The land and the peoples

Southern Greece, around Corinth and Athens

The Roman province covering southern Greece, with Corinth as its capital. Paul worked there for eighteen months, and Gallio, its proconsul, threw out the case against him.

Usually et-Tell, just east of Bethel, though the archaeology is awkward

The second town Israel attacked after Jericho, and the one that beat them the first time because of Achan's theft. Its name means the ruin, which is roughly what it was left as.

The Negev and northern Sinai

Desert raiders who attacked Israel's stragglers on the way out of Egypt and became the standing example of implacable enmity. The command to blot out their memory, and Saul's failure to carry it out, cost him his kingdom.

A nomadic people of the Negev and Sinai who attacked Israel first, striking the stragglers at the rear during the exodus, and who remained a byword for implacable hostility.

Central Jordan, around Amman, whose name still carries theirs

A small kingdom east of the Jordan, descended from Lot like Moab, sitting on the edge of the desert with one strong capital and a long habit of pressing westward whenever Israel was weak.

A nation east of the Jordan, north of Moab, also traced in Genesis to Lot. Their capital, Rabbah, is modern Amman, which still carries the name.

One of the major pre-Israelite peoples, sometimes used broadly for the inhabitants of the land generally and sometimes specifically for the two kingdoms east of the Jordan that Israel took first, under Sihon and Og.

Amfipoli, Greece, marked by a colossal stone lion

A stop on the Via Egnatia, the Roman road running west across Macedonia. Luke says they passed through, which is what you do at a day's stage on a trunk road.

Anata, northeast of Jerusalem

A priestly town in Benjamin, Jeremiah's home, and where Abiathar was sent when Solomon removed him from the priesthood.

Antakya, in southern Turkey

The third-largest city in the empire, and the launching point of the mission to the Gentiles. It was here that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians, and here that Paul and Barnabas were sent out.

Ruins near Yalvac, Turkey, about 3,600 feet up

A Roman colony in the highlands, and not the Antioch that sent them out. Paul's synagogue sermon here is the longest Luke records from him, and it ends with the city divided and the missionaries expelled.

In Macedonia, Greece, though the exact site is not certain

The second overnight stage on the Via Egnatia between Philippi and Thessalonica, named once and passed through.

The Jordan Rift Valley, from Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba

The long desert rift running the length of the country, containing the Jordan valley, the Dead Sea, and the dry valley south of it. Below sea level for much of its length and brutally hot.

The tribes of the Arabian peninsula and the northern desert, appearing as traders, tribute-payers, and raiders. Ishmaelites, Kedarites, and Sabeans are among the named groups.

Southern Syria, centered on Damascus

Israel's northern neighbor and its most persistent enemy through the divided kingdom, close enough to raid every campaigning season and strong enough to take territory.

The peoples of the region north and northeast of Israel, centered on Damascus, called Syrians in older English versions. Israel's most frequent northern opponent through the monarchy.

Wadi Mujib, Jordan

A deep gorge running into the Dead Sea from the east, forming the border between Moab and the Amorite territory Israel took. Israel was told not to cross into Moab, so the river marks the edge of what was permitted.

Ashdod, on Israel's Mediterranean coast

A Philistine city with a temple of Dagon, where the captured ark was set beside the idol. The next morning the statue had fallen on its face, and the morning after that its head and hands were broken off.

Ashkelon, on Israel's coast

A Philistine seaport, and the only one of the five that sat directly on the Mediterranean. David's lament for Saul asks that the news not be told in Gath or published in the streets of Ashkelon.

Western Turkey

Not the continent. The Roman province of Asia occupied the western end of Asia Minor, with Ephesus as its chief city, and it is where Paul spent nearly three years and where the seven churches of Revelation stood.

Behramkale, Turkey, with a temple of Athena on the summit

The port where Paul rejoined the ship after choosing to walk the twenty miles across the headland alone while the others sailed around it. Luke records the arrangement without explaining it.

Northern Iraq, along the upper Tigris

The empire that swallowed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and nearly took Judah twenty years later. Assyrian kings kept detailed records of their campaigns, and Sennacherib's own account of shutting Hezekiah up 'like a bird in a cage' survives on a clay prism now in the British Museum.

The dominant power of the ninth to seventh centuries BC, based on the upper Tigris at Nineveh, Calah, and Asshur. The empire that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and came within a siege of taking Jerusalem.

Athens, Greece

The old intellectual capital of the Greek world, past its political peak but still the place philosophers argued for a living. Paul spoke at the Areopagus, quoting their own poets back to them and starting from an altar inscribed to an unknown god.

Antalya, Turkey, still a working port

The harbour the first journey sails home from, after preaching in Perga on the way down to the coast.

Ruins near Hillah, in central Iraq, about 55 miles south of Baghdad

The imperial capital that destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC and deported Judah. It became the Bible's standing image for worldly power arranged against God, from the tower in Genesis to the fallen city in Revelation.

The Golan and the Hauran plain, southern Syria

The high volcanic plateau east and northeast of the Sea of Galilee, taken from Og. Rich grazing country, and its cattle and oaks were proverbial for size and strength.

Beersheba, at the northern edge of the Negev desert

The southern limit of settled Israel, where the farmland gives out and the desert begins. Abraham dug a well here and swore a treaty over it, and the name carries both meanings, 'well of the oath' and 'well of seven.'

