The cities, lands, mountains, rivers and other places named in the Bible: what their names mean, what kind of place each one is, and where it is thought to be today. 1,223 names, from Abana to Zuph.
Pick a letter, then a place.
Each card shows the name in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek letters, its sound in English letters, and its meaning with the source of each meaning. It says what kind of place it is, the region where our sources give one, the site where it is thought to be today, and how sure scholars are of that site. For 40 key places it also gives a short history from outside the Bible. The cards cover 1,041 places. Places that share a name share one card, and the card lists each of them.
The letter cards count every name in the lists: 971 names with their own card and 252 other names that point to a card, 1,223 in all. One card can hold more than one place that shares its name, so the 971 cards cover 1,041 places.
Under each name in the list is the kind of place and the meaning of its name in a few words, with its source. Tap the name to see its whole card.
Each form of the name is shown in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek letters, with its sound in English letters and its meaning. Other names for the same place are listed too.
What kind of place it is, its region, the site where it is thought to be today, how sure scholars are, and the first verse that names it.
For some places the Bible itself tells how the place got its name. That verse is quoted from the American Standard Version (1901), copied by machine.
The meaning of each name, from the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon (1906, in STEPBible’s brief lexicon) and Strong’s dictionaries (1890). Many name meanings are uncertain.
Every place, every Hebrew and Greek form of its name, every verse that names it, its other names, and the area where it was, from STEPBible’s list of proper names (TIPNR), made at Tyndale House, Cambridge.
The kind of place, the sites proposed for it today, and a score for how sure scholars are of each site, drawn from over seventy reference books. Its Bible Geocoding Data is shared under CC BY 4.0.
Other names are given as STEPBible’s list joins them to a place; scholars do not always agree. Region comes from the area STEPBible’s list gives, or from the towns Joshua names in his account of each tribe’s land (Joshua 13 to 19); for many places neither gives a region, and their cards say so.
The site today is given by its modern name only. “How sure” puts OpenBible.info’s score for the site most often given (out of 1000) into four groups: No real doubt (900 to 1000), Likely (500 to 899), Uncertain (100 to 499), Unknown (below 100, or no site given).
History: for 40 key places, a few facts from outside the Bible, such as who ruled a city, when it was destroyed, and who dug there. Each fact is in Open Scroll’s own words and names the source it was checked against: UNESCO, Encyclopaedia Britannica, museums and university digs. Where scholars disagree, the card gives each side.
Region also comes from the Bible’s own words, where a verse ties a place to a region, such as “Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11).
These pages have no maps. The Bible Maps pages on the Open Scroll page show where many of these places are. Where a dictionary prints God’s name in English letters, these pages write YHWH, and Yah for its short form.