14 ms·

Interactive map of Paul's first century travels in Roman world

199 points by intofarlands 1y ago

francisofascii 1y ago
Great 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.
Mistletoe 1y ago
How did Paul make money and buy food for the journeys?
- intofarlands 1y ago
  Paul 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 ago
    Interesting. 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.
    - bambax 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - ab5tract 1y ago
        That feels like a real stretch considering that Paul is responsible for starting the branch of Christianity that would eventually outlaw any “non-canonical” books about Jesus. Said books would never even have existed if it was true that Paul invented the character of Jesus whole cloth.
        bambax 1y ago
        The erradication of non-canonical books came way later. There was no such thing at first (during at least the first two centuries following Paul's life).
        balamatom 1y ago
        Does remind of an intellectual property crackdown some. "Only we get to tell this story"
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - photios 1y ago
        That's doubtful. To do that, St. Paul would need to make all the other 12 apostles buy into the story and start spreading it. Then do the same with the extended 70 apostles and their disciples. And, of course, change the gospels. In addition, the "concept of Jesus" is something that's woven throughout the Old Testament. St. Paul would have to go back in time and change the Torah and books of prophets like Daniel and Isaiah.
        jacquesm 1y ago
        He would have written a self-help book for wannabe cult starters titled 'How to get your first 12 customers'. What is interesting about this project is that it cleanly splits off the real and verifiable components from the fantastic bits.
        doodlebugging 1y ago
        From the map dialog for Lystra, visited on his first and second journeys: ** >Second Journey Verses (Acts16:1-5): >Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. ** I guess you need to have rules if you're gonna let people play the disciple game. Rule #1 - Get circumsized. This rule may be most effective at limiting disciple group size since any uncommitted wannabees would take a hard pass. I'm left wondering whether this could be the origin of "just the tip", or tipping culture? Luckily for Timothy, Paul was a tent-maker or leather-worker, depending on which translation you favor, so he likely had some really sharp tools and would be able to make short work of this little project. Timothy probably didn't find much delight in pitching tents for a while though. Pretty funny trying to imagine walking around preaching for converts after this operation and wondering whether they had a cone or something like your cat gets at the vet to shield the parts from scratchy robes while walking. Probably lots of talking to God on those journeys.
      - fjfaase 1y ago
        According to the 'Acts of the Apostles', Paul (then still called Saul) was actively prosecuting the followers of Jesus, which by many were considered to be a Jewish sect, like there were more of such sects. It was on one of this prosecution trips that he experienced a medical condition that lead to temporary blindness, which he interpreted as a divine intervention, resulting him to join the sect.
      - krapp 1y ago
        Doubtful. As far as I know, academic consensus is that there was probably a real person behind the Jesus movement, just as with Buddhism, Islam and other religious movements. Of course, that says nothing about the supernatural claims made by the Bible, or how closely the canon written centuries after the fact actually hews to that person's teachings.
    - parodysbird 1y ago
      It is very strange the amount of theology that comes solely from Paul's idiosyncratic writings, given that he neither met the prophet in question (Jesus), nor was taught by any of his students (apostles), nor even got along particularly well with any of his students.
      - dragonwriter 1y ago
        > It is very strange the amount of theology that comes solely from Paul's idiosyncratic writings, given that he neither met the prophet in question (Jesus), nor was taught by any of his students (apostles), nor even got along particularly well with any of his students. It's interesting that every point of this narrative conflicts with the canonical accounts (even excluding the Pauline corpus for this purpose), in which Paul did encounter Jesus, and did at least spend time with (we aren't explicitly told it was spent in study, but presumably it was not exclusively in silent meditation) with disciples of Jesus between the encounter and conversion experience and the start of his ministry, and he got along as well with the other apostles as the other apostles they did with each other.
        parodysbird 1y ago
        I chose the words carefully for that reason. The prophet of the nascent religion was a human being who was born, lived and died as a human being. Paul did not encounter this man. In his story, he encounters a divine being, and receives a private revelation (gospel) and mission that is distinct from the revelation and mission that the prophet in question gave as a human to his chosen students (apostles). Paul is, in this terminology, also a prophet. He explicitly says the revelation he tells is not of human origin, and so not passed down to him through e.g. the ministry of one of the students (apostles) of the prophet in question. It strikes me as unusual to have so much of the theology coming from someone who simply claims private revelation but is not the prophet in question and when the prophet explicitly chose disciples and set a ministry for them.
        noshitsherlock 1y ago