Veria, Greece

The town whose people Luke calls more noble than those at Thessalonica, because they received the message eagerly and then examined the scriptures daily to see whether it was so. Agitators followed from Thessalonica anyway.

Tel Beth Shemesh, in the Sorek valley west of Jerusalem

A town on the border with Philistine territory, and the first place in Israel the ark came to when the Philistines sent it back on a cart pulled by two cows that had never been yoked and whose calves were shut up at home.

Al-Eizariya, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives

A village about two miles from Jerusalem where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, and where Jesus stayed during his last week. Lazarus was raised here, and Mary anointed Jesus' feet here days before the crucifixion.

Beitin, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem

Its name means 'house of God,' given by Jacob after his dream of the stairway. Jeroboam later set one of his two golden calves there, which turned a place of promise into the flagship of the northern kingdom's false worship.

Bethlehem, about 6 miles south of Jerusalem

A small farming village whose name means 'house of bread.' It stayed obscure for most of its history, which is part of why Micah's prophecy landed the way it did: the ruler would come from the town nobody counted.

On the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, near where the Jordan enters

A fishing village whose name means 'house of fishing,' and the hometown of Peter, Andrew, and Philip. Jesus healed a blind man here in two stages, the only healing in the Gospels that happens gradually.

Ruins on the Israeli coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa

Herod's engineered harbour and the seat of Roman government in Judea, which is why the prefects, Pilate among them, lived here rather than in Jerusalem. Paul is held here for two years before being shipped to Rome.

Banias, at the foot of Mount Hermon in the Golan

A town at the base of a cliff riddled with shrines to the god Pan, at one of the sources of the Jordan. Peter made his confession that Jesus is the Christ standing in that setting, and Jesus answered with the promise about building on rock.

Probably Khirbet Qana in lower Galilee, though the identification is debated

A Galilean village where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding, which John counts as the first of the signs. Nathanael was from there.

Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and coastal Syria

The land promised to Abraham's family, and the collective name for the peoples already living in it: a patchwork of independent city-states rather than one nation, each with its own king, walls, and gods.

The general term for the settled population of the land before Israel, and often a shorthand covering the whole list of nations the conquest narratives name.

Kfar Nahum, ruins on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee

A fishing town on the lake's north shore that became the base of Jesus' Galilean ministry, so much so that Matthew calls it 'his own city.' A customs post sat there on the road from Damascus, which is where Matthew was working when he was called.

On the Euphrates at the Turkish and Syrian border

The crossing on the upper Euphrates where Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Egyptian army in 605 BC. The battle settled who would rule the region, and Judah spent the rest of its independence living with the answer.

Kechries, Greece, the eastern harbour of Corinth

Corinth's port on the Aegean side of the isthmus, where Paul cut his hair because of a vow. Phoebe, whom Paul commends to the Romans as a deacon, served the church here.

The people of southern Mesopotamia who took over Babylon and, under Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC and carried Judah into exile.

Korazim, black basalt ruins two miles north of Capernaum

A town Jesus condemns and that the Gospels otherwise never mention. He says most of his mighty works were done in it, yet not one of them is recorded, which is a plain reminder that the Gospels report a selection rather than everything that happened.

Southeastern Turkey

The Roman province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor, whose chief city Tarsus was Paul's birthplace. He describes himself as a citizen of no ordinary city.

A headland at the tip of the Datca peninsula, Turkey

The point the grain ship struggled to reach against the wind before being forced to run south under the lee of Crete, the decision that led to the storm.

An unexcavated mound in the Lycus valley, Turkey

The smallest place to receive a letter that made it into the New Testament, and by Paul's day already in decline as Laodicea grew. Paul writes that he has never seen the church there in person.

Ruins near modern Corinth, in Greece

A wealthy port controlling the narrow isthmus of Greece, with all the trade and all the vice that goes with a sailors' town. Paul spent eighteen months there and wrote at least two letters to the church afterward, both dealing with a congregation as messy as its city.

Kos, a Greek island near the Turkish coast

A day's straight run before the wind on the voyage toward Jerusalem. The island was famous in antiquity for its medical school and its association with Hippocrates.

Crete, the largest Greek island

A long mountainous island that shelters the sea lane to Italy along its southern side. Paul is driven past it as a prisoner, and the letter to Titus has him leaving Titus there to put the churches in order.

The people of Cush, the region south of Egypt corresponding to modern Sudan and southern Egypt, rendered Ethiopia in older versions. Nubia to archaeologists.

The island of Cyprus

The large island off the Syrian coast, called Kittim in the Old Testament and named in the table of nations. Rich in copper, which is where the metal gets its name.

Damascus, the capital of Syria

The capital of Aram, Israel's northern neighbor and frequent enemy through the years of the divided kingdom. Centuries later it was the city Saul of Tarsus was traveling to when he was stopped on the road.

Tel Dan, at the northern edge of Israel near the Lebanon border

The northernmost Israelite city, which is why the phrase 'from Dan to Beersheba' meant the whole land. Jeroboam placed his second golden calf here, at the far end of the kingdom from Jerusalem.

Probably Kerti Huyuk, Turkey, though the exact site is argued

The turning point of the first journey, and the one town on it where nothing goes wrong. They made many disciples and then started back through every place that had thrown them out.

Dhiban, Jordan, north of the Arnon gorge

A camp near the end of the wilderness road, and later a Moabite town of real importance. It gives its name to one of the most significant inscriptions ever found in the region.

