I love Google Earth, and with the help of a friend, have located most important biblical sites and many other historical sites as well.  I have hopes of getting them in sufficient order to share, but time has not yet permitted.  (I know that there are places on the web that distribute files with the locations but some that I have looked at are not reliable.)  But a friend just let me know that some of the terrain is Turkey is much improved.  So if you’ve looked in the past, you might try again.  Ephesus looks great, and there’s finally sufficient resolution to see Colossae.  A few more for fun: Laodicea, Antioch on the Orontes, Haran, and Carchemish.  (The links are kmz files which you can import into Google Earth for the site’s location.)

I’ve updated the post about this below, listing the differences with it and The Sacred Bridge.  Eisenbrauns skipped the Evangelical Theological Society conference in San Diego last week, so I didn’t get to see the book myself.  I hope this doesn’t mean that Eisenbrauns is losing interest in the evangelical market.

Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible has arrived at Eisenbrauns.  Because this is a shorter version of The Sacred Bridge, it’s been dubbed by some as “The Sacred Abridgement.”  The longer volume costs $100; the shorter is $50.  The length though is more than half, and I’m sure there’s plenty of “bang for the buck.”  I haven’t seen it, but based on the longer version, I’m sure that it will be a superb resource.

The publisher’s description says this:

The object of this concise version is to augment the personal Bible study of all who seek a straightforward understanding of biblical history. Nevertheless, the reader will still have the sense that sacred history came about in a real world, a realm illumined by a multitude of discoveries and studies during the past two hundred years. Furthermore, the geographical dimension of the Bible accounts is being thoroughly presented. Every Bible student may thus put himself in the ancient reality and feel the events as they were experienced by the ancient Israelites and their neighbors.

UPDATE (11/19): Author Anson Rainey told a friend of mine that the differences between the two editions are these:

1) Bibliography and in-text references removed in shorter edition

2) Original language texts removed but translations remain

3) Two chapters on Bronze Age reduced to one

4) Typographical errors corrected

Thus it seems that with CNCHAB you get about 80% of the content for 50% of the price.

If you’ve been waiting for the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands to be available in Romanian, the first two volumes have been released (Galilee, Samaria).  The Jerusalem volume should be available next month.  Just in time for Christmas…for that special Romanian in your life. 🙂

Some of you may have the Holyland 3-D CD produced by Rohr Productions (Richard Cleave).  This flyover program has been released in several versions over the last 5+ years, and is most commonly sold with the Holy Land Satellite Atlas.  A major update is now available from SkylineGlobe.  I haven’t had time to play with it myself, but a colleague is impressed with the improvements.  If you have it and want to compare it with Google Earth or NASA Whirlwind and comment below, you’re welcome to do that.  The steps to upgrade are these:

1. Install an earlier version (even as old as v. 2).  If you don’t already have it, you can purchase the CD with an atlas here ($65).

2. Install the upgrade.

There are more details about the upgrade at Sunday Software.

It seems like it has been years that rumor has been circulating that a fifth “update” volume is due out for the New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (NEAEH). 

Word  from the Israel Exploration Society today is that the volume “will not be released before the beginning of next year.”  I guess that means that it can be anytime after January 2008.  Which guarantees that it will need a significant update by the time it first appears.  That’s true for many published and delayed works, but especially true in the archaeology of Israel.  (You can still get the four-volume set at Eisenbrauns for the great price of $150).