As I mentioned a little over a week ago, my wife and I are currently touring Israel with some other members of the Accordance team. I’ve already described how I created custom maps of each day’s itinerary to help my kids follow along with where we’ll be each day. The maps include representative images from each site, together with a list of Scripture references. I printed each of those maps out and taped them to a wall in our home.

As soon as I finished those maps, I realized I would like to have quick access to them myself. So in addition to printing them to paper, I also printed them as a PDF which I could read on my iPad using GoodReader. I also downloaded the PhotoGuide and most of the Carta books to the iPad so I could travel light with the very best geographical resources available.

With my iPad thus equipped, I can view each day’s map while riding on the tour bus. If I want to read the Scripture references on the map, I can simply select and Copy from GoodReader, then switch to Accordance and paste the string of references into a search view. If I want to find out more about a site, I can look it up in the PhotoGuide or one of the Carta books. For example, I knew the ancient port of Acco was associated with Joan of Arc in some way, but I couldn’t remember how. A quick lookup in the PhotoGuide reminded me that Crusaders renamed it Saint Jean d’Acre in honor of her, and the town was subsequently referred to as Acre.

As you can imagine, with Dr. J and other members of the Accordance staff on this tour, we’re getting deeper into each site than I assume the average tour group does. Add to that the fact that our tour guide is a biblical scholar in his own right, and it’s hard to keep up. With Accordance on my iPad, I’m managing to look a little more knowledgeable than I am! 😉