In the Steps of Saint Paul

Peter Walker

Description

In this highly engaging book, Peter Walker uses his expertise in Biblical studies and his extensive experience of leading tours around the Mediterranean to bring the world of Saint Paul vividly to life. Following Luke's account in the Book of Acts and using evidence from Paul s own letters, he reconstructs the apostle s wide-ranging travels and describes the many places Paul visited as we encounter them today. In doing so he helps us to appreciate the issues that Paul confronted and to understand the motivation that drove him on. Enriched with boxed features outlining key timelines and topics, and supplemented with maps and street plans, this book is an ideal introduction to Paul and his travels for scholars at all levels of study.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 24 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912552023
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 16 Mo

Extrait

IN THE STEPS OF SAINT PAUL
Peter Walker
 
For Ralph,
a fellow traveller on this ‘journey of faith’,
with thanks for your generous support.
And for my mother, who in her teenage years loved to study Paul’s journeys, and in her latter years travelled with me ‘in his steps’.
And with grateful memories of all those who have been my hosts and companions around the Middle East, including:
Michael and Stephanie (Cyprus); Louis and Jane (Malta); Tom, Hugh and Tim (Greece); Bruce, Mark and Nick (Turkey); Chris (Syria); Georgie, Hannah and Jonathan (Rome); as well as those associated with McCabe Travel (London).
 
Text copyright © 2008 Peter Walker
This edition copyright © 2018 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Peter Walker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www .lionhudson .com
ISBN 978 1 9125 5201 6
e-ISBN 978 1 9125 5202 3
First hardback edition 2008
First paperback edition 2012
Acknowledgments
Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version and Today’s New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2001, 2005 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan and Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved. The ‘NIV’ and ‘New International Version’ trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.
All maps and diagrams by Richard Watts of Total Media Services.
Cover image © Bettmann/Getty.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
 
CONTENTS
Introduction
Map of Paul’s journeys
Key dates: The Roman world
Paul’s letters: date and location
Key dates: Luke and Paul
1. Damascus
Drama on the road
Paul’s conversion in later Christian thought
Key dates: Damascus
Damascus today
Plan of modern Damascus
Visiting modern Syria
2. Tarsus
Reflections at home
Key dates: Tarsus
Tarsus today
Visitors to Asia Minor: past and present
3. Antioch on the Orontes
City of commissioning
Key dates: Antioch
Antioch after the New Testament
Antioch today
4. Cyprus
First adventures
Map of Paul’s first ‘missionary journey’
Plan of ancient Paphos
Key dates: Cyprus
Cyprus today
Plan of ancient Salamis
Barnabas and the Byzantines
5. Pamphylia
Divergent paths
Map of ancient Pamphylia’s southern coast
Key dates: Pamphylia
Pamphylia today
Plan of ancient Perga
Visiting modern Turkey
6. Galatia
Into the interior
Paul and Thecla
Map of Asia Minor’s road systems
Key dates: Galatia
Galatia today
Plan of ancient Pisidian Antioch
7. Macedonia
First steps into Europe
Paul’s developing strategy
Map of Paul’s second ‘missionary journey’
Key dates: Macedonia
Macedonia today
Plan of Philippi
Plan of wider Philippi area
Plan of ancient sites in Thessaloniki
8. Athens
At the centre of culture
Key dates: Athens
Visiting modern Greece
Athens today
Plan of ancient Athens
9. Corinth
A cosmopolitan city
Map of Corinth’s ports and the isthmus
Key dates: Corinth
Later news from Corinth
Corinth today
Plan of ancient Corinth
10. Ephesus and Miletus
Teaching and farewells
Key dates: Ephesus and Miletus
From the Aegean to Jerusalem
Map of Paul’s third ‘missionary journey’
Ephesus and Miletus today
Plan of ancient Ephesus
Ephesus and the two Johns
Plan of the wider Ephesus area
Plan of Miletus’ harbour area and its ancient coastline
11. Jerusalem
In the Master’s steps
The collection for Jerusalem
Key dates: Jerusalem
Jerusalem today
12. Caesarea
Place of waiting
Key dates: Caesarea
Caesarea today
Plan of ancient Caesarea Maritima
13. Malta
Haven from shipwreck
Ancient sea travel
Map of Paul’s final journey towards Rome
Malta today
Key dates: Malta
Plan of St Paul’s Bay
14. Rome
The goal at the centre
Map of Paul’s final approach to Rome
Plan of ancient Rome
Key dates: Rome
The developing church in Rome
Rome today
Visiting Rome today
Epilogue
Further Reading
Index
 
