What happened to Wheaton in the Holy Lands? No internet access the past few days, that is what happened. Rest assured, however, we are all fine. And we are in Rome! It is beautiful here, and though we are all very tired after such a long and stimulating set of travels, what a splendid way to wrap up our trip. I am typing this in an internet cafe, so I will make this really short, but I wanted everyone to know that we are here and in two short days will be flying back home to the good ol' U. S. of A! Many students have already been discussing which favorite restaurant we'll each want to go to first, etc. I have to admit that I too am looking forward to the familiarity of home. And my own bed!
Today we visited the Vatican and were VERY impressed. Wow. (I've visited it before, and I was still impressed all over again!) St. Peter's is amazing. Nothing like it in the world. Tonight the students all had their final exam, and afterwards were high-fiving each other and most decided to celebrate their "beginning of summer" :-) by going out to buy some delicious gelato. Mmmmm...
Tomorrow we have a free day, and I think I'll try to see some catacombs. Oh, time is up here , so I have to leave. Home soon...
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Monday (6/22) - Monasteries (and a little bit of Leonidas)
Wow! What a day! We started with some of the most beautiful vistas we've seen anywhere in this country and end it with our triumphal entry at last into Athens and our home base for the next 6 or so days. Here we go! We started in Kalambaka, and started the day by driving up into the Meteora area right next door. Here is the 2nd largest grouping of Orthodox monasteries, and the setting is beautiful and (by definition) ethereal, as they are all perched up on top of soaring cliffs and free-standing pillars that tower hundreds and hundreds of feet above the ground below. Here is one!
They were built up there specifically for the solitude and quiet. Pathways and roads weren't built until very recent times! Thankfully, we could take the bus up one of the mountain-sides most of the way and get views like this!
Folks, this place truly is amazing. I've just never seen anything like it. Maybe my favorite place so far, at least in the amazing vistas category.
You can visit multiple monasteries during certain hours, but we were only visiting the Varlaam monastery today, and let me tell you we got full value. Up until the 1920's (if memory serves), when a stairwell was cut into the rock face, this crane and basket system was the only way up or down!
The chapel inside the monastery hosts an amazing array of Eastern Orthodox artwork and icons. I particularly liked this one of IC XP (i.e. Jesus).
We couldn't leave without a group picture!
And once on the bus, we had to stop for a last shot of this amazing landscape. Wow.
(hmmm, I can't remember if that monastery in the center of the photo below is Varlaam or not... still, it's very picturesque all the same!)
How can you top such a place of beauty and tranquility? By visiting a place steeped in history and Hollywood testosterone! After our lunch (a fun roadside restaurant), we proceeded on to Athens, and the same highway that you have to take today is the same one that the invading Persian army once took in 480 BC, when they met a fierce (and doomed) little band of Spartans and Thespians who took a stand for freedom at legendary Thermopylae (or "Hot Gates"). Or so the story goes. These days people only remember the Spartans and ignore the poor people of the village of Thespia, but that's how these things go. The movie 300 was a popular film on the subject, but walking the battlefield really made things come to life for me. (no green screens anywhere to be found!) Here I'm standing on the hill that they took their final stand upon, and I'm looking west onto the narrow plain between the mountains and the ocean that the first stages of the famous Battle of Thermopylae took place.
There is of course a monumental statue of the Spartan general Leonidas that we all had to pose under, with a simply epic ancient Greek quote underneath. The Persians are said to have sent a messenger to Leonidas requesting that he surrender his weapons now that he saw how outnumbered they were. The quotation translates: "Come and get them." Awesome.
(Of course, the Persians did come and get them and the Spartans all died, but AHHH what an end...worthy of graphic novels and blockbuster movies!)
Now we made our last drive to historic Athens. Almost there!