        Not sure why you refer to the person who visited Paul on the Damascus Road with the term “divine being“ when this divine being as you put it specifically identifies himself as Jesus Christ, whom Paul was persecuting. And there’s further dialogue where Jesus communicates additional information to Paul as to the things he must suffer for Christ’s sake. He should also point out that Paul went over Peter and many of the other disciples to accepting him and his recount of the Damascus Road experience, despite the fact that he persecuted the church and was sending people to jail just prior to this encounte. I would take Paul at his word as faithfully recounted by Luke more than I would take your words as once so far removed, and obviously skeptical of the scriptures themselves. The entire New Testament and Christ life focuses on faith, which is supported by actual historical miracles and healings not to mention in Christ resurrection itself. That’s the whole issue, faith and belief versus skepticism and unbelief. It’s the grand drama that’s the whole point of both Old Testament and New Testament, that sprouts in the garden of Eden, where the serpent casted out on God‘s veracity when describing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. of course there will be people like you that argue on the side of skepticism and unbelief and that’s been true throughout history so nothing new here
    - photios 1y ago
      TIL Jefferson published his own "version" of the New Testament. [1] > Jefferson mashed up/cut and pasted the New Testament to remove any references to the supernatural, or miracles, as well as the divinity of Christ. His title for the book was "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," which tells us a lot about his motivations. Walking in Arius' footsteps ... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dnyxy8/thomas_jefferson_famously_authored_a_version_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dnyxy8/thoma...
    - krapp 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - beardyw 1y ago
        There 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 ago
        Fair 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.
        Jedd 1y ago
        > The Gospels probably weren't written by the apostles they were attributed to, either. We absolutely know for sure that those books weren't written by the 'names' used - we just know that none of the authors identified themselves, or cited any sources - and were written 40-100 years after the events they claim to detail.
        Amezarak 1y ago
        We don’t know that for sure, and the author of John does clearly identify himself in-text.. Everyone also agrees Luke-Acts is written by the same person, and that Acts shifts to a first-person perspective during the account of Paul’s journeys. It’s not currently in fashion to think they were written by their the people they are named after, but it’s not implausible; the strongest argument for later dating of the gospels is simply that they all are perceived to clearly prophecy the destruction of Jerusalem, which did occur circa 70AD. But there’s no particular reason, even from a secular perspective, to assume this wasn’t just a reasonable guess about the future given past history and the contemporary political environment. Also, it seems relevant that our earliest sources given them those credits.
  - tetris11 1y ago
    > tentmaking For anyone wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking > ... in which missionaries support themselves by working full-time in the marketplace with their skills and education, instead of receiving financial support from a Church.
    - chad_oliver 1y ago
      Just to be clear, Paul literally made tents. The meaning of "tentmaking" that you quote came later by analogy with Paul.
      - jibal 1y ago
        And you know this how? https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/skenopoios https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/skenopoios "some translate more generally: leather worker"
      - tetris11 1y ago
        I guess I'm just wondering where the profession disappeared in the general sense of surnames. You've got Smith, Tailor, Fletcher, etc. I feel like if tent-making was such a prevalent profession, there'd be name derivatives from it
        OkayPhysicist 1y ago
        Professional surnames tend to reflect trades that were common when surnames were introduced to a culture. In English, that means ~1066. In Turkey, that means 1934. For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of tentmakers that established family names in England during the Norman Conquest. Not so in other places, though: The Arabic surnames Kheyyam/Khayam/Khayami are all derived from the word for tent maker, Plachta is Polish, but more closely aligns with canvas-maker, mostly sails. And then theres Zeltman, which is German for tent man (which is ambiguous between "man who sells tents" and "man who lives in a tent")
        1y ago
  - skeezyboy 1y ago
    i often wonder this. how wasnt he robbed along the way? how didnt he starve to death. unless he was the calvin klein of tents, surely youd be working all day every day making tents just to survive, leaving no time for your spiritual whitecastle.
    - artificialLimbs 1y ago
      It only takes believing in 1 miracle to be able to believe in any of them. It only takes witnessing one miracle to witness many.
    - swader999 1y ago
      In addition to his wages, he had many patrons, church funding, 'stayed with friends', and was transported for 'free' as a Roman prisoner.
      - skeezyboy 1y ago
        so hes either walking around with wads of cash or hes got a lot of friends along the way, but he did something like 10k miles, hed need a lot of friends. And also whats stopping a bandit taking all the cash?
    - takinola 1y ago
      I am pretty sure he talks about being robbed and also having times of starvation in one of his letters. I'm guessing his travels weren't very comfortable.
- palmotea 1y ago
  Didn't he work as a tentmaker? Also I'd imagine he got a lot of support along the way.
  - swader999 1y ago
    Yes he did and tentmaking was a respectable artisan trade that also likely includes leatherwork and weaving, not just camping tents.
    - palmotea 1y ago
