foreign on social media recently I saw this map going about in red are all the countries mentioned in the Bible the map has been posted and reposted now for a few years and in the comments below there was some confusion it doesn't include any biblical references or explanation and how is France there and not Jordan I thought I'd put my degree in Biblical history and languages to good use and investigate this question for myself and I came up with this map a Bible accurate version you could say I want to break this map down for
you and explore all the interesting historical and linguistic tidbits I learned along the way pack your bags and bring your sun cream as we explore the countries mentioned in the bible wait hang on there's a problem with this title you see when the Bible was written the countries as we know them today didn't even exist in fact the modern definition of a country itself didn't really come about until a few hundred years ago so it's not very historically sound to say that the Bible mentions actual countries well except for some very rare and interesting exceptions
the title of this video should really be regions or locations existing within current geographical boundaries that are referenced to or mentioned in the bible but that's a pretty long-winded title for a YouTube video oh and there's something else I ought to explain the Bible there's no one version of it that all Christians can agree on although that would be nice instead each denomination tends to have its own Canon and translations meaning that different places appear in different Bibles and don't get me started on the Apocrypha the Bible I'll be using is the new revised Standard
Version which is used in Academia and biblical studies that means I won't be using the Book of Mormon sorry America all right that wraps up my overly detailed disclaimer hopefully I prevented any political and religious flame Wars from erupting in the comments okay let's get going I'll be starting in the Middle East the geographical region where the Bible originally came from beginning with Israel perhaps unsurprisingly this country is by far the most mentioned in the Bible in Hebrew alone the word Israel is used 2485 times makes sense it's where almost all of the Bible stories
are set there are so many biblical names that can apply to this region from Canaan Samaria and Judah and there are other territories like Gaza and philistia that represent the modern state of Palestine moving eastwards and we have Mesopotamia the land between two rivers a land that's today known as Iraq the fertile Shores left by the Tigris and Euphrates gave rise to the ancient kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia both appear in the Old Testament as Israel's larger not so friendly neighbors the Bible is full of various battles invasions and prophecies about these two kingdoms in
fact it's believed that many biblical texts were written and compiled in Babylon somewhere between 587 and 539 BC a period known as the Jewish Exile as they lacked to Homeland the early Jews wrote down their stories and laws in captivity which gave rise to the Torah speaking of rivers next up is Jordan today the River Jordan marks the boundary between the states of israel-palestine and the modern day Kingdom of Jordan This River has a very special status in the Bible Joshua crossed it to conquer Canaan and Jesus was baptized in it to conquer sin in
the Old Testament the people who lived beyond the river Jordan were known as the moabites sadly the people who wrote the Bible didn't have very nice things to say about them according to the Book of Genesis the ancestor of the merbites was the result of an incestuous love affair between lot and his eldest daughter it's fine the merbites wrote similar nasty stuff about the Israelites too traveling south is Midian a region that's today known as Saudi Arabia it's a dry and arid place and famous for being the land in which Moses and the Hebrews partially
spent their 40 years wandering the desert the highlight of that Journey had to be Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai today there's a bit of debate where that mountain actually is most believe it's jabal Musa in Egypt but there are four other contenders found in Saudi Arabia it's still uncertain but in the New Testament the Apostle Paul says that the real Mount Sinai is somewhere in Arabia so there's that the question is does that correspond to the borders of modern day Saudi Arabia if someone figures out the answer there might be a certain
Lost Treasure to be found up north we have Aram AKA Syria and Lebanon AKA Lebanon like Israel Lebanon is one of the few countries whose name is preserved in the Bible since ancient times the region has been famous for its trees most of all cedar trees which were reportedly used to build King Solomon's Temple the cedar has since become lebanon's national emblem and even appears on its flag further north we have turkey in the Bible this region is given lots of different names none of which are turkey from Cappadocia Anatolia the land of Hattie Cecilia
