Biblical Researches in Palestine

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Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea
Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petrea front cover.png
Biblical Researches in Palestine cover
Author Edward Robinson
Translator Eli Smith
Illustrator Heinrich Kiepert
CountryUnited Kingdom, United States, Germany
LanguageEnglish
Genre Travel literature
Publisher John Murray
Publication date
1841

Biblical researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea (1841 edition), also Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions (1856 edition), was a travelogue of 19th-century Palestine and the magnum opus of the "Father of Biblical Geography", Edward Robinson. The work was published simultaneously in England, the United States (dedicated to Moses Stuart) and Germany (dedicated to Carl Ritter). [1]

Contents

The work identified numerous Biblical localities for the first time, as well as significant Jerusalem archaeological sites such as Robinson's Arch (subsequently named for the author), and undertook the first scientific surveys of other sites such as the Siloam tunnel. [2]

Robinson received a Royal Geographical Society Patron's Medal as a result of his work.

The work was accompanied by the Kiepert maps of Palestine and Jerusalem.

Field work

Robinson made two journeys to Palestine. The first began on 12 March 1838 in Cairo, reached Jerusalem on 14 April, toured Arabia Petrea in May, arrived in Nazareth on 17 June, and ended in Beirut on 27 June; [3] The second began on 5 April 1852 in Beirut, where he arrived back again 19 June 1852 having explored much of Northern Palestine. [4]

Legacy

Kiepert's map accompanying the book Heinrich Kiepert 1841 map of Palestine (combined).jpg
Kiepert's map accompanying the book

The work has been described as a "cornerstone of nineteenth century Palestine exploration". [5] Earlier descriptions had relied on the accounts of travellers and legends, whereas Robinson and his guide and translator Eli Smith relied on only what they saw for themselves. [6]

Albrecht Alt described the work as "epoch-making", and in describing the influence of the work in dispelling previously accepted knowledge of the region, stated: "he was able definitively to disprove a large part of what his predecessors had thought and had written. In Robinson's footnotes are forever buried the errors of many generations". [7]

Robinson's October 1840 letter to his publisher enquiring regarding the upcoming publication Edward Robinson's letter to his publisher, enquiring regarding Biblical Researches in Palestine.png
Robinson's October 1840 letter to his publisher enquiring regarding the upcoming publication

Professor Thomas W. Davis noted that "all later archaeological research in Palestine is in some way indebted to [Robinson]. His geographical study marked a new era". [8] In a study of nineteenth century Biblical Studies in the United States, Jerry Wayne Brown described Robinson's work as "the most significant piece of American Biblical scholarship before the Civil War". [9]

Professor Rana Issa of the American University of Beirut notes that the work relied on phonology as anthropological archaeology:

Phonology here works as a kind of anthropological archaeology. However, instead of excavating the land, Robinson excavated from the lips of the natives. Phonology also turns the natives into a landscape. Unlike Thomson, this landscape does not feed into a poetic imagination; rather it is a landscape that must be made to reveal the traces of the Bible scientifically. For Robinson and Smith, the natives unwittingly carry the "divine dialect" of the land. Based on information from their lips, Robinson turns Ain Shams into the Bible's Beit Shemesh, Ain and Beit being so seemingly common as to be interchangeable. 'Akir is Ekron, while Dura is the biblical Adora because "dropping of the first feeble letter in not uncommon." Robinson records what the natives say only to correct their pronouncements about the place names against the Bible. What they have to say is important as raw material, which will ultimately be made to take the shape of a word that occurs in the Bible. [10]

Online versions

First edition

Second edition

Maps

[1] Sinai / H. Kiepert del ; H. Mahlmann
[2] Temple-area : ancient vaults / F. Catherwood del.
[3] Tomb of Helena
[4] Plan of Jerusalem : sketched from Sieber and Catherwood, corrected by the measurements of Robinson and Smith / drawn by H. Kiepert
[5] Environs of Jerusalem : from the routes and observations of Robinson and Smith / drawn by H. Kiepert
[6] Map of the peninsula of Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea : from the itineraries of E. Robinson and E. Smith / constructed and drawn by H. Kiepert ; engr. on stone by H. Mahlmann.

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References

  1. ↑ King 1983, p. 232.
  2. ↑ Currid, John D. (1999). Doing Archaeology in the Land of the Bible: A Basic Guide. Baker Academic. p. 25. ISBN   978-0-8010-2213-5.
  3. ↑ Hitchcock & Smith 1863, p. 68.
  4. ↑ Hitchcock & Smith 1863, p. 71.
  5. ↑ Goldman 2004, p. 215.
  6. ↑ Goldman 2004, p. 157.
  7. ↑ Alt 1939, pp. 373–374.
  8. ↑ Davis, Thomas W. (4 March 2004). Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology. Oxford University Press. pp. 25–. ISBN   978-0-19-029045-0.
  9. ↑ Jerry Wayne Brown (1969). The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America, 1800-1870: The New England Scholars . Wesleyan University Press. p.  118.; quoted in Jennifer Axsom Adler (2015), The Other Witness: Nineteenth-century American Protestantism and the Material Gospel Theology, p. 26
  10. ↑ Issa, Rana (2021-04-19). "Chapter 16 Missionary Philology and the Invention of Bibleland". Tracing the Jerusalem Code. De Gruyter. pp. 309–327. doi:10.1515/9783110639476-017. ISBN   9783110639476. S2CID   233588992.

Bibliography

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