Books in Brief

Two Atlases

The Harper Atlas of the Bible

James B. Pritchard, General Editor (New York Harper & Row, 1987) 254 pp., $49.95

The Harper Atlas of the Bible is a lavish production containing approximately 130 attractive, full-color maps (not counting map insets), a wide variety of full-color photos and an exceptionally rich collection of diagrams, reproductions, line-drawings, charts and graphs. The text is lucid, even though it was written by nearly 50 authors. The atlas makes use of newer geographical technologies (photogrammetry, for example) that make possible improved simulations of three-dimensional relief maps.

Eight pages are given over to a chronological timeline that spans the period between 1,500,000 B.C. and 150 A.D., with each time frame further subdivided into such categories as technology, climate, social organization, architecture, significant events and the like. The book contains a complete gazetteer that includes helpful information for both scholar and layperson. In a somewhat novel section entitled “People of the Bible,” the atlas presents the names of many Biblical characters who figure prominently on the maps, arranged alphabetically, together with a list of the places where each name is cited in the Biblical text. The atlas is well bound and printed on first-quality glossy paper.