Herodotus during the Bible’s inter-testament period was apparently so unimpressed with Israel that he named their land Palaistina, for the coastal dwellers of the Gaza Strip (and coastal Sinai plus Pelusium), the Philistines, who actually only ventured occasionally inland into Israel (which had ports to the north of the Gaza Strip also known as the Pentapolis). The Assyrians obviously knew Israel, having conquered much of her circa 700 b. c., and knew of the Philistines whom they called the Palastu, yet the ostensibly learned Herodotus didn’t get the memo that Israel had taken over the hill country and much of the coastal real estate from the Canaanites when Yehoshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
