Also usually missed by the normal tours is the important little museum of Ephesus, which we will now explore… On the front outside the museum we see small stone representations of gladiators…. And the usual beautiful flowers.. And giant sarcophagi too big to fit into a small museum… Inside the museum there are multiple statues of Artemis, who appears in various ways…. probably the items on her chest are breasts, but they could also be eggs…in either case they are... Read more

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To paraphrase a famous phrase, human beings can’t live by archaeology alone.  So, having reached the vicinity of Ephesus, we stopped at a fabulous Turkish country restaurant….  this sure beats American fast food in every way….. The Church of St. John the Divine is well worth seeing, though many cruise boat tourists only go to the ancient Ephesus site and miss it.  But which John exactly are we talking about.  In my view it is the man who identified himself... Read more

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The museum in Antalya largely has holdings of things found at Perga, but overall it is worth visiting especially for it’s amazing collection of period statues, including the statues of Emperor and Plancia Magna, as well as a collection of ornate sarcophagi which rival those found in the Istanbul museum which we have already explored, except these are from a later period than most of those in the Istanbul museum.  But let’s start with a small horned altar for sacrifices….... Read more

This will be the last Turkey post until the New Year when we will return with a series of posts on Cappadocia. The large stadium at the bottom of the main roads in Ephesus is impressive, and suggests a considerable population of this city when it was built— perhaps as many as a quarter of a million. Unfortunately, one of my tour group nearly went down for the count due to an out of control Roman centurion…. 🙂 This stadium... Read more

The city of Perge was in fact the first place Paul really preached on the mainland of the western part of Turkey. And it had long been an impressive city back in the Hellenistic age and even before.  Here is a little map which will show you the relationship between Perge, Aspendos, and Attalia.   Perge was indeed a walled city with famous towers that date to the Hellenistic era. Let’s first look at a couple of scale models of... Read more

Perhaps the most intact, and impressive Roman theater in the whole ancient world is at Aspendos, near Perga on the coast. Consider these shots… This is a theater still used today for plays, concerts, and more. But we need to consider it as an ancient theater in Paul’s world where Greek and Roman comedies and tragedies were staged, and perhaps where some small scale gladiatorial contests were held in the pit… not the stage. So let’s go inside and have... Read more

There is really virtually nothing to see in Konya of direct relevance to the study of the NT, though nearby you can go to a caravanserai and see the whirling dervishes, which is fascinating.  Instead of doing that on this trip we went and visited perhaps the oldest church in all of Turkey, and one founded by Queen Helena, on her way from Constantinople to build churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem…. The church is in the charming little village of... Read more