phrygia to pontus in the book of Acts it's simply known as Asia not to be confused with the continent Asia this version is Little Asia or Asia Minor now for something a little mysterious the land of Ararat in the Old Testament it's described as being a distant mountainous region famous for being the place where Noah's Ark landed After the flood but biblical scholars believe that Ararat is the Hebrew version of uratu a kingdom which corresponds to ancient Armenia a kingdom which in 300 A.D became the first state to officially adopt Christianity a decade or so
before the Roman Empire the final Middle Eastern country I haven't yet mentioned is Iran historically known as Persia the Bible celebrates this nation for ending the Jewish Exile and returning Israel to its Homeland the book of Isaiah gives a special shout out to its king Cyrus the Great he is given the title anointed one or Messiah Persia has played a huge role in the history of the region and at a time was one of the largest empires of its day in fact the Book of Esther tells us that its borders stretched all the way from
Kush more on that later to a province called hoju which is often translated as India hodu likely refers to the Indus a river that flows through modern day Pakistan despite this it's where we get the English words like India Hindu and that Biblical word hodu so Pakistan and India congratulations you've made it into the Bible there may be another ancient reference to India in the Bible in the book of Kings King Solomon not only Imports cedar trees from Lebanon but also receives a shipment of gold silver Ivory and monkeys from the land of Affair these
exotic Treasures have led Scholars to believe that Affair is in Southern India or potentially even Sri Lanka it might seem far out but these eras have always been wealthy trading ports famous for exports of Sandalwood precious metals spices Ivory and potentially even monkeys the biggest candidate for the biblical Affair is pavar a bustling port at the tip of South India wherever a fear is it's a long way from Jerusalem that's for sure and that about wraps up Asia here are the regions the Bible references so far it's already a geographical area from the spice ports
of India to the cold mountains of Armenia but we're only just getting started two more continents to go up next Africa it might seem hard to think of references to Africa in the Bible but there are plenty in fact it's easy to forget that Israel has a border with an African nation Egypt being one of the great civilizations of the ancient world Egypt is a big player in the Bible unfortunately however it mostly gets portrayed as a villain if you've ever read the book of Exodus or watched The Prince of Egypt you'll be familiar with
the story of how the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians and how God uses 10 persuasive plagues to help unharden Pharaoh's heart in the rest of the Bible Egypt takes a bit of a back seat and leaves Israel well alone they seem to have finally got the memo from Moses a little language tidbit for you all Egypt has a lot of names the Biblical word for Egypt is mitsarayim and is still used today in Semitic languages like Hebrew and Aramaic the name we use for Egypt is from the Greek egyptos which is the origin of
the word Gypsy a derogatory term used against the Romani people of Indian descent the ancient Egyptians refer to their country as chemet meaning black land a reference to the dark and fertile Nile soil traveling up the Nile and we get to the land of cush a territory that is now Sudan and South Sudan sometimes referred to as Nubia Kush is a criminally underrated African civilization They too had pyramids their own writings and gave their Egyptian neighbors plenty of grief on the battlefield the Bible contains plenty of references to the land of kush one of which
I've already mentioned according to the Book of Esther it was the westernmost province of the Persian Empire although in reality Persia didn't hold on to this region for very long another interesting reference to the people of kush is Moses's wife look at the 17th century painting by Jacob Jordans you'll immediately notice that his wife is of African descent in the Book of Numbers we learned that she was a cushite woman while the kingdom of kush historically can be found in Sudan and South Sudan some references to the land of kush seem to refer instead to
Ethiopia the Bible also calls the kingdom Sheba you may be familiar with the famous queenersheepa who visits King Solomon's Temple after hearing rumors about its Splendor to Ethiopian churches today the Queen of Sheba has a very prominent role the Ethiopian National Chronicle the cabernergast traces the country's Royal Line back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon it's difficult to know where exactly the kingdom of Sheba is today but it probably was a territory that existed along the borders of modern day Ethiopia Eritrea Djibouti and even possibly across the sea into Yemen wow four countries
and two continents in one we complete our African nations in the Bible with Libya whose provinces get a brief mention in the New Testament our Biblical map is really starting to take shape but there's one continent left to visit Europe [Music] by the time of the New Testament the region of modern day Israel Palestine belonged to the Roman Empire during this Pax Romana the Empire connected the entire Mediterranean with a network of busy shipping channels something that the early Christians used to their advantage shortly after the death of Jesus in Judea Christian communities began to
