pilate.html

  Triggered by \bbible\-history\.com\b on the local blacklist

If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.

From your friendly hard working bot.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 19:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Error

In "Roman era" chapter, citation affirms the Great Revolt occurring in 66 BCE. I suppose it's about a typo. Carlotm (talk) 06:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Judea or Samaria?

I'm traslating this article for Wikipedia in Spanish and I read that this the main Roman city of Judea. It's true that this city was the main place for the politics and military of all the area but acording to this map Caesarea it's on Samaria, not in Judea.--CarlosVdeHabsburgo (talk) 23:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

This means Roman Judaea (province) as opposed to Judaea (region). It so happens that the Samaria region was part of the Judaea province. From the 2nd century onward, it's Syria Palaestina in any case. --dab (𒁳) 07:48, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Name

The title of this article is a good natural disambiguation.

But the name most commonly used for the place was simply Caesarea, with no Maritima or Palestina which only have a function when initially contextualizing vs other Caesareas in other parts of the world.

I propose that the title stays as it is, but throughout the article we reduce the amount of times “Maritima” or “Palestina” is used, and most of the time simply call it Caesarea.

Onceinawhile (talk) 11:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable measure to de-gunk the prose. It's not consistent now anyway. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Caesarea Palestina versus Caesarea Maritima in a Google Ngram Viewer Chart

FYI this Ngram chart confirms the statement in the Name section of the article that whilst "Palestina" is the most common term used in ancient sources, since the creation of Israel in 1948 historians have tended to use the term less frequently.

Onceinawhile (talk) 09:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

References

@Salandarianflag: I see you have removed Professor Nur Masalha's book from the article. If you wish to claim that it is not an WP:RS, I suggest you open a post at WP:RSN. Until then, removing a reliably published scholarly source is unacceptable. Not least because we have proof in the Ngram chart above that his statement is absolutely correct. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:32, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I’m happy to take this to Arbitration Committee as such a book cannot be considered a worthy source as it plainly dismisses Jewish heritage to the land and calls all of our books fictional when we have evidence of Jewish settlement there. Salandarianflag (talk) 09:34, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

@Salandarianflag: please do not post entire articles here, as it infringes copyright. The URL (https://www.tarb.co.il/the-distortion-of-palestine/) is sufficient.

The appropriate noticeboard is WP:RSN. Please open a discussion there. For the record, the book does not do what you claim, and that book review shows a significant POV and includes a number of incorrect facts.

Secondly, you have crossed WP:1RR with your edits today. I see from your talk page that you are aware of the discretionary sanctions relating to articles in the Palestine-Israel topic. Please undo the edits you made which cross 1RR. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:47, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I’m just pasting it as you should know that the book is not academically factual. Salandarianflag (talk) 09:47, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

It also a distortion of Jewish history. Salandarianflag (talk) 09:48, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

The review you posted was written by Alex Stein, "a translator, tour guide and co-founder of the Tel Aviv Review of Books"[2] He does not have scholarly credentials other than an undergraduate/masters,[3] and his article was not peer reviewed.

Onceinawhile (talk) 09:56, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is not a source that even merits attention, let alone serious consideration. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:30, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I shouldn't have spent the time, but for the record, reading Stein's article, it is full of nonsense. For example:

• The article contains a couple of long paragraphs about Herotodus, concluding that Clearly, Herodotus is describing the coastal plain of present-day Israel and Gaza... In short, the name Palestine—and Judah—only referred to specific parts of the area between the river and the sea. That is in clear contradiction of scholarly sources, as cited in detail at Timeline of the name Palestine#Classical antiquity.
• The article writes But the name Caesarea Maritima clearly predates Caesarea-Palaestina, which only came into use during the Byzantine era which contradicts Raban and Holum above.
• The article writes And yet, when dealing with the period up to the year 135 CE, Masalha does not provide a single indigenous source to support his claims, preferring to extol imperial voices like Herodotus. “The name Palestine was used by the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, classical Greek writers, Romans, Christian Byzantines and Medieval Arabs,” he writes, without providing any evidence that during the classical period it was used by the indigenous people themselves. Indeed, the only indigenous voice he cites during this period is Josephus, who “used the toponym Palestine.” But when Josephus does mention Palestine, he is referring to the coastal region; he uses the term Judaea much more frequently, a fact which—predictably—Masalha elides. This non-scholarly approach descends into farce when Masalha skips the entire 135 BCE – 135 CE period. He ignores these years because... Note the ludicrous juxtapositions of (1) "does not provide a single indigenous source" with "the only indigenous voice he cites during this period is Josephus", and (2) "Masalha skips the entire 135 BCE – 135 CE period" just one sentence after showing that Masalha does cover the period. Pages 87-92 of Masalha's book cover this period. Re Josephus, the wider scholarly consensus is that Josephus equated Palestine and Judaea in numerous passages, such as when writing "there are no inhabitants of Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Jews"
• The article contains a series of ad hominems, such as "He is unable to conceptualize", "Masalha wants to exaggerate", "Masalha deliberately downplays", "Masalha aims to deny".

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

And here are the actual scholarly reviews: [4], [5] - here's an excerpt form Reagan: "Nur Masalha in his new book Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History (2018) from the outset explicitly eschews any intention of ‘creating a grand narrative or a metanarrative for Palestine ['...] Those who read the book will find that there is no simplistic attempt to construct a linear narrative even though the book follows a lucid chronology." Iskandar323 (talk) 11:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)