We finally entered the edge of the city and came to Kifissia, a NE suburb where we are now staying for the next almost-a-week. Our new home is Bethel, the home of the Evangelical Scripture Union. It's kind of like a mini-retreat center with dorm facilities and a meeting room (with musical instruments that many of us are enjoying) and a recreation court out back with basketball and soccer and volleyball capabilities. What fun! When we arrived, we knew we were in good hands because we were greeted with ice cream bars! Yum! Surely a good sign of great things to come. :-) We celebrated our arrival by enjoying some recreation outside, and we quickly got up a game of Breakout (which I'd never heard of before but it's quite fun) that you see here:
Well, here we are in Athens! The real Athens of the history books and of Acts 17 and the 2004 Summer Olympics and all that! Can't wait! (but first, some sleep)
Tomorrow: Adventures into the ancient heart of Athens!
They were built up there specifically for the solitude and quiet. Pathways and roads weren't built until very recent times! Thankfully, we could take the bus up one of the mountain-sides most of the way and get views like this!
Folks, this place truly is amazing. I've just never seen anything like it. Maybe my favorite place so far, at least in the amazing vistas category.
You can visit multiple monasteries during certain hours, but we were only visiting the Varlaam monastery today, and let me tell you we got full value. Up until the 1920's (if memory serves), when a stairwell was cut into the rock face, this crane and basket system was the only way up or down!
The chapel inside the monastery hosts an amazing array of Eastern Orthodox artwork and icons. I particularly liked this one of IC XP (i.e. Jesus).
We couldn't leave without a group picture!
And once on the bus, we had to stop for a last shot of this amazing landscape. Wow.
(hmmm, I can't remember if that monastery in the center of the photo below is Varlaam or not... still, it's very picturesque all the same!)
How can you top such a place of beauty and tranquility? By visiting a place steeped in history and Hollywood testosterone! After our lunch (a fun roadside restaurant), we proceeded on to Athens, and the same highway that you have to take today is the same one that the invading Persian army once took in 480 BC, when they met a fierce (and doomed) little band of Spartans and Thespians who took a stand for freedom at legendary Thermopylae (or "Hot Gates"). Or so the story goes. These days people only remember the Spartans and ignore the poor people of the village of Thespia, but that's how these things go. The movie 300 was a popular film on the subject, but walking the battlefield really made things come to life for me. (no green screens anywhere to be found!) Here I'm standing on the hill that they took their final stand upon, and I'm looking west onto the narrow plain between the mountains and the ocean that the first stages of the famous Battle of Thermopylae took place.
There is of course a monumental statue of the Spartan general Leonidas that we all had to pose under, with a simply epic ancient Greek quote underneath. The Persians are said to have sent a messenger to Leonidas requesting that he surrender his weapons now that he saw how outnumbered they were. The quotation translates: "Come and get them." Awesome.
(Of course, the Persians did come and get them and the Spartans all died, but AHHH what an end...worthy of graphic novels and blockbuster movies!)
Now we made our last drive to historic Athens. Almost there!
We finally entered the edge of the city and came to Kifissia, a NE suburb where we are now staying for the next almost-a-week. Our new home is Bethel, the home of the Evangelical Scripture Union. It's kind of like a mini-retreat center with dorm facilities and a meeting room (with musical instruments that many of us are enjoying) and a recreation court out back with basketball and soccer and volleyball capabilities. What fun! When we arrived, we knew we were in good hands because we were greeted with ice cream bars! Yum! Surely a good sign of great things to come. :-) We celebrated our arrival by enjoying some recreation outside, and we quickly got up a game of Breakout (which I'd never heard of before but it's quite fun) that you see here:
Well, here we are in Athens! The real Athens of the history books and of Acts 17 and the 2004 Summer Olympics and all that! Can't wait! (but first, some sleep)
Tomorrow: Adventures into the ancient heart of Athens!
