Preface

Summary

From time to time the need to write about specific topics reveals how different the Old Testament can be from the New. Many years ago when I was working on an Atlas of the Bible I was struck by the fact that whereas Galilee was of little importance in the Old Testament it was central in the New, being the main location of the ministry of Jesus. The reason for this difference was that Galilee had been lost by the Northern Kingdom, Israel, in the ninth century BCE and had only been regained by Judah around a century before the birth of Jesus. The difference between the two Testaments is also striking when it comes to the subject of the city. Israelite cities were small: smaller than the Canaanite cities on whose sites they had sometimes been rebuilt, and much smaller than the great cities of empire such as Nineveh or Mari. Even the Jerusalem of Old Testament times was considerably smaller than that of the New Testament era, where the technology of bringing water to the city by means of aqueducts had enabled its population to expand on the hills to the west and north of the spur that had accommodated the city of David. Another difference between the Testaments is that the capital cities surrounding the nations of Israel and Judah were experienced as threats from which invasions took place and to which kings and nobles might be exiled. In the New Testament the spread of the Roman Empire meant that cities such as Antioch, Corinth and even Rome itself were places where Christian communities had been established and where Christian discipleship was put into practice.