Corinthians

Luke tells of the Apostle Paul's stay in Corinth in Acts 18:1-18.

Timeline.

146 BC - Corinth was destroyed by the Romans for revolting.

44 BC - Julius Caesar re-founded Corinth as a Roman colony. Caesar repopulated Corinth with freed slaves from Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Judea. Corinth soon became a prosperous city, and a very important city in the Roman Empire.

50 AD - Paul arrived in Corinth.

There was a famine there in Paul's time and some scholars think this is what Paul is referring to by "this present distress" in 1 Corinthians 7:26.

51-52 AD - Paul was still in Corinth when Gallio was proconsul.

Paul's trial before Gallio.

52 AD - Paul ended his stay in Corinth.

52 and 57 AD - Paul's trial before Felix.

Paul left for Rome soon after.

55 AD - Paul wrote the letter we now know as First Corinthians.

The following photo is an artist's idea of what ancient Corinth looked like. Note the huge mountain, the Acrocorinth, towering over the city. (Attribution: By unknown artist (The American Cyclopedia  v. 5, 1879, p. 353) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.)

The following photo is how the Acrocorinth looks today. The photo is taken from the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. (Attribution: By Kathryn McDonnell [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Below are ruins in the large harbor of Cenchrea. Paul mentions Cenchrea in Romans 16. (Attribution: By Heinz Schmitz (Own work (eigenes Bild)) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The following photo shows the Isthmus of Corinth. (See the narrowest strip of land.) Today there is a canal (built in the 1800) so boats can sail between the Lechaeon harbor on the west and the Cenchrea harbor in the east. The canal is 4 miles long. It is too narrow for modern ships. (Photo Attribution: By Jesse Allen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

The following photo shows the canal today. (Attribution: By Jean Housen (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Back in early Christian times, there was a marble pathway across the Isthmus, and boats were hauled onto rollers and pulled across by slaves from one harbor to the other. The alternative was to sail a dangerous sea journey which lasted for 200 miles. The road was marble. This was called the "diolkos."

The following photo shows the ruins of the diolkos. (Attribution: By Heinz Schmitz (http://outis.info/archaia_f/1411/isthmos.html) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The following photo shows the ruins of the diolkos at the Lechaeon harbor on the west. . (Attribution: By Dan Diffendale [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Pompeii

The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius is the setting for my Christian romance, Romans (Early Christians Book 1).

I based the Christian meetings in the book on the records of the early Christians Justin Martyr and Tertullian, as well as the later Clement, and Hippolytus of Rome. These men recorded what happened in the Christian assemblies of the time. Justin Martyr was born 21 years after this book's setting, but his account is one of the earliest accounts (that is, after the writers of the New Testament) of what happened when early Christians met.

The Apostle Paul wrote The Book of Romans in 57 A.D. The eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii 22 years later, in 79 A.D. The following photo shows Mount Vesuvius looming over the ruins of Pompeii.

Pompeii was a Roman city, and a popular tourist destination for wealthy Romans.
Here are some Pompeii streets.

The following photos show just how wealthy the houses were. This is obvious even from the ruins. You can see tourists' heads in the second photo, which gives you an idea of the ceiling height. (Attribution: By Wknight94 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.)

The following photo is of a dining room wall. (Attribution: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeji_Casa_Dei_Vettii_Hercules_Child.jpg#file)

Throughout Pompeii, the paintings were opulent.

Below is one of the many public drinking fountains in Pompeii. (Attribution: By Mentnafunangann (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The following photo is of another volcano erupting, but is a typical Plinian eruption. The Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. was a Plinian eruption.

A Plinian eruption does not have lava, but features a giant towering column filled with magma, ash, and super-heated gas which in Vesuvius' case, at its worst point reached over 20 miles into the air, at speeds greater over 400 miles an hour. 100,000 tons of magma, super-heated gas, and ash were released from the volcano every second.

The magma cooled and fell back to earth, along within the ash and lithics, which were rocks from inside the volcano, and this fell on people at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. 
(Photo Attribution: By דקי [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Corinthians (Early Christians Book 2)

My new book has been out for some weeks, but to be perfectly honest, I have been quite down at the antics of some "rivals," so much so that I was at the point of giving up, but my wonderful husband and our Woman's Ministry leader at our Church encouraged me to keep going.
When Corinthians came out, it went to #3 on the New Releases in Historical Christian Fiction (Book 1 in the series, Romans had gone #1), and I soon received a very spiteful 1 star review. The lady who gave the review had a Real Name Badge, and from my previous work as an editor, I recognized her as being the author of one Christian book as well as being the owner of small Christian publishing company. I sent this information to Amazon, who immediately removed her review.
However, only a week later, Amazon sent me an email saying they had removed someone else's 5 star review as they liked the book too much, and Amazon said they cannot have reviews which are too gushing. 
Author forums at the moment are lamenting the abuse in the Amazon review system. I felt like giving up because anyone (who does not use  their real name of course) can leave a bad review on another author's book specifically to drop that author's sales - and bad reviews do drop sales. By His Grace had reached the high ranking of 800, until a spate of bad reviews dropped it to the 11000s in a very short space of time.
I don't know what the answer is, but I will do as Paul says, and press on and fight the good fight.

