The Christian Traveler's Guide to the Holy Land

Rating:
Summary: Great Holy Land Pocket Reference Guide
Review: I just got back from a 2 week vacation to Israel/Egypt. During the vacation I used this book to mentally prepare the night before for the sites we were going to be seeing the next day. This book was also extremely helpful to have along with you while touring because it offered quick pictures / descriptions / references. There were many times during the tour that our lead pastor borrowed the book to use as a reference before speaking about a site we were visiting. Excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Great Holy Land Pocket Reference Guide
Review: I just got back from a 2 week vacation to Israel/Egypt. During the vacation I used this book to mentally prepare the night before for the sites we were going to be seeing the next day. This book was also extremely helpful to have along with you while touring because it offered quick pictures / descriptions / references. There were many times during the tour that our lead pastor borrowed the book to use as a reference before speaking about a site we were visiting. Excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: If "Christian" means "of limited interests"
Review: Professor Dyer's guide covers "the Land of Israel", meaning the State of Israel and the occupied territories, the "Land of Jordan", meaning Jordan, and "the Lands of the Aegean", meaning a few places in what are currently Greek speaking areas. Egypt and Ur are not included, for some reason. Certainly the Tanakh ("Old Testament") attributes some pretty holy happenings to them. Within these chapters each place includes a brief description and a chronology of its significance in the Christian Bible, with reference limited to those aspects likely to be of interest to American fundamentalist Protestants, rather than Orthodox or Catholic brethren and sisters. The good doctor does not seek controversy in this work, however, and includes two maps with the current political boundaries clearly shown. A separate section of poor quality color photographs even has a couple of figures described as Arabs, though perhaps they are Christians, and in any case are engaged in activities such as winnowing grain and herding sheep, rather than raising Cain.
Prefatory materials are clearly aimed at readers who have never been outside the USA, much less to the Near East, and are not bad so far as they go. Passports, jet lag and weather are covered, though the conversational Hebrew and Arabic are pretty minimal and those few travelers who aspire to talk to the locals in their own languages would be advised to supplement Dr. Dyer's jargon with tapes and phrasebooks. Most, however, will undoubtedly stay close to the bus and have no need for palaver with the natives or recent immigrants of whatever language.
Further aids are included. There is an entire schedule of suggested objects of prayer: good attitudes, the spiritual health and destiny of the bus driver, good weather and much more are among them. Following these hints are special focal points in Bible Study, several pages in fact before the actual Guide commences. And at the end of the book are appended quite a lot of verses (not Biblical ones, but rhymed & metrical stuff), maybe for singing, though there is no musical notation.
There are no materials on accommodations or nightlife, so the traveler will have to see to suchlike some other way. Visitors who are interested in what might have happened since "Biblical" times and are merely perplexed by the evidence they will presumably see around them may want to consider Baedekers or Blue Guides. But Dyer & Hattieburg's Guide will probably be satisfactory to the type of tourist who will buy it.

Rating:
Summary: an excellent companion
Review: This book contains information to help one understand just what it is he is seeing, has just seen, or is about to see. Lots of specific type information rather than just general. A real treasure.