Turns out the agora had a beautiful colored wall, as we have mentioned before. But it also had a collonaded street with gorgeous marble columns. Laodicea was indeed a wealthy city as Revelation 3.14-22 also makes clear, but the city had a serious problem, a water problem, and for a city of about 100,000 or a little less this was indeed a serious issue. The water they had was brackish, not really very potable, with too much calcium carbonate. They’ve... Read more
We’ve chronicled the ongoing archaeological work at Laodicea which is so impressive (shout out to Prof. Shimshek and his crew), and in this post I’m showing some of the most recent upgrades at a couple of sites, and a brand new site in the last of these series of posts. This is the afternoon theatre which has been thoroughly put back together and is even now used again for concerts. But as you can see from the crane, there’s still... Read more
Below you see a map which highlights the three major cities of the Lycus valley and their location in Turkey. For decades and decades, Biblical scholars have been hoping and waiting for the tel or mound at Colossae to be finally excavated to see what’s left of the city that was destroyed in the A.D. 60s, but later rebuilt without Rome’s assistance. Well I am very happy to report, having just recently returned from there, that by the time I’m... Read more
While this is not perfect, it does give us a glimpse of various aspects of ancient Roman life. Read more
This is why raccoons and frogs are not circus animal. You can’t train them. Read more
Of course they could have been thinking about Genesis 1, and creation. Read more
Dogs are alright, but they are too high maintenance, unlike cats. Someone should invent Pampers for dogs. But these two pictures encapsulate the joy dogs have exploring and playing with other critters…. though the turtle appears to be freaking out. Read more
Many of the contrasts in Proverbs are based in nature of course, because the sage studies nature and human nature. For example, Prov. 26 begins as follows: “Like snow in the summer, like rain at the. harvest, so honor does not show up for a fool.” The sage has confidence in God, that he will protect his ‘little ones’ and ‘faithful ones’ hence “as a bird for wandering, as a swallow for flying away, so a groundless curse will dissipate,... Read more
Prov. 25 begins with a statement telling us that the scribes of King Hezekiah (late eighth century B.C.) collected and present some proverbs of Solomon, and as Robert Alter notes, the word ‘too’. here (‘These too are proverbs of Solomon’) means there was a previous collection, and Alter suggests it is in Prov. 10. 25.2-3– “God’s honor is to hide a matter/ the king’s honor to probe a matter….but the heart of kings is beyond probing”. 25.11– “Golden apples in... Read more
Some of the proverbs involve interesting analogies, for instance Prov. 19.12-13– “A roar like a lion, the wrath of the king, but like dew on the grass, his favor.’ Disaster to his father, a foolish son/ and a maddening drip, a nagging wife.’ Or in some cases personification gets a point across— ‘Wine is a scoffer, hard drink is rowdy; all who dote on them get no wisdom.” (20.1). Sometimes one gets the impression that the author of these proverbs,... Read more
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