The Mission
One of the guiding strategies behind this part of our Holy Lands trip is to retrace Paul's footsteps on his 2nd and 3rd missionary journies wherever possible. The other day, right after we had visited Philippi, and Berea, and Dion (where Paul possibly set sail for Athens), I was sitting in the front of the bus watching the landscapes just roll by, and I began contemplating how these lands were the same that Paul crossed, and then others after him, and then the very first churches grew up in, and then passed the flame of the gospel on to others, and then to others, and they moved on to other lands beyond Greece, and then on to other lands, and eventually to northern Europe, and then on to the new lands of America, and someone passed it on to my great grandparents, and then to my grandfather and then to my parents and then to me -- and here we are representatives of Wheaton College coming back to the same lands where the fire of the Gospel first sputtered to a bright flame amidst the Gentiles.
Wow.
It made me think of this great song, and I want to share it with all of you. Listen to it and think about the power of the Good News of Jesus Christ, come to save the lost and bring a new hope, come to make all things NEW!
Wow.
It made me think of this great song, and I want to share it with all of you. Listen to it and think about the power of the Good News of Jesus Christ, come to save the lost and bring a new hope, come to make all things NEW!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sunday (6/21) - On the Move to Meteora
I'll make this quick, because I want to go to bed. Today we said our final farewell to the Olympus Bay Resort and headed north to Katerini for church at one of the very rare Greek evangelical churches.
We've been learning about the evangelical church in Greece; it's not very large and it's been frequently persecuted by the dominant Greek Orthodox Church--not violently necessarily, but I'm told that they've been systematically marginalized and/or legally pressured. Thus, the Greek evangelical community is often pretty excited when other Evangelicals from elsewhere come to visit and share relational community together. Here we see Dr. Perrin addressing the congregation and explaining who our group was.
We sat together and were given little wireless headsets connected to a translator back in the sound booth so that we could kind of follow along with the speakers and sermon. Of course, the translation was more of a summary, because after the speaker would talk for like 20 seconds, we'd hear three or four words, so perhaps we got the Cliff Notes version. :-) There was a guest speaker who spoke on the topic of fear and not letting fear keep us captive to its lies, for God has called us to freedom. It was a good reminder for all of us.
After the service, many of the younger Greek ladies talked to our girls and there was some swapping of email addresses. We then walked a short ways to a restaurant in the city where we packed in tight and ate wonderful plates of Greek meats and yummy salad for lunch. Finally we boarded the bus and then headed off to Kalambaka and the region of Meteora. This is the second largest community of Orthodox monasteries in the whole country, and we've been told that they are perched up on top of soaring cliffs! Can't wait.
Shortly before we hit Kalambaka, our stopping place for the night, we stopped at a genuine Orthodox icon factory. For those who don't really understand Orthodox icons, read this. It was pretty neat to see all the icons there in the shop with one of the painters there on-site creating one in front of us.
We learned about the full manufacturing process, and then we perused the icons there for sale. It was a fun challenge to try to read the highly-abbreviated Greek inscriptions on some of them, and I was successful in my own search for a good icon of that truly great hero of the faith: St. Mark. :-)
As we approached Kalambaka, we saw the mountains loom in the distance and the rocks of Meteora just on the edge of town. After finding our hotel rooms, many of us went for a leisurely walk around town to see what we could see. It was a wonderful night, cool temps and cooler breezes, and since it was a relatively small town there was only one main street and all the cafes were full of people just sitting there peacefully. It was a great experience. And look at our view! Up there is where we will visit tomorrow.
On our way back to the hotel, we passed by this one fast-food kind of place that had a few funny items on their bilingual menu. It was very spesial.
Tomorrow: Cliff-top monasteries and our journey to Athens!
We've been learning about the evangelical church in Greece; it's not very large and it's been frequently persecuted by the dominant Greek Orthodox Church--not violently necessarily, but I'm told that they've been systematically marginalized and/or legally pressured. Thus, the Greek evangelical community is often pretty excited when other Evangelicals from elsewhere come to visit and share relational community together. Here we see Dr. Perrin addressing the congregation and explaining who our group was.
