This should be a fun one to read the results: what is your favorite geographical story in the Bible? By that, we want to know which story, with a geographical angle, most captures your imagination. I’ll suggest a few examples to get you thinking about more possibilities.

David and Goliath is a ready favorite, with the two armies encamped on either side of the Valley of Elah and the young boy running down from Bethlehem with Lunchables for his brothers (1 Sam 17).

The Good Samaritan grips us as we envision the wilds of the wilderness and a band of hoodlums attacking a lone traveler (Luke 10).

The war between Asa and Baasha is less well-known, but it captures the back-and-forth dynamic on the Benjamin plateau (1 Kgs 15).

The swine dive at Gadara is a subject of regular debate, and I’ve spent much of last week preparing for publication what I hope to be a significant contribution to the discussion (Mark 5).

Or how about Jehoshaphat’s march into the wilderness, leading his army in brandishing their weapons praising the Lord (2 Chr 20).

There are so many wonderful possibilities. Let us know what your favorite is and we’ll share the results on Thursday!

(Email readers may need to click through to respond.)

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first survey. We had about 70 responses, a small enough number to keep us from drawing any significant conclusions. The winner was Jerusalem.

Perhaps we should have excluded Jerusalem, for its centrality in Jewish and Christian history makes it hard to beat. We expect that some of you took the survey as if Jerusalem was not an option, or we may have seen higher than 30% for Jerusalem. Of those votes, most selected a specific site in the city: 3 chose the Temple Mount, and 2 votes each went to the City of David, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, and the Mount of Olives. (The Garden Tomb and Holy Sepulcher each received one.)

Outside of Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee was at the top of the list. Because that can be considered a region with multiple sites, we can look on to a tie at third place between Caesarea Philippi and Hazor (four votes each). Personally I’m surprised by that result. In my experience, tourists enjoy Caesarea Maritima (one vote) more than Caesarea Philippi and Megiddo (one vote) more than Hazor. Shiloh and En Gedi fared well with three votes each.

We do have some pretty nerdy readers to judge from the votes cast for Jezreel, Tel Burna, Gibeon, and Omrit. Those all tied Masada, Capernaum, and Beth Shean (one vote) and beat out Beersheba, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount Carmel, and Ein Harod (no votes). But as we noted in the beginning, the results could have been quite different with more responses.

Thank you for participating. We’ll plan to have another survey next week.

I thought we might try something new to liven up August here on the blog. This week, and for a few weeks to come, we’ll conduct a reader survey in which you tell us what you like best. A day or two later, we’ll share the results. The process is simple: give us your name (or initials), so we can try to eliminate multiple entries by the same person. And give us your choice.

We begin by asking you to identify your favorite site in Israel. You might choose Lachish or Shiloh or Capernaum or any of the many hundreds of sites.  We realize this may be a difficult decision, but remember that this survey is just for fun, and no sites will be closed down as a result.

The rules: you can only vote once, and you can only choose one site. Spelling is not important, but if you want some more ideas, check out our “Sites” section on the BiblePlaces.com website.

(Email readers may need to click through to complete the survey.)