>>13638358
Somewhat right, somewhat wrong.
(1) That land in the Phoenician language was originally called Canaan (pronounced: Cuh-nahn). It was the Greeks who named them Phoinikoi despite Phoenicians in their own tongue calling themselves Cannanim (pronounced Cuh-nah-neem). They assigned them this name owing to one or all of the following three conceptual links:
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φονος (phonos) – which means "murder"
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φοινικος (phoinikos) – which means "blood red, red"
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φοινιξ (phoinix) – which means "phoenix" but can also mean "purple or a Canaanite".
Here's a passage from out of Erasmus which I've translated as literally as possible; you might find it interesting as it evidences the very shady reputation these Semitic merchants had amongst Europeans going back many centuries:
“Φοινίκων συνθῆκαι, id est Phoenicum conventa. Phoenices, qui Carthagine potiti sunt, cum primum ad eam appulissent regionem, postularunt ab iis, qui id temporis Libyam incolebant, ut sibi liceret diem et noctem hospitio terrae uti. Quod cum impetrassent jamque exacto concessi temporis spacio juberentur excedere finibus, recusarunt affirmantes se pactos ut sibi fas esset illic noctesque ac dies commorari, videlicet ambiguitatem vocum ad suum commodum detorquentes. Unde proverbium esse natum aiunt de pactis insidiosis et astutis. Auctores Suidas ac Diogenianus. Quin in totum omneis Phoenices dicti sunt, qui quaestus essent avidi. Unde Pindarus in Pythiis hymno secundo Φοίνισσαν ἐμπολάν, id est Phoeniciam negotiationem, dixit. Et interpres citat ex comico quopiam : Εὐθὺς Φοῖνιξ γένωμαι, id est Protinus Phoenix fio.”
The pacts of the Phoenicians, that is Phoenicum conventa. The Phoenicians, who controlled Carthage, when firstly they would have driven to the region, demanded from them, they who inhabited Libya (ie Northern Africa) at that time, so that it would be lawful for them day and night to use that lodging of earth. When which thing they would have acquired and now with the space exacted of the conceded time they would be commanded to depart from the borders, they recused affirming themselves agreed so that it would be lawful for themselves there day and night to linger, of course bending the ambiguity of voices to their own advantage. Whence they say the proverb born concerning insidious and tricky pacts. The authors Suidas and Diogenianus. That generally all have been called Phoenicians, who would be avid of profit. Whence Pindar in the second hymn to the Pythians said Φοίνισσαν ἐμπολάν, that is Phoenician business. And the translator cites from a certain comic writer: Forthwith I may be made a Phoenician, that is Protinus Phoenix fio."
Plato also apparently had a negative opinion of Phoenicians writing: "Μηδὲν καλόν, ἀλλὰ Φοινικικόν τι : Nothing good, but something Phoenician."
(2) Hadrian did not near to eradicating the most of them; and further the number of them actually murdered is embellished by histrionic jews looking to inflame the minds of their coreligionists.
(3) The Poeni (Phoenician Carthaginians) in time took full revenge on Rome for both the destruction of Carthage and the later campaigns of Hadrian by utterly vanquishing the Roman state itself through the joint methodical efforts of the various members of the ruling Severan dynasty (Septimius, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus). It was a surviving Phoenician remnant that collapsed Rome.
(4) Abrahamic religion was invented by the Phoenician priesthood when they lost sovereignty to the Persians. It did not originate in Iraq. The Conquest of Canaan an important "patriarchal" tale in the Bible is completely fabricated. Judaism in particular is a mix of: Phoenician polytheism, Zoroastrianism, and Sumeria/Babylonian mythology. I suppose you could claim there is Iraqi/Babylonian influence in the theologic system itself ideationally but so far as to an actual terrestrial point of origin, it is provably Syrophoenicia.
(5) That part of the world has gone by many different names:
-Canaan (original name used by the autochthonous inhabitants themselves)
-Phoenicia (name used by the Greeks who considered them dangerous criminals)
-Syrophoenicia (another name used by Greek writers, denoting the fluid conceiving of geographical limits peculiar to that area)
-Syria Palaestina (or Philistine Syria, the name used by the Romans after Hadrian)
-Palestine (the name commonly used for many centuries until after WW2)
-Israel (the new name, and the one that is used now; sort of in the same metonymic vein of calling Persia Iran, and Babylon Iraq, and Bactria Afghanistan, and Corcyra Korfu, and Dilmun Bahrain, etc.)