      > not just camping tents. I always assumed it was like tents for vendors at markets, and stuff like that.
- parodysbird 1y ago
  He was also a Roman citizen, so he could pull some privileges for free rides like getting to Rome through exercising his right to appeal directly to the Emperor
  - shusaku 1y ago
    As an American, I’m planning a similar strategy to finance my vacation to Ecuador.
  - teruakohatu 1y ago
    His main privilege was that petty local rulers were more reluctant to persecute him than they would a non-citizen. Seneca’s brother, most well known as the recipient of Seneca’s letters, was one such judge who dismissed the charges against him when he found out that he was a citizen.
    - parodysbird 1y ago
      > His main privilege was that petty local rulers were more reluctant to persecute him than they would a non-citizen It's more than that. Basically everywhere he went local commoners wanted to kill him and it was the elite local rulers that safeguarded him
- bdcravens 1y ago
  In addition to the exact work he did, it was an early church value to work, rather than depend on external funding: "If one doesn't work, one shouldn't eat" https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203%3A10 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203%...
- cheraderama 1y ago
  Acts is fiction (likely based on the epistles and Josephus). There are 7 undisputed Pauline epistles (though a few scholars even believe none of them are real - most recently Nina Livesey). So his itinerary certainly wasn't as vast as depicted here (also, it's impossible). Itinerant preachers were supported by communities they preached to. Also, Paul is urging people to give money to his 'collection for the saints'. There is no word what happened to it (neither in Acts). Hmm...
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    There’s nothing in Acts that could be said to come from Josephus, what do you mean? Josephus does not mention Paul at all and has only a brief disputed reference to Jesus.
    - cheraderama 1y ago
      What I meant is that the author of Acts "borrows" themes from Josephus to create his story. You can check out this interview with prof. Steve Mason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfPxFQCpCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfPxFQCpCU
      - Amezarak 1y ago
        Sometimes “themes” are just history repeating. There’s no evidence of this. The timeline is also problematic because it’s entirely possible Acts was written first. Indeed IMO an earlier dating of Acts is pretty likely, the story is abruptly terminated after Paul has been in Rome two years with no natural conclusion, suggesting the narrative ended there because that took the author up to current events (60), where Josephus obviously wrote much later.
intofarlands 1y ago
I 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 ago
  Interesting. 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 ago
    It already shows the sources if you click on the markers
  - intofarlands 1y ago
    Thanks 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 ago
  Magnificent project, congrats! Is ArcGIS free for this kind of project?
  - intofarlands 1y ago
    Thank you! Yes, it is free through ArcGIS Online, their web-based mapping software
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
andretti1977 1y ago
Beautiful 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 ago
  Thank 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 ago
I'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 ago
What 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 ago
neat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' : >This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield. should be 'his'
prmph 1y ago
Very 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.
thrown-0825 1y ago
The original christian mega church grifter. Jesus would have cast him out along with the rest of the pharisees if he had the chance.
unnamed76ri 1y ago
What 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 ago
  Or perhaps interested in history of religion?
  - unnamed76ri 1y ago
    Yeah could be. Their overall story seems interesting. Just curious to know more of the “why” behind the effort.
  - tonymet 1y ago
    and civilization
- unnamed76ri 1y ago
  Not sure why I’m being downvoted. Asking why someone wrote something is a basic skill everyone is taught in primary school.
  - noshitsherlock 1y ago
    I would just say it’s really none of your business. Let the project speak for itself.
  - tonymet 1y ago
    we know you are being snobbish because you don't like christianity.
    - unnamed76ri 1y ago
      I’m not sure who you are replying to exactly but I assure you I like Christianity very much
xtiansimon 1y ago
Nice 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 ago
  Thank 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Thank 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 ago
    It 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 ago
Viewing 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 ago
St. 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 ago
  Only 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 ago
    Also: 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 ago
Who's Paul?
- Insanity 1y ago
  The OP mentions it in another post, but he meant the Apostle (follower of Jesus, or something similar to that)
  - butlike 1y ago
    Thanks
- donperignon 1y ago
  its probably the most important figure of the Christianism just after christ himself.
  - butlike 1y ago
    Understood. Thanks.
seemaze 1y ago
Who 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 ago
  The 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 ago
Congrats! This is really cool.
- intofarlands 1y ago
  Thanks for giving it a look!
casey2 1y ago
I 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 ago
Really 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 ago
  Really 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!

