Jump to content

Best Bible Atlas?


kpang808

Recommended Posts

I was wondering what the consensus was on getting an atlas? (besides the one included that is integrated with Accordance for base packages in Essential and above) I have done some research but want to read some user reviews/uses, since there are not many on the atlases in the store location.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SACRED BRIDGE, THE (SECOND EMENDED AND ENHANCED EDITION)

 

Cannot imagine a better one out there...

 

-Dan

 

 

Dan would you say this includes "everything" you need to have from this type of resource? (I put the quotes around everything as reservation)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No book can claim to have every map you might want... but the Accordance Atlas does allow you to do just that... The information and maps provided in this resource is exquisite... I will share a few  snippets describing things a bit better.

 

Publishers’ Note

 

Some forty years ago we invited Yohanan Aharoni and Michael Avi-Yonah, preeminent scholars in their respective fields, to author The Macmillan Bible Atlas. Crafted by Carta under the direction of Emanuel Hausman, The Macmillan Bible Atlas was an instant success. Led by German, French, Italian and Japanese, it has been translated into ten languages and published in many editions.

Updated in 1993 by Anson F. Rainey and Ze’ev Safrai, augmented in 2002, and reissued as The Carta Bible Atlas, it still is one of the publisher’s lead titles and is the matrix for the current work. It is thus no coincidence that The Sacred Bridge envisioned by Rainey, a disciple, translator and sometime co-author of both Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, is also being published by Carta, Jerusalem.

Modern computer technology has opened new avenues of creativity, allowing us to enhance this monumental work. One useful innovation, we believe, is the color coding—references (red), original texts (light blue) and their translation into English (dark blue)—that has been inserted in the text proper.

Most will agree that this arrangement makes for smoother reading, by obviating the need to refer to footnotes or backpages whenever such knowledge is desired and yet allows the eye to skip over this information when not wanted. The type size and the nature of the different texts provide that same service, if at a somewhat lower level, also to those who may find it difficult to discern color.

We are grateful to the authors and the dedicated staff of Carta—then and now—whose unstinting efforts allow us to make such valuable contributions to biblical scholarship.

 

Emanuel and Shay Hausman

 

Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World, Accordance electronic ed. (Jerusalem: Carta, 2014), 9.

 

 

The twenty-first century has burst upon the stage of history in a worldwide epidemic of racial and ethnic violence. Whereas the twentieth-century pundits sought to eliminate the natural human instinct for self- and group identification (partly as a reaction to the gross misuse of that instinct that led to the Second World War), the end of the Cold War saw an outbreak of local conflicts between peoples of diverse cultures seemingly no longer able to share a small piece of the planet with their neighbors.

In times of such crisis, wise men everywhere have turned to their ancient sacred writings for wisdom to overcome their plight. Globalization has led to the development of a vast constituency of people who find their guidance in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures: the Jewish Diaspora on every continent, and the spread of Christianity through the enterprise of evangelization.
Of all the writings held sacred by the world’s religions, only the Bible presents a message linked to geography. This is not just the location of religious centers but the experience of a people in its land, a people that has insisted on its God-given right to self-identity throughout the ages and in defiance of all forces that sought to deny it. All Jews and Christians who profess to find the source of their faith in these Scriptures look to the experiences of that people depicted in the Bible as examples and role models for their search after the Divine will and for their moral conduct among men. The religious experiences of that ancient people took place in relation to a geographical setting, generally a small postage stamp on the face of the globe, a patch of terrain in the southern part of the eastern Mediterranean littoral.
The Bible is replete with geographical information, not as a guidebook for travelers or a textbook on geography, but often almost incidental to the message. Yet without the geography, that message is often obscured or vitiated for the uninformed reader. The present atlas seeks to introduce the reader to the geographical elements that can help to make real the social, historical and spiritual experience of the People of the Book.
This is not meant to be a textbook in geography, not even biblical geography. It is an attempt to view the geographical setting through the eyes of the ancient inhabitants. It concentrates on the terms and places that have enjoyed their attention; it seeks to define them in terms of their ancient understanding. On the other hand, recognizing that the geography of the Land of the Bible is not complete and that many other peoples have contributed to its history, our attention will be turned to every available documentary source, Egyptian, Akkadian, Moabite, Phoenician, Greek, Latin, Arabic, etc., that may provide geographical details and perspective. Many ancient towns escaped mention in the Bible but are known from Late Bronze sources and reappear again in the Hellenistic Age. They were there all along as their archaeological mounds often testify. The Canaanites, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, Nabateans and others had a share in the historical vicissitudes of the land in question. Their experiences are treated as equally worthy of attention and every possible source must be exploited to fill in the picture. This inclusive approach, utilizing all possible sources in addition to the Bible, is consciously meant to be a continuation of the scholarly tradition established by the patriarchs of modern historical geography in the Holy Land: George Adam Smith, Albrecht Alt, and my own personal mentors, Benjamin Mazar and Yohanan Aharoni.
 
Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World, Accordance electronic ed. (Jerusalem: Carta, 2014), 9.
 
To give you an idea of the level of information contain within, an abbreviated version of the SB was released as a a Bible handbook ( CARTA'S NEW CENTURY HANDBOOK AND ATLAS OF THE BIBLE ).
 
-Dan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right on! Thanks for the snippets Dan, I can tell that it must be pretty in depth. Just curious, was this written for all audiences or just Christian audiences?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Primarily a Judaeo-Christian context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur with Dan's recommendation of The Sacred Bridge. In fact, anything from Carta is great. Check out the Zondervan Bible Atlas, too. Here's a blog post description

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur with Dan's recommendation of The Sacred Bridge. In fact, anything from Carta is great. Check out the Zondervan Bible Atlas, too. Here's a blog post description

 

Would these both be your "go-to" for this realm of study?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to dis a title I do not own, but I have heard from others they felt a bit of disappointment with Zondervan... That said I have used an earlier hard cover edition and thought it was ok... I eventually got macmillan 1993 and gave my Zondervan away. In addition to the blog you might want to view the amazon sample to see if you will be happy with it... Like I said I do not own this and am only going from memory or peoples responses to this workZondervan Atlas of the Bible is the link to amazon to see the sample.

 

-Dan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If memory serves, most of the criticisms of the original edition were addressed in the revised version, which is what we carry. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I trust Rick's opinion... I would say go look at the Kindle preview to give you a better idea if it might be for you. I would bet it is a fine resource and much cheaper than SB... but I personally am content with SB... 

 

-Dan

Edited by Dan Francis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I asked a very similar question here http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/12413-sacred-bridge-or-accordance-atlas/. I would draw your attention to the comparison between the SB and a more regular Atlas made by Jonathan there. I have SB and IVP New Bible Atlas plus a bunch in print. They are like lexica - you can hardly have too many :)

 

Thx

D

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

FYI

 

 

 

ukfraser

Gold

  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Nottingham, UK
  • Accordance Version:2.x
  • Platforms:iOS

Posted 03 May 2015 - 04:39 AM

I have the zonvervan atlas of the bible as i had heard good things about it but i'm very disastified with it and wouldnt reccomend it. 

Its ok and better than nothing on an ios device.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I asked a very similar question here http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/12413-sacred-bridge-or-accordance-atlas/. I would draw your attention to the comparison between the SB and a more regular Atlas made by Jonathan there. I have SB and IVP New Bible Atlas plus a bunch in print. They are like lexica - you can hardly have too many :)

 

Thx

D

Daniel, I appreciate your post here! I definitely agree with you on the comparison between lexicon and atlases! Haha. I definitely have to go with the consensus here with the SB!

 

 

 

 

 

FYI

 

 

 

ukfraser

Gold

  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Nottingham, UK
  • Accordance Version:2.x
  • Platforms:iOS

Posted 03 May 2015 - 04:39 AM

I have the zonvervan atlas of the bible as i had heard good things about it but i'm very disastified with it and wouldnt reccomend it. 

 

Its ok and better than nothing on an ios device.

