Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 17

Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 17

The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). After describing the physical geography, Hurlbutt proceeds directly the “The Journeys of the Patriarchs.” He writes (p. 17):

The journeys of Abraham extend over nearly all the lands of the Old Testament from Chaldea to Egypt. They represent the separation of a Semitic clan from the great body of the race, which was then ruled by an Elamite dynasty; and they bring to our notice the political relations of the world about two thousand years before Christ, in the early Chaldean period of the East.

The chart and the map illustrate the narrow thinking of this antiquated Bible atlas. The Babylonian king Hamurabi, whose law code is not mentioned by Hurlbutt, is equated with Amraphel of Genesis 14:1 and dated, biblically, to 1967 B.C. Unfortunately for the literal followers of Hurlbutt, the name Amraphel has never surfaced and the entire story in Genesis cannot be verified as history. But it is colorful, never the less.

To be continued …