Have a good Lord’s Day

Bethany is best known in the gospel story as the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Luke does not give us the name of the “village’ where Martha (evidently the older sister) `received Jesus into her house’, but it must have been Bethany, if John’s record is allowed to shed light on Luke’s. Here Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his teaching while Martha was busily engaged in preparing a meal for the honoured guest (Luke 10:38-42). Here, later, Lazarus their brother fell ill and died, and was raised to life by Jesus (John 11:1-44).  Here Jesus was guest of honour at a meal during Holy Week, `in the house of Simon the leper’ (Mark 14:3; compare John 12:2), and was anointed with costly nard by a woman whom John identifies as Mary. Later, after he was raised from the dead, Jesus led his disciples out `as far as Bethany’ and took his leave of them (Luke 24:50, 51; compare Acts 1:9-12).

Looking west from the Inn of the Good Samaritan, the Mount of Olives is silhouetted against the dusk. Bethany is on the eastern slope of the mount; Jerusalem lies less than two miles to the west.

Jesus spent the week before his last Passover in Bethany, staying in the house of Simon the Leper.

The entrance to the stone crypt where Lazarus may have been laid before Jesus brought him back to life.

Bethany lies on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than two miles from Jerusalem (John 11:18). The meaning of the name is uncertain: if it is an abbreviation of Beth-Ananiah (the house of Ananiah), it may be the Ananiah of Nehemiah 11:32. Bethany, as such, first appears in literature in Judith 1:9, where it is mentioned alongside Jerusalem. It was the last staging-post on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem.

The Bordeaux pilgrim visited Bethany in AD 333 and was shown the vault or crypt in which the body of Lazarus was believed to have lain. Eusebius of Caesarea mentions the vault or crypt around the same time. Not long afterwards a church was built over the site, for Egeria saw it in AD 381: she tells how a special service was held there towards the end of Lent, `six days before the Passover’ (compare John 12:1). It is from this church, called the Lazareion (or shrine of Lazarus), that the Muslim name of the village, El Azariyeh, is derived. The Muslims of Bethany regard Lazarus as a saint. Egeria saw another church half a mile on the Jerusalem side of the Lazareion, at the reported spot where Mary met the Lord as he was on his way to the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:29)  an improbable site, because Jesus on this occasion came to Bethany from the Jordan, not from Jerusalem.

Excavations conducted in Bethany between 1949 and 1953 uncovered remains of four churches, the later ones built over the earlier ones, to the east of the traditional tomb of Lazarus. The earliest of the four may have been the church seen by Egeria. Mosaics from all of them could be distinguished. In their precincts and vicinity were many rock-cut tombs. The most recent of these four churches was transformed into a mosque, which still stands.

The visitor to Bethany today is shown an opening in the hillside leading into the underground chamber traditionally held to be the tomb of Lazarus. Some fifty feet lower down, the modern Franciscan Church of St. Lazarus was built in 1953, on the supposed site of Martha’s house. It is beautifully decorated with murals depicting relevant scenes from the gospel narrative. Some interesting relics are housed in it, including a mosaic from the sixth-century Byzantine church which once stood there, and a Roman inscription bearing; witness to the presence nearby of the Tenth (Fretensian) Legion, the military unit which occupied Judea after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The old road from Bethany to Jerusalem, crossing the summit of the Mount of Olives, passed by Bethphage (meaning `the place of figs’). This was the village where the disciples found the donkey ready tethered for Jesus’ use and brought it to their master, in accordance with his instructions, so that he might complete his journey to Jerusalem on its back (Mark 11:1-10). It is frequently suggested that the present village of Et-Tur, on the summit, stands where Bethphage stood. This may well be so. The small Franciscan church marking the spot where Jesus is held to have mounted the donkey stands some way down the eastern slope, on the Bethany side of Et-Tur, but Jesus is not said to have mounted the donkey at Bethphage: the disciples brought it from the village to the point which Jesus had reached on his way from Bethany. From this church a procession to Jerusalem starts every Palm Sunday. A similar procession is described by Egeria in AD 384, except that in her day it set out from the church called Eleona (built by the Emperor Constantine on the summit to commemorate the Ascension). The procession, as it moves down the western slope of the hill, passes the church called Dominus Flevit (‘The Lord wept’), marking the spot where Jesus came in sight of Jerusalem and wept over it (Luke 19:41). The dome of the church has the shape of a tear-drop, and in front of the little altar within there is a mosaic depicting a hen gathering her chickens under her wings (compare Matthew 23:37).

