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Timeless Truth in Ancient Greece: Biblical Archaeology Brings the Word to Life
From the Dec. Issue of Pulpit Helps
Secular culture has a hard time with the Bible. Scholars desperately try to disprove and devalue it by claiming that it is neither historical nor literal because there are severe implications for those who don’t believe if this book is truly the Word of God.
Unbelievers often cling to these arguments to avoid encountering the God who convicts of sin and even Christians are tempted to doubt that God indeed said and meant what we have recorded in Scripture. For skeptics and believers alike, biblical archaeology can offer a “Thomas experience”, putting our hands and feet in the words of Scripture and turning faith in their truth into sight.
Nowhere does Scripture more readily spring to life than in the excavated ruins of Greek cities. Corinth and Phillipi are particular sites of interest because of their extensive and relatively well-preserved Roman structures from New Testament times and lack of classical Greek ruins (Greek Corinth was destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C and rebuilt as a Roman city in 44 B.C.; Philippi was re-founded as a Roman colony in 30 B.C.).
On a recent trip to Greece, I was blessed to be able to take a tour of Ancient Corinth with a licensed tour guide (one of only 3 evangelicals in the business) who showed us the city with an open Bible, carefully explaining the significance of each site and structure to the events and theology of the New Testament.
All around, the themes and imagery of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians were illuminated. Near the city center is a limestone fountain thought to produce “blessed” water; Paul’s metaphor of the Israelites “drinking from a spiritual rock” (1 Cor. 10:4) suddenly makes sense. Surveying the marketplace at the foot of the temple of Apollo, it is not hard to imagine the pervasive temptation of meat sacrificed to idols that Paul uses to teach about Christian freedom in 1 Cor. 8 and 10.
Walking on the 2,000 year-old stones in the agora, we came to the foot of the bema, or Roman judgment seat, and read from Acts chapter 18. In that passage, the Jews of the city dragged Paul across the same pavement before the Roman governor Gallio, seated on the bema. Paul was dismissed, and the Jews beat their own synagogue leader for publicly embarrassing them. The mind’s eye reconstructs the remains of the structures to see the city as it was then and plays out the scene of the confrontation. As the layout of virtually all Mediterranean cities was the same, even the scene of Jesus’ trial in the agora of Jerusalem comes into sharp focus.
Even in a city like Athens, where much of the Christian-era ruins have been lost in favor of the “golden-age” structures of the 400s B.C., the Word comes to life. Standing atop Mars Hill and looking up at the temple complexes on the Acropolis, you catch a glimpse of the divine opportunity given to Paul to preach to the “men of Athens…very religious in all respects” (Acts 17:22), and the Spirit-led boldness that gave him a way to lead them from their pagan practices (event the worship of an “unknown god”) to the One True God.
It is experiences like this, seeing the actual places where scriptural events took place, that set Greece apart as an archaeological destination. According to our guide (who asked not to be named to protect his relationship with the Greek authorities), Greek sites like Corinth provide a much closer contact with the New Testament than anywhere in Israel.
“Jerusalem is a city of tradition, not of history or archaeology,” he said, adding that most of the New Testament sites have been built over so many times that few claims of authentic locations can be substantiated. “In Corinth, [instead of tradition] you can touch the very place.” He showed us how biblical figures, particularly Erastus, the treasurer of Corinth (Rom. 16:23; Acts 19:22; 2 Tim. 4:20) are tied to hard evidence here (Several monuments reference Erastus by name), and how the excavation of Corinth had silenced some of the higher critics anti-scriptural arguments in the early 20th century.
However, the very factors that make these sites of such value to Bible scholars (extensive Roman-era structures and few or no classical Greek structures) make them undesirable to archaeologists and preservationists—the Greek government’s position on such sites is essentially, “if you want to see Roman-era ruins, go to Italy.” Surprisingly, our guide said that there is very little interest even from the Christian archaeological community in doing work in Greece. He lamented the focus of efforts and resources on Israel, “where you can’t find anything for certain,” while the Greek sites languish with limited protection and preservation.
He said that while ancient Corinth was a sprawling, metropolitan city of 500,000, only 5% of the site has been excavated (the scope of the original digs from the early 1900s), and nothing new has been done for decades. The government has issued building permits for the area, allowing new construction and preventing further exploration, and even some of the previously excavated areas are left completely unprotected.
“Where are the Christians?” our guide asked, wondering why American churches, organizations, and educational institutions don’t take notice of such a crucial opportunity for defense of God’s Word while the secular establishment “destroys ruins and evidence.” He said that lack of funds prevents restoration and reconstruction of these sites, and fears that without renewed efforts for preservation, their value to the Church could be totally lost within a few generations.
“I can’t believe there is no interest [in preservation],” he said.
For information on the Zodhiates Center for New Testament Studies (which makes extensive use of the archaeological sites around Greece), contact AMG International, 6815 Shallowford Rd., Chattanooga, TN, (800) 251-7206, www.amginternational.org.
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