Lebanon is often in the news today in the context of political and religious conflicts throughout the region. Not everyone is aware, however, of the fact that this same area has played an important role in the region's religious and cultural history - or of how often this strip of land has been involved in the region's religious and political conflicts. Perhaps the connections would be clearer if people also realized that modern Lebanon occupies much the same area of land as ancient Phoenicia.
Just as important, and perhaps even less well known, is the fact that there exists tremendous religious and cultural continuities between the people called Phoenicians and those called Canaanites. Early on there was probably no difference between them aside from their geographic location, though eventually those called Phoenicians launched extensive maritime trading and colonization efforts which in turn led to greater cultural differentiation.
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