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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 · 2h 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?

intofarlands · 2h 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

turing_complete · 2h ago

It already shows the sources if you click on the markers

bambax · 1h ago

Magnificent project, congrats!

Is ArcGIS free for this kind of project?

intofarlands · 1h ago

Thank you!

Yes, it is free through ArcGIS Online, their web-based mapping software

parodysbird · 1h 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 · 57m 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-p...

Campaign variant: 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/apostle-paul-timeline/

https://www.bartehrman.com/historical-paul/

# Academic research bridging archeology and the letters of Paul

https://rbecs.org/2020/07/03/nasrallah/

maxweylandt · 7m ago

neat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' :

>This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield.

should be 'his'

andretti1977 · 1h 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?

Mistletoe · 2h ago

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

intofarlands · 2h 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.

tetris11 · 47m ago

> tentmaking

For anyone wondering

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 · 5m ago

Just to be clear, Paul literally made tents. The meaning of "tentmaking" that you quote came later by analogy with Paul.

Mistletoe · 2h 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.

photios · 1h 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/thoma...

parodysbird · 1h 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 · 1h 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.

bambax · 1h ago

Interesting! It's possible though that Paul invented the concept of Jesus, which was later made into a "real" person/story.

photios · 1h 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 · 1h 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.

ab5tract · 1h 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 · 1h 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 · 11m ago

Does remind of an intellectual property crackdown some. "Only we get to tell this story"

parodysbird · 1h 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 · 38m ago

As an American, I’m planning a similar strategy to finance my vacation to Ecuador.

palmotea · 2h ago

Didn't he work as a tentmaker? Also I'd imagine he got a lot of support along the way.