1942 / 1977 Carpenters Workshop Biblical Map of the Holy Land

Your Guide to Galilee and Other Godly Lands.

This is a 1942 Th. F. Mathesy map of the Holy Land, updated to 1977 and published by the Carpenters Workshops in Nazareth, by the time of publication part of the State of Israel. The map combines information from the Old Testament, a careful tracing of the travels of Jesus according to the Gospels, historical and archaeological sites, and a map of modern roads and railways, offering English-speaking pilgrims and Bible readers a landscape in which successive periods remain visible together. It is likely that this map was reissued to capitalize on a surge in Biblical tourism following the 1967 Six-Day War, which saw Israel occupy East Jerusalem and the West Bank, making travel to Christian sites much more seamless.

A Closer Look

Coverage ranges from Sidon in modern-day Lebanon to Gaza, Beer-Sheba, and the Dead Sea, and from the eastern edge of the Mediterranean inland to Golan, Ramoth Gilead, and other settlements beyond the Jordan River. Territorial divisions at the time of Jesus' life are color-coded. Ancient towns, ruins, castles, and other places mentioned in the Bible (including 'Sodom and Gomorrah?' at the bottom of the Dead Sea) are noted throughout, usually with notation afterward indicating the books in which they appear. Towns visited by Jesus are recorded with a white cross within a red circle (a previous owner has made marks next to some of these, perhaps representing where they had traveled).

Despite the title, events and features subsequent to the life of Jesus are indicated, including battles of the Crusades era and modern roads and railways. Concentric circles appear at ten-mile intervals from Jerusalem. To the right of the map is a list of 'journeys and gospels' of Jesus with their location in the Four Gospels. Further right is an index of placenames and their coordinates according to an alphanumeric grid surrounding the map.

Pilgrimage and Biblical Tourism across the 1948 Divide

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under Ottoman and later British Mandate rule, travelers from Britain and the United States, galvanized by Protestant revivalism, undertook arduous journeys to map sacred topography, verify Scripture, and personally encounter the physical setting of biblical history, aided by pioneering travel agencies like Thomas Cook. Following the 1948 founding of the State of Israel, pilgrimage logistics fractured across Israeli and Jordanian boundary lines, yet Anglo-American interest persisted and subsequently surged after the 1967 Six-Day War brought East Jerusalem and major biblical landmarks under Israeli administration, no doubt a factor in the reissuing of this map in the 1970s. In the post-1948 era, fueled by the growth of American evangelicalism and Christian Zionism, biblical tourism matured into a major pillar of Israel's economy and cultural diplomacy, characterized by specialized group charters, structured itineraries following the life of Jesus and the Old Testament prophets, and institutionalized events such as the Feast of Tabernacles celebrations that treat travel to the Holy Land as both a spiritual rite of passage and an expression of political solidarity.

Publication History

This map was prepared by Mathesy in 1942, and this date was retained on later editions of the map (distinguishable by small print dates in the bottom-right corner), likely leading to later examples being cataloged as 1942. After the initial 1942 printing (or later printings without any later date indicated), printings in several languages were issued in 1973, 1974, 1977, and 1978. Aside from this English-language edition, Hebrew, French, and German editions were also printed. No further information is available about the author (even his given name) or the publisher, whose only known work is this map. We do not locate any examples of this 1977 English-language printing of the map in institutional collections.

Cartographer

Carpenters Workshops (fl. 1942 - 1978), also recorded as The Carpenter's Workshops, was a map publisher based in Nazareth, Palestine, subsequently Israel, active during the mid-20th century. Its documented cartographic work centered on Th. F. Mathesy's Pilgrim's Map of the Holy Land for Biblical Research: The Journeys and Deeds of Jesus Christ, issued under the firm's imprint in 1942. Intended for Christian pilgrims and biblical study, the map connected scriptural places with the journeys and deeds of Jesus. The publisher also issued French, Hebrew, and German versions of the map.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Light damp stains, left side. Mounted on poster linen.