The Church in Palestine
There has been a Christian community in Palestine, without a break, since the first century. This is the companion to the book of that name — the parts of the history that are better looked up than read straight through, and that a printed book cannot hold.
The chronology
484 dated entries
The date spine of the whole nineteen centuries, from the Gaza road in the thirties to the present day. Read it straight through and the argument makes itself: the names change, the empires change, and the community does not stop.
The atlas
113 places
Every place the book names, pinned and searchable under every name it has carried — Jufna and Jifna, Beisan and Scythopolis, Aelia and Jerusalem. A period map for each of the seven parts, and the Gaza road drawn.
The succession
the see of Jerusalem
The same story told through the men who held the see — an unbroken list, and the gaps and disputes in it named rather than smoothed.
The texts
5 works, complete
The primary sources the book quotes, in full and free to read: Justin, Eusebius on the martyrs of Palestine, Jerome's Hilarion, Egeria's travels. A quotation is an argument about a text; here is the text.
These four surfaces share one set of facts. A date in the chronology, a place in the atlas and a bishop in the succession are the same record seen three ways, generated from the book's own working files rather than kept in parallel by hand — which is why they cannot quietly disagree with each other or with the book.