The towns of Galilee, the Jezreel valley, and the coastal plain north of Carmel. This is the most fought-over farmland in the country, because the road from Egypt to Mesopotamia runs through it.

The garden God planted, with a river flowing out of it that divided into four heads, two of them the Tigris and Euphrates and two, the Pishon and Gihon, unidentified. Its location has been argued over endlessly and never settled.

Southern Jordan, south of the Dead Sea

The rugged red-rock country settled by Esau's descendants. The long grudge between Edom and Israel goes back to the two brothers, and the prophets treat Edom's gloating over Jerusalem's fall as a family betrayal.

Descendants of Esau, Jacob's twin, living in the rugged country south and east of the Dead Sea. The closest relatives Israel had, and in the prophets the bitterest grievance.

Egypt, along the Nile

The old power to the southwest, and the Bible's recurring picture of both refuge and bondage. Israel goes down to Egypt to survive famine, is enslaved there, is brought out by the exodus, and is warned for centuries afterward not to go running back to it for military help.

The oldest continuous civilization the Bible deals with, and the one whose shadow falls across the whole story: refuge in famine, house of slavery, unreliable ally, and finally a place of refuge again.

Tel Miqne, in the Shephelah foothills

The northernmost Philistine city, and the last place the captured ark was sent before the Philistines gave up and returned it. Its god Baal-zebub is the name Israel's King Ahaziah sent to consult, which is where the later name for Satan comes from.

Southwestern Iran, around Susa

An ancient kingdom east of Mesopotamia, one of the oldest civilizations on record, later absorbed into the Persian empire. Its capital Susa is where Esther's story is set and where Daniel saw a vision.

Location uncertain; several sites west of Jerusalem have been proposed

A village about seven miles from Jerusalem, on the road where two disciples walked with the risen Jesus without recognizing him, and knew him at last when he broke the bread.

An oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea

A freshwater spring and waterfall in the middle of the desert above the Dead Sea, with caves in the cliffs. David hid here from Saul, and cut the corner off Saul's robe in a cave rather than kill him.

Ruins near Selçuk, on Turkey's Aegean coast

A major port dominated by the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Paul spent about three years there, and the silversmiths eventually rioted because his preaching was hurting the trade in silver shrines.

Flows through Turkey, Syria, and Iraq

The great river of Mesopotamia, and the northern boundary of the land promised to Abraham. One of the four rivers of Eden, and the river by which the exiles sat down and wept.

At the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, near modern Eilat and Aqaba

A wilderness camp that turns up again centuries later as a working port. It is one of the few names on the Numbers 33 list with a history outside the list.

Kaloi Limenes, a small bay on the south coast of Crete

A harbour judged unsuitable to winter in. Paul advised staying, while the pilot, the ship's owner and the centurion decided to run for a better one, and the majority carried it. The storm caught them almost at once.

Umm Qais, Jordan, on a ridge about six miles from the lake

One of the cities of the Decapolis, and one of the names attached to the healing of the demoniac and the drowned pigs. Which name belongs to the story is genuinely unsettled.

Northern Israel, around the lake of the same name

The northern district, fertile, densely populated, and looked down on by Judeans for its accent and its mixed population. Isaiah called it Galilee of the nations. Most of Jesus' ministry happened there, and eleven of the twelve came from it.

Usually identified with Tell es-Safi, in central Israel

A Philistine city known for unusually large men, Goliath among them. David hid there twice while running from Saul, once feigning madness to escape.

Gaza City

The southernmost of the five Philistine cities and the last stop on the caravan road before the Egyptian desert, which made it wealthy. Samson was brought here blinded to grind at the mill, and died here pulling the temple down.

Jaba and Mukhmas, northeast of Jerusalem

Two towns facing each other across a steep pass, where Jonathan and his armor-bearer climbed the cliff and attacked a Philistine garrison alone, setting off a panic that turned into a rout.

Not a people but a category: everyone who is not Israel. The Hebrew goyim and the Greek ethne both simply mean nations, and English versions render the same words as nations, Gentiles, or heathen depending on context and on the translator's era.

Jerash, Jordan, among the best preserved Roman cities anywhere

A Decapolis city whose colonnaded street, oval forum and theatres still stand. Mark and Luke name its people in the account of the demoniac, which is the geographic difficulty discussed under Gadara.

An olive grove on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem's Old City

An olive orchard with a press, which is what the name means, across the Kidron Valley from the temple. Jesus went there to pray on the night he was betrayed.

Tell el-Ful, on the northern edge of Jerusalem

Saul's hometown and capital, in Benjamin. Also the town where the atrocity in Judges 19 took place, which set off a civil war that nearly destroyed the tribe.

El-Jib, northwest of Jerusalem

A large Hivite town whose people tricked Joshua into a treaty by arriving in worn-out clothes with moldy bread, claiming to have come from far away. Joshua kept the treaty after discovering the deception, and defended them.

The highlands of northwestern Jordan, east of the Jordan River

Rugged, wooded highland east of the Jordan, known for its balm, a resin used as medicine and exported widely. Jeremiah's question, 'Is there no balm in Gilead?', assumes everyone knew the answer was yes.

Location uncertain, somewhere between Jericho and the Jordan

Israel's first camp inside the land, where twelve stones from the Jordan were set up as a memorial. It served as a base during the conquest and later as one of Samuel's circuit stops.

Traditionally beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City

The execution site outside Jerusalem's wall where Jesus was crucified. Roman crucifixions were staged along roads for maximum public effect, which fits the Gospel note that passersby could read the sign above him.