199 points by intofarlands 1y ago

Great 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.

Mistletoe 1y ago

How did Paul make money and buy food for the journeys?

intofarlands 1y ago
Paul 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 ago
  Interesting. 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.
  - bambax 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - ab5tract 1y ago
      That feels like a real stretch considering that Paul is responsible for starting the branch of Christianity that would eventually outlaw any “non-canonical” books about Jesus. Said books would never even have existed if it was true that Paul invented the character of Jesus whole cloth.
      - bambax 1y ago
        The erradication of non-canonical books came way later. There was no such thing at first (during at least the first two centuries following Paul's life).
        balamatom 1y ago
        Does remind of an intellectual property crackdown some. "Only we get to tell this story"
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - photios 1y ago
      That's doubtful. To do that, St. Paul would need to make all the other 12 apostles buy into the story and start spreading it. Then do the same with the extended 70 apostles and their disciples. And, of course, change the gospels. In addition, the "concept of Jesus" is something that's woven throughout the Old Testament. St. Paul would have to go back in time and change the Torah and books of prophets like Daniel and Isaiah.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        He would have written a self-help book for wannabe cult starters titled 'How to get your first 12 customers'. What is interesting about this project is that it cleanly splits off the real and verifiable components from the fantastic bits.
        doodlebugging 1y ago
        From the map dialog for Lystra, visited on his first and second journeys: ** >Second Journey Verses (Acts16:1-5): >Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. ** I guess you need to have rules if you're gonna let people play the disciple game. Rule #1 - Get circumsized. This rule may be most effective at limiting disciple group size since any uncommitted wannabees would take a hard pass. I'm left wondering whether this could be the origin of "just the tip", or tipping culture? Luckily for Timothy, Paul was a tent-maker or leather-worker, depending on which translation you favor, so he likely had some really sharp tools and would be able to make short work of this little project. Timothy probably didn't find much delight in pitching tents for a while though. Pretty funny trying to imagine walking around preaching for converts after this operation and wondering whether they had a cone or something like your cat gets at the vet to shield the parts from scratchy robes while walking. Probably lots of talking to God on those journeys.
    - fjfaase 1y ago
      According to the 'Acts of the Apostles', Paul (then still called Saul) was actively prosecuting the followers of Jesus, which by many were considered to be a Jewish sect, like there were more of such sects. It was on one of this prosecution trips that he experienced a medical condition that lead to temporary blindness, which he interpreted as a divine intervention, resulting him to join the sect.
    - krapp 1y ago
      Doubtful. As far as I know, academic consensus is that there was probably a real person behind the Jesus movement, just as with Buddhism, Islam and other religious movements. Of course, that says nothing about the supernatural claims made by the Bible, or how closely the canon written centuries after the fact actually hews to that person's teachings.
  - parodysbird 1y ago
    It is very strange the amount of theology that comes solely from Paul's idiosyncratic writings, given that he neither met the prophet in question (Jesus), nor was taught by any of his students (apostles), nor even got along particularly well with any of his students.
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > It is very strange the amount of theology that comes solely from Paul's idiosyncratic writings, given that he neither met the prophet in question (Jesus), nor was taught by any of his students (apostles), nor even got along particularly well with any of his students. It's interesting that every point of this narrative conflicts with the canonical accounts (even excluding the Pauline corpus for this purpose), in which Paul did encounter Jesus, and did at least spend time with (we aren't explicitly told it was spent in study, but presumably it was not exclusively in silent meditation) with disciples of Jesus between the encounter and conversion experience and the start of his ministry, and he got along as well with the other apostles as the other apostles they did with each other.
      - parodysbird 1y ago
