Thoughts on my Turkey-Greece Trip - May 2013

Theater in ancient Ephesus

 I went on a trip to Turkey and Greece because I had long regarded the fact that <I regularly teach the Paul course and had not yet physically been to Turkey and Greece> a grave lacuna in my education. Hence, in mid-May 2013, with the encouragement and support of King’s academic dean, I went on a trip organized by EU (Educational Opportunities) through their subsidiary, the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies, to the two countries which were the main theater for Paul’s missionary activities and the development of earliest Christianity.

ITINERARY. We followed the following itinerary (text taken from the official itinerary supplied by the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies)

DAY 1, Saturday, May 11: DEPARTURE. Departed Toronto for Montreal. Met with other Canadian group members in Montreal. Flew to Zurich, Switzerland. From there on to Istanbul.

DAY 2, Sunday, May 12: ARRIVAL IN ISTANBUL

DAY 3, Monday, May 13: CAPPADOCIA. Overnight in Cappadocia.

DAY 4, Tuesday, May 14: ICONIUM AND ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA. Overnight in Pamukkale.

DAY 5, Wednesday, May 15: CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR: Laodicea, Hierapolis. Overnight in Kusadasi.

DAY 6, Thursday, May 16: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN EPHESUS. Overnight in Kusadasi.

DAY 7, Friday, May 17: CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR: Sardis, site of one of the Seven Churches of Revelation. Then Pergamum where the first Christians were executed by Rome. Troas, where Paul had a vision in which he was called to Macedonia (Greece). Continue to Canakkale, the narrowest point of the Dardanelles for the evening. Overnight in Canakkale.

DAY 8, Saturday, May 18: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN MACEDONIA Cross the Dardanelles by ferry and visit Neapolis (Kavalla, Acts 16:11). In Philippi, Paul and Silas “went outside the gate to the riverside, where they sup‐ posed there was a place of prayer. Overnight in Kavalla (Neapolis).

DAY 9, Sunday, May 19: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN MACEDONIA, CONTINUED TRIP: (Acts 17: 1‐9) This morning, drive to Thessaloniki. In the afternoon we see Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and the famous steps of Paul in Biblical Berea (Acts 17 11‐14) in the New Testament. Overnight in Thessaloniki.

DAY 10, Monday, May 20: METEORA Visit the rock forest of Meteora in western Thessaly and ponder the rough terrain in which the apostle Paul walked during his missionary journey. See famous Byzantine monasteries perched precariously on summits of soaring, sheer‐sided grey rock pinnacles of varied and spectacular shapes. Their history goes back to the 14th century when the monks sought refuge in cliff‐side caves, then fled higher to build the original wooden shelters, later transformed into monas‐ teries. Visit one of these monasteries. Overnight in the Meteora area.

DAY 11, Tuesday, May 21: DELPHI Travel to scenic Delphi, the religious center of the ancient Greek world, considered by early Greeks to be the center of the world. Overnight in Athens.

DAY 12, Wednesday, May 22: ATHENS This morning we will start the sightseeing program in Athens. We will visit the Agora where St. Paul preached and where Socrates taught and was forced to drink the deadly hemlock. We will climb the Acropolis, visit the Areopagus (Mars Hill) where St. Paul was brought before the council and delivered his great sermon about the “unknown god” in Acts 17. We will see the ancient town, the Acropolis, the Parthenon. We will visit the theater of Dionysus, the Temple of the Wingless Victory and other sights, which reflect the golden age of Greece. Late afternoon is on your own to shop and walk about. Overnight in Athens.

DAY 13, Thursday, May 23: CORINTH Today we travel to ancient Corinth. We will spend a full day among the antiquities of this important Pauline city. Paul spent 18 months here on his first visit, and wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians and on a later visit wrote his letter to the Romans. We will visit the site of the Synagogue, the Agora, and the Bema. We will then climb the Acrocorinth to visit the ancient site of the temple of Aphrodite (Greek goddess of love). Overnight in Athens.

DAY 14, Friday, May 24: RETURN to Canada.

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a view Paul himself might have seen in his journeys

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTANCES. Among the first and most significant things  I learned during this trip was the vast distances Paul and his collaborators had to travel! Of course, one shouldn’t forget that there were no cars, let alone air travel at the time. One had to negotiate these vast distances on foot or, if one had money, to buy a horse or donkey (Paul did not have such a luxury most of the time) in order to cover more ground with more comfort.

 We had to negotiate these distances seated in a bus and it was long hours of traveling! Sometimes, I would catch myself getting bored or impatient to reach the destination but I quickly reminded myself of those early Christian missionaries who didn’t have the luxuries we now take for granted. The dominant thought that I had was: Paul must’ve been “nuts” to cover all these distances on foot! In our family doctor’s words, Paul must’ve been something of a fanatic. But that’s an irreverent first reaction … It’s not everything. Looking deeper,

CONVERSION/ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST. From such an experiential realization (I already knew the distances “theoretically” before) about the great distances Paul covered, one can then move on to ponder upon the deeper reason, the urgent passion that explains why Paul exerted such efforts despite vast distances and against overwhelming odds to spread his message about Christ - HIS CONVERSION or whatever one may call it. In short, something REALLY BIG happened to him. Of course, the New Testament shows that he ENCOUNTERED Jesus and that changed him from someone persecuting Jesus’ Way to someone working tirelessly to get others on the same Way towards God.

