Hey, It Is Sunday, Isn’t It?
// January 28th, 2007 // View Comments // Tech Reviews
I’ve recently acquired a GPS unit – a Garmin Nuvi 360 – and I’m having a lot of fun mapping things. Even though this unit lacks the ability to act as a GPS receiver for a computer, and therefore makes creating custom maps impossible, I am enjoying not being lost. It’s a nice change.
I have been spending a lot of time on del.icio.us, looking at sites that have been tagged with GPS, Googlemaps, and maps. While perusing the Googlemaps tag, I came across a site that 
is sure to appeal to anyone interested in history, religion, or religious history (like me.) Created by the folks over at HeLives.com, BibleMap.org is remarkable in its simplicity. A Google map of Middle East region is overlaid by an unobtrusive pane that contains selected books and chapters from either the King James or English Standard versions of the Bible. Clicking on the hyperlinked place names presents the selected area. Being able to visualize the setting in which these ancient events took place makes them, I find, more tangible. 
Another site that may be of interest to religious history buffs is the article Mapping New Testament Networks over at the ESV Bible site. The ubergeeks over at ESV compiled data sets of the many figures in the New Testament and mapped their relationships visually using IBM’s data visualization tool Many Eyes. There’s also a link in the article to a (free) ontology of New Testament names that’s worth checking out.
Well, I’m not sure how this post got sidetracked on to religious reference (it was supposed to be about maps) but since we’re here, be sure to check out EBible.com, a competitor to BibleGateway.com that arms the intrepid researcher with an aggregated search of not just Bibles, but biblical commentaries, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Finally, there’s also BiblePlaces.com, a pictorial library of Bible lands.