We sat together and were given little wireless headsets connected to a translator back in the sound booth so that we could kind of follow along with the speakers and sermon. Of course, the translation was more of a summary, because after the speaker would talk for like 20 seconds, we'd hear three or four words, so perhaps we got the Cliff Notes version. :-) There was a guest speaker who spoke on the topic of fear and not letting fear keep us captive to its lies, for God has called us to freedom. It was a good reminder for all of us.
After the service, many of the younger Greek ladies talked to our girls and there was some swapping of email addresses. We then walked a short ways to a restaurant in the city where we packed in tight and ate wonderful plates of Greek meats and yummy salad for lunch. Finally we boarded the bus and then headed off to Kalambaka and the region of Meteora. This is the second largest community of Orthodox monasteries in the whole country, and we've been told that they are perched up on top of soaring cliffs! Can't wait.
Shortly before we hit Kalambaka, our stopping place for the night, we stopped at a genuine Orthodox icon factory. For those who don't really understand Orthodox icons, read this. It was pretty neat to see all the icons there in the shop with one of the painters there on-site creating one in front of us.
We learned about the full manufacturing process, and then we perused the icons there for sale. It was a fun challenge to try to read the highly-abbreviated Greek inscriptions on some of them, and I was successful in my own search for a good icon of that truly great hero of the faith: St. Mark. :-)
As we approached Kalambaka, we saw the mountains loom in the distance and the rocks of Meteora just on the edge of town. After finding our hotel rooms, many of us went for a leisurely walk around town to see what we could see. It was a wonderful night, cool temps and cooler breezes, and since it was a relatively small town there was only one main street and all the cafes were full of people just sitting there peacefully. It was a great experience. And look at our view! Up there is where we will visit tomorrow.
On our way back to the hotel, we passed by this one fast-food kind of place that had a few funny items on their bilingual menu. It was very spesial.
Tomorrow: Cliff-top monasteries and our journey to Athens!
Saturday (6/20) - Dion and a Rest Day
Today was a fun day, with a site visit in the morning to the nearby ancient city of Dion, a nice lunch, and then a free afternoon with opportunities to swim, walk the beach, take a nap, or even just check email or grab a seat near the pool with ocean views. Not a bad way to spend a day in Greece! On to the pictures:
Dion was an important port city in the northern parts of Greece, in what was in ancient times Macedonia. (there is also major controversy over the modern name of Macedonia, with the independent former Yugoslavian country named Macedonia and the Greek administrative district Macedonia fighting over turf...I won't get into that debate here though). Anyway, the site is pretty neat, with some temples and some cool ancient streets. I always like to walk the excavated streets, since we know for a fact that these are the same stones the ancient peoples walked on just the same way.
In the museum on-site, there were a number of interesting artefacts from the area. (okay, I'll admit that I find pretty much all this stuff interesting, since it's my area of professional study... but not all of us intrepid "Holy Landers" are finding museums the most fascinating places anymore... :-) Here are a really neat group of statues representing the children of the god Asclepius, a god associated with healing. It is quite rare to find these together.
I also really like ancient coins, and this is a good one of Philippos (or Philip), I think Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Anyone able to read the Greek below? (it's genitive case)
There was also a pretty awesome tombstone with the below carving. It commemorates a husband/wife team who have died, and it mentions things that each of them enjoyed and were skilled at in life. The wife (left) enjoyed music and the husband (right) worked as a scribe/writer of some sort.
Finally we broke for a satisfying lunch and then returned to our resort for an afternoon of rest and relaxation. I took a little nap and got caught up on some emails. And baseball scores. :-) Such activities made me thirsty, and when I perused the beverage choices at the little store nearby, I found these little gems.
Hah! I find this so hilarious because the name of this Greek soda is in fact an ancient Greek word that means "youth" or "youthfulness." Looks like it survived into modern times too! Awesome.
Tomorrow: Church service (at a Greek evangelical church!) and then on to Meteora...