spring up in coastal towns along the Eastern Mediterranean particularly in Greece the Apostle pulls many Epistles were addressed to these Greek communities whether that be to the Corinthians at Corinth the Thessalonians at thessaly or the Philippians at Philippi Greece became an early hub for Christianity and Greek swiftly became the language of the New Testament and then came Italy or more specifically its capital despite a few references to the province of Italia Rome and the Romans are mentioned many times throughout the New Testament there's even a book called Romans the Eternal City would become pivotal in
Christianity status as a world religion and for many people Rome and Italy is the heart of the religion today the New Testament references many smaller provinces that can be linked to the countries of Europe today there's Cyprus Dalmatia which would become Croatia and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina Macedonia which is in parts of Greece and modern-day North Macedonia sagithia which at that time would have referred to Romania and Bulgaria there's even a reference to spanian which is likely Spain and Portugal too if you're feeling generous in fact Spain might feature in the Old Testament too
in the famous story of Jonah and the whale the prophet attempts to flee God's Presence by sailing west to tarshish scholars believe that tarshish may be tartesos a vibrant Port City in the south of modern day Spain at the time it would have been seen as the edge of the known world so would have been a Fitting Place for a hapless Prophet to sail in an attempt to flee God the last place on our map is potentially the most controversial and that's France it's controversial as it appears in a book that's not accepted in all
versions of the Bible in the book of Maccabees there's a reference to a tribe known as the ghouls the ghouls were at Celtic people that lived in modern day France Now France as a country is a package deal because of its unique political structure all of France's current overseas territories are also technically part of France places like French Guyana in South America and French Polynesia in the Pacific are as much as France as European France this means that by a sheer constitutional technicality the Bible can conceivably refer to Antarctica as France has claimed to territory
there if we are to dubiously include France our map goes truly International but because France's inclusion is from a partially recognized biblical text I'm going to pass socially recognize France on my map just like how France's claim in Antarctica is also partially recognized sorry France nothing personal there we have it a map of every country that the Bible references is your country there if not should your country be on there I'd be curious to hear whether the Eastern land of sinim mentioned in Isaiah 49 12 could be a reference to China of course this map
is heavily caveat by the fact that almost all of these countries did not exist when the Bible was written but shout out to Egypt Lebanon Israel Persia Cyprus Greece Italy and Spain that still exist today or at least go by the names that appear in the Bible this map is a big Improvement to the one that often gets circulated online even if I say so myself for one it has neat references down the side feel free to screenshot my Bible accurate version and share it around I have a high resolution one in the description down
below when you look at this map from a distance you'll notice how the majority of mentioned countries are in the Middle East this makes sense the Bible was written in this region the biblical writers had lots to say about their close neighbors to the North East South but ler writers also knew of lands outside the Middle East from the rich African kingdoms of kush to the Exotic Maritime ports of ancient India and potentially Sri Lanka regions that lay on the periphery of the Known World the map stretches over a massive area it's astonishing to think
that the biblical writers were even faintly familiar with these places one explanation for this is ancient trade routes you may have noticed that many of these exotic lands are mentioned in the story of King Solomon's Temple and how precious raw materials were imported from far away places from the strongest Lebanese Cedars to the finest Indian ivories the temple was so luxurious it was even talked about as far away as Ethiopia it doesn't even matter whether King Solomon was even real we know these geographical regions exist today and the biblical writers seem to nerve them as
well used as a historical document the Bible is a snapshot in time into the Supreme surprising world of early trade finding Real World locations in the Bible reveals just how connected the ancient world was these biblical people knew about their neighbors both near and far even if it wasn't mapped out as extensively as it is today come for the Biblical history stay for a lesson in geopolitics and early trade who'd have thought hey thanks for watching I really hope you enjoyed this one if you like this video and want to see more why not subscribe
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