Probably beneath or beside the southern Dead Sea, identification disputed

Sodom's neighbor, and the city named with it every time either is mentioned afterward. The pair became the fixed biblical shorthand for judgment, invoked by the prophets, by Jesus, and by Jude.

The eastern Nile delta, Egypt

The district of the Nile delta given to Jacob's family, good pasture and set apart from the Egyptians, who found shepherds detestable. Israel lived there for generations and it is where the plagues did not fall.

Greece and the Aegean world

Distant and barely mentioned for most of the Old Testament, then suddenly decisive: Alexander's conquest in 332 BC put the whole region under Greek rule and Greek language, and the New Testament is written in the language that conquest left behind.

In the New Testament, Greek often means Gentile in general rather than someone from Greece, because Greek culture and language had become the default for the whole eastern Mediterranean after Alexander.

Hama, Syria

A city on the Orontes far to the north, used repeatedly as the marker of Israel's ideal northern boundary in the phrase the entrance of Hamath. Solomon's territory and Jeroboam II's briefly reached it.

Harran, southern Turkey near the Syrian border

The city where Terah's family stopped on the way from Ur and where Abraham's father died, and to which Jacob later fled and worked twenty years for Laban. A major caravan center and a center of moon worship.

Tel Hazor, north of the Sea of Galilee

The largest city in the region by a wide margin, called by Joshua the head of all those kingdoms, and the only town in the conquest account that Israel burned. Later rebuilt and fortified by Solomon.

The earliest name for the people, used mostly by foreigners about them or by Israelites introducing themselves to foreigners. Jonah answers the sailors, I am a Hebrew.

Hebron, about 19 miles south of Jerusalem

The highest city in the land and one of the oldest, where Abraham bought a burial cave and where the patriarchs were laid to rest. David reigned there over Judah for seven and a half years before Jerusalem.

Tell Hesban, Jordan

Sihon's capital, the first city Israel took east of the Jordan, and afterward a standing example in Israel's memory of what God had done. Later held by Moab, whose loss of it the prophets lament.

Pamukkale, Turkey, famous for its white terraces

A spa town above the Lycus valley whose hot mineral springs have built terraces of white travertine down the hillside. Paul names it with Laodicea and Colossae as a place Epaphras worked hard for.

Two different groups wear this name. One is the great empire based in Anatolia, a genuine rival to Egypt. The other is a local Canaanite clan living around Hebron, from whom Abraham bought a burial cave and to whom Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, belonged.

Three of the peoples named in the recurring lists of nations in the land. Less is known about them than about the Canaanites, Amorites, or Hittites, and the lists vary in length and order from passage to passage.

Konya, Turkey, a large city today

A city on the plain where they stayed a long while and spoke boldly, until an attempt to stone them sent them on. They came back through it anyway on the return leg.

The descendants of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel after a night of wrestling at the Jabbok. The name is usually explained as one who strives with God, and it is given to a man who spent his life outmaneuvering people and finally met someone he could not.

East of the Jordan in Gilead

A town east of the Jordan whose rescue by Saul made him king in fact as well as in name, after Nahash the Ammonite besieged it and offered terms involving the right eye of every man.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem before David took it. The city was called Jebus, and it held out against Israel for centuries after the conquest, sitting like an island between the northern and southern tribes.

Tell es-Sultan near modern Jericho, in the Jordan Valley

One of the oldest continuously settled places on earth, sitting 800 feet below sea level beside a strong spring. It guarded the road up from the Jordan into the hill country, which made it the first obstacle for anyone entering Canaan from the east.

Jerusalem, in the Judean hills, about 35 miles east of the Mediterranean

A hill town with no harbor, no river, and no trade road worth the name, which became the center of Israel's worship for three thousand years. David captured it from the Jebusites and made it his capital precisely because it belonged to no tribe, so no tribe could claim the throne by owning the ground.

The word comes from Judah, and its meaning widens across the Bible. Before the exile it means someone from the southern kingdom. After the exile it becomes the name for the whole people, since Judah was the tribe that returned and gave the community its identity.

Tel Yizre'el, in the valley of the same name

A royal residence of the northern kings in a broad, fertile valley. Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard here, and Jezebel arranged the judicial murder that got it, which is why the place became shorthand for the judgment that followed.

Jaffa, the old harbor quarter of Tel Aviv

The main natural harbor on Israel's coast, and one of the few places a traveler could board a seagoing ship. Cedar for both temples came ashore here.

The hill country around Jerusalem and south to the Negev

The southern district around Jerusalem, and the Roman-era name for what had been the kingdom of Judah. It was the religious center and, in the first century, a province governed by a prefect answering to Rome.

In the northern Sinai, probably Ain el-Qudeirat

The oasis on the southern edge of the land where Israel camped, sent the spies, refused to go in, and then stayed for most of the wilderness years. Miriam died here, and here Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it.

Towns of Judah and the Shephelah

Smaller towns that recur through the conquest, the tribal allotments, and the wars of the monarchy. Keilah is where David rescued a town from Philistine raiders and then learned, by asking, that its citizens would hand him over anyway.

A small nomadic people associated with Midian and with metalworking, their name probably related to a word for smith. Almost uniquely among Israel's neighbors, they are consistently treated as friends.

