# Was Jesus Palestinian ## Intro It depends on what "Palestinian" means, and the word means two different things. If it means *someone from the region scholars call Palestine*, then yes. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, and historians have long called that region "Palestine." Books on "first-century Palestine" and "Palestinian Judaism" use the word this way. If it means *a member of the modern Palestinian Arab people*, then no. That identity took shape many centuries after Jesus. Jesus was a Jew. He was a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah, circumcised on the eighth day, raised keeping the Law and the feasts, and executed under the sign "King of the Jews." He spoke Aramaic, not Arabic, and Arabic did not become the region's main language until after the Islamic conquests of the 600s. So the honest answer is: Jesus was a Jew from the land of Israel, in a region later and widely called Palestine. Both words describe where he lived. Only one of them describes who he was. ## In full The claim "Jesus was Palestinian" turns on an equivocation between a **geographic** sense of the term and an **ethnic-national** sense. - **Geographic sense.** *Palaistinē* is an old Greek name for the southern Levant, derived from the Philistines. Herodotus uses it in the fifth century BC. Greek-writing Jews of Jesus's own century, [Philo of Alexandria](/codex/philo-of-alexandria/) and [Josephus](/codex/josephus/), use it as a place name. After the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132-135), Hadrian reorganised the province of Judaea as *Syria Palaestina*. Modern scholarship took the term over as a neutral regional label, as in E. P. Sanders, *Paul and Palestinian Judaism* (1977). In this sense the statement is true, and it is a standard academic usage. - **Ethnic-national sense.** Modern Palestinian national identity is an Arab identity formed mainly in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi traces that formation in *Palestinian Identity* (1997). Applied to Jesus in this sense, the claim is an anachronism. The New Testament identifies him, repeatedly and without exception, as a Jew of the house of David. The two senses are often run together on purpose, in both directions: to enlist Jesus for one side of a modern conflict, or to deny any historical link between Jesus's land and its present inhabitants. The historical question can be answered without settling that conflict, and this page does not try to settle it. ## What the New Testament says about who Jesus was - **Lineage.** Matthew opens by calling him "the son of David, the son of Abraham" ([Matthew 1:1](/codex/matthew-1-1/)). Paul says he was "born of a descendant of David according to the flesh" ([Romans 1:3](/codex/romans-1-3/)) and that from the Israelites "is the Christ according to the flesh" ([Romans 9:5](/codex/romans-9-5/)). Hebrews says "it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah" ([Hebrews 7:14](/codex/hebrews-7-14/)). See [Davidic Covenant](/codex/davidic-covenant/) and [Mary's Lineage](/codex/marys-lineage/). - **Practice.** He was circumcised on the eighth day ([Luke 2:21](/codex/luke-2-21/)), presented at the Temple ([Luke 2:22-24](/codex/luke-2-22-24/)), and taken to Jerusalem for Passover every year ([Luke 2:41](/codex/luke-2-41/)). Paul summarises: "born of a woman, born under the Law" ([Galatians 4:4](/codex/galatians-4-4/)). - **How others saw him.** The Samaritan woman says, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink" ([John 4:9](/codex/john-4-9/)). Jesus answers that "salvation is from the Jews" ([John 4:22](/codex/john-4-22/)). The charge nailed to the cross read "THE KING OF THE JEWS" ([Matthew 27:37](/codex/matthew-27-37/)). - **Mission.** He described his earthly mission as being "sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" ([Matthew 15:24](/codex/matthew-15-24/)), before sending the apostles to all nations ([Matthew 28:19](/codex/matthew-28-19/)). See [Jesus Came Only for Israel Objection Defeater](/codex/jesus-came-only-for-israel-objection-defeater/). - **Language.** The Gospels preserve his Aramaic: *talitha kum* ([Mark 5:41](/codex/mark-5-41/)) and the cry from the cross ([Mark 15:34](/codex/mark-15-34/)). - **The land's name in the New Testament.** The New Testament never uses "Palestine." It speaks of Judea, Galilee and Samaria, and once of "the land of Israel" ([Matthew 2:20-21](/codex/matthew-2-20-21/)). Where older English Bibles say "Palestina" ([Exodus 15:14](/codex/exodus-15-14/) and [Isaiah 14:29](/codex/isaiah-14-29/), KJV), the Hebrew means Philistia, the coastal territory of the Philistines. See [NT Geographical Reliability](/codex/nt-geographical-reliability/) for how precisely the Gospels track the region's place names and political divisions. ## The strongest form of the claim Steel-manned, the claim is not that Jesus was an Arab. It runs like this: 1. Jesus lived in the land now called Palestine, among a people under foreign military occupation. 2. Many of today's Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, descend in part from the region's ancient inhabitants, including people who were Jewish or Christian in antiquity. Genetic work bears out a substantial shared ancestry between Jews and Palestinian Arabs (for example Nebel and colleagues, *Human Genetics*, 2000, on overlapping Y-chromosome lineages). 3. Palestinian Christians belong to some of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world, in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth. 4. So calling Jesus "Palestinian" marks a real continuity of place and, in part, of people, and it resists treating him as a European figure. Palestinian liberation theology, associated with the Anglican priest Naim Ateek and the Sabeel center in Jerusalem, makes a version of this argument, describing Jesus as a Palestinian Jew who lived under occupation. ## Response - **Grant the geography, keep the ethnicity.