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by Barry J. Beitzel (Editor)
2019 Christianity Today Book Award Winner in Biblical Studies
2019 ECPA Finalist in Biblical Reference
Many familiar Gospel narratives are filled with geographic details that people gloss over because of their distance from the Holy Land.
Yet climate, landscape, natural resources, and other features of geography leave a lasting mark on the societies and cultures that have developed within them. In a world of dirt roads and dry riverbeds, where shepherds watch their flocks in the hills and fishermen mend their nets by the sea, Jesus taught from hill and plain, using the surrounding landscape as the backdrop for his teaching. Jesus' parables and illustrations are often brimming with geographic clues, but the significance of these distinctive details is often lost. The Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels puts readers in the sandals of the disciples as they travel throughout Israel with Jesus, explaining the significance of geography for mining the riches of the biblical text.
Author Biography
Dr. Barry J. Beitzel is professor emeritus of Old Testament and semitic languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He holds a Ph.D. in ancient Near Eastern studies from Dropsie University in Philadelphia. He obtained a postdoctorate in ancient Near Eastern geography from the Université de Liège, Belgium, and has engaged in postdoctoral archaeological work through UCLA in eastern Syria. Dr. Beitzel is the author of The New Moody Atlas of the Bible. His publications on Near Eastern geography have appeared in a variety of monographs and journals, from Biblical Archaeology Review and The Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research to Iraq: The British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
