The Tanakh Atlas

עברית

A 3D journey through time and place, from Creation to the Return to Zion

Loading the map…Unfolding mountains and valleys

Sources & method

The Tanakh Atlas follows the text of the Tanakh. Everything added to it - archaeology, the teachings of the Sages, modern maps - is shown beside the text as context, never in its place.

The text comes first

Events are narrated as the Tanakh presents them, with the verses cited. Teachings of the Sages (Chazal) and archaeological findings appear in separate, labeled sections. They illuminate the text; they never override it.

Where the text does not say where a place was - Mount Sinai, Sodom, the crossing of the sea - the atlas says so, and shows the traditional and common identifications without choosing between them.

Two ways of counting time

Seder Olam (the default). The traditional count, following Seder Olam Rabbah and the Sages, numbers the years from Creation (AM, anno mundi). The Exodus, for example, falls in AM 2448.

Conventional dating. The same events on the BCE calendar historians use. Until the division of the kingdom, dates are derived from the intervals the Tanakh itself gives, counted as in Seder Olam and anchored on the conventional date of the Temple’s founding: 966 BCE, AM 2928. The formula is BCE = 3894 − AM, which puts the Exodus (AM 2448) at about 1446 BCE. From the division of the kingdom onward, dates follow the conventional chronology, anchored by external records such as the Babylonian Chronicle and Persian regnal years.

The two counts drift apart as time goes on, most of all in the Persian period: Seder Olam counts 34 years of Persian rule, while conventional chronology counts about two centuries. The atlas shows both, and every date carries its basis. The switch at the top changes the timeline’s labels and, where the systems disagree, the order of events (for example, the Esther events).

Verses and numbering

Verse references use the Masoretic (Hebrew) numbering in both languages. Many English Bibles number differently: for example, 1 Kings 5:1 in the Hebrew text is 1 Kings 4:21 in many English Bibles. Quotations on this page are the JPS 1917 translation, with the Hebrew text, including its vowel points, beside it.

Torah readings (parashot) are computed from the traditional portion boundaries, never typed by hand.

How sure is a place identification?

Every place on the atlas carries an identification grade, so that places whose location is proven are told apart from those that rest on tradition or conjecture.

Certain
Fixed by inscriptions, excavation, or a name preserved without a break.
Probable
Strong evidence and a small doubt.
Traditional
Rests on a long-held tradition, without a decisive archaeological answer.
Disputed
Several sites are proposed.
Unknown
Not identified; its position on the map is symbolic.

Borders are approximate

Territories are reconstructions from the boundary descriptions in the text (for example Joshua 15–19) and from standard atlas conventions. Each map names its basis. The ground itself is a modern terrain model: rivers and shorelines have changed since antiquity, and where they did, they are approximated.

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