** Point 1 is true and point 3 is true. Neither changes who Jesus was. "A Jew from the region later called Palestine" is accurate. "A Palestinian, not a Jew" is not, and no ancient source supports it. - **Shared ancestry does not transfer identity backwards.** If many Palestinians have ancient Judean ancestors, that makes Jesus a distant kinsman of theirs. It does not make him a member of an identity that formed later. The same reasoning would forbid calling Jesus "Israeli" in the modern national sense, and for the same reason: the State of Israel and its citizenship did not exist. - **The anachronism cuts both ways.** "Jesus was Palestinian" in the national sense and "Jesus was Israeli" in the national sense are equally wrong. "Jesus was a Jew of Judea and Galilee" is right on both counts and needs no modern label. - **Erasing his Jewishness is a theological loss, not just a historical one.** The Gospel claim is that Jesus is Israel's promised Messiah, son of David, fulfilling the covenants made with Abraham and David. A Jesus detached from Israel cannot be that Messiah. Paul treats the Jewishness of Christ as one of the gifts that belong to Israel ([Romans 9:4-5](/codex/romans-9-4-5/)). - **His Jewishness does not exclude anyone.** The same Jewish Messiah is preached to every nation, and the church at Pentecost already included "Cretans and Arabs" ([Acts 2:11](/codex/acts-2-11/)). Nothing in Jesus being a Jew bars a Palestinian, Christian or Muslim, from following him. See [Christianity Is the White Mans Religion Objection Defeater](/codex/christianity-is-the-white-mans-religion-objection-defeater/) for the parallel answer to the claim that Christianity belongs to one race. ## Key passages - [Matthew 1:1](/codex/matthew-1-1/), son of David, son of Abraham - [Luke 2:21-24](/codex/luke-2-21-24/), [41](/codex/luke-2-41/), circumcision, presentation, yearly Passover - [John 4:9](/codex/john-4-9/), [22](/codex/john-4-22/), "You, being a Jew"; "salvation is from the Jews" - [Romans 9:4-5](/codex/romans-9-4-5/), the Christ "according to the flesh" from Israel - [Hebrews 7:14](/codex/hebrews-7-14/), descended from Judah - [Matthew 27:37](/codex/matthew-27-37/), "THE KING OF THE JEWS" - [Acts 2:11](/codex/acts-2-11/), Arabs among the first hearers at Pentecost ## See also - [Jesus](/codex/jesus/), the person page - [Incarnation](/codex/incarnation/), why the particular human life of Jesus matters theologically - [Davidic Covenant](/codex/davidic-covenant/), the promise his Jewish lineage fulfils - [Jesus Came Only for Israel Objection Defeater](/codex/jesus-came-only-for-israel-objection-defeater/), his mission to Israel and then the nations - [Christianity Is the White Mans Religion Objection Defeater](/codex/christianity-is-the-white-mans-religion-objection-defeater/), the parallel claim that Christianity belongs to one people - [Khazar Hypothesis Ashkenazi Replacement Objection Defeater](/codex/khazar-hypothesis-ashkenazi-replacement-objection-defeater/), a related dispute over who descends from ancient Israel - [NT Geographical Reliability](/codex/nt-geographical-reliability/), the Gospels' place names and political divisions - [Equivocation](/codex/equivocation/), the fallacy the question usually turns on
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Was Jesus Palestinian?** Geographically, yes: he lived in the region historians call Palestine, and scholars speak of "first-century Palestine" in that sense. Ethnically and nationally, no: he was a Jew descended from David and the tribe of Judah, and modern Palestinian Arab identity formed many centuries later. **Q: Was Jesus Jewish?** Yes. The New Testament calls him the son of David ([Matthew 1:1](/codex/matthew-1-1/)), descended from Judah ([Hebrews 7:14](/codex/hebrews-7-14/)), born under the Law ([Galatians 4:4](/codex/galatians-4-4/)), and circumcised on the eighth day ([Luke 2:21](/codex/luke-2-21/)). He kept the Jewish feasts and was crucified as "King of the Jews." **Q: Was the land called Palestine in Jesus's time?** The Greek name *Palaistinē* existed and some Jewish writers of the period, such as Philo and Josephus, used it as a place name. Officially the regions were Judea, Galilee and Samaria, and the New Testament never uses the word. The Romans renamed the province *Syria Palaestina* after the Bar Kokhba revolt, about a century after Jesus. **Q: Did Jesus speak Arabic?** No. Jesus spoke Aramaic, as the Gospels preserve in phrases like *talitha kum* ([Mark 5:41](/codex/mark-5-41/)), and he read Hebrew scripture. Greek was also widely used in the region. Arabic became the main language there only after the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. **Q: Was Jesus Israeli?** Not in the modern sense, because the State of Israel was founded in 1948. He was an Israelite, a Jew of the land of Israel, which is how the New Testament describes him. Calling him either "Palestinian" or "Israeli" in the modern national sense is equally anachronistic. **Q: Are Palestinians descended from people of Jesus's time?** In part, yes. Genetic studies find substantial shared ancestry between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, reflecting ancient Levantine populations, and Palestinian Christians belong to some of the oldest Christian communities in the world. That makes them, in many cases, distant kin of Jesus's own people, without making Jesus a member of a later national identity.