The Geography of the New Testament World
 

There are two main differences between what we can see today from a satellite hovering over the east end of the Mediterranean Sea and what would have been seen two thousand years ago.  First, Lake Huleh north of the sea of Galilee is nearly gone.  Also called the waters of Merom, Lake Huleh has been steadily silting up for millennia.  By modern times, it was mostly a swamp, and from 1950 to 1958 over 12,000 acres of it were drained to become farmland.  The second thing we would notice is that the Dead Sea is much smaller than it was in New Testament times.

The Roman Province of Palestine The Romans occupied the Holy Land in 63-64 B.C. when the Roman General Pompey was welcomed into the gates of Jerusalem by the forces of Hyrcanus II.  Hyrcanus was of the Hasmonean family which had driven the Greco-Syrian armies out of Israel generations before.  The Jews under the Hasmoneans had previously been allies with the Romans rather than subjects. (I Maccabees 1-8) Note the city of Samaria. (sometimes the region is called Samaria and the city is called Sebaste).

Paul's Journeys

The Apostle Paul is known for his missionary journeys.  This map gives you an idea of how much he traveled; although, it does not try to list all the cites mentioned in the accounts of Paul's journeys in the book of Acts.  The journeys are coded

• green for the first missionary journey,
• blue for the second missionary journey,
• black for the third missionary journey, and
• red for Paul's journey to Rome for trial and his eventual execution circa 67.

Note the cities which received letters from Paul which ended up in our New Testament. (Galatians was written to Christians in the region of Galatia.)

• Rome
• Corinth
• Ephesus
• Philippi
• Colossae
• Thessalonica

The Cultures of the New Testament World

Unlike the events chronicled in the Old Testament, the events in the New Testament took place in a relatively short time and space.  Nearly all the events in the gospels took place in just three years and even Paul's extensive journeys occupied less than a quarter of the Mediterranean world.  We also know more about First-Century Palestine (the name of the Roman Province covering the territory occupied by modern Israel, Palestine, and parts of Jordan and Syria), than you might expect given the intervening twenty centuries.  The Romans kept lots of records about their actions and about the cultures they added to their empire.  Consequently, when it comes to our understanding of the cultures and customs of the New Testament world, we have a lot of material to sift through and to help us interpret the text.

Jesus and his followers would have spoken Aramaic and only heard Hebrew in the readings at the synagogue and in the Temple.  The Roman soldiers would have spoken Latin and the traders and travelers would have often transacted business in Greek.  Alongside these language differences, there would have been the related divergences in customs, clothing, and culture.  Occasionally the text itself points out the difficulties related to different cultures in such close proximity. 

For instance, the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah in Hebrew needed an interpreter (Acts 8:26-39).  The Italian centurion Cornelius cannot be visited and converted by the ritually observant Simon Peter until after Peter's vision of the lowered sheet with unclean animals (Acts 10).  Occasionally, however, even though the cultural differences are great, the writer just assumes the reader will understand the difficulties as in the story of the "good Samaritan" and Jesus' unique choice and implication in making his "hero" the ultimate outsider (Luke 10:25-37).

Good study Bibles exist to provide this information about the context of a passage in the introductory articles at the beginning of the chapter or book and in margin notes and footnotes.  Please use them as you pursue your own New Testament study.

For Further Study

The World Wide Study Bible