8 ms·
Interactive map of Paul's first century travels in Roman world
- thrown-0825 1y agoThe original christian mega church grifter. Jesus would have cast him out along with the rest of the pharisees if he had the chance.
- intofarlands 1y agoI created an interactive map overlaying Apostle Paul’s 20,000km of journeys on a 1st century Roman Roads network, with modern vs. ancient cities and site photos. The base map utilizes the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire (DARE), which was embedded into ArcGIS, with all four of Paul’s journeys with every stop added. The Roman Roads map can also be switched to a modern map to compare the ancient vs. modern locations. This is part of a personal project I am embarking on called Kingdoms Collide, where I plan to retrace every step of Paul’s journeys across the ancient Roman Roads.
- teytra 1y agoInteresting. Is it possible to add what sources you use for each datapoint? The Acts and Epistles of course (verse numbers would be nice), but you use more sources, right?
- turing_complete 1y agoIt already shows the sources if you click on the markers
- intofarlands 1y agoThanks for checking it out! I have the verse references, with plans to add all the relevant verses within the box as well. Most of the locations are known historically, however some could benefit with additional sources, such as Malta. I will try to add those as well
- bambax 1y agoMagnificent project, congrats! Is ArcGIS free for this kind of project?
- intofarlands 1y agoThank you! Yes, it is free through ArcGIS Online, their web-based mapping software
- IncreasePosts 1y agoWhy Paul? Is it because he was just particularly well traveled and well documented?
- swader999 1y agoNot op, but Paul was on his way to persecute Christians when he was confronted by a vision of the risen Jesus. Acts 9:15 – The Lord said to Ananias about Paul: “This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.” His mission to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles makes him a good choice for this work.
- alsetmusic 1y ago(Also not OP, so this is not speaking for them but speaking to the documentation.) The more accurate answer is that Paul wrote (or was supposed to have written) a bunch of letters documenting his travels. The book of Acts (christian bible) also documents his travels. Note that multiple of the Pauline epistles are widely recognized to be forgeries written in his name. The time of the other apostles post-New Testament is mostly accounted as tradition rather than written record. I'm not saying all, I'm saying most. I do not pretend to be an expert. There's no map to be made of the travels of Thomas, for example. Only the idea that he reached India (and maybe some other details that I'm leaving out). Or Jame-the-Just, who, as far as I can tell, might have gone to Rome but didn't travel the Mediterranean. The reason for his conversion has little to nothing why this is interesting (to me, to scholars, to people who aren't of the faith). I've been reading a ton about the first two centuries of christianity for a couple of years and this is my current understanding. It's an exciting topic if you're a history nerd. Especially if you're an atheist who wants to better understand the formation of the dogma that you might have been taught as a child. Apologies for stomping on your reply / reasoning. I don't agree with your answer. No harm intended.
- swader999 1y agoI don't mind your response, it's interesting. There's a wide body of scholarship on who wrote each Epistle and when, no point trying to debate that here imo. I agree they weren't all written by him, but the seven that were are enough for decades of individual study and reflection. In the ancient world, writing in the name of a respected teacher wasn’t always seen as fraud the way we think today. It could be seen as honoring a tradition — like continuing a school of thought under a founder’s name. I don't think our replies negate each other, they seem complimentary to me. Another aspect that's interesting is that his path covers most of the territory that was conquered by Alexander the Great, see Daniel 8-11. This Hellenistization and Paul's strength in Greek rhetoric, and 'dual' citizenship made him well suited for quickly spreading the gospel to these areas. Jewish by birth and religion — giving him authority in synagogues, knowledge of Scripture, and credibility among Jews. Roman by law and politics — granting him rights that protected him and enabled his mission across the empire. This combination was rare and made Paul uniquely suited to bridge cultures: he could preach to Jews in their synagogues, debate philosophers in Greek forums, and stand trial before Roman governors.
- w0de0 1y agoDo you also plan to take the sea journey?
- furyofantares 1y agoI'd love to know the distance traveled by boat vs by.. foot? donkey? camel? Just boat vs non-boat would be interesting. But foot vs animal, if that data is even possible to figure out, would also be interesting.
- intofarlands 1y agoI believe most of the journeys by land were done by foot. The Roman Roads were unprecedented in history at the time, especially by the 1st century, enabling someone like Paul to actually be able to traverse like he did. I have plans to include the distances and approx. time for each of the legs.
- Mistletoe 1y agoHow did Paul make money and buy food for the journeys?