The valleys, springs, pools, gates, and terraces that make up the city's geography. The Kidron runs down its eastern side toward the Dead Sea; the Gihon spring on that slope is the reason a city stood here at all.

Probably Deir el-Azar, west of Jerusalem

The town where the ark stayed for twenty years after the Philistines returned it, in the house of Abinadab, until David came to fetch it to Jerusalem.

Tel Lachish, in the Shephelah

The second city of Judah, a heavily fortified town guarding the approach to the hill country. Besieged and taken by Sennacherib in 701 BC, and again by Babylon.

Ruins near Denizli, Turkey

A banking city on a main trade road, and the church told it is neither cold nor hot. Every image in the letter has a local edge, which is why it is one of the clearest cases in the New Testament of a message shaped to its address.

Ruins near Fair Havens on the south coast of Crete

The town Luke names as lying near Fair Havens, mentioned nowhere else in ancient literature and locatable only because he says where it was.

Lebanon and the coastal ranges of Syria

The mountain range north of Israel, famous throughout the ancient world for its cedars. The timber was shipped to Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, and Solomon imported it for both the temple and his palace, which was actually named the House of the Forest of Lebanon.

The tribe of Levi, set apart for the service of the sanctuary and given no territory of its own. Priests were Levites descended from Aaron; the rest of the tribe did everything else the sanctuary required.

Probably Tell Burna, in the Shephelah of Judah

A fortified town of the lowlands. Sennacherib moved his army here from Lachish, and it is from Libnah that he sent his final demand for Jerusalem's surrender.

Lod, Israel, beside Ben Gurion airport

A town on the road from Jerusalem to the coast, where Peter healed Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years. Peter was still there when the messengers came from Joppa about Tabitha.

A mound near Hatunsaray, Turkey, identified from an inscription found nearby

The town where a healing led the crowd to take Barnabas for Zeus and Paul for Hermes, and where the same crowd later stoned Paul and dragged him out for dead. Timothy came from here.

Northern Greece

The Roman province in northern Greece, Alexander's homeland, and the first part of Europe Paul preached in after a vision of a man begging him to come over and help. Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea are all Macedonian.

Migdal, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee

A fishing town that salted and shipped its catch, and the home town of Mary Magdalene, whose name simply means Mary of Magdala.

East of the Jordan, exact site debated

The place where Jacob met the angels of God on his way back to meet Esau, and named it two camps. Later Ish-bosheth's capital, and David's base when he fled from Absalom.

The towns named as Joshua divides the land, and again in the Judah and Benjamin registers of Chronicles. Dozens of them appear once and never again, which is a large part of why identifying biblical sites is hard work.

Malta, in the channel between Sicily and North Africa

Where the ship ran aground and broke up after fourteen days driven before a northeaster. All 276 aboard reached land. Paul was bitten by a viper, suffered no harm, and the islanders' opinion of him swung from murderer to god inside a paragraph.

The camps between Egypt and the plains of Moab, listed as a single itinerary in Numbers 33 and scattered through Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Forty-two stages in all. Most cannot be located with any confidence.

The plateau and highlands across the Jordan, taken from Sihon and Og and settled by Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh. Good grazing country, exposed on every side, and the first territory lost when pressure came.

Tel Megiddo, guarding the pass into the Jezreel Valley

A fortress city commanding the main pass on the highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia, which made it one of the most fought-over spots in the ancient world. The name behind 'Armageddon' in Revelation is most likely 'har Megiddo,' the hill of Megiddo.

Mukhmas, about seven miles north of Jerusalem

A town on the north side of a steep pass, and the place Jonathan and his armour-bearer climbed into a Philistine garrison alone and started a rout.

Northwest Arabia, along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba

A confederation of desert tribes rather than a single kingdom, ranging widely with flocks and caravans. Midian is both the place Moses found refuge and a father-in-law, and the raiders who drove Israel into caves in Gideon's day.

A confederation of desert peoples in northwest Arabia and the Sinai, traced in Genesis to Abraham through Keturah. Caravan traders, herders, and at times raiders.

Ruins near Balat, Turkey, now several miles from the sea

Where Paul sent for the elders of Ephesus rather than going the thirty miles himself, because he wanted to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. The speech he gives them is the only one in Acts addressed to Christian leaders.

Mytilene, the main town of Lesbos, Greece

A night's anchorage on the run down the coast toward Jerusalem, one of a string of short hops Luke lists day by day.

Probably Tell en-Nasbeh, north of Jerusalem

A gathering place in Benjamin where Israel assembled for national decisions. Samuel judged here, Saul was presented as king here, and after Jerusalem fell it became the administrative center under Gedaliah.

West-central Jordan, east of the Dead Sea

A highland kingdom east of the Dead Sea, descended from Lot. Moab and Israel were relatives and rivals by turns, sometimes hiring prophets against each other, sometimes intermarrying, as Ruth's story shows.

A nation on the plateau east of the Dead Sea, descended in Genesis from Lot, which makes them Israel's relatives. The relationship is accordingly close, complicated, and frequently hostile.

The towns and districts fought over in 1 and 2 Maccabees, many of them under Greek forms of older names: Ascalon is Ashkelon, Azotus is Ashdod, Bethsan is Beth-shan, Ptolemais is Acco, Chanaan is Canaan.

The ridge above Haifa, on Israel's northern coast

A wooded coastal ridge, green even in drought, which is part of why a contest about who sends the rain was staged there. Elijah faced the prophets of Baal on its heights.

