Ben Witherington

1 day ago | patheos.com | Ben Witherington

Hierapolis has an unusual natural feature— calcium carbonate cliffs.  You can see these cliffs from a great distance on the highway as you are driving down the Lycus Valley. In the 20th century this became a major tourist attraction with hotels built right next to these cliffs. Fortunately, the government intervened, and had them removed.

2 days ago | patheos.com | Ben Witherington

There used to be a time when skeptical scholars asserted that it is unlikely Paul travelled as much as Acts suggests he did. Ancient people, it was assumed were too sedentary, and apart from the Roman army, they did not take long trips by land or sea. Unfortunately for this theory, the evidence suggests something else. For one thing, Jews in the ‘western’ diaspora, were not simply carted off as slaves by Alexander and the Romans.

3 days ago | patheos.com | Ben Witherington

Laodicea is an ongoing project, and the latest development is fascinating. It involves Trajan’s provision of a fountain, complete with his statue, and some new rules about the use of water,  which reminds me of the water restrictions you hear about from time to time in L.A.  The climate at Laodicea is similar in that there is no rain to speak of during the hot summer months. Here is a shot of what the site looked like before the dig….

4 days ago | patheos.com | Ben Witherington

Turns out the agora had a beautiful colored wall, as we have mentioned before. But it also had a collonaded street with gorgeous marble columns. Laodicea was indeed a wealthy city as Revelation  3.14-22 also makes clear, but the city had a serious problem, a water problem, and for a city of about 100,000 or a little less this was indeed a serious issue. The water they had was brackish, not really very potable, with too much calcium carbonate.

5 days ago | patheos.com | Ben Witherington

We’ve chronicled the ongoing archaeological work at Laodicea which is so impressive (shout out to Prof. Shimshek and his crew), and in this post I’m showing some of the most recent upgrades at a couple of sites, and a brand new site in the last of these series of posts. This is the afternoon theatre which has been thoroughly put back together and is even now used again for concerts.