Saturday 2 November 2013

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)