        I chose the words carefully for that reason. The prophet of the nascent religion was a human being who was born, lived and died as a human being. Paul did not encounter this man. In his story, he encounters a divine being, and receives a private revelation (gospel) and mission that is distinct from the revelation and mission that the prophet in question gave as a human to his chosen students (apostles). Paul is, in this terminology, also a prophet. He explicitly says the revelation he tells is not of human origin, and so not passed down to him through e.g. the ministry of one of the students (apostles) of the prophet in question. It strikes me as unusual to have so much of the theology coming from someone who simply claims private revelation but is not the prophet in question and when the prophet explicitly chose disciples and set a ministry for them.
        noshitsherlock 1y ago
        Not sure why you refer to the person who visited Paul on the Damascus Road with the term “divine being“ when this divine being as you put it specifically identifies himself as Jesus Christ, whom Paul was persecuting. And there’s further dialogue where Jesus communicates additional information to Paul as to the things he must suffer for Christ’s sake. He should also point out that Paul went over Peter and many of the other disciples to accepting him and his recount of the Damascus Road experience, despite the fact that he persecuted the church and was sending people to jail just prior to this encounte. I would take Paul at his word as faithfully recounted by Luke more than I would take your words as once so far removed, and obviously skeptical of the scriptures themselves. The entire New Testament and Christ life focuses on faith, which is supported by actual historical miracles and healings not to mention in Christ resurrection itself. That’s the whole issue, faith and belief versus skepticism and unbelief. It’s the grand drama that’s the whole point of both Old Testament and New Testament, that sprouts in the garden of Eden, where the serpent casted out on God‘s veracity when describing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. of course there will be people like you that argue on the side of skepticism and unbelief and that’s been true throughout history so nothing new here
  - photios 1y ago
    TIL Jefferson published his own "version" of the New Testament. [1] > Jefferson mashed up/cut and pasted the New Testament to remove any references to the supernatural, or miracles, as well as the divinity of Christ. His title for the book was "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," which tells us a lot about his motivations. Walking in Arius' footsteps ... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dnyxy8/thomas_jefferson_famously_authored_a_version_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dnyxy8/thoma...
  - krapp 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - beardyw 1y ago
      There 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 ago
        Fair 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.
        Jedd 1y ago
        > The Gospels probably weren't written by the apostles they were attributed to, either. We absolutely know for sure that those books weren't written by the 'names' used - we just know that none of the authors identified themselves, or cited any sources - and were written 40-100 years after the events they claim to detail.
        Amezarak 1y ago
        We don’t know that for sure, and the author of John does clearly identify himself in-text.. Everyone also agrees Luke-Acts is written by the same person, and that Acts shifts to a first-person perspective during the account of Paul’s journeys. It’s not currently in fashion to think they were written by their the people they are named after, but it’s not implausible; the strongest argument for later dating of the gospels is simply that they all are perceived to clearly prophecy the destruction of Jerusalem, which did occur circa 70AD. But there’s no particular reason, even from a secular perspective, to assume this wasn’t just a reasonable guess about the future given past history and the contemporary political environment. Also, it seems relevant that our earliest sources given them those credits.
- tetris11 1y ago
  > tentmaking For anyone wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking > ... in which missionaries support themselves by working full-time in the marketplace with their skills and education, instead of receiving financial support from a Church.
  - chad_oliver 1y ago
    Just to be clear, Paul literally made tents. The meaning of "tentmaking" that you quote came later by analogy with Paul.
    - jibal 1y ago
      And you know this how? https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/skenopoios https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/skenopoios "some translate more generally: leather worker"
    - tetris11 1y ago
