Ancient Syria. Creator: Paul S. Taylor.

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Ancient Syria in the Bible

Hebrew: Aram

What is Syria?

The name Syria appears only in the New Testament, while the Hebrew Bible uses the name Aram for this general region. Aram was considered the whole country which lay to the northeast of Phoenicia, extending to beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris. Many cities of Aram continued into New Testament times.

Christians in Syria

Although Jesus never went to Syria, many Syrians heard of our Lord's miracles and came to be healed. Later, after His resurrection and the testimony of His Apostles and their sharing of the Gospel, many in Syria became followers of Christ.

And the news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them. —Matthew 4:24

Q & A

Syria was a cradle of early Christian faith. Disciples were first called “Christians” in Antioch (Acts 11:26), and early Church communities thrived there, in Damascus (linked to Paul's conversion), and in Edessa which became a prominent center of Christian learning. Eusebius of Caesarea claimed in his Church History that by the early 4th century Edessa was predominantly Christian.

“Syria” as a label was not originally a self-designation but emerged later through external usage. This term is somewhat fluid and often refers to the region known in antiquity as Aram (or the land of the Arameans), roughly corresponding to the Levant west of the Euphrates River—modern-day Syria, Lebanon, and parts of surrounding areas. Its key centers included Damascus.

Mesopotamia is called Aram-naharaim (Syria of the two rivers) (Psalm 60:1 introduction), also Padanaram (aka Paddan-aram) (Genesis 25:20). Other portions of Syria were also known by separate names, as Aram-maahah (1 Chronicles 19:6), Aram-beth-rehob (2 Samuel 10:6), Aram-zobah (2 Samuel 10:6, 8).

Q & A

All these separate little kingdoms afterwards became subject to Damascus.

In the time of the Romans, Syria included also a part of the Land of Israel and Asia Minor.

Jews in Syria

Jewish communities in Syria thrived as a major Diaspora center outside Judea. Josephus describes Damascus with about 10,000–18,000 Jews (governed by an ethnarch), Antioch as a hub where Jews “especially congregated,” and broader Syrian Jewry as dense and influential.

After the time of Seleucus Nicator (280 BC), one of the captains of Alexander the Great, large numbers of Jews migrated into Syria, where they enjoyed equal rights with the Macedonians. From Syria they found their way into Asia Minor.

Jews lived among Greek settlers, Arameans, and others in a multicultural milieu. Seleucid policies varied: some kings (e.g., Antiochus III) encouraged Jewish settlement or granted privileges, while Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ Hellenizing decrees sparked the Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BC) in Judea—events that reverberated in Syrian Jewish communities.

Josephus notes that Jews were “particularly numerous in Syria” due to proximity to Judea, with significant populations in Antioch (where they enjoyed rights equal to Greeks) and Damascus. Syrian Jews sent offerings to the Jerusalem Temple and maintained ties with Judea.

However, tensions arose from cultural clashes and envy over Jewish influence; some Greek populations in Damascus showed sympathies toward Judaism (especially among women), yet this did not prevent violence.

Roman general and statesman Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) annexed Syria as a Roman province in 64 BC, often administering it jointly with Judea. Under emperors like Augustus and later ones, Jews enjoyed certain rights (e.g., citizenship in some cities), though subject to imperial taxes and occasional restrictions.

Jewish life involved trade, crafts, and scholarship. Syria's strategic position made it vital to Rome, with Jews participating in the economy. Rabbinic sources (Mishnah, Talmud) treat parts of Syria as quasi-holy land for agricultural laws (e.g., tithes), reflecting close ties to Judea: “He who buys land in Syria is as one who buys in the outskirts of Jerusalem.”

During the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 AD), violence erupted: Greeks in Damascus massacred the local Jewish population (reportedly 10,500), while Antioch saw riots amid the revolt.

Syria’s historic periods

“From the historic annals now accessible to us, the history of Syria may be divided into three periods:

The first, the period when the power of the Pharaohs was dominant over the fertile fields or plains of Syria and the merchant cities of Tyre and Sidon, and when such mighty conquerors as Thothmes III and Rameses II could claim dominion and levy tribute from the nations from the banks of the Euphrates to the borders of the Libyan desert.

Second, this was followed by a short period of independence, when the Jewish nation in the south was growing in power, until it reached its early zenith in the golden days of Solomon; and when Tyre and Sidon were rich cities, sending their traders far and wide, over land and sea, as missionaries of civilization, while in the north the confederate tribes of the Hittites held back the armies of the kings of Assyria.

The third, and to us most interesting, period is that during which the kings of Assyria were dominant over the plains of Syria; when Tyre, Sidon, Ashdod, and Jerusalem bowed beneath the conquering armies of Shalmaneser, Sargon, and Sennacherib; and when at last Memphis and Thebes yielded to the power of the rulers of Nineveh and Babylon, and the kings of Assyria completed with terrible fulness the bruising of the reed of Egypt so clearly foretold by the Hebrew prophets.” —William St. Chad Boscawen, Assyriologist and orientalist historian

Places in Ancient Syria

People of Syria

Language

What is the Syriac language?

Assyria

The relationship between ancient Syria and Assyria is primarily etymological (name-based) and historical, with significant geographical overlap in certain periods, but they refer to distinct entities in origin, culture, and core territory. The terms became intertwined due to linguistic shortening, imperial conquests, and external (especially Greek) naming conventions.

After Assyria's fall (612–609 BC), the region passed to Babylonians, Achaemenid Persians, and then Seleucid Greeks (post-Alexander the Great). Seleucids applied “Syria” to a broad province that initially included both Mesopotamian Assyria and the western Levant region. When they lost Mesopotamia to the Parthians, the name “Syria” stuck to the western area (modern Syria's rough location), while the east reverted to “Assyria” or variants like Athura/Assuristan.

Q & A

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Article Version: March 25, 2026