Now back to Corinthians!

HISTORICAL CHRISTIAN ROMANCE
CLEAN ROMANCE (and no violence or foul language)
When Marcus and Julia finally locate Tiro and Paula in the city of Corinth, they find all is far from well. Tiro's aristocratic parents have arranged for him to marry the unscrupulous Lady Drusilla, who is eager to marry him to advance her social standing. However, Tiro's heart belongs to the servant girl, Paula. Can true love find a way? Or will Lady Drusilla's evil plans rule the day?







Buy HERE on iBookstore

Buy HERE on Kindle 

Amazon's review system is badly flawed

Reports of Amazon wrongfully removing reviews are all over the net.

I had 22 x 5 star reviews removed on By His Grace in 1 day, leaving only bad reviews. As a result, my sales which for months had been in the rankings at the 800s to 2,000s, dropped to the 11,000s. The rest of the series immediately followed suit. My KDP income dropped to half, literally.

Okay, we all know Amazon is shutting down good reviews for reasons only known to themselves, so that was one thing, but then a reviewer left outrageous lies on one of my books on the Kindle UK site, and Amazon refused to remove it.

By His Grace is Christian romance - clean romance - the most physical intimacy that happens is that the two main characters kiss at the end of the book, a chaste kiss even.

Yet one reviewer wrote this (and my UK sales dropped immediately):

 great story spoilt by sex, 12 Dec 2012

The story was great..BUT the grafic detail of sex spoilt the story. much better to leave it to the imagination. but in this story it went on page after page so spoilt the book.

I contacted Amazon, and this is their reply:

Amazon.co.uk Author Central Team <ac-no-reply@amazon.co.uk>	12/14/12
to me

Hello Kathleen Wiseman,

I've read the review titled " great story spoilt by sex" for the book titled "By His Grace (The Morgan Brothers Book 1) (Christian Romance / Religious Fiction Romance)." I understand your concerns, but the review doesn't violate our posted guidelines, so I'm unable to remove it in its current format.

However, as the author of this title, you can provide feedback about this review by voting or commenting on it. To vote, click the "Yes" or "No" buttons next to "Was this review helpful to you?" To comment, click the Comments link at the bottom of the review.

We try to encourage our customers to give their honest opinions on our products while staying within our guidelines. As a retailer we are interested in cultivating a diversity of opinion on our products. Part of that is allowing our customers to air their honest thoughts on items they have received. Here's a link to our guidelines for reference:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review-guidelines/

We appreciate your understanding. We hope to see you again soon.

There is an increase of spiteful, one star reviews, and many of these have a struggle with the most simple grammar and even spelling - I wonder if some publishers are outsourcing for the purpose of putting one star reviews on their oppositions' books. Some of the one stars appear the second a book goes better than the 1000 ranking. I find this suspicious. I myself variably get a one star review after I tweet a specific book for any length of time, and other authors have told me the same thing has happened to them.

Reviews are a hotbed of opportunity for the opposition to drop sales on another's book. It is easy to lie and say book is full of typos, or badly formatted, and sales at once drop.

Amazon really needs to abolish reviews. People can download the first part of a book and see for themselves, so reviews are no longer necessary.

I for one can see the writing on the wall and am putting all my efforts into other retailers now, especially the Apple iBookstore which has always done the right thing by Indies.

So, here are the links to my books on the iBookstore.

By His Grace 99c

Caroline's Gift $1.99

That Which Is Secret  $1.99

A Mustard Seed $1.99

and the first book of the new series, Romans. 99c

New Historical Romance book ROMANS

Romans (Early Christians Book 1)

My new historical Christian romance book is now out and has hit #1 on the New Releases  in Religious Historical Fiction on Amazon. It's only 99c on Kindle. Get it here on Kindle and here for Kindle UK. It is also on the Apple iBookstore here.

Julia is a young, wealthy, Roman woman living in Pompeii. Her life, dedicated to the pagan gods, is carefree. Her world is soon rocked, not only by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which threatens everything she holds dear, but also by the arrival of the handsome Marcus, a convert to the new religion, a follower of Jesus. Can she escape not only the deadly eruption but also her mother's plan to marry her to the deceitful fish sauce merchant, Brutus?