Biblical Geography

How archaeology,  textual criticism , and geography help us reconstruct battles
Just as similarities or variant forms of personal names can create textual problems, the same is true of geographic names. A case in point is the confusion of Gibeah and Geba ‫ַ. Both names mean "Hill City", an appropriate name for a city in the hill country of Benjamin, where other cities are named Lookout (Mizpeh) and Height (Ramah). Adding to the mix is the related name Gibeon.The situation is clarified (or confused further) by the modifiers that are sometimes added to the names. The difficulty of keeping these cities distinct is increased by textual problems. Sometimes "Geba" may be used for "Gibeah," and vice versa.
This articles shows how combining geography, textual criticism, and military common sense helps translators and commentators produce a clear account of the battle of Jonathan and the Philistines at Mikmash.

Barry Beitzel has a well-deserved reputation in scholarship for his contributions to biblical geography. He edited The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Moody, 2009; reviewed here). He edited the first volume of this projected five volume series, Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Gospels (Lexham, 2017, see my review here). This new volume is a joy to read, and will be an excellent addition the library of any student of the New Testament.

This new volume contains fifty-three essays written by nineteen New Testament scholars. More than half of these articles cover the book of Acts and the remaining articles discuss locations were Paul or Peter did ministry and the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. See the end of this review for a list of chapter topics.

An unresolved question has been where the biblical cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar were located. Arguments from the Bible and geography show that these cities had to have lain along the west side of the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea. This strip of land is shown by Google Maps to be a desolate wasteland even today, as predicted by Scripture. Arguments for other advocated locations can be shown to be flawed.

The name Ziklag appears 15 times in the Hebrew bible, in two different types of documents: city lists and historical narratives. In the narrative it is associated with only one person: David. We suggest three criteria for the identification of biblical Ziklag: the name, the history of the place and its geography. Eleven different suggestions had been raised so far for the identification of Ziklag, but these sites do not fulfill the three requirements. The recently uncovered data from Khirbrt al-Ra‘i indicate that this site does fulfill the various requirements, and thus a good candidate for ancient Ziklag.

Proposes solution for location of Eden based on Genesis description; ancient and modern geographical information, and written opinions of several scholars known to have addressed the subject.  The solution proposed here provides unique additional information and a unique (as far as I know) conclusion.

Die Person aus Tarsus, die am meisten bekannt ist, ist natürlich der Apostel Paulus. Er wurde im Jahr 8 n. Chr. in diesem Ort geboren, ging in die Schule und lernte hier die griechische Sprache ebenso wie Literatur. Manchmal finden wir in seinen Aussagen und Schreiben Fragmente von griechischen Dichtern: Aratus in Apostelgeschichte 17, 28 , Menander im 1 Brief an die Korinther 15, 33  oder Ephimenides im Brief an Titus 1, 12 . Paulus kannte natürlich auch den griechischen Glauben sehr gut. Angeblich hatte er Kontakte zu Seneca , Neros Tutor.

