By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Like everyone else, I have my ways to fill the time, whether it be in waiting rooms, such as Scripps Green Hospital where my father-in-law Sam Zeiden continues his recovery from heart surgery, or in public hearing rooms, where sometimes we have to wait before a quorum arrives.

I spent time in both places yesterday.  The hearing room was on the 12th floor of San Diego City Hall, where I serve on the city's 15-member Historical Resources Board.  We need eight members to transact business, and with a short board (we have five vacancies), and with members occasionally recusing themselves or taking summer vacations, it's sometimes difficult to achieve a quorum.  But once we did, we zipped through our business and heard some welcome news. 

One of our board colleagues, David Marshall, president of Heritage Architecture & Planning, announced his firm had won two awards from the California Preservation Foundation for the rehabilitations of  the Cabrillo Bridge leading into Balboa Park and of the Western Metal Supply Building at Petco Park.  The Foundation also awarded his firm a Craftsman/ Preservation Award for its work restoring the Spreckels Organ at Balboa Park.  Mazal tov! David, which in Hebrew literally means "good luck" but colloquially means "congratulations!"  Maybe you will teach me an Assyrian expression?

Some people can fill time by doodling, as I imagine David and the other architects on the board may occasionally do. One of my favorite time-filling past-times is visually hurtling through indexes of history books, or of place names on maps. I take particular pleasure in the diversity of influences that are reflected in the names of cities and towns throughout the United States.  There are English names, of course; but also many in French, Spanish, German, and numerous Native American languages. There are even some Chinese place names here and there around the country.

The Bible is also the inspiration for various American place names, either because city founders thought their towns looked like places described therein or because they wanted to pay honor to a biblical personage.  Sometimes, city names are derivatives from the Bible.  For example, there is a Joseph City, Ariz.,  which was named for the Mormon leader Joseph Smith. But one assumes that Smith himself had been named either after the Christian's St. Joseph (husband of Mary) or after the  Joseph in Hebrew Scriptures,  the one who was advisor to the Pharaoh and whom Broadway musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber really liked. . 

Regardless of whether the name is directly or indirectly attributable to the Bible, one can imagine that if there were such a thing as time/ space travelers who could come from the biblical era to the modern-day United States, that they'd feel a certain sense of familiarity with the names of some of our American cities and towns. Everything else might terrify them, but at least they could draw a measure of comfort from some of the names.

Time/ space travelers evidently able to go from one place to another in a relatively few instants—like a cell phone communication— they could, were they so inclined, visit a variety of places with names right out of the Book of Genesis.

For example, they could go to Eden (Gen 2:8), Ariz., but from what I hear, it's not much more populated than the original Eden.  They could visit Zillah (4:19-23), Washington, and find out if anyone there knows much about the original Zillah's husband Lamech, or her sons Tubal-Cain and Naamah.  If the travelers were flooded with memories, they could float themselves to Noah (5-29), Georgia, and stay aboard until they reached Ararat (8:4), North Carolina. Next, they could zap themselves to Canaan (9:18), Maine, or if they chose, they could swap hunting stories in Nimrod (10:8), Minnesota, or ask the folks in Nineveh (10:11-12) New York, if they ever worked with a builder name Asshur.

Should they want to continue coursing through Genesis-related cities and towns in America, they could go on to such places as:  Elam (10:22), Louisiana; Abram (11:27), Texas;  Bethel (12:8), Delaware; Pharaoh (12:10) Oklahoma; Hebron  (12:18), New Hampshire; Zoar (13:10), Massachusetts;  Jordan (13:10-11), Montana; Damascus (14:15), Oregon; Salem (14:18), Florida; Adah (14:19), Pennsylvania; Hagar (16:1) Shores, Michigan; Abraham (17:5), Utah; Sarah (17:15), Mississippi; Ammon (19:18), Idaho; Judah (29:35), Indiana; Omar (36:4), West Virginia; Bozrah (36.33), Connecticut; Goshen (45:10), Arkansas; or, perhaps, Shiloh (49:10), Ohio.

That might be enough for a single day of time-traveling. Why, after all, should they rush their visit to the U.S.A.?  There's so much, much more to see.  Should they decide to adjust the rest of their itinerary alphabetically, rather than chronologically according to the names' first appearances in the Bible, they could visit such towns and cities as: Carmel (Joshua 15:44), California; Jericho (Numbers 22:1), New Jersey; Jerusalem (Joshua 10:1), Rhode Island; Joppa (Joshua 19:46), Maryland;  Lebanon (Deuteronomy 1:7), Nebraska; Lydia (Ezekiel 27:10), South Carolina; Moses (Exodus 2:10-11), New Mexico; Mount Carmel (Joshua 12:1), North Dakota;  Nebo (Numbers 33:47), Missouri; Ophir (1 Kings 9:28), Kentucky; Ramah (Joshua 13:85), Colorado; Ruth (1:4), Nevada; Sharon (1 Chronicles 5:16), Tennessee; Sinai (Exodus 16:1) South Dakota; Solomon (II Samuel 5:14), Kansas, and Tabor (Joshua 19:22), Iowa.

If they'd like, they could go through the map book index themselves and they'd find many more cities and towns with biblically influenced names—some of the names  repeated multiple times in other states. To do that, of course, they'd have to allot themselves a good slice of time.  Perhaps they could sit through a meeting a your City Hall.