Dion was an important port city in the northern parts of Greece, in what was in ancient times Macedonia. (there is also major controversy over the modern name of Macedonia, with the independent former Yugoslavian country named Macedonia and the Greek administrative district Macedonia fighting over turf...I won't get into that debate here though). Anyway, the site is pretty neat, with some temples and some cool ancient streets. I always like to walk the excavated streets, since we know for a fact that these are the same stones the ancient peoples walked on just the same way.
In the museum on-site, there were a number of interesting artefacts from the area. (okay, I'll admit that I find pretty much all this stuff interesting, since it's my area of professional study... but not all of us intrepid "Holy Landers" are finding museums the most fascinating places anymore... :-) Here are a really neat group of statues representing the children of the god Asclepius, a god associated with healing. It is quite rare to find these together.
I also really like ancient coins, and this is a good one of Philippos (or Philip), I think Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Anyone able to read the Greek below? (it's genitive case)
There was also a pretty awesome tombstone with the below carving. It commemorates a husband/wife team who have died, and it mentions things that each of them enjoyed and were skilled at in life. The wife (left) enjoyed music and the husband (right) worked as a scribe/writer of some sort.
Finally we broke for a satisfying lunch and then returned to our resort for an afternoon of rest and relaxation. I took a little nap and got caught up on some emails. And baseball scores. :-) Such activities made me thirsty, and when I perused the beverage choices at the little store nearby, I found these little gems.
Hah! I find this so hilarious because the name of this Greek soda is in fact an ancient Greek word that means "youth" or "youthfulness." Looks like it survived into modern times too! Awesome.
Tomorrow: Church service (at a Greek evangelical church!) and then on to Meteora...
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Friday (6/19) - To Mount Olympus!
I'm going to make this post more concise for time's sake and let the pictures do most of the talking.
1) Today we toured Thessaloniki a bit, which is a major city (2nd largest in Greece) and full of its own interesting history, although the connection with Paul's missionary journies are what interested us the most.
2) Then we drove to the site of Berea (Acts 17:10) and enjoyed lunch near a modern shrine to commemorate St. Paul's visit. In fact, they host every June a city-wide festival to St. Paul, which unfortunately we seem to have just missed.
3) After lunch we had a special stop at Vergina, one of the special cities in the ancient Macedonian empire and the burial place of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! (yes, this place was great -- the objects of gold and silver found in the tomb are in the museum there and are among the most impressive artifacts I've seen yet on this trip!)
4) On to our destination, a full-blown resort in Leptokarya, literally right at the foot of Mt. Olympus where it descends in full majesty into the sea. Whoah! I have been looking forward to seeing Mt. Olympus for a long time -- the first lecture of my Classical Mythology course (which they don't teach at Wheaton, at least not yet) has a whole bit on Mount Olympus and on ancient people visiting it and how it was just fine in their minds to say that the gods lived there even if they were to go there physically and find no gods on the top, etc. Let's just say that Mt. Olympus beat the hype! (Even better than my other favorite Mt. Olympus... note the shirt I'm wearing in the first pic from yesterday's summary :-)
So, without further ado, here are the pictures from today:
Here we see the Forum at Thessaloniki, surrounded now by modern buildings. There's honestly not too much to see here, but Paul would have come here.
Now in Berea, here enjoy lunch at this shrine to St. Paul. The Greek was fun to try to read.
While waiting for everyone else to finish lunch, some of us invented a new game: No Smiling! You get a group of people in a circle, and when you smile you have to leave the circle; you can't look down or away from other people in the group. I lost pretty much instantly. But look at these two finalists! (Abby is the new no smile queen, awesome skillz there!)
1) Today we toured Thessaloniki a bit, which is a major city (2nd largest in Greece) and full of its own interesting history, although the connection with Paul's missionary journies are what interested us the most.
2) Then we drove to the site of Berea (Acts 17:10) and enjoyed lunch near a modern shrine to commemorate St. Paul's visit. In fact, they host every June a city-wide festival to St. Paul, which unfortunately we seem to have just missed.
