Well researched, user friendly, but with lacunae

books:


	• A Guide to Biblical Sites in Greece and Turkey Clyde E. Fant, Mitchell G. Reddish Oxford University Press, USA, 2003 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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A wonderful help to Pilgrim and Tourist

This little volume adds information helpful to traveller without unneccessary detail. It is as complete as any other guide as I have seen and more complete than most.

Anyone seeking up to date and ancient information to help understand the "Biblical World" will find this a valuable resource.

The Most Relevant Available

I have led 10 study tours to Turkey and Greece (University students and adult learners). I like this book so much that all the participants bring it along. Group members then read about the sites we will vist the night before and with the information supplied by F&R they are primed and well prepared for the next day.

The book is oriented toward biblical sites and the commentary and maps are very very helpful (I believe the best summary available). But for important non-biblical sites, such at Aspendos, Didyma, Troy (in Turkey) and Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae (in Greece) the book has little or no information. Also, travelers will want to consult other guide books, I like the Neos set, for important/essential non-biblical information on the countries of Turkey and Greece-classical matters, religion, politics, daily life, etc.

Finally, F&R is also useful for University classes in New Testament studies as it provides numerous insights to places mentioned there.

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Well researched, user friendly, but with lacunae

This guide to the biblical sites in Greece and Turkey is the product of many long travels (more than 10,000 miles just in Turkey alone) and first hand visits to the sites it covers. It is written in prose that is easy to read, has a helpful glossary of archeological and cultural terms not commonly used in daily life(such as agora, chiton, or megaron), an index, maps, charts, and lots of photographs taken by the authors. It gives information on the location of the site in question (e.g., "The site of ancient Pergamum is scattered in and around the modern town of Bergama"), its history ("According to the geographer Strabo, the earliest inhabitants of Ephesus were a group of peoples called Leleges and Carians,"), its biblical significance ("Derbe was one of the cities visited by Paul and Barnabas during their first missionary journey,"), and a step by step coverage of what a site visit is like (so that it pays to have the book open as you are walking through a place like Sardis, for example).

For the sites covered, the authors get very high marks. Their book is as good as it gets.

However, there are gaps in their coverage, especially in eastern Turkey. Time and again I found myself frustrated while traveling through eastern Turkey as I wanted to read about the biblical sites I was seeing and all I found was...nothing. No coverage is given to Mt. Ararat nor any space taken to talk about the different theories about where Noah's Ark might have landed (or the modern search for it - a real growth industry). No coverage is given to the Tigris River, the Euphrates River, or to discussion about the importance of the land between the rivers: Mesopotamia. (The Garden of Eden has always been associated with this region, not to mention much of the great action in the Old Testament.) Carchemish is not covered (either historically or biblically) and Harran is only mentioned long enough to say it won't be covered in the book. These places didn't even show up on the otherwise thorough map the authors made of prominant biblical sites in Turkey: the eastern part of their map is notable for its lacunae. I also found it curious that no bibliography was included in the book. Moreover, several names that appear in bold print in the text (presumably in bold print because they were significant people) fail to show up in the index (e.g., Alyattes, Amyntas, Androclus). It should also be noted that their attempts to describe some of the museums they went to resulted in errors (e.g., they got their rooms mixed up in describing the Antalya Museum and will confuse the reader if they try to use this guide while touring the museum).

In short, this is an excellent book with some disappointing lacunae in coverage. If you plan to tour the biblical sites of both Greece and Turkey, by all means buy this book: you won't be disappointed. If you plan to tour only western Turkey (where most tour companies work) then certainly this book will meet your needs. If you plan to tour any part of eastern Turkey, however, I do not recommend this book. Instead, I recommend Everett C. Blake and Anna G. Edmonds' book "Biblical Sites in Turkey". This book gives fine coverage of all the western Turkey sites while also covering the eastern Turkey sites not covered in Fant & Reddish's book. Moreover, it discusses The Seven Churches of Revelation (which oddly doesn't receive formal coverage or even appear in a chart in the appendix of Fant & Reddish's book), it covers many sites important for church history not covered in Fant & Reddish's book (Urfa (Edessa), Van, Mesopotamia, Istanbul, Gordion, Nicea, etc.), has color photos, suggested tours, a bibliography, is 184 pages long, and was last updated in 2005. To sum, go with the Fant & Reddish book for Greece and western Turkey and the Blake & Edmonds' book for eastern Turkey.

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Nearly two-thirds of the New Testament--including all of the letters of Paul, most of the book of Acts, and the book of Revelation--is set outside of Israel, in either Turkey or Greece. Although biblically-oriented tours of the areas that were once ancient Greece and Asia Minor have become increasingly popular, up until now there has been no definitive guidebook for these important sites.
In A Guide to Biblical Sites in Greece and Turkey, two well-known, well-traveled biblical scholars offer a fascinating historical and archaeological guide to these sites. The authors reveal countless new insights into the biblical text while reliably guiding the traveler through every significant location mentioned in the Bible. The book completely traces the journeys of the Apostle Paul across Turkey (ancient Asia Minor), Greece, Cyprus, and all the islands of the Mediterranean. A description of the location and history of each site is given, followed by an intriguing discussion of its biblical significance. Clearly written and in non-technical language, the work links the latest in biblical research with recent archaeological findings. A visit to the site is described, complete with easy-to-follow walking directions, indicating the major items of archaeological interest. Detailed site maps, historical charts, and maps of the regions are integrated into the text, and a glossary of terms is provided.
Easy to use and abundantly illustrated, this unique guide will help visitors to Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus to appreciate the rich history, significance, and great wonder of the ancient world of the Bible.

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