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23 “ 'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. 24 Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
Helen Oster Israel Tours
This book, written in Latin in 1695, describes the region called Palestine at that time.
Author Adriani Relandi was a geographer, cartographer, traveler, philologist.
He understood many languages, including Arabic, Ancient Greek and Hebrew.
He described nearly 2,500 settlements mentioned in the Bible, and made an approximate census according to settlements.
His notes;
1. Palestine is mostly empty, abandoned, sparsely populated. The main population is concentrated in Jerusalem, Akko, Tsfat, Jaffa, Tveria and Gaza.
2. The majority of the population is Jewish; almost everyone else is Christian. A very small part is Muslim, mostly Bedouin...
(Relandi refers to Muslims as nomadic Bedouins who come to cities only as seasonal workers in agriculture or construction.)
3. The only exception is Nablus, inhabited by about 120 members of the Muslim Natsha family and approximately 70 Samaritans.
4. About 5,000 people live in Jerusalem; almost all Jews, and a few Christians.
5. The names of most of the settlements are of Jewish origin, and some have Greek or Roman Latin names. Apart from the city of Ramla, there is no Arab settlement whose original name is Arabic.
Place names derived from Jewish, Greek or Latin are usually adapted into Arabic and meaningless...
6. Approximately 550 people live in Gaza, half of whom are Jews and half are Christians.
Jews were successful in agriculture, especially vineyards, olives and wheat, while Christians were engaged in trade and transportation..."
D'Vorah Pnina Meijer