Tanaḫ’ın ya da birçokları tarafından Eski Ahit olarak işaret edilen metnin radikal bir yeniden yorumlamasını mümkün kılacak dikkate değer bir keşifte bulunduğuma inanıyorum. Söz konusu keşif basitçe, Kitāb-ı Mukaddes’in nesiller boyu araştırmacılar tarafından kabul edildiği gibi Filistin değil Batı Arabistan kökenli olduğu şeklindedir. Nesillerdir saygı duyulan coğrafi varsayımdan sarsıcı biçimde ayrışan iddianın kanıtı ileriki bölümlerde ortaya konulmuştur. İddiam, temelde şimdiye kadar ısrarla yanlış tercüme edilen Kitāb-ı Mukaddes yer isimlerinin dilbilimsel analizine dayanmaktadır. Teknik olarak isimlerle ilgilenen, ya da belki daha isabetli bir ifade ile toponomik analiz olarak bilinen bu süreç, iddiamın üzerine inşa edildiği temeldir. Ortaya koyduğum keşfin araştırmalar tarafından doğrulanmadıkça nazari olarak kalması gerektiğini rahatlıkla ifade edebilirim.
Kumaşları aynı iplikten dokunmuş olsa da efsane bir tarih değildir. Her ikisi de olguyu tasvir etmeye çalışan iki ayrı gerçekliktir. Tarih, çoğu zaman sıkıcı olma derecesinde olgusaldır; kanıt olmadan konuşmaz ve sadece kanıtlar arasında mantıksal örüntüler kurmaya çalışır. Efsane ise hayale sonsuz kapı aralar; tarihin kaynağından beslenir ama bu kaynaktan -işin özüne değinmeye ihtiyaç duymaksızın- öykülerde olduğu gibi kurgular meydana getirir. Tarihin kuru anlatımına karşın efsanenin anlatımı şiirseldir; gerçekliği bilmeceler ve sembollerle betimler. Tarih tek tek bilim insanlarının işi iken efsane halkların muhayyilesinin bir ürünüdür. Efsanede kavimler, milletler, kabileler, ülkeler, medeniyetler, bu toplulukların isimlerini taşıyan ve bunların mizaçlarını yansıtan erkek ve kadın karakterlere, tanrılara ve tanrıçalara dönüşür. Tarih siyasi anlaşmalardan ve kabile ittifaklarından veya toplu göçlerden, halklar, milletler ve medeniyetler arasındaki çekişmelerden ve savaşlardan bahseder. Efsanede ise anlaşmalar, kahramanlar arasındaki dostluklara, kabileler arası ittifaklarsa düğünlere, toplu göçler, gizemli seyahatlere, siyasi çekişmeler, düşmanlıklara veya ayrılıklara, savaşlar, düellolara ve bu çekişmelerin ve savaşların siyasi ve ekonomik nedenleri, namus, şeref ve saygınlık meselesine dönüşür.

In the description of the territories of the tribes in the book of Joshua, a simple boundary is described between the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh, which descends from Tapuach along the Kana Stream. In spite of that, the detailed description of the existence of separate cities belonging to Ephraim, inside the territory of Manasseh, presented a problem in understanding on which side of Kana Stream these cities are located, and who owns the territory where they are located. In the past, scholars were forced to distort the biblical verses or to assume an historical change in the boundary during the Iron Age, but their explanations are not satisfactory.
In this article I will propose a new interpretation of the verses, based on the distribution of the sites of the Mount Ephraim survey, without distorting the verses or separating them into different periods. According to the new proposal, the verses can be divided into two parts that provide a precise description of the actual geographical boundary line. The first part is the section from Tapuach up to where it meets the Kana Stream, north of which the separate cities are located. In this area sites were found that could be identified with these cities. The second part is the section along the Kana Stream up to the sea, along which there are no separate cities.
The route of this boundary parallels the geological boundary of the region. The separate cities are located at the southern end of the Shechem Syncline, a place where the land is more conducive to settlement, and are delineated by a clear topographical border – the Kana Stream. South of them is Mount Ephraim, at the northern end of the Ramallah Anticline, a thickly forested region. These geographical data accord with the biblical description of the difficulty of settlement in the forested region of Mount Ephraim, and the data from the surveys concerning early Israelite settlement in the mountains. It turns out that during the first stage, settlement was concentrated in the area of the Samarian Desert, and gradually in the area of the Shechem Syncline, which is more conducive to settlement. During this period the Ephraimites lived in the territory of Manasseh, and the separate cities were created. Only during the second stage, after deforestation, did the Ephraimites begin to settle on their own territory at Mount Ephraim.

This paper is about the ori gin and spirit of the ancient pilgrimages to Holy Land between IVth and VIth centuries. Many factors may have contributed which were the cause of this popular pious movement, among which we have to remark the recuperation ofJesus' tomb and of the whole Golgota's area by influence of Constantin the Great, the starting point of the creation of an real biblical geography. But so important for the development of the pilgrimages became the participation of the emperor's mother , Helena, whom was attributed the invention of the cross by a legend which was created in the last years of the IVth centuly. Es imposible precisar cronológicamente el desplazamiento semántico por el que la palabra peregrinatio pasó a significar viaje de devoción a un lugar sagrado o visita a un lugar santo, que es la acepción que obviamente utilizamos en el presente trabajo. Tampoco sabríamos fijar cuándo pro-1 El presente artículo recoge en líneas generales la conferencia que sobre el mismo tema fue impartida en el Centro Cultural de Mitre Dame de Jerusalén el 17 de enero de 1992 dentro de las actividades programadas por el Instituto Español Bíblico y Arqueológi-co en dicha ciudad, dirigido a la sazón por el Dr. Don Florentino Díez Fernández, O.S.A.

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