Interactive Map of Paul's First Century Travels in Roman World
29 comments
·August 26, 2025intofarlands
teytra
Interesting. Is it possible to add what sources you use for each datapoint? The Acts and Epistles of course (verse numbers would be nice), but you use more sources, right?
intofarlands
Thanks for checking it out! I have the verse references, with plans to add all the relevant verses within the box as well.
Most of the locations are known historically, however some could benefit with additional sources, such as Malta. I will try to add those as well
turing_complete
It already shows the sources if you click on the markers
bambax
Magnificent project, congrats!
Is ArcGIS free for this kind of project?
intofarlands
Thank you!
Yes, it is free through ArcGIS Online, their web-based mapping software
parodysbird
I'd recommend looking into adding a speculative final journey he might have taken to Spain. He mentions plans to go there in Romans, and other sources like 1 Clement and Jerome suggest he actually went there. The city of Tarragona has a tradition that he visited, as a speculative destination to map.
fsiefken
What a nicely done narrative presentation and container (ArcGIS etc) of travel. Immersive 360 degree pictures might be nice to add.
There's a 1990 board game about Paul's travels with a similar map, but with less narrative detail, it's more about immersion and play. Tom Vasel wrote a review: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/100649/review-journeys-of-p...
Campaign variant: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/127941/missionary-campaigns...
Other - a bit more crunchy and modern board games that feature a little bit of Paul are Commissioned (2016) and The Acts (2018) & expansions - both games can be solo'd - good for personal immersion in the topic of church history, community building or friction.
# Bart Ehrman on the Pauline timeline:
https://www.bartehrman.com/story-of-paul-in-the-bible/
https://www.bartehrman.com/apostle-paul-timeline/
https://www.bartehrman.com/historical-paul/
# Academic research bridging archeology and the letters of Paul
maxweylandt
neat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' :
>This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield.
should be 'his'
andretti1977
Beautiful work, no other words.
I’ve always thought it would be cool to build a side project like OpenStreetMap, where people can mark the places traveled by famous historical figures — kind of like what you did with Paul’s journey, but open to any historical figure. Do you know if there’s anything like that out there?
Mistletoe
How did Paul make money and buy food for the journeys?
intofarlands
Paul financially supported himself as a tentmaker (See Acts 18:3 - “There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.”)
There are also other mentions he was a tentmaker.
tetris11
> tentmaking
For anyone wondering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentmaking
> ... in which missionaries support themselves by working full-time in the marketplace with their skills and education, instead of receiving financial support from a Church.
chad_oliver
Just to be clear, Paul literally made tents. The meaning of "tentmaking" that you quote came later by analogy with Paul.
Mistletoe
Interesting. I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole and seen Thomas Jefferson call Paul the first corrupter of Jesus’ teachings and I’m seeing everything in a brand new way. It makes a lot of sense.
photios
TIL Jefferson published his own "version" of the New Testament. [1]
> Jefferson mashed up/cut and pasted the New Testament to remove any references to the supernatural, or miracles, as well as the divinity of Christ. His title for the book was "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," which tells us a lot about his motivations.
Walking in Arius' footsteps ...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dnyxy8/thoma...
parodysbird
It is very strange the amount of theology that comes solely from Paul's idiosyncratic writings, given that he neither met the prophet in question (Jesus), nor was taught by any of his students (apostles), nor even got along particularly well with any of his students.
bambax
Interesting! It's possible though that Paul invented the concept of Jesus, which was later made into a "real" person/story.
parodysbird
He was also a Roman citizen, so he could pull some privileges for free rides like getting to Rome through exercising his right to appeal directly to the Emperor
shusaku
As an American, I’m planning a similar strategy to finance my vacation to Ecuador.
palmotea
Didn't he work as a tentmaker? Also I'd imagine he got a lot of support along the way.
I created an interactive map overlaying Apostle Paul’s 20,000km of journeys on a 1st century Roman Roads network, with modern vs. ancient cities and site photos. The base map utilizes the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire (DARE), which was embedded into ArcGIS, with all four of Paul’s journeys with every stop added. The Roman Roads map can also be switched to a modern map to compare the ancient vs. modern locations.
This is part of a personal project I am embarking on called Kingdoms Collide, where I plan to retrace every step of Paul’s journeys across the ancient Roman Roads.