      I guess I'm just wondering where the profession disappeared in the general sense of surnames. You've got Smith, Tailor, Fletcher, etc. I feel like if tent-making was such a prevalent profession, there'd be name derivatives from it
      - OkayPhysicist 1y ago
        Professional surnames tend to reflect trades that were common when surnames were introduced to a culture. In English, that means ~1066. In Turkey, that means 1934. For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of tentmakers that established family names in England during the Norman Conquest. Not so in other places, though: The Arabic surnames Kheyyam/Khayam/Khayami are all derived from the word for tent maker, Plachta is Polish, but more closely aligns with canvas-maker, mostly sails. And then theres Zeltman, which is German for tent man (which is ambiguous between "man who sells tents" and "man who lives in a tent")
        1y ago
- skeezyboy 1y ago
  i often wonder this. how wasnt he robbed along the way? how didnt he starve to death. unless he was the calvin klein of tents, surely youd be working all day every day making tents just to survive, leaving no time for your spiritual whitecastle.
  - artificialLimbs 1y ago
    It only takes believing in 1 miracle to be able to believe in any of them. It only takes witnessing one miracle to witness many.
  - swader999 1y ago
    In addition to his wages, he had many patrons, church funding, 'stayed with friends', and was transported for 'free' as a Roman prisoner.
    - skeezyboy 1y ago
      so hes either walking around with wads of cash or hes got a lot of friends along the way, but he did something like 10k miles, hed need a lot of friends. And also whats stopping a bandit taking all the cash?
  - takinola 1y ago
    I am pretty sure he talks about being robbed and also having times of starvation in one of his letters. I'm guessing his travels weren't very comfortable.
palmotea 1y ago
Didn't he work as a tentmaker? Also I'd imagine he got a lot of support along the way.
- swader999 1y ago
  Yes he did and tentmaking was a respectable artisan trade that also likely includes leatherwork and weaving, not just camping tents.
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > not just camping tents. I always assumed it was like tents for vendors at markets, and stuff like that.
parodysbird 1y ago
He was also a Roman citizen, so he could pull some privileges for free rides like getting to Rome through exercising his right to appeal directly to the Emperor
- shusaku 1y ago
  As an American, I’m planning a similar strategy to finance my vacation to Ecuador.
- teruakohatu 1y ago
  His main privilege was that petty local rulers were more reluctant to persecute him than they would a non-citizen. Seneca’s brother, most well known as the recipient of Seneca’s letters, was one such judge who dismissed the charges against him when he found out that he was a citizen.
  - parodysbird 1y ago
    > His main privilege was that petty local rulers were more reluctant to persecute him than they would a non-citizen It's more than that. Basically everywhere he went local commoners wanted to kill him and it was the elite local rulers that safeguarded him
bdcravens 1y ago
In addition to the exact work he did, it was an early church value to work, rather than depend on external funding: "If one doesn't work, one shouldn't eat" https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203%3A10 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203%...
cheraderama 1y ago
Acts is fiction (likely based on the epistles and Josephus). There are 7 undisputed Pauline epistles (though a few scholars even believe none of them are real - most recently Nina Livesey). So his itinerary certainly wasn't as vast as depicted here (also, it's impossible). Itinerant preachers were supported by communities they preached to. Also, Paul is urging people to give money to his 'collection for the saints'. There is no word what happened to it (neither in Acts). Hmm...
- Amezarak 1y ago
  There’s nothing in Acts that could be said to come from Josephus, what do you mean? Josephus does not mention Paul at all and has only a brief disputed reference to Jesus.
  - cheraderama 1y ago
    What I meant is that the author of Acts "borrows" themes from Josephus to create his story. You can check out this interview with prof. Steve Mason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfPxFQCpCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfPxFQCpCU
    - Amezarak 1y ago
      Sometimes “themes” are just history repeating. There’s no evidence of this. The timeline is also problematic because it’s entirely possible Acts was written first. Indeed IMO an earlier dating of Acts is pretty likely, the story is abruptly terminated after Paul has been in Rome two years with no natural conclusion, suggesting the narrative ended there because that took the author up to current events (60), where Josephus obviously wrote much later.