Looking from the Mount of Olives across old Jerusalem at sunrise. Walls once enclosed the magnificent Temple built by Herod the Great.

Luke 10:38-42 The village is not named, but comparison with John’s record leaves us in no doubt that it was Bethany. Here we are introduced to the two sisters and their respective activities when Jesus visited them: Martha waiting on him and Mary learning from him. John 11:1-44 That Jesus is the resurrection and the life is declared in word and shown in action at Bethany. Mark 11:11 After the excitement in Jerusalem day by day during Holy Week, Bethany provides welcome rest by night. Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8 The supper party at Bethany provides a setting for the anointing of Jesus. At least one person recognises his royal dignity. The costliness of the ointment is emphasised: nothing but the best is good enough for the King of kings. And when we are tempted to say, `This might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor, ‘let us reflect who it was that first said it. Luke 24:50,51 Bethany is here the scene of the final blessing and parting.

Ancient olive trees flourish in a garden on the slopes where Jesus and his disciples met in the Garden

FF. Bruce.  Jesus & Paul, places they knew.

The first snow arrived at our village this morning, nice to wake up and see the fresh snow everywhere.

It’s been in the high areas for a couple of weeks but last night we got a dusting.  And it’s coming down quite nicely as I type this.

It’s funny that I put a little snow effect on the blog yesterday and now I have it for real.  

Have a good Lord’s Day.

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.

O enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His Name always,
For it is seemly so to do.

For why? the Lord our God is good;
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God Whom Heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.

William Kethe

Galatia was a great Roman province in the heart of Asia Minor. It took its name from the Galatians, originally a group of Celts or Gauls that parted company with the main body of their fellow-tribesmen in Europe and moved south-east through the Balkan Peninsula, crossing into Asia Minor in the third century BC. There they settled in territory that had formerly belonged to the Phrygians. One of their principal cities, Ancyra, survives to the present day as the capital of Turkey, still bearing essentially the same name, Ankara.

The kings of Galatia became allies of the Romans, but when in 25 BC the last of those kings fell in battle against raiders from the Taurus mountain range, the Emperor Augustus took over his kingdom as a Roman province and incorporated in it a good deal of territory to the south, which the Galatian kings had never ruled.

We do not know if Paul ever visited the northern part of the province which had been the kingdom of Galatia. We do know of several cities in the southern part of the province which he visited. On the missionary tour, based in Antioch in Syria, which he undertook with Barnabas (Acts 13:414:26), he and Barnabas sailed from Paphos, the western capital of Cyprus, to the south coast of Asia Minor, and made their way to Perga, an important city of the Roman province of Pamphylia, lying six miles inland. From there they struck up country until they reached Pisidian Antioch. After preaching there they moved on in succession to Iconium, Lystra and Derbe; then they retraced their steps through the same cities, turning south again from Pisidian Antioch until they reached the port of Attalia from which they sailed back to the mouth of the Orontes and so returned to Antioch in Syria.

The main street in Perga

Two or three years later (perhaps in AD 49) Paul and Silas travelled from Antioch in Syria by land through the Cilician Gates into Central Asia Minor and visited Derbe and Lystra. From there they went on through the region of Phrygia and Galatia’ (Acts 16:6)  that is, most probably, the region in which Iconium and Pisidian Antioch were situated. Three years later Paul made a hasty journey through the same area when on his way west to Ephesus he is said to have passed through `the region of Galatia and Phrygia’ (Acts 18:23).

There is good reason to believe that `the churches of Galatia’ addressed in Galatians 1:2 were the churches planted by Paul and Barnabas in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. But whether that is so or not, these four cities were certainly places Paul knew.

Pisidian Antioch stood on a plateau about 3,600 feet high, two miles west of the modern Turkish town of Yalvac. Sir William Ramsay suggested that Paul caught malaria in the low-lying area around Perga and came to this high ground to recuperate: he thought that malaria might be the `bodily ailment’ from which, as Paul says in Galatians 4:13, he was suffering when first he came to Galatia. This can be neither proved nor disproved.

Pisidian Antioch was founded as a border fortress soon after 300 BC.  Augustus appreciated its strategic importance and made it a Roman colony in 6 BC. It became the military centre for the surrounding territory, and it was the starting-point for two roads built deep into the region of Pisidia to the south. Therefore, although it was not actually in Pisidia, it was known as Antioch near Pisidia, or Pisidian Antioch.

