The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible [Hardcover]

James Harpur (Author), Marcus Braybrooke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1999

The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible James Harpur and Marcus Braybrooke 2000 Catholic Press Association Award Winner! The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible offers those with an interest in their historical and religious heritage a guided tour through the Bible. It describes the stories and events of the Bible and places them in their historical and geographical context. Fabulous 3-D cutaways, maps, and ground plans, all based on the latest historical evidence, enhance the comprehensive text and bring the dramatic events of the Old and New Testaments to life in glorious detail. When the Bible says that Abraham migrated from Ur, Jacob fled to Haran, and Jesus healed and taught in Galilee, many people think of these places as merely names with a semi-legendary status. But with recent archaeology, sites such as Jericho, Hazor, Megiddo, and Masada are now living monuments to the dramatic

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Liturgical Press (August 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814627021
• ISBN-13: 978-0814627020
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 9.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #822,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The crease kills it, December 3, 2000

By 

Roy Zyla (Nyack, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible (Hardcover)

Like many other atlases of biblical times, this atlas is filled with colorful images, drawings and maps. In particular, this book is more than just an atlas, but a visual guide to the location and lifestyle of the biblical lands. Many of the visual insets are well reporduced and nicely described. The text is easy to read, informed by recent scholarly opinion, and is approached from a secular standpoint.

The main complaint with the book is its layout of images of cities and area maps across two pages. While the larger size of the maps and images of cities and temples is appreciated, the hardcover binding of the book really distorts the images. For example, about 2 inches of the map on page 59 of the Assyrian Empire is pushed leftwards on to page 58, and to the right of the map is a two inch column depicting a tribute obelisk. While removing this small image and description and placing it on page 58, leaving 59 free to contain the entire map, might make the book's page layout less exciting, at least the map would not be distorted by the binding crease.

Since the main focus of an atlas of this sort should be its images (and not necessarily the text, although that is important), it really detracts from the overall appreciation of the book to experience such distortion of maps and images page after page. Almost every 3D topographical map is distorted in this fashion.

The publisher would have better served the editors if care would have been taken to create maps and images which could either have been contained on one page, or designed with a hardcover binding as interference, reducing the image distortion.

Otherwise the book is beautifully done, containing clear appropriate images and easy, intelligent text, without noticable religious bias. If your looking just for images and maps, perhaps you might look elsewhere. But if you want interesting engaging text with nicely done (though poorly implemented) maps and drawings, as well as a wealth of descriptive artifacts from the lands of the bible, then I would recommend this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lavishly illustrated, mediocre layout, April 14, 2006

By 

R. P. Poletti "Just a guy" (Hillsboro, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible (Hardcover)

This book is beautiful! The illustrations are wonderful. It reminds me of the old Time-Life books.

You will find illustrations juxtaposed with photos of recovered artifacts. The maps are wonderful and well drawn. There are several cut-away views of places like the Hebrew Tabernacle, Solomon's Temple Herod's Palace and Masada. You will find illustrations of Jerusalem at various points in history. There is even a view of the Via Dolorosa (Christ's walk to Calvary).

The text for the most part is only marginally useful, though only peripherally related to the images on the page. It consists mainly of simple Bible stories. The captions, however, are quite helpful.

Unfortunately, the author seems to have forgotten that there is such a thing as a binding in a book. Many illustrations and maps needlessly cross the binding and are distorted and obscured. I say needlessly because in most cases they would have fit on one page, but instead some text or a smaller image pushed the larger one to the side. This is so frequent that it is a serious shortcoming and detracts significantly.

Overall a good effort, but the layout drops it at least a full star.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From the cover:, August 9, 2005

By 

S. McDonald "Library World" (Independence, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible (Hardcover)

This book contains:
· a visual guide through the world of the Bible,
· up-to-date maps from Oxford Cartographers,
· modern pictorial techniques show the current findings of biblical archaeology and ecumenical Bible research,
· rich illustrations,
· computer-simulated three-dimensional reconstructions,
· a synthesis of the biblical past and present based on the highest canons of scholarship,
· a sharply highlighted and imaginatively presented glimpse of a past world, and
· a fascinating and informative reference work for all who love the inexhaustible riches of the Bible and delight in delving into it.