intofarlands 1y ago

I 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 ago
Interesting. 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 ago
  It already shows the sources if you click on the markers
- intofarlands 1y ago
  Thanks 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 ago
Magnificent project, congrats! Is ArcGIS free for this kind of project?
- intofarlands 1y ago
  Thank you! Yes, it is free through ArcGIS Online, their web-based mapping software
IncreasePosts 1y ago

andretti1977 1y ago

Beautiful 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 ago
Thank 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 ago

I'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 ago

What 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 ago

neat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' : >This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield. should be 'his'

prmph 1y ago

Very 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.

thrown-0825 1y ago

The original christian mega church grifter. Jesus would have cast him out along with the rest of the pharisees if he had the chance.

unnamed76ri 1y ago

What 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 ago
Or perhaps interested in history of religion?
- unnamed76ri 1y ago
  Yeah could be. Their overall story seems interesting. Just curious to know more of the “why” behind the effort.
- tonymet 1y ago
  and civilization
unnamed76ri 1y ago
Not sure why I’m being downvoted. Asking why someone wrote something is a basic skill everyone is taught in primary school.
- noshitsherlock 1y ago
  I would just say it’s really none of your business. Let the project speak for itself.
- tonymet 1y ago
  we know you are being snobbish because you don't like christianity.
  - unnamed76ri 1y ago
    I’m not sure who you are replying to exactly but I assure you I like Christianity very much

xtiansimon 1y ago

Nice 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 ago
Thank 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 ago

I 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 ago
Thank 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 ago
  It 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 ago

Viewing 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 ago

St. 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 ago
Only 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 ago
  Also: 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 ago

Who's Paul?

Insanity 1y ago
The OP mentions it in another post, but he meant the Apostle (follower of Jesus, or something similar to that)
- butlike 1y ago
  Thanks
donperignon 1y ago
its probably the most important figure of the Christianism just after christ himself.
- butlike 1y ago
  Understood. Thanks.

seemaze 1y ago

Who 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 ago
The 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 ago

Congrats! This is really cool.

intofarlands 1y ago
Thanks for giving it a look!

casey2 1y ago

I 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 ago

Really 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 ago
Really 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!