Outline Studies in the Old Testament
FIRST STUDY
The Old Testament World
The Bible is primarily a book of history, and without some knowledge of its historical contents no one can rightly understand its revelation of divine truth. But in order to know the history contained in the Old Testament we must obtain a view of the lands in which that history was wrought. We therefore study first of all the Old Testament World.
I. Location and Extent. The history of the Old Testament was enacted upon a field less than half the area of the United States. It extended from the river Nile to the lands east of the Per´sian Gulf and from the northern part of the Red Sea to the southern part of the Cas´pi-an. The world of Old Testament history was thus 1,400 miles long from east to west and 900 miles wide from north to south, and it aggregated 1,110,000 square miles, exclusive of large bodies of water.
II. Let us begin the construction of the map by drawing upon its borders Six Seas, four of which are named in the Old Testament.
1. The Cas´pi-an Sea, of which only the southern portion appears in the northeastern corner of our map.