But unknown to the disciples, a fellow Asian of their own time, a Greek geographer from Pontus in Asia Minor, had recently capped a lifetime of study with the most successful attempt in the early history of Greek science to outline the bounds of the inhabited earth. It is true that none of the apostles would ever read Strabo. Even the scientists of that century tended to ignore him. But Strabo’s Geography, appearing about A.D. 20, presented to the world of the apostolic church a better picture of the planet than its people had ever before possessed.
Its basic shape was startlingly modern, for the Greeks knew much that the Middle Ages forgot. Strabo’s world was no flat-sided cube. It was a globe, with arctic and temperate zones, in size about twenty-five thousand miles around at the circumference. True he knew only the three continents – Asia, Europe, and Africa – but with remarkable prescience he conceded that there might be continents or other worlds unknown to him, for he remarked that the only land masses he could describe were too small for the size of the round world his astronomical measurements convinced him existed.
Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, vol. I, p. 4
They say that Paul never met Strabo and was therefore unaware of his work. But just imagine the conversation that might have taken place if they had met – and if Paul had gotten ahold of this map.
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Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
Entrusted to the Dirt 
