Mapping the Bible

In other words, you are a map junkie who really needs more maps.

Enter John Beck. He’ll fix you up. The Basic Bible Atlas has maps. Lots of maps. And according to the blurb on the back cover, you really need these maps. “To begin to fully understand the Bible, we must understand the geographical setting of Scripture and how each place participates in the biblical story.” Perhaps you want to begin to understand the Bible; I know I would like to begin to do that. So you and I must look at these maps!

The subtitle makes reading this book even more imperative: A Fascinating Guide to the Land of the Bible. Note, it is not a guide, it is a fascinating guide. Alas, I missed the clue in that subtitle. Imagine a book entitled A History of the Civil War. Maybe you are interested in reading it. If someone else told you the book was fascinating, you probably would want to read it even more. But imagine the title of the book was A Fascinating History of the Civil War. Does that slight change in title make you want to read it more or less?

Now that you are done reading the cover, you, the map junkie, dive into the book to discover all the fascinating things about the Bible which you can only learn by looking at these maps. And what do you find?

Well, there are maps. Sixty-two of them—roughly one every other page! That’s a lot of maps. Moreover, since there are maps relating to Bible stories, that is a lot of maps of Palestine. Page after page, more and more maps of Palestine. Zoom in for a map of a small section. Zoom out for a map of the region. Zoom in again. Zoom out again. You’ll really know where the Mediterranean Ocean and the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee are by the end of this book.

If you are a map junkie and you want to look at lots of maps of Palestine, you’ll enjoy this book. But, what happens when you start reading the prose surrounding the maps? Sigh.

Chapter 2, “Introduction to the Biblical World” is about the area. We find out about the Fertile Crescent; that there was a major highway leading from Egypt to Damascus which ran through the region; that Palestine is not a very big area; that the area can be divided into a coastal region, a mountainous region, the Jordan Valley where the river connects the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, and the Transjordan region across the river; that there is not a lot of rain in the area; and that there are seasons and different crops planted at different times of year in different areas which have different soil types. If you didn’t know any of those things, you will like this chapter. Maps! And geographical features of the area!

But, then, we get to chapter 3. The rest of the book is simply Beck retelling the narrative portions of the Bible. Chapter by chapter, starting with Genesis and running through Revelation, Beck just retells the story. In telling the story, he mentions a lot of cities and you get a map! But, it is surprisingly rare when the story being told and the map on the page have any meaningful connection. You can look at the map and if you like maps, you’ll be happy. (Did I mention there are lots of maps?) You could instead read the text, and if you like hearing the narrative story of the Bible being retold, you’ll be happy. But if you want some meaningful connections between the maps and the story, you will be terribly disappointed. Over and over.

When reading the text, you will have to put up with a lot of odd speculation. For example, Beck repeats the description of Eden from the first two chapters of Eden. We then get this: “Given these qualities, we can creatively reassemble a day in the life of Adam and Eve.” If you are really interested in this creative reassembly, you’ll love this book! “They awakened in the morning to another beautiful day in paradise, a day brimming with joy and contentment…”

None of the above is to say that there are no interesting geographical notes in his book. They are just few and far between. In the story of Abraham, he first stops in Harran, before finally journeying on to the Promised Land. Beck notes that Harran is actually a really good place to settle; the Promised Land is not nearly so nice. That is another example of Abraham’s faith. However, oddly, Beck says absolutely nothing about the division of the land between Lot and Abram. In a book about the geography of the Bible, how did this division get omitted?

Similarly, the book does a nice job in showing that by beginning in Jericho, Israel’s assault on the Promised Land under Joshua began by splitting Canaan in half and capturing the connection point between the three main highways of the region. (In another interesting note—Jericho is not just the entry point to the Promised Land in Joshua, it is the exit point for the last king of Judah when the Babylonians roll into town.) By the end of Joshua’s campaign, the whole Promised Land had not been captured, but all the major transportation arteries had been. The importance of the cities of Shechem and Jerusalem gets discussed. (Oddly Bethlehem does not.)

The most curious absence from the book is maps of battle grounds. If you want one place where geography has a huge impact on history, it is certainly battlegrounds. What was the terrain like? Which battlegrounds favored chariots and which did not? How large are the battlegrounds relative to the size of the armies? Where is the high ground? Who is picking where the battles are fought? How are the cities situated and defended? Other than noting that Jerusalem was an odd location for a capital because it is actually not the high ground, there is virtually no discussion of these sorts of geographical details.

In the end, this is just an odd book. It promises lots of geographical insights, but fails to deliver. It does have those maps! And Beck’s prose easily rolls along. If you want a summary of the narrative part of the Bible, the book may not be a bad read at all. But, if you want an exploration of how the geography of the region affects the stories, look elsewhere.