Maps Archives

Bible maps make the Bible clearer

The Casual English Bible® maps tell Bible stories in a captivating way that engages even people who have never read the Bible. Lavishly detailed maps only make the stories of Jesus and others more compelling and easier to picture and to understand.

These 3D-style maps of Bible lands are created from blended high resolution satellite images, matched to precise elevation data from international space agencies.

How to search for maps

—Type “Galilee” into the Casual English Bible’s map search engine, below. Instantly, you’ll see dozens of beautiful maps…many in 3D style. Each one tracks with a different Bible story. These aren’t generic maps with a hundred place names.
—Type “Samson” into the Bible map search engine. You’ll see the tiny village where he lived in the Judean foothills below Jerusalem.
—Type “Corinthians” and you’ll see a gallery full of maps associated with Paul’s letters of 1, 2 Corinthians, to the church in Corinth, Greece.

3D sense of the lay of the land

Get a feel for the lay of the land:

—Ararat Mountains, where Noah’s boat ran aground. The Bible doesn’t say it was Mount Ararat.
—Judean hills where Joshua and the Israelites found most of their battles for the Promised Land. They avoided the plains, where their enemies with armored chariots had the advantage over Israel’s foot soldiers.
—Jesus’ 20-mile climb from Jericho and the Jordan River Valley upward half a mile high, to the crest of the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem.
—One surprise for some readers is the Jesus Triangle, a plug of ground between three cities. It’s where Jesus spent most of his ministry time. A person can walk that entire triangle in a single day. Type “Jesus triangle” to see it.

Jerusalem, Solomon’s kilometer

3d Bible map of Solomon's Jerusalem for The Casual English Bible.

Jerusalem, Solomon's kilometer

Bible Book: 1 Kings, 2 Kings Type: Maps Location: City of David, Hinnom Valley, Kidron Valley, Millo, Ophel, Solomon's Palace, Solomon's Temple Era: Heroes, kings

Jerusalem

Solomon's kilometer

Solomon's Jerusalem was just a kilometer long, north to south. It extended from the Temple hilltop to the Hinnom Valley, which lay below the City of David at the southern bottom of the ridge. A kilometer is just three-quarters of mile. But in Solomon's day, Jerusalem, with it's first Jewish Temple and a new palace, became quite the attraction. Perhaps Solomon's most famous guest was the Queen of Sheba, wherever Sheba was. Scholars can only guess.

Jerusalem Temple on bedrock

Solomon built his Temple on bedrock at the top of the ridge. Some people today call that hill the Temple Mount. King David lived down the hill in the City of David. It was a smaller, walled city below the top of the ridge.

Solomon's pagan shrine

"Solomon built a hilltop shrine for worshiping Chemosh, god of Moab. And on the Mount of Olives, the ridge of hills east of Jerusalem, he built a shrine to worship Molech, another repulsive god of Ammon. He built similar places of worship for all his foreign wives, so they could continue worshiping their own gods by burning incense and offering sacrifices" (1 Kings 11:7-8, Casual English Bible).

Jerusalem, uphill, upgraded, upended

Solomon's Temple lasted 400 years, a tad beyond expectations of "builder's grade." Babylonian invaders from what is now southern Iraq destroyed it and the entire city in 586 BC.

Jews deported

Babylonians exiled the surviving Jews to what are now Iraq and Iran. Persians of Iran conquered the Babylonians 50 years later and freed the Jews to go home. They rebuilt an apparently more modest Temple in 516 BC. That means from 586-516 BC, Jews had lived without a Jerusalem worship center for 70 years. Then, 70 years after they built the second Temple, Nehemiah, a Jewish winetaster for the Persian king, got permission to go to Jerusalem and repair the walls. He served there as governor for about 13 years.