Israel History Maps

By Ilan and Amir Reiner

 

I bought this splendid and very informative book because I felt it would help clarify the history of Israel. I was right. It did so, and did it in a clear and understandable, and even thought-provoking manner. I saw how viewers of these fifty maps and the histories and comments that the authors placed at the side of the maps will open their eyes to many facts and give a deeper grasp of facts already known. I will give some examples.

The authors offer a brief clear history of the three eras of Israel’s history: The history as told in the Hebrew Bible, Israel and its people under foreign rule, and the reestablishment of the state since 1948. These three eras are broken up into fifteen different periods with maps shown of each and which are discussed with dates. There are altogether fifty maps.

There is a satellite map of the country, a google map showing the country’s main cities and roads, and a topographic map showing the variety of geographic features.

The Canaanite cities and kingdoms of the 12th and 13th century BCE are displayed. These show the country the Israelites planned to conquer.

The first settlement by the Israelites is shown around 1230 BCE, in Trans-Jordan. This land was settled in the days of Moses by all the tribes. Later, two and a half tribes remained there. The land was conquered around 732 BCE by the Assyrians and the two and a half tribes lost to history. This occurred about ten years before the northern country of Israel was destroyed in 722 BCE by the Assyrians, resulting in the Ten Lost Tribes.

We see the maps of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua around 1230 to 1200 BCE. Viewers may be surprised to see that the Israelites were unable to conquer all of Canaan and their possessions in Canaan were not connected.

In contrast, during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon, the Israelites controlled land as far west as the border of Egypt and north beyond Syria and south to the Red Sea.

When the country split between Judah and Israel in the days of King David’s grandson, the northern kingdom Israel had the larger area of land, until around 875 BCE when Judah was larger.

There is much more, including a picture of the very small area of Israel after the Babylonian exile and during the Bar Kokhva revolt, when Judea, as the land was then called, was only the city of Jerusalem and a few miles around it, and the enormous area controlled by the British from 1917 to 1948.

This is a book that will help all families understand the history of Israel. See

 http://www.amazon.com/Israel-History-Maps-Geographic-Sovereignty/dp/0692459324