The mountain above Nablus, in the West Bank

The mountain of blessing in Deuteronomy's ceremony, opposite Mount Ebal, the mountain of curse. The Samaritans built their temple here and still hold it as the true place of worship, which is the mountain the woman at the well was pointing to.

A ridge on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley

Where Saul and three of his sons, Jonathan among them, died fighting the Philistines. David's lament asks that no dew or rain fall on those heights again.

The Anti-Lebanon range on the Syria and Lebanon border

The highest mountain in the region at over 9,000 feet, snow-capped much of the year, and the source of the Jordan's headwaters. It marked the northern limit of Israel's conquests.

Traditionally Jebel Harun near Petra, though the identification is late and argued

The mountain on the border of Edom where Aaron died. Moses took him up in front of the whole congregation, stripped him of his priestly garments and put them on his son Eleazar, and came back down without him.

A ridge in western Jordan, overlooking the Jordan Valley

The height from which Moses was shown the whole land he would not enter, and where he died. Deuteronomy says no one knows his grave to this day.

Traditionally Jebel Musa in the southern Sinai Peninsula, though the location is debated

The mountain where God gave the law and made covenant with Israel. Its exact location is not certain: the traditional site in the southern Sinai has been honored since at least the fourth century, while other proposals place it elsewhere in the peninsula or in Arabia.

Demre, Turkey, with rock cut tombs above the town

Where the centurion found an Alexandrian grain ship bound for Italy and moved his prisoners onto it. These were among the largest vessels afloat, and the grain fleet fed Rome.

Nein, a village on the northern slope of the hill of Moreh

A village named once in the whole Bible, where Jesus stops a funeral at the gate and gives a widow her only son back. Luke is the only Gospel that tells it.

Nazareth, in the hills of lower Galilee

A village so small and unremarkable that it is never mentioned in the Old Testament, in Josephus, or in the Talmud. Nathanael's question, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?', was the ordinary opinion of the place.

Kavala, Greece

The harbour where the mission first set foot in Europe, reached in two days with a following wind. Philippi lies about ten miles inland up the road.

Several names cluster around unusually large or formidable peoples. The Nephilim appear before the flood in a passage of famous difficulty. The Anakim, Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzummim are later peoples described as tall and terrifying, and are what the spies reported seeing.

Ruins across the river from Mosul, in northern Iraq

The last great capital of the Assyrian empire, a city of enormous walls and a reputation for cruelty in war. Jonah was sent to preach there and hated the assignment. It repented in his day, and fell about a century and a half later, which is the subject of Nahum.

A ridge just north of Jerusalem, within sight of the city; the exact spot is uncertain

A town of priests, and the last stop on the Assyrian line of march in Isaiah, where the invader stands and shakes his fist at Jerusalem in view of the walls.

Location unknown; Arabia, East Africa, and India have all been proposed

The source of the gold Solomon's fleet brought back, along with almug wood, ivory, apes, and peacocks, on voyages taking three years. Gold of Ophir became a byword for the finest quality.

Kato Paphos, Cyprus, a large archaeological site

The Roman capital of Cyprus, where the proconsul Sergius Paulus believes and the magician Elymas is struck blind. From this point Luke stops calling him Saul and calls him Paul.

Ruins on the Turkish coast near Gelemis

Where the party changed to a ship crossing open water to Phoenicia rather than continuing to hug the coast, which is the faster and the more dangerous choice.

A small Greek island in the Aegean, off the coast of Turkey

A rocky island used by Rome for banishment. John says he was there 'because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus,' and it is where he received the visions of Revelation.

In Moab, east of the Jordan

The place where Israel joined in the worship of the Moabite gods and a plague followed, immediately after Balaam had failed to curse them. Numbers connects the two, and Revelation still refers to the teaching of Balaam by name.

Extensive ruins near Antalya, Turkey

The landfall in Asia Minor, and the place John Mark turned back for Jerusalem. That departure is why Paul and Barnabas split before the second journey and never travel together again in Acts.

Bergama, Turkey, with the acropolis above the modern town

The old capital of the province, built on a steep acropolis, and the place the letter calls the seat of Satan's throne. What that phrase points at is debated: the great altar on the terrace, the imperial cult, or the healing sanctuary of Asclepius, whose emblem was a serpent.

Iran and the lands it ruled

The empire that replaced Babylon and reversed its policy on captive peoples, sending exiles home to rebuild their temples. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the later chapters of Daniel all unfold under Persian rule.

The empire that succeeded Babylon in 539 BC and ruled the largest state the world had yet seen, from the Indus to Libya. Under Persia the exiles went home and rebuilt.

Alasehir, Turkey

A small city founded to spread Greek language and custom into the interior, and the second of the two churches that receives no rebuke. It is promised an open door that no one can shut.

Ruins in northeastern Greece, near Kavala

A Roman colony in Macedonia, settled with army veterans, and the first place in Europe Paul preached. Lydia was converted by the river, a jailer was converted at midnight after an earthquake, and the letter Paul later wrote them is his most joyful.

The Gaza coastal plain and southern Israel's shoreline

The coastal territory of the Philistines, a people who arrived by sea and settled five cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. They held an early advantage in ironworking, and were Israel's chief enemy through the era of the judges and Saul.

Israel's defining enemy through the period of the judges and the early monarchy. They held five cities on the southern coastal plain, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, each under its own ruler, cooperating when it mattered.