 

 

Thanks again Dan! Always informed here on this forum!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I decided to take the advice from you all and get the SB, I also got the Zondervan Atlas after researching more on Amazon, and Rick's recommendation. I really appreciate all the advice I have received since joining Accordance and this forum as well. This truly exemplifies one of the many great things about the body of Christ!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Accordance has many holman titles and i've always been surprised that this isnt one of them

 

Holman bible atlas by thomas brisco

 

http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/products/holman-bible-atlas-2

 

I spent ages in foyles in london looking at atlases and bought this one and it has been my go to hard back resource for about 15 years. Whenever i have wanted a map, i have found what i'm looking for. I can understand why it got its award.

 

For an eversion i got the zondervan and it doesnt come close in quality or clarity of mapping. (I need this on an ipad so accordance maps isnt an option and am not referring to the text or images, i am purely considering maps).

 

I then got sacred bridge. Very happy with but think a better paring might have been carta bible atlas (as in another thread). There are only two things i regret getting on accordance to expand my library, and zondervan is one of them.

 

Rick, do you know why the holman bible atlas isnt in your catalogue? I think you should consider it. ;o)

 

But we are all different which is why there is so much variety out there and it is great that we can each find a resource that meets our particular preferences.

 

What it has taught me is that if you want sacred bridge and dont have the funds, wait until you have the funds rather than get something you can afford but is a compromise.

 

Sample of maps

 

http://www.ultimatebiblereferencelibrary.com/001_The_Bible_Atlas.pdf

Edited by ukfraser
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel the Accordance Atlas is languishing in development limbo, great potential but currently stuck in the 1990s.

 

I cannot comment on the other Accordance modules as I do not have them. Back in the day when having a Bible atlas was important to me, I preferred the MacMillan Bible Atlas. One important factor back then was that the monochrome maps would photocopy well, unlike the colour maps other atlases offered.

 

My current (low priority) preference would be a high quality PDF Bible atlas with true vector maps, so I can extract individual maps and edit them in a vector editing program, then drop the EPS files into Keynote where they will scale perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Accordance has many holman titles and i've always been surprised that this isnt one of them

 

Holman bible atlas by thomas brisco

 

http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/products/holman-bible-atlas-2

 

I spent ages in foyles in london looking at atlases and bought this one and it has been my go to hard back resource for about 15 years. Whenever i have wanted a map, i have found what i'm looking for. I can understand why it got its award.

...

 

Rick, do you know why the holman bible atlas isnt in your catalogue? I think you should consider it. ;o)

 

 

I can tell you I would like to see the Holman Atlas in Accordance and have recommended it a number of times. I am not directly involved in licensing and don't know why we don't have it yet. I would especially like to see us have the new edition, which to my knowledge, is not available on any other Bible software platform. 

 

I would say that the Holman maps are the best looking maps anywhere and excellent for teaching purposes if you're going to drop them in Keynote or PowerPoint. There are a few of them in the HCSB Study Bible, such as this one on "The Migration of Abraham."

 

Migration of Abraham.png

 

(By the way, I had to scale that map down for it to upload to the forums. The version in Accordance's HCSBSB is even larger).

 

I also believe the Holman maps would be well-received in Accordance because Lifeway uses these maps across all of their various adult curriculums. I doubt any other set of maps gets as much exposure. Although Lifeway does offer a digital teaching pack now with their various study guides, these only contain one map per quarter. It would be nice to have all the maps at once in Accordance.

 

So, I'm with you :-)

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be also cool if this would be integrated in the Accordance Bible Atlas too.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've heard good things about Holman, ESV, Satellite Bible Atlas, Moody. Haha I guess everyone differs on this spectrum! Except people tend to agree that Sacred Bridge is really excellent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So much is personal preference based on what you want to use it for, what you have used in the past or what those around you are using.

 

You can be sure that it is good if accordance have it, its just trying to find what is best for you. That is easier if you have a good book shop or library where you can spend time with the various options first. Unfortunately, this is getting harder.

 

;o(

 

As rick says 'best looking maps... for teaching'. Which is what i was after.

Compare the map rick posted from hbsc and the equivalent in Zondervan ( in this instance these are fairly comparable though the above is better for projection).

;o)

Edited by ukfraser
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...