24 entries
The world of Abraham: wandering pastoral nomads moving between city-states in the Middle Bronze Age, when Canaan was a patchwork of small wa…
Israel endures slavery in Egypt, then the Exodus and the giving of the Law at Sinai. Set in the Late Bronze Age, when Egypt was the superpow…
Israel enters Canaan, and the Bronze Age collapses around them. The great empires fall, the Sea Peoples (including the Philistines) arrive, …
Saul, David, and Solomon build a united Israelite kingdom, the first real Israelite state, with a capital at Jerusalem and a temple. The hig…
Israel splits into north and south, then both fall to the great empires, Assyria takes the north, Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the temple.…
Cyrus of Persia conquers Babylon and lets the exiles go home. Jerusalem is rebuilt, the temple restored, and the Torah re-established. The w…
Alexander the Great sweeps through, and Greek culture, language, and ideas flood the Near East. The region is torn between Greek kingdoms; t…
The world of Jesus and the apostles. Rome rules the Mediterranean with legions, roads, and taxes. Galilee is a busy, trade-linked region und…
Abraham's home city, a wealthy, sophisticated Sumerian city-state on the Euphrates, famous for its great ziggurat. Leaving Ur meant leaving …
The Promised Land, a fertile corridor of hill country, valleys, and coast between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Not a nation but a land of small ci…
The superpower and breadbasket of the ancient world. The Nile's flood made it rich and stable. Egypt was both a refuge (for Abraham, Joseph,…
David's capital and the city of the temple, the religious and political heart of Israel. Destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE, rebuilt by Nehemia…
The homeland of the Philistines, the Sea Peoples who settled the coast, controlled iron, and were Israel's bitterest rivals in the era of th…
The magnificent capital of the Babylonian empire that destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews into exile. To the Jews, Babylon became the s…
The capital of the Assyrian empire, the brutal superpower that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. Jonah was sent to preach repentance…
Jesus' home region, a fertile, densely populated land of fishing villages and farms around the Sea of Galilee. Not the backwater people imag…
The former capital region of the northern kingdom, whose people were a mixed group despised by the Jews. Jesus' conversation with the Samari…
The capital of the empire that ruled the New Testament world. Paul was taken to Rome to stand trial before Caesar; the early church grew in …
A great port city of the Roman province of Asia, home of the famous temple of Artemis and a thriving church planted by Paul. It represents t…
The ancient capital of Syria, on the trade roads between Mesopotamia and the coast. Where Saul was struck blind on his journey to persecute …
A royal city in the central hills between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Abraham's first stop in Canaan, where Joshua renewed the covenant, a…
'House of God', the sanctuary town where Jacob saw the ladder of angels reaching to heaven. A major shrine and later a worship center of the…
The walled City of Palms in the deep Jordan Valley, whose walls fell when Israel marched around them. The scene of Bartimaeus's healing and …
The city of David, where David was born and anointed, and the birthplace of Jesus. Its name means 'house of bread'.