Newly posted for your enjoyment on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: Cherubim and Seraphim: Iconography in the First Jerusalem Temple, presented by John Gee Our first stop this morning was at Colossae, which is, now, little more than a tumulus or a tell that awaits excavation. And this morning it was a muddy one. (See “John and Paul, but no George or Ringo.”) We next visited Alaşehir, the town known anciently (and, in... Read more
I’ve failed to call your attention to an article of mine that recently appeared in Meridian Magazine. So I’m going to call your attention to it right now. This article recently appeared in Meridian Magazine: “A New Film About Prophetic Succession After the Death of Joseph Smith, Now in Production.” Our first visit this morning, driving past Ephesus, was to the traditional House of the Virgin Mary. Legend has it that the apostle John brought Jesus’s widowed... Read more
We were up very early this morning to fly from Kayseri to Izmir. Izmir is the ancient Smyrna, the traditional birthplace of the enormously important Greek poet Homer. Kayseri is only one of several towns named Caesarea in the ancient world – think, for example, of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast of Israel and of Caesarea Philippi in the northern Galilee; everybody in antiquity wanted to flatter the emperor – and, in the Middle Ages, was once... Read more
We held a sacrament service this morning at our hotel in Ürgüp. It was very enjoyable. Steve Densley conducted it, and Murat Çakır, who served as the branch president and in the mission presidency here for quite a while (and who currently teaches Sunday school), was our speaker. (More on that, perhaps, later.) Brother Çakır helped us to organize this trip, and he and his wife, Susan, have been traveling with us. At least four Muslim members of... Read more
Two new articles appeared yesterday on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. I’m behind in calling attention to them, partly because I’m nine hours ahead of the time zone in which Interpreter is headquartered and partly because, well, I’m really busy. Anyway, here they be: “Joseph Smith’s Education and Intellect as Described in Documentary Sources,” written by Brian C. Hales Abstract: Although Joseph Smith has been credited with “approximately seven full school years” of district schooling, further research... Read more
We spent the night in Adana, a very old city that is mentioned not only in Homer but in the famous ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. I’ve never before been to Tarsus, so I’ve been looking forward to today. The city is located on the mouth of a river that empties into the Mediterranean. Anciently, that river was called the Cydnus, but is now known as the Berdan. Tarsus is also located at the southern end of the Cilician... Read more
This morning, we went first to the Hagia Sophia (Ἁγία Σοφία)—also called, depending upon the language, Ayasufya and Santa Sophia and Sancta Sapientia and the Church of Holy Wisdom (or Divine Wisdom). Sophia isn’t the name of a female saint; it is the Greek equivalent of English “wisdom.” After its completion in AD 537, Hagia Sophia was the largest Christian church in the world for roughly a thousand years—only being supplanted in that rank in the early sixteenth... Read more
After breakfast, we visited the ancient Hippodrome, where chariot races were held in Byzantine days, and where the infamous massacre took place during the great Nika Riot of AD 532 (about which I hope to say more in a future entry). Two monuments are (to me) particularly notable in the Hippodrome: The Serpent Column—Originally, this was the sacrificial Tripod of Plataea, which was created to celebrate the victory of the Greeks over the invading Persians during the Persian Wars... Read more
From its conquest by the Ottomans in 1453 until the official end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, Constantinople, renamed Istanbul, was their capital. The Ottoman Empire reach its zenith under Süleyman (or Suleiman) the Magnificent, who reigned from 1520 to 1566 (roughly overlapping with King Henry VIII of England, “Bloody Mary,” and Queen Elizabeth I, who, compared with his vast domain, were mere petty chieftains). The name Süleyman is the Turkish (and more or less the Arabic)... Read more
It’s good to be back in Istanbul, one of my very favorite cities. One of my favorite places on Earth. (We flew in just a few hours ago, via Amsterdam.) I’m not sure how long it’s been since we were here last, but it could possibly have been as long as eight years. And my last visit to Turkey beyond Istanbul was probably eleven years ago. So I’m very happy to be back. I love the setting of... Read more
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