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Bible Dictionaries
Ituraea
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or ITURaeA.—This term is used in Luke 3:1 among other designations of political and geographical districts, the identification of whose rulers is intended to give a fixed chronological starting-point for the ministry of John the Baptist. It does not occur as a substantive in any pre-Christian writer. Neither does it occur again in post-Christian literature until the days of Eusebius, and doubtfully then. The term ‘Ituraeans,’ however, as the name of a people, is frequently mentioned. The first mention among Greek writers of the Ituraeans is that of Eupolemus (b.c. 150) as quoted by Eusebius (Prœp. Evan. ix. 30). Cicero (Philip. ii. 112) speaks of them as a predatory people, and Caesar (Bell. Afr. 20) calls them skilful archers (cf. Josephus Ant. xiii. xi. 3 [Dindorf reads Ἰτουραίαν; but it is commonly agreed that this is incorrect, and Naber’s and Niese’s reading, Ἰτουραίων, is preferred]; Strabo xvi. ii. 10, 18, 20; Dio Cass. xlix. 32. 5; Appian, Civ. v. 7; also Virgil, Georg. ii. 448; Lucan, Pharsal. vii. 230, 514).
The most important fact brought into view by the history of the Ituraeans, so far as the understanding of Luke 3:1 is concerned, is their migratory character. They first appear as the sons of Jetur (Genesis 25:15, 1 Chronicles 1:31), a branch of the race of Ishmael (cf. artt. ‘Jetur’ and ‘Ishmael’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible). Their original home was the territory to the S.E. of Palestine. In the course of their wanderings they drifted northward, and some time before the Exile reached the country adjacent to Israel, east of the Jordan. Late in the 2nd cent. b.c., Aristobulus I. conquered certain bands of non-Israelites who had settled in Galilee, and compelled them either to submit to circumcision or leave the country. It has been conjectured that among these there were some Ituraeans, who moved still farther north. At any rate, in the next generation the Ituraeans are definitely located in the region of Lebanon. Strabo (xvi. ii. 10) speaks of them as inhabiting the ‘mountain country’ which with Chalcis and Marsyas was ruled by Ptolemy the son of Mennaeus (b.c. 85–40). He further describes them in association with the Arabs as ‘all lawless men dwelling in the mountain region of the Libanus and anti-Libanus territory,’ and harassing the agricultural population of the adjacent plain. D. aemilius Secundus, a millitary commander under Quirinius, reports that in a campaign against the Ituraeans in the Lebanon range, he had stormed a fortress of theirs (Mommsen, Ephemeris Epigr. iv. 1881, p. 538). With the death of Ptolemy, the government of this entire region passed into the hands of his son Lysanias, whom accordingly Dio Cassius calls ‘king of the Ituraeans’ (xlix. 32). Lysanias was put to death by Mark Antony in b.c. 34, and a little over ten years later (b.c. 23) this territory came, by way of a lease, under the control of a chief named Zenodorus (Josephus Ant. xv. x. 1; BJ i. xx. 4); but in b.c. 20, upon the death of Zenodorus, Augustus gave a portion of it to Herod the Great; and when Herod’s kingdom was broken up among his heirs into tetrarchies, it fell to the lot of Philip to possess it (Josephus Ant. xv. x. 3; BJ ii. vi. 3). Subsequently to the mention of Ituraea by St. Luke, the emperor Caligula bestowed it upon a certain Soemus (a.d. 38), entitled by Tacitus (Ann. xii. 23) and Dio Cassius (lix. 12) ‘king of the Ituraeans.’ From a.d. 49, the date of the death of Soemus, and onwards, the country appears as a part of the province of Syria, furnishing a quota of soldiers for the Roman army (Ephem. Epigr. 1884, p. 194).
The mention of Ituraea by St. Luke raises the following questions: (1) Did he use the term as a noun or as an adjective? This is partly a question of correct Greek usage. A noun ‘Ituraea’ would be a linguistic anachronism at the time of St. Luke. It is unknown until the 4th cent.; but that the Evangelist fell into the error of using it as such is maintained by Schürer and H. Holtzmann, while Ramsay (Expos., Feb. 1894, p. 144 ff., Apr. p. 288 ff.), contends against this position.* [Note: The importance of this conclusion by Professor Ramsay, apart from the purely academic vindication of St. Luke as a master of good Greek, is that it establishes an analogy for the South-Galatian theory so strenuously advocated by himself.]
(2) Out of this linguistic question grows the historical one: Did St. Luke speak accurately when he enumerated the Ituraean country as a part of the tetrarchy of Philip? For even if the Evangelist did use the word ‘Ituraea’ as an adjective, it does not follow that he has correctly located the country. H. Holtzmann (Hand-Com. ‘Syn. Gosp.’ p. 58) calls it an error that Ituraea should be included with Trachonitis in Philip’s tetrarchy, and explains that St. Luke probably had in mind a later arrangement of the territory under Agrippa. As a matter of fact, Josephus describes the tetrarchy of Philip as consisting of ‘Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, and certain parts of the house of Zeno (Zenodorus) about Paneas yielding a revenue of one hundred talents’ (Ant. xvii. xi. 4; BJ ii. vi. 3). Ituraea is not given in this description. But it does not seem probable that St. Luke, who is writing with so much regard for historical details, should have failed at this point. Hence efforts have been made to account for his statement as it stands. Of these it is easy to set aside as futile (a) the identification of Ituraea with Jedur (a region S.W. of Damascus), as etymologically unsound, and as not corresponding geographically to the descriptions given by Strabo. According to these, the Ituraeans lived in a mountainous region. (b) Cheyne (art. ‘Ituraea’ in Encyc. Bibl.) proposes an interesting emendation of the text of Luke. Instead of Ἰτουραίας he would read Αὐρανίτιδος. But in order to get this substitution he assumes that by a transcriptional error ἱδ was dropped from Αὐρανίτιδος, and the remainder of the word, thus left in confusion, was by another transcriptional manipulation converted into Ἰτουραίας. Evidently this is too elaborate and too purely conjectural a proceeding to be accepted. (c) Statements of Eusebius (OS2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] p. 268, Ἰτουραία ἡ καὶ Τραχωνῖτις, and p. 298, Τραχωνῖτις χώρα ἡ καὶ Ἰτουραία; cf. also Jerome’s translation of the same, ‘Trachonitis regio sive Ituraea,’ Lib. de Situ, etc., p. 238) definitely identify Ituraea and Trachonitis, and have been accepted as satisfactorily removing the difficulty. The terms ‘Trachonitis’ and ‘Ituraea’ do not, however, seem to be used by the Evangelist with the exact equivalency that the phraseology of Eusebius suggests. Hence (d) it is best not to identify Ituraea with Trachonitis as a whole, but to assume a certain overlapping of the two, giving a fairly painstaking writer good ground for connecting them together in the attempt to present the situation broadly. This conclusion is supported by the constantly changing character of the territory occupied by the Ituraeans, as exhibited in the sketch of their history above given, as well as the repeated shifting of the boundary lines in this general region during the centuries before and after Christ.
Literature.—Münter, de Rebus Ituraeorum, 1824; Schurer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] i. 707ff. [HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] i. ii. App. i.]; Krenkel, Josephus u. Lukas, 1894, pp. 90–95; G. A. Smith, art. ‘Ituraea’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, and Expos. March 1894, pp. 231–238; Ramsay, Expos. Jan. 1894, p. 43 ff., Feb. p. 144 ff., Apr. p. 288ff.
A. C. Zenos.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Ituraea'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/i/ituraea.html. 1906-1918.