INTRODUCTION
Saul of Tarsus – known to many as Saint Paul – is a figure from ancient history who, after nearly 2,000 years, continues to provoke controversy. There are those who see him as a great hero, and others who see him as something of a villain. For some, he is the person, perhaps more than any other single individual, who must be credited with successfully exporting the Christian message about Jesus to the world beyond Jesus’ native Palestine. For others, he is the person who, because of his own agendas or perhaps an unhealed personality, distorted that message out of all recognition – turning a message of simple love into one of complex theology, or transforming Jesus’ kingdom, seemingly open to all, into an exclusive organization, now known as the church.
In writing this book, I have continued to meet both kinds of people, whether in their writings or in personal conversations: those who cannot speak of Paul without an evident trace of annoyance, even anger, and those who cannot speak of him without being moved to tears, brimming with sheer admiration for this remarkable man. In his own day, Paul seems to have provoked a similar polarization of viewpoints. His gutsy determination and dogged persistence, his sharpness of mind and ability to ‘fight his corner’, were qualities that people could admire, but also resent. What no one could doubt, however, was the way this brilliant, academically able, Jerusalem-trained rabbi had been utterly transformed by the conviction that, contrary to his own earlier beliefs, Jesus was the true Messiah of Israel. That conviction – instilled deep within him, so he claimed, through an encounter with Jesus himself after his crucifixion – was what drove him through the rest of his life and what propelled him far away from Tarsus and Jerusalem into the various far-flung places we will discover in this book.
To follow ‘in the steps of Paul’, then, is to be taken on a wide-ranging tour around the lands of the Mediterranean. In contrast to Jesus, whose public ministry was effectively confined to an area not more than 150 miles (240 km) in size, with Paul we are looking at an area extending (at its greatest extent, say, from Jerusalem to Rome) of some 1,400 miles (2,250 km) – with a host of places in between. Paul himself clearly had a good sense of geography: on one occasion, writing to the church in Rome (Romans 15:19), he described his ministry as having been conducted in an arc ‘from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum’ (modern Albania). So in this book we will find ourselves effectively following that ‘arc’, travelling around the northern shores of the Mediterranean and tracing the trajectory Paul had set himself – from Jerusalem to Rome.

‘Three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits … in danger in the city, in the country, in danger at sea …’
2 Corinthians 11:25–26

And as we do so, it will be hard – whatever our personal attitudes towards this strange figure of the ancient past – not to be moved at least to an admiration, even if a slightly begrudging one, of this man who was prepared to travel so far – on foot, by boat or on a mule – for this cause in which he so passionately believed.
Thus, to pass through the rugged ‘Cilician Gates’ in southern Turkey today, or to look out over the bleak expanses of ancient Galatia, to visit the market place of Corinth or Athens or Ephesus, or to stand on the wintry, wind-swept shores of Malta – as I have done in bringing this book to you – all these can be profoundly moving experiences. For these were the places where, without any of the benefits of modern travel, this man – often virtually on his own – was prepared to travel, simply in order to bring people what he believed was good news, the truth of God for their lives. He went way beyond his preferred ‘comfort zone’. As a result, one is entitled to believe that he may have been wrong, even mad; but one can hardly claim that he did not love people, or that he was something of a wimp.
Speaking personally, to follow in Paul’s physical steps has been an enormously enjoyable enterprise, going back many years. I have been to all the places discussed in this book (apart from two small sites, which you can try to detect!). My journeys to the Mediterranean began in 1977. Five years later, still only twenty years old, I found myself wandering through Turkish cotton fields, trying to discover the then hard-to-find mound of ancient colossae. Carrying my two plastic bags and calling out ‘ harabe? ’ (the Turkish for ‘ruin?’), I must have made for an interesting sight! Yet I was determined to be one of the few English-speaking people who had stood on this ancient biblical site. In recent years, a tarmac road has been built, making access much easier.
Key dates: The Roman world

➡    218–201 BC   Rome’s Second Punic War against Carthage (and Hannibal).
➡    168 BC   Rome’s victory in Macedonian War.
➡    149–146 BC   Carthage destroyed in Third Punic War.
➡    146 BC   Rome annexes the Greek mainland.
➡    71 BC    Spartacus’ slave revolt crushed by Crassus and Pompey.
➡    60–50 BC   Triumvirate of rulers: Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey.
➡    51 BC   Julius Caesar conquers Gaul.
➡    44 BC