Bible Mapper 5 released!

 I am happy to report that David P. Barrett has released a version 5 of his excellent Bible Mapper program. Barrett provided the maps for the Crossway ESV Bible Atlas which is the required atlas I use in my Survey of the Lands of the Bible class. From the description on the site:

Bible Mapper is the ideal tool for researching and creating maps of the biblical world. Virtually every known location and geographic feature in the Bible can be displayed and fully customized quickly and easily, making it a snap to create stunning maps adapted to your particular needs. Check out the gallery of pre-made maps that ship with Bible Mapper 5.

You can learn about all the features of this Windows program HERE. Notable new features include the capability to:

• Create high resolution maps of Jerusalem (the Jerusalem Ordnance map of 1865 is also able to be overlaid on the terrain)
• Upload your custom objects or styles to a repository to share with other registered users, or restrict access to yourself for easy import into other maps
• Import basic KMZ/KML data (points, lines, areas, etc.) created by other software (e.g., Google Earth) and customize it on your map

If you want to get an idea of how the program works, you can use version 3 for free with no limitations. A key for the new version 5 costs $37. Here are examples of two maps I created using Bible Mapper.

One of the great benefits of this program is that any map you create is your own, and you don't need to obtain any copyright permissions or pay any costs to share your map. You simply need to cite Bible Mapper as the tool you used. A great example of how Bible Mapper has been utilized is at BibleAtlas.org where there are maps of every biblical location.