A printing error in the Bible changed thinking about modern borders

A new study from the University of Cambridge finds that in 1525, a map of the Holy Land was included in the Bible for the first time, transforming the book from a purely religious text into a Renaissance work that later helped shape modern notions of national borders.

The study, published in The Journal of Theological Studies, argues that the map, made by Lucas Cranach the Elder and printed in Zürich, set a precedent that still influences how we understand territorial divisions today.

Professor Nathan MacDonald of Cambridge University, the study's author, described the inclusion of the map in the Bible as “at once one of the publishing industry's greatest failures and achievements.”

The failure lay in the cartographic aspect: the original map was printed upside down, making the Mediterranean appear to be east of Palestine.

“So little was known about the area to Europeans at the time that it seems no one in the printing shop noticed the error,” says Professor MacDonald.

However, its achievement lies in the precedent it set: the map “changed the Bible forever,” leading to most Bible editions today including a map.

The map depicts the Israelites' journey through the wilderness and, in particular, the division of the Promised Land into 12 tribal territories. These boundaries, which have been of interest to Christian scholars, are based on older medieval maps, which were based on the first-century historian Josephus, who simplified the complex and contradictory descriptions in the book of Joshua.

Professor MacDonald questions the assumptions these maps make about the concept of territorial division, arguing that these early maps of the Holy Land “led a revolution” in popular understanding of political borders.

As the Bible became more widely available in the 17th century, society's view of the world began to change. Although originally intended for a spiritual purpose in the Middle Ages, the biblical meaning of allocating land to tribes was eventually reinterpreted politically.

“Lines on maps began to represent the limits of political sovereignty , rather than boundless divine promises,” Professor MacDonald explains. This changed the way people understood the Bible’s geographical descriptions, turning a text that had no modern national boundaries into an example of “a world order that God established based on nations.”

This historical influence remains evident and has implications for the present. MacDonald notes that the Bible has contributed to the formation of conceptions of nation-states and territorial boundaries, which are widely regarded as “biblically endorsed, and therefore fundamentally correct.”

He expressed concern about the simplification of complex ancient texts: “We should be wary of any group claiming that their social organization had a theological or religious basis, because this often simplifies and distorts ancient texts, which were written in very different political and ideological contexts.”

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