The Old Testament & Intertestamental Atlas

Two thousand years of Old Testament and intertestamental history laid on the land it happened on: 157 places, 53 journeys, 41 military campaigns, 124 events, 80 excavated objects, nineteen ancient peoples and thirteen eras, each drawn in real coordinates and tied to the verse that reports it, with the 52-week reading year mapped onto them.

Beta Places, routes, dates and identifications are still being reviewed. Where scholars disagree — the location of Sinai, the date of the exodus, the sea crossing, the cities of the plain — the atlas follows the traditional identification and says so in the entry rather than choosing silently. For the Exodus, Conquest and Judges dates specifically, use the chronology-model selector next to the timeline at the bottom of the screen to choose the traditional (15th c. BC), archaeological (13th c. BC), or both-shown view.

On the evidence

Every scripture reference in the atlas — more than six hundred across places, events, journeys, campaigns, finds and the 52 weekly readings — was checked against book and chapter counts. Regnal dates follow Thiele’s synchronised chronology. Inscription dates, findspots and museum holdings were checked against published translations and museum records; disputed points — Samaria falling in 722 or 720, the figure on the Black Obelisk — are named as disputed.

On the routes

Every route leg was checked against the coastline and stepped through real roads, rivers and caravan stations: none crosses water, and none runs more than about 200 km without a waystation — except the Arabian incense road, where the desert genuinely is that empty. Routes follow the historic network (Via Maris, the King’s Highway, the Euphrates road) but remain schematic, and kingdom outlines are approximate zones, not surveyed frontiers.

On the Jerusalem plan

Walls, gates, valleys and the water system are drawn from the excavated and surveyed lines in four building phases — David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Nehemiah. Reconstructed stretches are named as such in the entry.

The map is the document; everything else is a way of asking a question about it. Thirteen eras run down the left and across the bottom, layers sit above the map, and the panel on the right holds whatever you last clicked.

Finding your way in

Study (key w) opens the reading year: pick a week and the map sets itself to that reading — era, layers, places and one note on what the ground adds.
Tours is the easiest start: eight narrated walks that set the map up stop by stop.
Presenter (key m) strips the controls and enlarges every label for a classroom projector.
Scale in the left rail jumps between the four scales the Old Testament is read at — Crescent, Egypt and Sinai, Canaan, the ridge country — or straight into Jerusalem (shift-1 to shift-5).
Thirteen eras across the bottom and down the left; arrow keys step through them.
Search (key /) reaches places, events, peoples, objects, city features and scripture references.

Layers and lines

Layer chips at the top of the map, with Clear, All and Reset; number keys toggle them. Journeys, places and events show by default — campaigns, finds, roads and tribes are opt-in.
Hover any line to name it; click a journey or campaign for its stage-by-stage distances and days.
Clicking anything in the right panel rings it on the map and turns its layer on for you.

Time and text

Timeline (key C) opens the chronology: Judah and Israel’s kings side by side, the prophets who overlap them, and the empires above. Click a reign to read it; click a prophet to fly to his home town.
Every scripture reference is a button. In the Verses tab, place names inside the text are clickable and the map follows the verse you are reading.

Seeing the ground

Jerusalem plan (key J), or open Jerusalem’s entry and pick a building phase.

Sources

Coastlines and modern borders: Natural Earth, public domain, 1:50m.
Scripture text: American Standard Version (1901), public domain worldwide — no jurisdiction requires a licence.
Relief: terrain tiles from Mapbox (© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap contributors). Imagery needs a connection; without one the atlas falls back to the drawn map.
Elevations are the recorded heights of the named places, quoted in each place entry.
Dates are editorial choices, not settled facts: each era says which chronology it follows and what the alternative is. In beta these are under review.
Independent work. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced for any church, curriculum publisher or university.

The intertestamental centuries

The four eras after Malachi rest on different evidence from the rest of the atlas: 1–2 Maccabees, Josephus, Polybius, the papyri, coins and excavation rather than the Hebrew canon. Each era says which source carries it, and the entries name where a single ancient historian is the only witness.

Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.

Author · Teacher · Tour leader · Scripture scholar

Taylor Halverson is a scholar of scripture, educator, and learning-experience designer. He formerly taught entrepreneurship at the BYU Marriott School of Business and continues to help people find and act on useful ideas and tools.

He is the author and editor of more than fifty books and nearly a thousand articles and blog posts, and a builder of scripture study resources: the ScripturePlus app with Scripture Central, whose scripture YouTube channel he co-hosted to more than fifty million views, and BYU’s Virtual Scripture Group, whose team spent more than five years reconstructing New Testament Jerusalem in three dimensions. This atlas belongs to that same body of work — tools made so that ordinary readers can see what specialists see.

He leads tours to Israel and the Middle East, China, India, Central America, Europe, and the national parks of the American West, where he unfolds how geology, geography, civilization, and scriptural texts created our beautiful present day.

Academic training

Ph.D., Judaism & Christianity in Antiquity — Indiana University
Ph.D., Instructional Systems Technology — Indiana University
M.A., Biblical Studies — Yale University
B.A., Ancient Near Eastern Studies — Brigham Young University

Two doctorates in two separate fields — the ancient world, and the design of learning. Both of them are in this tool.

Elsewhere

insights.taylorhalverson.com books.taylorhalverson.com exodustours.com

Terms of use, refund policy & license.

1. What you’re getting

This product is a Beta: an interactive atlas of places, finds, peoples, tours, campaigns and journeys across the Old Testament and intertestamental period, with accompanying essays and reference material, published by Taylor Halverson, Ph.D. ("Publisher"). It is a teaching aid and historical model, not a survey document — see the How to use it and Accuracy notes elsewhere in this panel for what that means.

2. License to use

Publisher grants the purchaser or recipient a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to view and use this product for personal study, teaching, and classroom use. Redistribution of the product file itself, or extraction of its map data, essays, or illustrations for republication, requires Publisher’s prior written permission. Third-party components (typefaces, code libraries, map and imagery sources) remain under their own licenses; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and the Credits & licences tab.

3. Scripture text

Scripture quotations are from the American Standard Version (1901), which is in the public domain worldwide; no permission is required to reproduce it, and none is claimed here beyond what this license already grants for the product as a whole.

4. Refunds

If this product was purchased through a store or platform, that platform’s refund policy governs first. Where Publisher sells directly, a full refund is available on request within 14 days of purchase, provided the product has not been redistributed; request a refund via info@taylorhalverson.com.

5. No warranty of scholarly conclusion

Because this is a Beta reconstruction of disputed and debated ancient geography and chronology, Publisher makes no warranty that any specific dating, identification, or interpretation shown will not be revised in a later edition. The product is provided “as is” for its stated teaching purpose.

6. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, Publisher’s liability for any claim arising from this product is limited to the amount paid for it.

7. Governing law & contact

To request a refund or ask a licensing question, contact info@taylorhalverson.com or use insights.taylorhalverson.com. The user agrees that any legal action, dispute, or proceeding arising out of or relating to this product must be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Utah County, Utah. Both parties irrevocably consent to the personal jurisdiction of these courts and waive any objection based on improper venue or inconvenient forum.