Tuesday (6/16) - Ephesus!

In the footsteps of Apollos and Paul (and of course many others) we headed out this morning from our really nice hotel in Izmir and took the 1.5 hour or so drive south to the ancient site of Ephesus. This city in Greco-Roman times was very important; it was estimated to be the second biggest city in the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD at around 250,000+. That's a lot of people! And yes, like every good ancient or medieval city, they did it in a comparatively small area. The city is famous to Christians for its appearance in Acts 18 and 19 during Paul's missionary journies (and in the apocryphal Acts of John, for those keeping track at home!). However, for everybody in the ancient world it was famous both as a huge cosmopolitan city with a crucial harbor AND for one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world: the Temple of Artemis. That is also mentioned in Acts 19. This was one of the hugest temples in the whole world, a wonder to behold -- what would we "Holy Landers" see on our visit?

Cool things, that's what! There's a reason people come from all over the world to walk the ancient streets of Ephesus. The Austrians have been excavating here for over 100 years, and they've revealed lots of the city and partially reconstructed enough bits to really give visitors at least a sense of the grand scale of everything. And there are Greek and (a few) Latin inscriptions everywhere! Even an authentic ancient Roman latrine! :-) As I said to a student at dinner tonight: "It's like Disneyland for a Classicist!"

For time's sake, I'll just post a bunch of cool pictures from our day and give only a brief description of each. If you'd like more pictures of this place, check out this site. Now we're off to stroll the streets of Ephesus:



Whoah! This is the reconstructed grand facade of the famous Library of Celsus. Amazing! The big ancient cities of the Roman world were full of structures that evoked this kind of grandeur! Can you imagine a rural country farmer coming to the big city for the first time? Or a Texas boy (hi Michael! :-)?

Next is our trip to a hillside where they are still conducting current excavations of wealthy homes built into terraces in the mountainside. I've studied Ephesus before in classes, but I had never heard of the gorgeous frescos inside that have survived in fragments inside these places! WOW! Most people don't realize that living in the ancient Greco-Roman world would have been a FAR more colorful experience than our world is today. True. What you see here are genuine ancient wall decorations.



Now we're off to the gigantic Theater of Ephesus -- we've heard there is a hubbub going on down there about some foreigner named Paul...



Above you see Dr. Perrin teaching us about the story of Paul from Acts 19 while sitting inside the very place that the text describes. Nice. But the above picture doesn't give you even a fraction of the real scale of the place, which could hold practically 24,000 capacity!



Ruined columns and paving stones and random bits of marble or limestone were everywhere. A wonderful place for anyone, but especially someone like me who studies the Greco-Roman world for a living!



We brought our Ephesus excursion to a close by visiting the old ruins of the Church of Mary Theotokos. Evangelicals typically don't get excited about churches to Mary, but the Mary tradition in Christian history is something we should learn more about and wrestle with at the least to understand things better. Historically, there is a church devoted to Mary mother of Jesus here because one Christian tradition places the last resting place of Mary before going to heaven right here in Ephesus, and this is connected to the strong tradition that John the disciple of Jesus was buried here. Mary aside, this church visit was especially significant for our group because of a very important even that took place here -- the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431! This is the one that declared Nestorianism a heresy, which was rather important to the development of Christian doctrine on the nature of Jesus Christ and thus the nature of our relationship with him and thus the nature of our salvation. If you've never heard of any of this, take the opportunity to educate yourself on a key event in Christian history. Here you see Dr. J teaching us about the Council and the theological implications of what was decided -- right in the very place where these events took place! A glorious day.



Okay, it was also a hot day where many folks started to run out of water, get dehydration headaches, have a hard time focusing, etc. But that all comes with the territory of a trip like this, so it's not a huge deal. By the afternoon we had eaten a full lunch (with water to wash it down!) and set off visit the large ruins of the Church of St. John, the Ephesus Museum, and then finally drive back to our hotel in Izmir. This was our last full day in Turkey, as tomorrow we have the joy of facing a 8-10 hour bus drive up the western Turkey coast, across the Hellespont on a ferry (sweet!), and then on into Greece! Whew! It will be glorious. We'll even drive within a mile or two of the ancient site of Troy along the way (the location of the legendary Trojan War, told so excellently by Homer in the Iliad -- read it :-) and also the site of Gallipoli of WWI fame, but we'll have to be content this time with just driving by them as we have no extra time
tomorrow.

When next I post, we'll all be in Greece!