3) After lunch we had a special stop at Vergina, one of the special cities in the ancient Macedonian empire and the burial place of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! (yes, this place was great -- the objects of gold and silver found in the tomb are in the museum there and are among the most impressive artifacts I've seen yet on this trip!)
4) On to our destination, a full-blown resort in Leptokarya, literally right at the foot of Mt. Olympus where it descends in full majesty into the sea. Whoah! I have been looking forward to seeing Mt. Olympus for a long time -- the first lecture of my Classical Mythology course (which they don't teach at Wheaton, at least not yet) has a whole bit on Mount Olympus and on ancient people visiting it and how it was just fine in their minds to say that the gods lived there even if they were to go there physically and find no gods on the top, etc. Let's just say that Mt. Olympus beat the hype! (Even better than my other favorite Mt. Olympus... note the shirt I'm wearing in the first pic from yesterday's summary :-)
So, without further ado, here are the pictures from today:
Here we see the Forum at Thessaloniki, surrounded now by modern buildings. There's honestly not too much to see here, but Paul would have come here.
Now in Berea, here enjoy lunch at this shrine to St. Paul. The Greek was fun to try to read.
While waiting for everyone else to finish lunch, some of us invented a new game: No Smiling! You get a group of people in a circle, and when you smile you have to leave the circle; you can't look down or away from other people in the group. I lost pretty much instantly. But look at these two finalists! (Abby is the new no smile queen, awesome skillz there!)
Then we drove to Vergina, site of the burial tomb of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The tomb has been excavated, and below is the entrance. They built it and then covered it with a gigantic mound of dirt, making a hill! Now, the excavated tomb chambers are visible inside along with a whole museum showing the intact artefacts they found there. Lots of beautiful objects, including many of gold and silver. Very impressive!
As were driving to our destination, I kept asking our guide, "Will you tell us when Mt. Olympus comes into view?" And she kept replying, "Oh, don't worry, you'll know." :-) Then I saw it! And she was right, I didn't have to ask.
Over 9,000 feet of awesomeness. The highest peak in the land! It was shrouded partly in cloud in a very numinous, awe-dramatic fashion. One of Zeus's epithets in Homer's Iliad (go read it!) is "Cloud-Gathering Zeus," and now I know exactly why.
Our place for the next two nights is the Olympian Bay Resort, nestled at the base of Mt. Olympus and right on the water. What views! The buffet dinner was fantastic.
After dinner, some of us went strolling along the shoreline for a peaceful moment.
I think we will enjoy this place! We stay for two nights before continuing our eventual journey to Athens. Hope everyone is enjoying the pictures -- I'm sure most of you wish you were here by now! An embarassment of beauty and experiences to be sure. God has given us all many blessings on this study trip, to be sure.
Tomorrow -- ancient Dion and a free afternoon and evening! Sweet!
Thursday (6/18) - Walking the Philippians Road
Morning, as it usually does, came early today, but I took advantage of the morning sunshine to take a self-portrait on my hotel room balcony. The city streets of Kavala were already alive with morning business, but I was bidding it farewell.
Our first stop of the day was a rise just outside of town where we could see a small part of the ancient Via Egnatia, the original Roman road that connected this part of northern Greece eventually with the rest of the Roman empire. In the picture below, the ancient road coming west out of Neapolis (modern Kavala) emerges from the trees at the bottom of the photo, just left of center. It is neat to think that Paul and his companions walked this very same road as he climbed toward Philippi and the advancement of the Gospel into Macedonia.
We then got on the bus and proceeded a few miles NW to the ancient site of Philippi. Our first view showed us that the acropolis ("high, defensible point of the city"--left side of photo below) stood out from the surrounding plain and would have been visible from quite a distance. The main Roman city stood at the base of that tell.
