The Satellite Bible Atlas by Bill Schlegel and Todd BolenI admit it...I'm a map geek. I love good maps. I also despise bad maps. When Google came out with their mapping program(s), the skies in my world became a deeper shade of blue. If I could somehow count the number of hours that I have spent looking at Google Maps and bouncing back and forth between Traditional View, Satellite View and Terrain View, I would probably be embarrassed. As a Bible student, I really love good, high resolution maps of Biblical places. And, for some reason, finding good Bible maps is much harder than you would think. As I flip through Bible workbooks, I have seen Jericho in about a dozen different places. It is usually generally in the right area, but it should be in the right place. What good is a map if the cities on it are not in the right locations? Well, it ceases to be a map. It's really just a work of art that vaguely resembles a map. (By the way, if you want to know where Old Testament Jericho is located, it is at 31.870037,35.443788.)

About a week ago, Todd Bolen blogged about a new resource that was being released called the Satellite Bible Atlas. After reading through the description and looking at the sample pages, I couldn't hit the "Purchase" button fast enough. The last six days have been an exercise in patience waiting for it to arrive. Over the weekend, my wife and I travelled to Tampa, Florida where we were able to visit with Ferrell Jenkins. He had been given an advanced copy and showed it to me. Ten minutes later he was having to pry it out of my fingers for fears that he may never see it again.

I'm happy to say that my copy arrived in the mail yesterday. And, it is everything that I knew it would be. Featuring over 75 full-page, high resolution maps, it does a fantastic job of pointing out many of the locations that we read about in the Bible. Some maps even feature colorization of the valleys to show you why those locations are so strategically important. If you are interested in Biblical geography at all, this is something that you need to add to your library. I noticed this morning that Luke Chandler's copy arrived in the mail yesterday as well.

Well done, Todd Bolen and Bill Schlegel. Very well done.