The Lebanese coast

The seafaring cities of the northern coast, chiefly Tyre and Sidon, who were traders rather than conquerors and whose ships worked the whole Mediterranean.

The seafaring Canaanites of the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon, whose merchants reached the whole Mediterranean and beyond.

Acre, on Israel's northern coast

The best natural harbor on the coast north of Carmel, called Acco in the Old Testament and renamed Ptolemais under the Greeks. Asher failed to drive out its inhabitants, it changes hands repeatedly through the Maccabean wars, and Paul stopped there for a day on his last voyage to Jerusalem.

Feinan, in the Wadi Arabah of southern Jordan

A camp in copper country. Feinan holds one of the largest ancient copper mining and smelting districts in the Near East, worked on and off for thousands of years.

Pozzuoli, near Naples

The main grain port for Rome and the end of the sea voyage. Believers there asked Paul to stay a week, and a prisoner under guard was allowed to, which says something about how he was being treated.

Amman, the capital of Jordan

The capital of the Ammonites. Joab besieged it while David stayed in Jerusalem, and it was at its wall that Uriah was placed to be killed.

Er-Ram, north of Jerusalem

Samuel's home town, where he lived, judged, and was buried, and to which David fled when Saul first tried to kill him. Fortified by Baasha of Israel to blockade Judah, and dismantled by Asa, who carried off the stones.

Qantir, in the eastern Nile delta

One of the two store cities Exodus says the Israelites built for Pharaoh, and the place the exodus starts from. Most identify it with Pi-Ramesse, the delta capital of Ramesses II.

East of the Jordan in Gilead, exact site debated

A fortified town east of the Jordan and one of the cities of refuge, fought over repeatedly between Israel and Aram. Ahab died attacking it after disguising himself, struck by an arrow drawn at random.

Reggio Calabria, on the toe of Italy

Where they waited a day for a south wind to carry them through the strait of Messina, a passage whose currents had their own mythology.

Rhodes, Greece

The next anchorage down the island chain. The great bronze statue that had stood at its harbour had already lain broken for some three centuries by the time Paul's ship put in.

The places named as Assyria and Babylon deported, garrisoned, and administered: staging posts, provincial capitals, and the towns the exiles were resettled in.

On the Orontes in western Syria, north of Baalbek

A staging post on the great north road, far enough back from the fighting to be a safe headquarters, and where two kings of Judah were dealt with in turn.

The power that annexed Judea in 63 BC and governed it, directly or through client kings, for the whole New Testament period.

Rome, Italy

The capital of the empire, and the destination the book of Acts has been aiming at from its first chapter. Paul arrived there as a prisoner and spent two years under house arrest, receiving visitors and preaching without hindrance, which is where Luke ends the story.

Ruins near Famagusta, Cyprus

The main harbour of Cyprus and the first stop of the first journey. Luke notes that they preached in the synagogues, in the plural, so the Jewish community there was substantial.

Cape Sidero, the northeastern point of Crete

The cape the ship rounded to get into the shelter of Crete's southern shore. Luke keeps this level of navigational detail throughout the voyage.

Sebastia, northwest of Nablus in the West Bank

The capital Omri built for the northern kingdom on a hill he bought outright, which made it royal property rather than tribal land. Assyria besieged it for three years before it fell in 722 BC, and the northern tribes were deported. The region kept the name, and its mixed population became the Samaritans of the Gospels.

The central hill country of the West Bank

The central region between Galilee and Judea, whose people descended in part from those left after the Assyrian deportation. Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem, and Jews and Samaritans avoided one another, which is what gives the parable of the good Samaritan its edge.

The population of the central hill country after the Assyrian deportations, part Israelite and part resettled foreigner, who developed their own version of the Torah and their own temple on Mount Gerizim.

Samothraki, a mountainous Greek island in the northern Aegean

An overnight anchorage on the crossing into Europe. Its peak is the highest in the Aegean islands and was a landmark for sailors long before it was a waypoint in Acts.

Sart, Turkey, with substantial ruins including a large synagogue

Once the capital of Lydia and the seat of Croesus, and by the first century a city living on its reputation. The letter tells it that it has a name for being alive and is dead.

Ruins at Samandag, Turkey, near the mouth of the Orontes

The seaport of Antioch, about sixteen miles downriver, and the harbour the first journey sails from. Its rock cut water tunnel, dug to keep the port from silting up, can still be walked.

Tell Balata, beside Nablus in the West Bank

A city in the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, where Israel renewed its covenant more than once. It was also where the ten northern tribes rejected Rehoboam and split the kingdom in two.

Khirbet Seilun, in the hills north of Bethel

Israel's worship center for roughly three centuries before Jerusalem, where the tabernacle stood and the tribes gathered. Its later destruction became a warning Jeremiah preached at the temple gate: God had abandoned Shiloh once, and could do it again.

Saida, in Lebanon

The older of the two great Phoenician ports, and Jezebel's home city. Elijah was sent to a widow in its territory during the drought, which Jesus later cited as an example of God's mercy reaching outside Israel.

Izmir, Turkey, still a major port

A wealthy harbour city and one of only two of the seven churches that receives no rebuke. The letter to it is addressed to people in poverty and under pressure, and tells them they are rich.

Location debated; several sites near the Dead Sea have been proposed

A city on the plain destroyed with Gomorrah for its wickedness, after Abraham bargained God down to ten righteous men and could not find them. Ezekiel names its sin as pride, excess, and refusing to help the poor.

