The purpose of the Photo Companion to the Bible is to provide the reader, student, and teacher of the Bible with a broad selection of images that accurately illustrates the sites, scenes, artifacts, and people mentioned in the biblical text. This collection has been created by a team of experts who love the Bible and who love to teach it. All of us have Ph.D.’s in Biblical Studies with emphases in biblical geography, history, languages, and archaeology.

Sometimes controversy exists over the identification of a certain site. In such cases, we often include photos of two or more candidates (e.g., the tomb of Jesus). Sometimes we did not have a photo of an artifact from the land of Israel, but we did have a similar one from Greece (e.g., a gold crown). At other times, we had to use a photograph of an artifact dated centuries earlier, knowing that while styles may have changed, the artifact is still closer to the ancient reality than what we know from our own world today. Where we can provide multiple images, we do so in the belief that a larger library will better serve a wide user base.

Explanatory Notes

The notes written for each photograph are intended to provide clarification and additional background information. They provide the rationale for choosing a particular photo for a verse, and elucidate the relationship between them. The intention was not to write another Bible dictionary (there are many good ones already!), but rather to provide specific and relevant facts that will improve the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the photos and their connection to the biblical text. For museum artifacts, the notes specify the museum and location where that object is currently held. For historic images, we provide, when possible, the date the photograph was taken.