THE NATURE OF PAUL’S “CONVERSION”. According to sections of the New Testament such as Gal. 2 and Acts 9, Paul encountered Jesus at a certain point in his life. Acts puts it “on the way to Damascus.” This encounter changed Paul profoundly from someone who actively persecuted people who believed in Jesus to an apostle who tried to bring people to recognize that “Jesus is Lord.” According to Paul’s own words in Gal. 1, God revealed “his Son so that I may preach him to the Gentiles.” He repeats that in Gal 2:7-8 stating that Peter, James and John were sent to the circumcised (Jews), while he was sent to the uncircumcised (Gentiles).

PAUL’S MISSIONARY STRATEGY. Acts shows us clearly that Paul usually would go to the Jewish synagogue when he reached a new place. He would start to convince people that Jesus was indeed the chosen messiah that God had sent into the world to reconcile everyone and everything with God. Some would be convinced; others would become Paul’s enemies and because of that, Paul was frequently the object of controversy and the cause of disturbance in a given place.

WAS PAUL POACHING FROM THE SYNAGOGUE? I agree with John Dominic Crossan (In Search of Paul) that one major aspect of Paul's missionary strategy was to go to the synagogue and address his message primarily to so-called "God-fearers" to try to persuade them to believe in his version of the gospel. God-fearers were gentiles (some of them prominent and rich) who were attracted to the faith of Israel but for one reason or another were not yet ready to be fully converted to Judaism. Since Paul in his letters speak of his divine mandate as being not to Jews but to Gentiles, it is logical that he considered God-fearers (gentiles) his primary object of mission. And he succeeded sometimes. Of course, this was taken very negatively by the local synagogue because in certain cases, the patronage of these prominent God-fearers was important for the existence, protection and flourishing of the synagogue. We can understand then why Paul was viewed by "the Jews" (we find this expression in Acts) as a trouble-maker and threat and was the cause of riots and disturbances in places he visited.

EMPIRE. Paul subverting empire by the proclamation “Jesus is Lord!” One of the most succinct ways to present Paul’s “gospel” (i.e., the good news as proclaimed by Paul) is through the short formula “Jesus is Lord!” (see for example Rom 10:9 or 1 Cor 12:3). One cannot actually even begin to understand the full significance of this if one does not consider the ubiquitous presence of the Roman Empire in Paul’s world, particularly, the cult of the Roman emperor’s divinity propagated with vigor from the time of Augustus onwards. During this trip, I took note of the staggering amount of material as well as literary evidence that pointed to the all-out effort of the Roman Empire to propagate the message that “Caesar is Lord.” It is against this backdrop that Paul’s proclamation of a different lordship (that of Jesus) should and could only be correctly understood. Paul, in short, was trying to subvert the proclamation of the Roman Empire by asserting that Caesar was not the true “lord” of all; it was actually God (Yahweh) through his chosen servant-messiah Jesus who has been experienced as“the Christ” (the chosen messiah-saviour) by Paul and his collaborators.

IN THE END, WHAT DID I CARRY AWAY FROM THESE JOURNEYS? In the end, I have to say that what I learned in Jerusalem many years ago was again proven true: Physical contact with a place or context is always better than a mere theoretical knowledge in order to understand something better. Before I lived and studied in Jerusalem (Israel-Palestine) in 95-96, I already knew quite a lot about the world of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus. However, the actual experience of living in “the land” gave me an experiential knowledge of the world of Jesus that changed and revolutionized my way of reading the Bible and gave me a depth of knowledge that any “theoretical knowledge” could never equal. This time, I acquired an experiential knowledge about Paul and the early Christian communities that no mere theoretical knowledge can equal. I acquired a real “feel” for this particular field of biblical studies and history.

FELLOWSHIP with my FELLOW TRAVELERS. I went to Turkey and Greece with a wonderful group of people, the first group associated with Acadia Divinity School and the second associated with Delaine Blackwell of South Carolina and her women’s bible study group. Throughout the trip, we were able to have wonderful conversations and before we knew it we had also developed good friendships, the kind of koinonia that the New Testament values. This added enormously to making this trip a great and unforgettable learning experience.

LOOKING FORWARD - A KING’S TRIP? I went on this trip also to see the feasibility of organizing a course-trip for the students of our University-College in the near future. Some thoughts on that. The cost that we paid this time seems a bit too high for students and the extensive travel by bus necessary from Cappadocia to Iconoium (Konya) and then on to Laodicea would not be ideal for university students. For this I think that despite its natural beauty and significance for early church history, Cappadocia should be cut off from an itinerary I would make for our students. Instead, maybe we should concentrate on Western Turkey - Ephesus, Hierapolis, Pergamum and try to spend more time in ancient Constantinople itself. I propose we then go on to Athens and environs, particularly, Corinth and Delphi.

I’ll have to work on putting together a viable plan soon. 

among the ruins of ancient Corinth