{"id":13896,"date":"2020-08-31T15:42:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T19:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=13896"},"modified":"2020-09-14T20:47:16","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T00:47:16","slug":"geography-of-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/geography-of-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Geography of the Bible: Physical Proof of Jesus?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What can the geography of the Bible tell us about whether or not Jesus is real? Is the geography of the Bible accurate? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In The Case for Christ, Strobel argues that the geography of the Bible is generally accurate. He further argues that this gives credibility to the Bible and its authors as a whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the geography of the Bible, and what it says about the existence of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Does the Archaeological Evidence Support the Geography in the Bible?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>No archeological finding has disproved the New Testament, and <strong>Luke\u2019s gospel has proven especially accurate<\/strong>, with references to geographical and cultural landmarks later confirmed by archaeological digs in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the documentary evidence for the historical Jesus well established, Strobel moves on to investigate the <em>scientific <\/em>evidence for Jesus\u2019s existence. To do so, he visits John McRay, a professor of the New Testament and archaeology at Wheaton College in Illinois. McRay is the author of a 432-page textbook entitled <em>Archaeology and the New Testament<\/em>, and he supervised several archaeological digs in Israel over an eight-year period.\u00a0As a result, he studied Biblical geography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Archaeology <\/strong><strong><em>Can\u2019t <\/em><\/strong><strong>Tell Us<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Strobel\u2019s object in interviewing McRay is to determine whether the accounts in the gospels are true and accurate. Archaeology can tell us about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/geography-and-history\/\">history and geography<\/a> of the ancient world, <strong>but it can\u2019t tell us whether the New Testament is the Word of God or whether we ought to commit our lives to Jesus<\/strong>. These are spiritual truths whose value cannot be underwritten by scientific discovery like in Biblical geography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if the gospel writers\u2019 references to particular places and landmarks prove consistent and accurate, it lends credibility to the <em>other <\/em>parts of their accounts, particularly with Bible geography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>On John and Mark<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>John\u2019s gospel, the last to have been written, has been doubted due to geographical inaccuracy as well\u2014<strong>until it too was vindicated by relatively recent archeological discoveries<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, John describes Jesus healing an invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, which, in John\u2019s telling, has five porticoes. Because no such pool had been found, many scholars doubted this part of John\u2019s gospel (and, in turn, his gospel as a whole). <strong>But then, lo and behold, the pool was excavated from 40 feet below ground\u2014and it matched John\u2019s description precisely<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mark, according to his gospel\u2019s critics, was conspicuously ignorant of ancient Palestine\u2019s geography. His mistakes are particularly troubling given that his gospel is widely accepted to be the first to have been written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But are these issues with Bible geography really mistakes? Critics have fixated on Mark 7:31, wherein Jesus travels from Tyre through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee. Scholars of the geography of the time have pointed out that if Jesus were traveling from Tyre in the direction of Sidon, he would be moving <em>away<\/em> from the Sea of Galilee.<strong> But these scholars fail to take into account the mountainous terrain and winding roads of the region<\/strong>. Based on the actual topography of the land,<strong> the route Mark describes is perfectly logical<\/strong>. This help legitimize the geography of the Bible as proof. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can the geography of the Bible tell us about whether or not Jesus is real? Is the geography of the Bible accurate? In The Case for Christ, Strobel argues that the geography of the Bible is generally accurate. He further argues that this gives credibility to the Bible and its authors as a whole. Read more about the geography of the Bible, and what it says about the existence of Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,6],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-13896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-spiritual","tag-the-case-for-christ","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Geography of the Bible: Physical Proof of Jesus? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What can the geography of the Bible tell us about Jesus? Can it help establish the Bible&#039;s accuracy? 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