Tim Countries kuuwu to the ratriarchs.
GEOGRAPHY
ro3
GEOGRAPHY
struck with the adequate ideas of descriptive geogra- ])liy expressed in the directions given to the spies (Numb, xiii, 17-20) and in the closing address of Moses (Deut. viii, 7-9); nor less, with the extreme accuracy and tlie variety of almost technical terms with which the boundaries of the tribes are described in the book of Joshua, warranting the assumption that the Hebrews had acquired the art of surveying from the Egyptians (Jahn, i, (!, § 104). See Topographical Terms.
2. We proceed to give a brief sl^etch of the geograph- ical knowledge of the Hebrews down to the period when their distinctive names and ideas were super- seded by those of classical writers. Like most other sciences, geography owes its elementary cultivation as a science to the Hellenic race, who, from the mythic period of their history down to the destruction of the Western empire (A.D. 47G), continued to prosecute the study with more or less system, and to more or less definite results ; yet it must be added that it is onlj' in a qualified sense that the ancients may be said to have known or advanced scientific geographj'.
The highlands of Armenia would appear to have been the first known to the human family. Descend- ing from these, some may have gone eastward, others westward. The latter alone are spoken of in Scripture. Coming south and west, the progenitors of the world first became acquainted witli the countries lying be- tween the Euphrates and the Tigris, roughly termed Mesopotamia, whence they advanced still more south and west into Aram or Syria, Arabia, Canaan, and Egypt. These are the chief countries with which the ancient Hebrews seem to have possessed an acquaint- ance ; j'et if the national geographical table found in Gen. X is to be referred to the early period wliich its position in the Bible gives it, it would appear that the geographical knowledge of the Hebrews was, even be- fore the flood, far more extensive, embracing even " the isles of the Gentiles." See Ethnology. Oth- er parts of Scripture by no means warrant us in ascrib- ing to the Hebrews, before the IJabylonian captivity, a wider range of knowledge tlian we have indicated above. This national calamity had tlie effect of en- larging the circle of their knowledge of the earth, or at least of making their knowledge of Assyria, Media, and Babylonia more minute and definite. It was to their neighbors, the Phoenicians, that the Israelites owed most of tlieir geographical knowledge. This commercial people must have early acquired a super- ficial acquaintance with remote regions, while engaged in their maritime commercial -expeditions. The knowl- edge they brought back to Palestine would spread be- yond their own borders and reach the Hebrews, though they may not have been given to inquiry and study on subjects of the kind ; nor is it safe to attempt to de- fine at how early a period some rough notions of the isles of the Gentiles may, by means of the Phoenician navigators, have been spread about in the East. Ac- cording to Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom, vi, 4, 36), the Egyptians had in circulaticm writings on geogra- jiliy. Their king Sesostris may jiave had maps (Sc/iol. ad A poll. Rhod. iv, 292 ; Goguet,Om/. des Lolx, ii, 227), though ])roljably the first attempt to form a map (that is, a written catalogue of places, with something like their relative positions and distances roughly guessed) is to lie ascribed to the men whom Joshua (Josh, xviii) sent with orders to "go througli the land and describe it ;"' and the men " wont and passed through the land," and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.
At a later period, it is unquestionable that the He- brews possessed a knowledge of tlie north-west, and a wider knowledge of the east, and even of the north of Asia (Ezek. xxvii; Isa. li, 27). From the period of the Maccabees the Jews entered into relations of a mercantile and political character, which extended their knowledge of the earth, and made thenr better acquainted with Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. In the time embi'aced by the New -Testament liistory
they must have been wideh' acquainted with the then known world, since colonies and individuals of their nation were spread over nearly the entire surface cov- ered by ancient civilization, and identified with the Roman empire. The occasional, if not periodical, re- turn of the Jews thus scattered abroad, or at least the relations which they would sustain with their mother country, must have greatly widened, and made less in- accurate, the knowledge entertained in Palestine of other parts of the world. Accordingly we read (Acts ii, 5 sq.) that, at the eft'usion of the Holj' Spirit on the day of Pentecost, "there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews out of every nation under heaven."
3. The Hebrews do not seem to have devoted any attention to geographj' as a science, though they were widel}' scattered at the commencement of our tera, and occupied a distinguished place in literature. The Greeks probabh' led the waj' in s^-stematic geography. The first map is said to have been constructed by Anaximander, about B.C. COO. Nearly a century later, Hecatagus of Miletus wrote a geographical work enti- tled Xlfpiotoc yz/c (Ukert, Geographie des Hecat. und Damastes). These were followed liy Strabo and Ptol- emy. The Phoenicians and Egyptians were likewise distinguished as geographers. Ptolemy acknowledges that his great worlv was based on a treatise written by Marinus of Tyre (Heeren, Commcntaiio de Fontiiits Geo<jraplnconan Ptolemai, etc.). Plin}', the onh' I\o- man writer deserving of special mention in this place, was a mere compiler. As a geographj' his book is of little value (see Vkcrt, G'eof/ifqjltie d.Griech.u.Iiumer ; iNlannert, GecgrcqJde, etc.). Sacred geography was not reduced to a system until a comparatively recent time. The Onomasticon of Eusebius and Jerome is an alplia- lietic list of places, with brief descriptions. The Tract of Brocardus, written in the 13th century, is little more than an itinerarj'. To Samuel Bochart, a French Prot- estant minister (born 1599), belongs the honor of writing the first systematic work on Biblical geogra- phy. His Geographia !iacra is a storehouse of learn- ing from which all subsequent writers have drawn freely. Wells w rote his Historiad Geography of the 0. and N. T. in the beginning of last century. Kc- land's Palus/ina, published in 1714, remains to this day the standard classic work. Dr. Kobinson's Researches open a new era in Biblical geography. It, however, is neither complete nor systematic ; it is only a book of travels, with most important historical and geo- graphical illustrations. Bitter's Pcdihiina und Syricn aims at system and completeness, but it is too difi'use. It gives a rimune of everjthing that has been written on Bible lands. A systematic and thorough treatise on Biblical geography is still a great desideratum in literature. See Archaeology, Biblical.