Baker's Bible Atlas

We usually think of an atlas as simply a book of maps. However, Baker’s Bible Atlas is much more. In my first year of college the original 1961 edition, which did have a section of full colored maps, served as the textbook for the course commonly called “Freshman Bible.” The first semester

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was originally called “Old Testament History and Geography,” and the second semester was “Luke-Acts.” However, they were credited as social studies courses, “Judaeo-Christian History” and “The Beginnings of Christianity.” I have continued to use the book as a resource for studying the history and geography of the Bible.
Imagine my surprise when, after we began homeschooling, I found that Rod and Staff uses the 2003 edition Baker’s Bible Atlas, which has the full colored maps scattered throughout the book, as the textbook for “a social studies course for use in grades seven to ten” on “Bible Land History and Geography,” publishing a student workbook, test booklet, outline map supplement, and teacher’s answer key to go along with it. We used it with both boys for their seventh grade history and geography. I personally think that the tests from Rod and Staff get extremely detailed and even a little too picky, so I ended up making my own tests, but I especially liked the accompanying map work. I also used some of the material for a homeschool co-op class that I called “Ancient Middle and Near Eastern Civilizations.”
Baker’s Bible Atlas basically follows the Biblical narrative beginning with the world of the Old Testament through the Roman Empire, then picks up with New Testament Palestine through the geography of Revelation, and concludes with chapters on the centuries between, Bible lands today, and Biblical archaeology in the twentieth century. A Gazetteer and three indices help to make finding specific information in the book easy. There might be a few statements or observations of an interpretative nature with which some would disagree, but the book takes a primarily conservative and authoritative approach to the scriptures, and besides it deals primarily in factual information not theology. Since the original author Charles F. Pfeiffer, who was Professor of Ancient Literatures at Central Michigan University, is now dead, the updating of the Revised Edition was probably done by the consulting editors, E. Leslie Carlson on the Old Testament, and Martin H. Scharlemann on the New.

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