ReViews: Following Jesus on the Ground

Students and visitors to Israel often ask me to recommend one or two books they should purchase to help them better understand the world of Jesus. This is one of those books. Based on the magisterial atlas The Sacred Bridge by Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley,^a In the Master’s Steps excerpts and updates the sections dealing with the Gospel narratives. The Sacred Bridge is quite literally a weighty tome of 448 beautifully illustrated, glossy pages in somewhat small print. (It weighs more than 4 pounds.) Notley’s new publication sacrifices none of the scholarship or sophistication of that volume but presents it in a format that is physically more accessible—larger type, updated photos, excellent maps, Hebrew and Greek words in transliteration only—thereby broadening its user-friendliness.