Ephesus - Turkey - - Virgin

July 21, 2006

One interesting stop among many on my visit to Turkey that I would like to share

involves the Apostle . , it is said, came to Ephesus with Jesus' mother

in about 52 (as he was instructed by Jesus in his final death throws on the

cross). remained there, in Ephesus, until his death, as (many believe) did

. Both are honored with specific sites said to be the very places where

they lived and died, something I had not known before this trip.

Here is 's basilica:

, as many of you know, is the apostle who wrote the non-synoptic gospel, the

one is quite different style from , Mark and Luke (all of which seemed to

draw from a common source, sometimes called Q). But did not speak much

about Jesus's life narrative or his miracles, etc. And many of the early church

fathers believed that this more mystic gospel didn't belong in the canon (like

the Gospel of which was excluded). But at age 83, banished to a cave on

the Isle of Patmos off the coast of Turkey, wrote the last book of the NT,

the one that is giving us so much trouble today, Revelation (Apocalypse). It is

a very wierd book, packed full of symbolism, which can (unfortunately) be

interpreted in vastly differing ways. But the religious " right " is now fond of

interpreting it in the most literalistic and (to my mind) dangerous way possible

right now, doing everything they can to see that its prophecies are fulfilled in

our lifetime. We have already had

much discussion on this subject. Check out this BBC source:

..shtml

Anyway, at Ephesus, one can visit (as I did) the Basilica of St. , now

largely a neglected ruin, which is said to be the burial place of the writer of

Revelation and the 4th Gospel (although some argue whether these were both

written by the same person). Here is what it looks like today:

ly, what amazed me throughout my 10 days in Turkey was how much of the

history of Christianity took place there, rather than in Rome or the Holy Land

as I had always thought. The first seven early Christian churches were

established in Turkey (those mentioned in 's Apocalypse: Anatolia; Ephesus

(Efes), Smyrna (Izmir), Pergamum (Bergama), Thyatria (Akhisar), Sardis (Sart),

Philadelphia (Alasehir), Laodicea (Denizli). Antioch and St. 's hometown of

Tarsus are also there of course.

I'll have more to say about Ephesus in a future email. Enough for now. Have a

fun weekend!

Greg

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