Two places: in the Jordan valley, and in Egypt

The place east of the Jordan where Jacob built shelters for his livestock and named the spot for them, and where Gideon was refused bread by the town leaders while pursuing the Midianite kings. A different Succoth is the first stop of the exodus.

Probably Tell el-Maskhuta, on the Wadi Tumilat in Egypt

The first camp after leaving Egypt, and not the Succoth east of the Jordan where Gideon was refused bread. The name means shelters, which is what the people were living in.

Shush, in southwestern Iran

One of the Persian capitals, where the king wintered. The whole book of Esther takes place in and around its citadel, and Nehemiah was serving there when news came about Jerusalem's broken walls.

Probably Askar, near Nablus, close to Jacob's well

The Samaritan town where Jesus asks a woman for a drink and has the longest recorded conversation he has with anyone. The exchange turns on which mountain is the right place to worship, and Mount Gerizim is in sight from the well.

Siracusa, Sicily

Three days in the greatest of the Greek cities of Sicily, aboard another Alexandrian ship that had wintered at Malta.

Uncertain. Often identified with Tartessos in southern Spain, or a port in the far western Mediterranean

A distant port at the western edge of the known world, which is the whole point of Jonah's ticket: he was not merely leaving, he was buying passage to the farthest place a ship could carry him.

Tarsus, Turkey

Paul's birthplace, and a city he describes with some pride as no ordinary one. He was born a Roman citizen here, which later saves him from a flogging and takes him to Rome on appeal.

The lake on the Israel and Jordan border, the lowest point on land

A lake so salty nothing lives in it, sitting more than 1,300 feet below sea level at the bottom of the Jordan Rift. Ezekiel's vision of a river flowing from the temple and turning its water fresh would have sounded like the reversal of a permanent fact.

Ten Greek cities, mostly in northern Jordan with one west of the river

A league of Greek speaking cities east of the Jordan, living by their own law and custom in the middle of Jewish territory. Jesus crosses into it, and a man he heals there becomes the first person told to go and tell rather than to keep quiet.

The river running from the Sea of Galilee south to the Dead Sea, between Israel and Jordan

A modest river with an outsized role, because crossing it meant entering the land. That made it the natural setting for beginnings: Israel's entry, Elisha's commissioning, and the baptism of Jesus.

The ridge immediately east of Jerusalem's Old City

A ridge across the Kidron Valley from the temple, close enough that the whole city is in view from its slope. Jesus taught there, wept over the city from it, and ascended from it, and Zechariah names it as the place the LORD's feet will stand.

The river and the cities of the Nile valley and delta as Scripture names them, often under their older Hebrew forms: On is Heliopolis, Noph is Memphis, No is Thebes, Zoan is Tanis in the delta.

The Jordan valley floor opposite Jericho, in Jordan

The last camp, and a long one. Numbers, Deuteronomy and the start of Joshua all happen here, on the flat ground east of the river with the land in sight across it.

The sea between Egypt and Arabia, though the exact crossing point is debated

The water Israel crossed on dry ground while leaving Egypt. The Hebrew is 'yam suph', which means sea of reeds, and the precise location of the crossing has been argued over for centuries without resolution.

Lake Kinneret, in northern Israel

A freshwater lake about thirteen miles long, ringed by hills that funnel wind down onto the water and can turn it violent without warning. A busy fishing industry worked its shores, and most of Jesus' ministry happened within sight of it.

Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece

The provincial capital and a free city, where three sabbaths of argument in the synagogue ended in a riot and the charge that these men have turned the world upside down. Both letters to the Thessalonians go back to this visit.

Akhisar, Turkey

The least important of the seven cities, and the one that gets the longest letter. It was a working town of trade guilds, and guild membership meant taking part in meals in a god's honour, which is the pressure the letter is about.

Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee

Herod Antipas' new capital, founded about AD 20 and named to flatter the emperor. The lake takes its name in John, but the Gospels never once put Jesus inside the city.

Tell el-Farah North, northeast of Shechem

The capital of the northern kingdom before Samaria, from Jeroboam until Omri moved the seat of government. Zimri burned the palace down around himself here after seven days as king.

Ruins on the Turkish coast south of the site of Troy

The port where Paul, having been blocked twice from the direction he intended, sees a man of Macedonia asking him to come over. The mission crosses into Europe from here, and Luke's narration slips into the first person in the next verse.

Tyre, in southern Lebanon

A Phoenician port built partly on an island, and the trading capital of the eastern Mediterranean. Its king Hiram supplied cedar and craftsmen for Solomon's temple. Ezekiel's long oracle against it is one of the most detailed pictures of ancient commerce anywhere in literature.

Tell el-Muqayyar, in southern Iraq

A wealthy Sumerian city with a great stepped temple tower, and the place Abraham's family left. Leaving Ur for Canaan meant trading a sophisticated urban civilization for tents.

The valley along the south and west of the Old City, Jerusalem

The valley outside Jerusalem's wall where children were sacrificed under Ahaz and Manasseh, and which Josiah deliberately defiled so it could not be used again. Jeremiah renamed it the Valley of Slaughter.

In the Negev, exact site debated

The town Achish of Gath gave David while he was a fugitive, and from which he raided while reporting otherwise. Burned by the Amalekites while his men were away, with all the families taken.

In Syria, north of Damascus

An Aramean kingdom north of Damascus, the strongest of David's northern opponents, whose king Hadadezer he defeated repeatedly.