No other Bible atlas so realistically depicts the landscape of the bible world; no other Bible atlas contains such a wealth of maps and illustrations. At the core of any atlas are the maps. Atlas of the Bible has dozens of these, many reproduced at the generous scale of one inch to eight miles - the largest full-color maps ever seen in a Bible atlas. These large-scale projections were created specifically for this volume by Reader's Digest and are based on the definitive, up-to-date relief of the Holy Land as compiled by Survey of Israel, the cartographic branch of Israel's Ministry of Labor. Atlas of the Bible is much more than a book of maps; here are full-color views of the Holy Land today; reproductions of religious works of art and artifacts of the vanished civilizations that vied for power in the land bridge between Asia and Africa.; dramatic full-spread reconstructions of buildings and cities of the Bible world; beautiful paintings that show how people dressed in Bible times; meticulous renderings of the plants and animals of the Holy Land. In addition, there are special features on the currency, weights and measures cited in the Bible; the geology of the Holy Land; the work of archaeologists who are digging up the past. Here, too, is an informative essay on the history of the Bible, a portfolio of antique maps, a full-spread chronology that relates people and events of the Bible to other civilizations of the ancient world. A virtual book-within-a-book, the 32 page "Gazetteer of the Bible World" is an A-Z listing of some 900 biblical place-names - giving location (where known), history, and biblical citation. (from the dust jacket)