- intofarlands 1y agoPaul financially supported himself as a tentmaker (See Acts 18:3 - “There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.”) There are also other mentions he was a tentmaker.
- Mistletoe 1y agoInteresting. I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole and seen Thomas Jefferson call Paul the first corrupter of Jesus’ teachings and I’m seeing everything in a brand new way. It makes a lot of sense.
- krapp 1y ago[flagged]
- beardyw 1y agoThere is widely held view, based on textual analysis, that some letters attributed to Paul are not by him. Most prominent of those are 1 and 2 Timothy, thought to be by Timothy himself, and the source of many of the ideas you complain about. Those letters, even at the time the Bible was compiled - about 400 AD, were nearly not included due to doubts about their authenticity.
- krapp 1y agoFair enough, but they were included and they were attributed to Paul. The Gospels probably weren't written by the apostles they were attributed to, either. You can put quotes around Paul's name in this context but the effect is still the same.
- andretti1977 1y agoBeautiful work, no other words. I’ve always thought it would be cool to build a side project like OpenStreetMap, where people can mark the places traveled by famous historical figures — kind of like what you did with Paul’s journey, but open to any historical figure. Do you know if there’s anything like that out there?
- intofarlands 1y agoThank you so much! I don’t know of anything like that, but what a cool idea. I have a passion for the Silk Roads as well, and I made an interactive map for it. Soon I will add Marco Polo’s and Ibn Battuta’s routes to it. I really like historical journeys and how they intersect with the modern locations
- parodysbird 1y agoI'd recommend looking into adding a speculative final journey he might have taken to Spain. He mentions plans to go there in Romans, and other sources like 1 Clement and Jerome suggest he actually went there. The city of Tarragona has a tradition that he visited, as a speculative destination to map.
- fsiefken 1y agoWhat a nicely done narrative presentation and container (ArcGIS etc) of travel. Immersive 360 degree pictures might be nice to add. There's a 1990 board game about Paul's travels with a similar map, but with less narrative detail, it's more about immersion and play. Tom Vasel wrote a review: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/100649/review-journeys-of-paul https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/100649/review-journeys-of-p... Campaign variant: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/127941/missionary-campaigns-variation https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/127941/missionary-campaigns... Other - a bit more crunchy and modern board games that feature a little bit of Paul are Commissioned (2016) and The Acts (2018) & expansions - both games can be solo'd - good for personal immersion in the topic of church history, community building or friction. # Bart Ehrman on the Pauline timeline: https://www.bartehrman.com/story-of-paul-in-the-bible/ https://www.bartehrman.com/story-of-paul-in-the-bible/ https://www.bartehrman.com/apostle-paul-timeline/ https://www.bartehrman.com/apostle-paul-timeline/ https://www.bartehrman.com/historical-paul/ https://www.bartehrman.com/historical-paul/ # Academic research bridging archeology and the letters of Paul https://rbecs.org/2020/07/03/nasrallah/ https://rbecs.org/2020/07/03/nasrallah/
- maxweylandt 1y agoneat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' : >This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield. should be 'his'
- prmph 1y agoVery interesting project! The Roman world really comes alive this this. A pet peeve of mine though (and a bit OT): I know it is not your fault, since this is inbuilt behavior, but I cannot for the life of me understand why almost all map widgets now have this behavior when as you are scrolling the whole page and happen to go over the map, suddenly the scrolling motion is used to zoom out the map, which thus quickly collapses into a thumbnail or a dot. It always drives me nuts when it occurs, a total fail of a UI/UX design. What was wrong with pinching to zoom out?? Not sure, but I think Google Map started this trend. I wonder if these map widget designers actually test the interaction with actual users.
- unnamed76ri 1y agoWhat motivated you to make this? It’s not entirely clear to me from looking over more of your site. Seems like a lot of effort unless you and your family are believers.
- sicher 1y agoOr perhaps interested in history of religion?
- unnamed76ri 1y agoYeah could be. Their overall story seems interesting. Just curious to know more of the “why” behind the effort.
- tonymet 1y agoand civilization
- unnamed76ri 1y agoNot sure why I’m being downvoted. Asking why someone wrote something is a basic skill everyone is taught in primary school.
- tonymet 1y agowe know you are being snobbish because you don't like christianity.
- unnamed76ri 1y agoI’m not sure who you are replying to exactly but I assure you I like Christianity very much
- tonymet 1y agothe rhetorical question seemed condescending to me.