The site is now ruined, but the remains are still impressive. An aqueduct is particularly conspicuous; the city walls are also plainly to be seen. The main city square, the Square of Augustus, has been excavated; a monumental staircase and an entrance gateway (the propylaea) with threearches, connected it with the lower Square of Tiberius. To the east of the Square of Augustus stood a richly ornamented temple with Corinthian columns. The theatre lies in the western part of the city. Outside the city, on rising ground to the east, is the temple of Men Askainos, an important divinity in that part of Asia Minor.

The synagogue of Pisidian Antioch where Paul preached is not identified, but there were large Jewish colonies in the cities of Phrygia, both in Pisidian Antioch and in Iconium, the next city to which the two missionaries came.

Iconium lies nearly ninety miles east-south-east of Pisidian Antioch. The city and its name survive in modern Konya, the capital of the Turkish province of the same name. Then as now it was an important junction: the main east-west road from Syria to Ephesus passed through it. The Emperor Claudius bestowed his own name on it as an honorary prefix: Claudiconium. Lystra, to which Paul and Barnabas moved from Iconium, was about eighteen miles south of that city. It was identified in 1885 with the mound of Zostera (near the town of Hatunsaray), when J.R.S. Sterrett found a Latin inscription there containing the name of Lystra. Like Pisidian Antioch, Lystra was made a Roman colony by Augustus.

In passing from Iconium to Lystra Paul and Barnabas crossed the regional frontier from Phrygia into Lycaonia. (A region was a subdivision of a province.) Over 400 years previously the Greek historian Xenophon referred to Iconium as `the last city of Phrygia’. If Paul and Barnabas had well-tuned ears, they would realise soon after leaving Iconium that the indigenous population spoke a language which they had not heard before `the speech of Lycaonia’ mentioned in Acts 14:11. When the people of Lystra planned to pay them divine honours, the missionaries’ ignorance of this language meant that they did not grasp what was afoot until preparations for sacrificing to them were well advanced. Barnabas was identified with Zeus, the ruler of the gods, and Paul with Hermes, their messenger. There is evidence that these two divinities were worshipped conjointly in Lycaonia. In 1910 Sir William Calder discovered an inscription at Sedasa, south of Lystra, recording the dedication to Zeus of a statue of Hermes by men with Lycaonian names; sixteen years later he and W.H.Buckler discovered a stone altar near Lystra dedicated to the `Hearer of Prayer’ (presumably Zeus) and Hermes.

Hills above Iconium

When Barnabas and Paul refused to accept worship from the people of Lystra, the people of Lystra soon turned against them: lending a ready ear to enemies of the missionaries who followed them from Iconium, they attacked them. Paul in particular was stoned, knocked unconscious and left for dead by the roadside (Acts 14:19). When, several years later, he drew up a catalogue of the hardships he had endured as an apostle, he says (referring to this occasion), `Once I was stoned’ (2 Corinthians 11:25). Nevertheless, he had reason to remember his visit to Lystra with gratitude: one of his converts there was Timothy, his future travelling companion and faithful helper.

Derbe has been identified as recently as 1957, when Michael Ballance found evidence pointing to Kerti Huyuk (a mound about fifteen miles north-north-east of the city of Karaman) as the site. The evidence took the form of an inscription discovered on the mound, dedicated by the council and people of Derbe in AD 157 in honour of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Derbe lay some sixty miles south-east of Lystra, so that the last words of Acts 14:20 should be translated, `he set out with Barnabas for Derbe.’ (They should not be translated in such a way as to suggest that Paul, after being knocked about so badly the day before, walked the 60 miles to Derbe in one day.)

It has been suggested that Paul and Barnabas went no farther than Derbe because there they reached the frontier of the province of Galatia. Across the frontier lay the territory of Antiochus, king of Commagene (AD 38-72), an ally of the Romans. Indeed, at times Derbe seems to have been governed by Antiochus; it was he who, in honour of the Emperor Claudius, named it Claudioderbe.

Galatians 3:1
`0 foolish Galatians!’ says Paul. In consequence, `foolish’ has sometimes come to be regarded as a `permanent epithet’ of `Galatians’, and commentators have made inept remarks about the natural fickleness and instability of the Celtic peoples (those commentators being themselves usually Anglo-Saxons or Germans). But there is no suggestion that Galatians were naturally foolish. What Paul means is that the particular Galatians to whom he was writing were foolish in one respect, and that a very important one. Having begun their Christian career through faith in Christ and the gift of the Spirit, they were behaving as though the new life, whose origin lay in the spiritual realm, could be brought to perfection through submission to external and bodily rites. Such a preposterous retrogression seemed to Paul a sign that his friends had taken leave of their senses.

FF. Bruce. Jesus & Paul, places they knew.