Hebrews

The Hebrews (Hebrew: עִבְרִיִּים / עִבְרִים, Modern: ʿĪvrīm / ʿĪvrīyyīm, Tiberian: ʿĪḇrīm / ʿĪḇrīyyīm; ISO 259-3: ʕibrim / ʕibriyim) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era that preceded the establishment of the united Kingdom of Israel. However, in some instances, the designation "Hebrews" may also be used historically in a wider sense, referring to the Phoenicians or other ancient civilizations, such as the Shasu on the eve of the Late Bronze Age collapse.^[1] It appears 34 times within 32 verses of the Hebrew Bible.^[2][3] Some scholars regard "Hebrews" as an ethnonym,^[4] while others do not,^[5][6] and others still hold that the multiple modern connotations of ethnicity may not all map well onto the sociology of ancient Near-Eastern groups.^[7]

By the time of the Roman Empire, the term Hebraios (Greek: Ἑβραῖος) could refer to the Jews in general (as Strong's Hebrew Dictionary puts it: "any of the Jewish Nation")^[8] or, at other times, specifically to those Jews who lived in Roman Judaea. Judaea was, from 6 CE until 135 CE, a Roman province. However, at the time of early Christianity, the term instead referred in Christian texts to Jewish Christians, as opposed to the Judaizers and to the gentile Christians.^[9]

In Armenian, Georgian, Italian, Greek, the Kurdish languages, Old French, Serbian, Russian, Romanian, and a few other languages, the transfer of the name from "Hebrew" to "Jew" never took place, and "Hebrew" (or the linguistic equivalent) remains the primary word used to refer to an ethnic Jew.^[10][11]

With the revival of the Hebrew language since the 19th century and with the emergence of the Yishuv, the term "Hebrews" has been applied^{[citation needed]} to the Jewish people of this re-emerging society in Israel or to the Jewish people in general.