- xtiansimon 1y agoNice site design. Brings scripture to life. One UI comment. I notice there is a legend under the map and callouts on the map to each of the four journeys. I wanted to see one of these switch the display to only show one journey at a time. Maybe the site does this and clearly on desktop, but I couldn’t intuit it on mobile.
- intofarlands 1y agoThank you for your comment! I am still working on the legend and having it do exactly like you said. I have to change things up a bit but hopefully I can be able to implement it soon
- doodlebugging 1y agoI really love the way this is put together. This is a great way to illustrate someone's journey through life. I am doing a similar project with family genealogy so it covers a longer span of time but the family connections to places become tangible. You really see how some people live out their entire lives in one small area while others hit the trails and find a way to prosper in some far-off locality. It especially stands out when you look at children and inheritances since the first-born son typically ended up with the father's best assets and other sons needed to find their own way with smaller parcels of land or almost nothing. Perhaps the most interesting part is discovering all the loops and intersections where a descendant ends up living or working in a town where an ancestor lived generations earlier without knowing anything about that ancestor. Feels like the circle is completed when someone later cycles back through and finds that they also like the place well enough to stay a while.
- intofarlands 1y agoThank you for giving my project a look! What you are working on sounds really interesting. Now you have me thinking on my families genealogy connections…
- doodlebugging 1y agoIt really is a great project. It can also eat up a lot of time. I don't have much time for some of the kin to be able to see it since a couple are over 90 and several others are aged 80-90. Using photos and deeds and wills to correlate locations with addresses that have become something else can be tedious. Getting the written or spoken stories is a little easier if you can send some photos around and ask people to share stories about the subjects (homes, cars, people, events, etc) I have taken a similar path to yours in that the location flags have links to photos relevant to that flagged location (home, farm, etc) so the experience of tracking a relative thru time is a little more rich for the young people who may never have met or heard of that person before they click the link. Tying things to contemporary newspaper accounts of the joys and tragedies of life that found these people adds another layer and helps reinforce the family lore about events or people. I've always loved history. There's so much of it and every minute that passes just adds a little more flavor to the tale.
- Hitton 1y agoViewing this in Firefox on Linux I see the outline of the travels before the map loads, then the map loads over it and I can't see it anymore.
- lordleft 1y agoSt. Paul (and his translators) are responsible for some of the most evocative turns of phrase I have ever encountered in literature. From 1 Corinthians 13: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
- exprez135 1y agoOnly in recent years have I appreciated how familiarity with such material so enriches my experience of other, later literature. To use this example, the title of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and its eponymous sentence (paraphrased): How can we know the gods face to face, till we have faces?
- dustincoates 1y agoAlso: the Mountain Goats' Love Love Love. Love, love is going to lead you by the hand Into a white and soundless place Now we see things as in a mirror, dimly Then we shall see each other face to face
- butlike 1y agoWho's Paul?
- Insanity 1y agoThe OP mentions it in another post, but he meant the Apostle (follower of Jesus, or something similar to that)
- butlike 1y agoThanks
- donperignon 1y agoits probably the most important figure of the Christianism just after christ himself.
- butlike 1y agoUnderstood. Thanks.
- seemaze 1y agoWho is Paul, and why is his journey interesting? I eventually figured it out I think.. A brief summary about Paul and his journey at the top would greatly improve the first impression of people adjacent to and outside of the target audience. Nice work!
- Noumenon72 1y ago(86 miles, 6-7 day walk) Was it common to go walking across the Roman Empire or was it a rare feat?
- intofarlands 1y agoThe Roman Road network across the empire made it a reality, but I’m not sure how common it really was at the time, other than shorter commutes. The extent Paul did it was quite likely a very rare feat!
- KerbalNo15 1y agoCongrats! This is really cool.
- intofarlands 1y agoThanks for giving it a look!
- casey2 1y agoI don't think intent matters here, even if you are a true believer in AGI or GOD you are still a scammer. Work for your own money, don't take from others.
- tommica 1y agoReally cool project, bit hard to use on a mobile. Would love to have some background info about the whole things, never really got into Bible so being clueless probably adds to the confusion :D
- intofarlands 1y agoReally great suggestion. I’ve had a few people say the same. I was so caught up in the map I forgot a proper introduction! Thanks for taking a look at it!
- francisofascii 1y agoGreat job. Was the the ESRI JS SDK used to make this, or some low code tool like StoryMaps? The ancient basemap alone is really cool, especially with the ability to toggle to present day.