The Land And The Book or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn From The Manners And Customs, The Scenes And Scenery Of The Holy Land
By W. M. Thomson (Thirty Years Missionary In Syria & Palestine)
Published by T. Nelson And Sons: London 1878
"William McClure Thomson (1806 - 1894) was an American Protestant missionary working in Ottoman Syria. After spending 25 years in the area he published a best-selling description of what he had seen in his travels. He used his observations as a means of illustrating and illuminating passages from the Bible. In 1859 Thomson published an account of his experiences entitled
The Land and the Book
. Aimed at the general public rather than academics or theologians it became very popular. In America over the next forty years it was only outsold by Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The book is framed around a pilgrimage undertaken during 1857. Thomson is accompanied by an unnamed individual whose questions enable the author to recount his experiences and illustrate stories from the Bible. They set out from Beirut in January, riding South to Sidon and Tyre, from where they cut inland and arrived in Palestine via the Hula Valley. They visited Safad, Tiberias, Nazareth and Jenin before returning to the coast at Caesarea and South to Jaffa, Ashdod and Gaza. From Gaza they turned North via Bayt Jibrin, Hebron and Bethlehem, ending the journey in Jerusalem."
