This page accompanies my forthcoming article in Transactions in GIS. Besides a short abstract of the article it provides interactive maps.
Introduction
This article aims to explore the methodological applicability of geospatial technologies (GIS) (like spatio-temporal analysis) for interpretation of biblical texts and to obtain first insights of its potential. Three case studies on a list of nations that are mentioned in the New Testament book of Acts will be elaborated for this purpose.
The texts in Acts 2:9-11 mention specific nations and peoples attending the Jewish Pentecost – a religious festival occurring annually fifty days after Passover to celebrate the first fruits – in Jerusalem. It is interesting to explore these verses from a geographical perspective to gain better understanding about the origin of the people. Popular Bible Atlases, e.g., provide maps locating these peoples and nations, but seem to conceal the text’s “frequently problematic geography” , its difficulties “in various respects” and “severe problems” . The proposed article will elaborate on three of these issues: the identity of the audience in the text; the probability of suggested backgrounds and the reconstruction of the original text.
Case 1: network analysis to gain insights in the identity of the audience
One of the pertaining issues regarding Acts 2:5, 9-11 concerns the identity of the audience. The text is clear, i.e. they “…recognized the indigenous languages and dialects of their native lands.” . But were the people in the audience residents of Jerusalem, who migrated from the Jewish Diaspora colonies; or residents of respectively Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia etc. who travelled to Jerusalem to attend the religious festival?
The same data can be used for other types of analyses, i.e. for which region are the most diaspora communities identified? Please notice, the data does not contain any information about time period or population, which limits the mapping applications.
Assuming at least some of the participants had been travelling towards Jerusalem, an interesting question is: “What was involved in travelling these distances; What routes could have been taken, what influence did the time of year have and how about the weather? Could be verified from which regions they could have travelled?” To provide answers to these questions GIS tooling and network analysis are employed.
As the paper shows, experiments with the spatio-temporal analysis reveal patterns and provide additional insights about the transport networks, its availability during the seasons and costs involved in travelling which are relevant for New Testament exegesis. The results also show that a map reader should be suspicious of their intuitions on proximity because the identified possible travel distances are far from trivial.
Case study 2: geographical arrangement of the list of nations
This case study aims at understanding why specific locations are mentioned in the text. Scholars have studied the geographical arrangement and sought for existing parallels in ancient literature which could serve as a possible background or source for the list to answer this question.
This case study will assess and evaluate suggested geographical backgrounds from contemporary sources to the list of nations in Acts 2. The final paper will show that the usage of cartographical portrayal appears to be ambiguous: while the birds’ eye view conceals dissimilarities between locations in both lists; it also stimulates insights about the structure of these lists by providing the possibility to apply the imminent classification from one list to the other.
Luke
Paulus Alexandrinus
Philo
Luke classified
Case study 3: Conjectural emendations on Ἰουδαίαν in Acts 2:9
Only copies of New Testament manuscripts have been preserved over time. To reconstruct the original text, these differences have been intensively studied by textual critics. However, these studies often show difficulties in the text (i.e. logical contradictions, inconsistencies), which could not be solved by opting for a different text variant. To overcome the difficulties in the text, “…the editor’s only remaining resource is to conjecture what the original reading must have been.” .
The final case study addresses this issue. It investigates the use of a space-time cube for visualization and analysis of conjectural emendations for Judaea in Acts 2:9.