Richard Smoley is a consulting editor to Parabola magazine and the author of several books on esotericism, religion, and spirituality, including Supernatural: Writings on an Unknown History, How God Became God: What Scholars Are Really Saying about God and the Bible, and Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition.
During the 1980s, Smoley was a writer for the respected esoteric journal Gnosis, and in 1990 he became the journal’s editor. Under his editorship, Gnosis released issues on Gnosticism, Freemasonry, G.I. Gurdjieff, the spirituality of Russia, and more.
We spoke to him about the spiritual crisis of the West, alternative spirituality, and inner Christianity.
You can visit Richard’s website and find out more about his writing and books here.
Music by A.D. Mercer.
The Spiritual Survival 
Does Richard Smolley not know that “Palestine” was called “Judea” in A.D. 30?
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Smoley (with one l, incidentally, not two) is a scholar of Christianity, so I am sure he does know. Probably, he used the term to be clearer to contemporary listeners, not all of whom are well versed in the Bible or the history of the religion or that region. That said, though not exclusively, the name “Palestine” was in use centuries before Christ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22#Ancient_period) and was, in fact, used in A.D. 30 (e.g., Tibullus and Sulpicia: The Poems: “Why tell how the white dove sacred to the Syrians flies unharmed through the crowded cities of Palestine?”) as well as after, of course.
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“Canaan” has been an appropriate term for me, as a very useful contemporary designation.
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