{"id":1894,"date":"2026-03-08T14:11:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/?p=1894"},"modified":"2026-03-08T14:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:11:40","slug":"recreating-a-satellite-view-from-the-1985-moody-atlas-of-bible-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/2026\/03\/recreating-a-satellite-view-from-the-1985-moody-atlas-of-bible-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"Recreating a Satellite View from the 1985 Moody Atlas of Bible Lands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 1985 Moody Atlas of Bible Lands<\/em> by Barry J. Beitzel has a section at the end that discusses the history of biblical mapmaking. It concludes by showing a Landsat 1 image from January 1, 1973. Here’s my attempt at recreating the look of that image, alongside a more-modern take on the source data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Landsat
The above image rotates the source data by 9 degrees to match the appearance in Moody<\/em>. You can also download the raw geotiffs for Moody<\/a> and Modern<\/a> (about 20 MB each) for use in GIS applications. Resolution is about 60 meters per pixel. Find the raw data at USGS Earth Explorer<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Landsat 1 didn’t include a blue sensor (Landsat satellites wouldn’t get one until Landsat 4<\/a> in 1982), which means the blue band for a natural-looking red-green-blue (RGB) output has to be derived from other bands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the above reconstruction work, I believe Moody<\/em> used Band 6 (near-infrared) for red, Band 4 (green) for green, and Band 5 (red) for blue. The strong red coloring for vegetation is often a giveaway that the NIR band was used for the red channel. This kind of false-color compositing was fairly common for the era and continues today for specific purposes<\/a> (like agricultural monitoring). In the print book, the Moody<\/em> image crops out most of the red vegetation, which I think is a smart move for the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Moody<\/em> image is relatively dark, with more contrast than we’d expect today. My recreation here is a bit bluer than the version that appears in print, but it’s the closest I could get. The print version also merges three different scenes with slightly different color processing for each. Here I was able to merge and process the three scenes together, for a more-unified look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This “vegetation is red” look isn’t how we process satellite imagery today for general consumption, so the second image uses a combination of Bands 4, 5, and 6 to recreate a blue channel and generate a natural-looking scene that matches modern expectations. (Specifically, it does 1.2*B4 - 0.35*B5 + 0.05*B6<\/code>. OpenAI’s Codex, which did these transformations for me, says, “B4<\/code> carries visible-light structure closest to what we need for a blue-like channel. Subtracting B5<\/code> suppresses warm soil response that otherwise makes blue muddy. A small B6<\/code> term can stabilize tone transitions, but too much NIR in blue quickly produces unnatural color.”) It’s not as perfect as a dedicated blue sensor would be, but it comes close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my opinion, the Landsat 5 image from the last post<\/a> is clearer than either of these images. On the other hand, it has a blue sensor to work with. Moody<\/em> worked with what they had available to them, and the 1973 image they used presents an especially clear, cloud-free view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1985 Moody Atlas of Bible Lands by Barry J. Beitzel has a section at the end that discusses the history of biblical mapmaking. It concludes by showing a Landsat 1 image from January 1, 1973. Here’s my attempt at recreating the look of that image, alongside a more-modern take on the source data. Landsat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1899,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions\/1899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openbible.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}