The Bible and Culture

One of the more spectacular digs in all of Turkey has been the slope house dig, right in the middle of old Ephesos. We will now walk a little further down the hill, over mosaic inlaid streets, and enter the domain of the wealthy, and their penthouses downtown, seven of them, to be exact, and on three levels, with the two houses at the top level being the largest-- like modern penthouses. Probably 95% of the wealth in antiquity was controlled by the upper 2% of the population, and they … [Read more...]

Ephesos was a city of many temples, many gods, many priests, and Paul wanted nothing to do with any of them. The new excavation on the hill on the right side of the street has produced this.And here is the explanation.....Meanwhile, on the other side of the street and a little further down we have this...There were not merely temples everywhere, there were statues and steles of gods and goddesses everywhere, ranging from demi-gods like Herakles/Hercules to Nike the … [Read more...]

Ephesos is the Greek name for the city (Ephesus the Latin one), and it refers to bees, hence the bee on the coin.The patron deity of the city, Artemis is represented on the other side of the coin, by the deer or stage. The Roman name for this deity was Diana, the goddess of the hunt. In Ephesos however the emphasis seems to have been on Artemis as a goddess of health, hygiene, fertility.The city of Ephesos was nestled between two harbors and involves a couple of long streets that … [Read more...]

The ride from Aphrodisias to Kushadasi is not terribly long, and along the way we stopped at my favorite leather factory, Kircilar.They make the very best leather coats and jackets, and wallets and belts and purses etc. out of lambskin. It's beautiful stuff, and my groups always enjoy this stop, not least because two of them at least get drafted to model these items on the runway show,complete with the usual bouncy runway music. A good time is had by all. For those not interested the … [Read more...]

A trip to Aphrodisias is always a treat as it is a truly spectacular site, and now it sports the best museum related to the growth of the Imperial Cult in the first two centuries. In order to understand the relevance of this to NT studies one needs to recognize only two recent historical persons were being called God in the first or second century, either the Emperor or Jesus. There is then a case to be made that these two figures were the basis of two rather new religions, competing ones. I … [Read more...]

Down and across the Lycus valley from Hierapolis is Laodicea.This city was famous in antiquity, and famously had a water problem, not lukewarm water but brackish water. It was a huge city with two major theaters (one for morning one for afternoon performances depending on where the sun was) and a stadium, and it has become a huge dig, the most active ambitious dig perhaps in all of Turkey. Just reconstructing the streets in itself is an enormous task Here for example is Syria Street … [Read more...]

The Lycus Valley is a large,long, lush valley which includes three ancient cities of importance for Christianity--- Hierapolis (which we will visit first), Laodicea, and Colossae (which we will not visit, as no dig has ever transpired there, and there is just a small mound of dirt there. We have found evidence of an odeon there sticking out of the side of the hill, but that's it).Hierapolis is important as a center of early Christianity, including the final home of Philip and his … [Read more...]

The Temple of Artemis at Sardis is not to be confused with the one at Ephesus. Indeed, there were several different Artemises, one more a fertility goddess, another rather like Diana the goddess of the hunt, and so on. Here is a sign to get us oriented in regard to the one in Sardis.Here's the shot as one approaches the site...The setting of this temple is gorgeous, in a valley surrounded by mountains,Here's a beautiful catalpa tree, .A word here about the stone masons … [Read more...]

The big three sites to go see among the seven churches of revelation are Ephesus, Pergamon, Sardis, to which one must now add a fourth, Laodicea, because of the amazing archaeological work done there in the last five years. In this blog post and the next we must focus on Sardis. We will look at the major part of this site first, which includes the shops, synagogue and gymnasium complex. In the next post we will focus on the Temple of Artemis, which is a half mile away.Like most of … [Read more...]