The site of Philippi is important for two big reasons: it was where Paul visited, wrote letters to, got jailed and then miraculously freed, etc., BUT it was also the location of one of the most significant battles of the Roman world: the Battle of Philippi where in 42 BC Marc Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) defeated Cassius and Brutus (the assassinators of Julius Caesar). This major battle during the Roman civil wars helped bring the young Octavian to a position of greater power, which eventually led him to defeat his once-ally Marc Antony later in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium. These events all led to the establishment of the emperors in Rome and the transformation of the Roman state from one led by the Senate to one led by single-man emperors. Which of course is how things are when young Jesus of Nazareth is born in humble Bethlehem. Most people don't realize that Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor and thus that the whole system of emperors was still pretty radically new when Jesus enters the world.
Yes, Roman history is sweet! And it tells us a lot about the world in which the Gospel first goes forth and early church must survive and move forward. Anyway, the big battle in 42 BC took place on the plain to the west and south of the city site, somewhere near where the above picture was taken (the pic looks north).
Archaeologists have uncovered a number of interesting remains here in Philippi, including the main Roman forum, the edges of some temples, the commercial agora, a Byzantine basilica, some ancient latrines :-), etc. The forum is a neat place to walk with all its strewn pillars and marble monuments, and also because it becomes just a tiny bit easier to imagine Paul and company walking these streets, getting in trouble for healing the demon-possessed girl, and then getting thrown into prison after getting hauled before the magistrate (politarchos).
Of particular note is a 4th century church they have partially excavated, because this makes it one of the (if not the) earliest-found church in all of Greece! They can date it to the early part fo the 300s because of the Greek inscription found inside mentioning a certain Bishop Porphyrios, and they know when he lived.
"Porphyrios the bishop made this adornment of the Basilica of (St.) Paul in Christ."
Reading inscriptions like this, it's fun to decipher these little clues to the past and unlock their secrets -- they're like my little Indiana Jones moments. :-)
They've also identified a structure as the "so-called Pauline prison" just up the very tall hill at our backs, but it's very unlikely that is the place -- most agree that the prison would have probably been near or at the top of the acropolis. We would have explored these places further, but for the first time on our whole trip, a rain storm popped up right before lunch and we cut the afternoon explorations short. Actually, it was more like a tropical typhoon -- it poured down! We kept wondering we couldn't have gotten a little bit of this while we were down in the Negev... :-)
We thus ate our lunch while trying to wring ourselves dry, and then we boarded the bus once more to finish our drive to Thessaloniki. The landscapes of Greece really do inspire the mind, and as one of the people near me commented, "It's easy to see how people thought that gods lived here in this land."
Our one stop on the way was to see a monumental lion statue called the "Lion of Amphipolis" at the ancient city of Amphipolis. It's really huge! Ancient travelers would have been properly impressed, I'm sure -- we were!
We finally made it to Thessaloniki and found our way to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Palace. When we finally arrived, our wonderful Greek guide announces that everyone can see our great hotel on the left -- which was nothing but an empty, dirt lot with some garbage in it! Then she said, "Oh, I mean on the right! Oh, I am so funny." (in the best Greek accent) And there it was! Pretty fancy-looking really. We had an afternoon lecture on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and then settled into yet another 4-course meal. Mmmm...I don't think I've ever eaten better in my whole life than this last week.
Tomorrow: Thessaloniki and then down to a resort at the foot of Mt. Olympus! Can't wait!
On a final note, I'm happy to say that a picture I took of our group has made it's way onto the Wheaton College Image of the Week site! Click here (or at least you can for the next few days) for a Sea of Galilee moment -- still one of my favorite from this whole trip.
Our first stop of the day was a rise just outside of town where we could see a small part of the ancient Via Egnatia, the original Roman road that connected this part of northern Greece eventually with the rest of the Roman empire. In the picture below, the ancient road coming west out of Neapolis (modern Kavala) emerges from the trees at the bottom of the photo, just left of center. It is neat to think that Paul and his companions walked this very same road as he climbed toward Philippi and the advancement of the Gospel into Macedonia.
