Welcome to our second Biblical Geography lesson! I hope you caught the last episode on Bethlehem of Judea. This week we are going to do an overview of the entire Roman province of Judea and talk briefly about some of the cities we will be covering later. It’s so important to understand how different Judea and Judeans were from Galileans, Samaritans, Greeks, etc because when Yeshua/Jesus spoke to these people, they became his audience and depending on where they came from, it could change what we think we understand about the story.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the video, here are the links to the two maps from Bible History Online.

First Century Israel

First Century Judea

And here is this week’s video:

Matthew Chapter 2 is rather unique in the Gospels as it mentions a number of cities and regions: Bethlehem, Judea, the “East,” Jerusalem, Egypt, Israel, Galilee, and Nazareth. These places will pop up again and again in the Gospel histories and so it is important to know where everything is. Matthew 3 will add the “wilderness” and the Jordan River to this list and Matthew 4 will add Capernaum and the Decapolis. Although geography was not my strong subject in school, these places are mentioned in the Bible and so they are worth understanding. Oftentimes, without a knowledge of what these places were like, we miss the meaning of what Yeshua/Jesus was talking about! So this week, we start with Bethlehem of Judea, the City of David. Check out the additional video I am going to post, called The War Cry by Eric Ludy, because it talks about my second-favorite Bethlehem Scripture. You parents will want to review it before having your children view it.

and