Some have had questions or difficulties in taking advantage of the special offer for Picturesque Palestine. To that end, we have just posted some answers.
Yesterday I sent out the latest edition of the BiblePlaces Newsletter, complete with a “scoop” on how to get the digital maps from the New Moody Atlas of the Bible as well as a set of photos of the Israelite capital of Samaria. You can read the newsletter here and you can subscribe here.
In the newsletter I also noted that in conjunction with a complete overhaul of the BiblePlaces webstore, we were offering a big discount for a brief time. Today and tomorrow only you can purchase the complete four-volume electronic edition of Picturesque Palestine for $20, including free shipping in the US.
Picturesque Palestine was published in four large volumes in 1881 and it was an immediate success.
But there were many travel type books 
published in the 19th century that are no longer of much interest. What makes Picturesque Palestine still valuable is that it was written by the best scholars of the day. If you’ve done much research about the Holy Land, you’ll be familiar with names like Charles Wilson, Henry B. Tristram, Claude Conder, Mary Eliza Rogers, Charles Warren, Edward Palmer, and others.
The work is also outstanding because of the hundreds of beautiful illustrations. Color photographs have their value, but I love to study old engravings like this one. Altogether the collection has 600 engravings, all identified in the filename. When this set was published about five years ago, we didn’t have programs like Picasa that allowed quick and easy access to photos by searching. Today you can copy all of these images to your computer and find what you are looking for instantaneously.
I love this collection. I love to read the stories and to enjoy the illustrations. It took a lot of work to digitize the whole, but my hope is that it not only made the work available to a much wider audience (than the limited print editions that cost around $500), but also that it is much more useful than the originals are.
To get the discounted price, use this link. The collection will be in your cart with the discount applied when you are ready to checkout. The offer ends on Thursday, 9/16 at 11:59 pm.
- Tagged Resources
One of my favorite book catalogues to browse is that published each year by Carta. As the premiere publishing company devoted to the historical study of the land of Israel, Carta can quickly fill up my wishlist. Among Carta’s best known publications is The Sacred Bridge, by Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley.
If you live in the States (or anywhere outside of Israel), accessing Carta’s products is not easy. They have apparently chosen not to work through the regular publishing channels in the US, thus making it difficult to order their works through bookstores or Amazon. Eisenbrauns has served as their exclusive US outlet for some years, carrying a certain portion of Carta’s publications.
Carta is now going directly to the public through the creation of their own website and webstore.
Now all of their materials are available for easy purchase, though since the company is based in Jerusalem, shipping costs and time reflect international travel. Yet if you plan ahead, order several items at once, and don’t need to return anything, you can now purchase what before required a trip to the bookstores of Israel.
Here are some books and other publications that I would recommend from various categories:
- Bible Atlases: The Sacred Bridge or its cheaper abridged version, Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible. Not recommended: Carta’s Comprehensive Bible Atlas on CD-ROM.
- Jerusalem: The Quest and Jerusalem Street Atlas. Not recommended: The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem.
- Biblical Wall Maps: Carta’s Map of Israel
- Israel Road Maps and Travel Guides: Israel Road Atlas, Israel National Parks and Nature Reserves, Ein Gedi, Qumran, and Masada.
- Biblical Archaeology: The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, Jerusalem in the Year 30 A.D.
Some of these may be available through Amazon-type stores, and even more may be purchased from Eisenbrauns. For the full catalogue, the place to go is http://www.bible-books-maps.com/.
I haven’t even made it to what I expected to be the main point of this post, but given limitations of time (mine and yours), I’ll save that for another day.
Two articles that I contributed made it to the “Most Viewed” list over at The Bible and Interpretation. Both articles are brief and challenge current thinking:
- An Ignored Contradiction between the Merneptah Stele and Archaeological Data
- Not in the Theater: Challenging Josephus’s Location for the Place of Herod Agrippa’s Death
Probably the most important work of historical geography ever written is The Sacred Bridge, by Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley. At $100, you may need convincing that it’s worth the sacrifice. I look at it this way: take the number of years left in your life and divide $100 by that. It is worth a few bucks a year to have such an extensive reference tool at arm’s length. Leen Ritmeyer has posted a brief review of the book on his blog. If you don’t need the original languages, you can cut the price in half by purchasing Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible.
If you’d like a free classic to offset the expensive purchase, you can download the entire work of George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land (pdf). This is the 4th edition (of 26!), but as far as I know, the content is largely the same. I am not sure if residents outside the US have access.
- Tagged Resources, Weekend Roundup
Leen Ritmeyer has just released a digital version of “Jerusalem in the time of Christ,” a CD with 85 images (cost with shipping is £18).
Some Muslims are upset that Israel would dare build an elevator in the Jewish Quarter to allow handicapped access to the Western Wall.
Start making plans now for excavating next year at Tel Burna in the Shephelah. If you prefer to avoid the heat, you might opt for the spring session.
G. M. Grena is recommending an old film that shows the step-by-step process of traditional pottery-making.
Jesus.org is a new website that provides all kinds of information about the Savior of the world. I was particularly impressed to see an entire section of the site featuring articles from the best teacher I’ve ever known. Doug Bookman has 40 articles in the “Harmony of the Gospels – Life of Jesus” section.
- Tagged Excavations, Jerusalem, Resources, Shephelah
Orange Circle Studio has just published their 2011 Lands of the Bible Calendar featuring some of my favorite photos. You have a chance to “Meet the Artist” in their recent blogpost. I look forward to telling you more about this fantastic calendar in the coming weeks.