Almost every reader of the Bible will realize that the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, contain extensive historical materials and innumerable allusions to the geographical background of that history. The geographical references range eastward to the Tigris and Euphrates and beyond to Media, Elam, and Parthia – from which came some of those present at Pentecost – and even to India. Including Asia Minor, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia, they reach westward beyond Greece and Rome as far as Spain, which Paul visited or hoped to visit, and where we are probably to find Tarshish, towards which Jonah started his fateful voyage. Between these limits, the Holy Land itself, under its various names – Canaan, the land of Israel, or Palestine – with its immediate neighbors, is at the center of the picture throughout.