We then got on the bus and proceeded a few miles NW to the ancient site of Philippi. Our first view showed us that the acropolis ("high, defensible point of the city"--left side of photo below) stood out from the surrounding plain and would have been visible from quite a distance. The main Roman city stood at the base of that tell.
The site of Philippi is important for two big reasons: it was where Paul visited, wrote letters to, got jailed and then miraculously freed, etc., BUT it was also the location of one of the most significant battles of the Roman world: the Battle of Philippi where in 42 BC Marc Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) defeated Cassius and Brutus (the assassinators of Julius Caesar). This major battle during the Roman civil wars helped bring the young Octavian to a position of greater power, which eventually led him to defeat his once-ally Marc Antony later in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium. These events all led to the establishment of the emperors in Rome and the transformation of the Roman state from one led by the Senate to one led by single-man emperors. Which of course is how things are when young Jesus of Nazareth is born in humble Bethlehem. Most people don't realize that Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor and thus that the whole system of emperors was still pretty radically new when Jesus enters the world.
Yes, Roman history is sweet! And it tells us a lot about the world in which the Gospel first goes forth and early church must survive and move forward. Anyway, the big battle in 42 BC took place on the plain to the west and south of the city site, somewhere near where the above picture was taken (the pic looks north).
Archaeologists have uncovered a number of interesting remains here in Philippi, including the main Roman forum, the edges of some temples, the commercial agora, a Byzantine basilica, some ancient latrines :-), etc. The forum is a neat place to walk with all its strewn pillars and marble monuments, and also because it becomes just a tiny bit easier to imagine Paul and company walking these streets, getting in trouble for healing the demon-possessed girl, and then getting thrown into prison after getting hauled before the magistrate (politarchos).
Of particular note is a 4th century church they have partially excavated, because this makes it one of the (if not the) earliest-found church in all of Greece! They can date it to the early part fo the 300s because of the Greek inscription found inside mentioning a certain Bishop Porphyrios, and they know when he lived.
"Porphyrios the bishop made this adornment of the Basilica of (St.) Paul in Christ."
Reading inscriptions like this, it's fun to decipher these little clues to the past and unlock their secrets -- they're like my little Indiana Jones moments. :-)
They've also identified a structure as the "so-called Pauline prison" just up the very tall hill at our backs, but it's very unlikely that is the place -- most agree that the prison would have probably been near or at the top of the acropolis. We would have explored these places further, but for the first time on our whole trip, a rain storm popped up right before lunch and we cut the afternoon explorations short. Actually, it was more like a tropical typhoon -- it poured down! We kept wondering we couldn't have gotten a little bit of this while we were down in the Negev... :-)
We thus ate our lunch while trying to wring ourselves dry, and then we boarded the bus once more to finish our drive to Thessaloniki. The landscapes of Greece really do inspire the mind, and as one of the people near me commented, "It's easy to see how people thought that gods lived here in this land."
Our one stop on the way was to see a monumental lion statue called the "Lion of Amphipolis" at the ancient city of Amphipolis. It's really huge! Ancient travelers would have been properly impressed, I'm sure -- we were!
We finally made it to Thessaloniki and found our way to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Palace. When we finally arrived, our wonderful Greek guide announces that everyone can see our great hotel on the left -- which was nothing but an empty, dirt lot with some garbage in it! Then she said, "Oh, I mean on the right! Oh, I am so funny." (in the best Greek accent) And there it was! Pretty fancy-looking really. We had an afternoon lecture on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and then settled into yet another 4-course meal. Mmmm...I don't think I've ever eaten better in my whole life than this last week.
Tomorrow: Thessaloniki and then down to a resort at the foot of Mt. Olympus! Can't wait!
On a final note, I'm happy to say that a picture I took of our group has made it's way onto the Wheaton College Image of the Week site! Click here (or at least you can for the next few days) for a Sea of Galilee moment -- still one of my favorite from this whole trip.
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