The Bible and Culture
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The Bible and Culture
20h ago
There are lots of fascinating items in the Adana museum, like this perfectly preserved canteen which one has a handle for carrying, and guess what, though it looks it was made this year, it is from the 7th century B.C.! They knew how to make things that last back then. Or consider these drinking flagons ..read more
The Bible and Culture
3d ago
There are a nunber of excellent mosaic floor remains found in the Adana Museum mainly up on the top floor of this converted warehouse, including a floor from a synagogue which depicts the Isaianic scene of Isaiah’s vision of animal paradise and one about Noah’s ark and his animals. Here are some samples. I’ll let ..read more
The Bible and Culture
3d ago
Before this trip, I had never been to Adana, and so never to the considerable Adana museum. This city may ring a bell since we have an airbase there, Incerlik and that Turkey is a member of NATO. The holdings of the Adana museum are considerable, so multiple blog posts are in order, My one ..read more
The Bible and Culture
5d ago
There is a debate amongst Biblical scholars about which Ur Abraham came from— Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia, or Urfa in Turkey. I am unconvinced that it is Urfa, but it is true that Urfa is not a long way from Haran, which Abraham certainly came through. Haran today is right on the Syrian ..read more
The Bible and Culture
5d ago
On the edge of the eastern part of the Empire, Roman emperors were still expanding or shoring up their territory, and one example is this splendid bridge over a major river, which until very recently was still taking regular car traffic. This bridge is on the edge of the Commagene kingdom (more about that in ..read more
The Bible and Culture
6d ago
Tarsus today is a small town. The first time I visited it 20 years ago, it had a Christian school. Today that is a public school. There is a St. Paul Church in Tarsus, but it only dates to 1862. ..read more
The Bible and Culture
1w ago
You may have recognized that smirking face from Top Gun: Maverick, or Hitman. But now he’s the star of the new thriller Twister…. which of course is a movie done before in 1996, only this time with King Stephen the Spielberg being the executive producer. The early reviews of the movie are very good, saying ..read more
The Bible and Culture
1w ago
The Roman elites in a colony city tended to cluster together in one part of the city, think the high rent district. In many ways, they kept to themselves, partially out of self-preservation. Overlords are often badly out number by local natives, not to mention by their slaves. Like at the slope houses in Ephesus ..read more
The Bible and Culture
1w ago
The word zeugma in common parlance means bridge, and in this case it refers to a frontier town built next to a crucial bridge across the Euphrates guarded by the Romans on the eastern frontier of the empire. Very few tour groups ever go to Zeugma itself, only to the Zeugma Museum on Gaziantep which ..read more
The Bible and Culture
1w ago
The port for the city Antioch was a considerable distance from the city, a full 18 miles over rugged terrain. But this is where Paul and Barnabas would have sailed from to go to Cyprus, and where they came back to after the first missionary journey. Today there is little to see of the ancient ..read more