{"id":1101,"date":"2010-06-18T19:45:44","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T19:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/06\/lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla.html"},"modified":"2010-06-18T19:45:44","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T19:45:44","slug":"lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/06\/lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla.html","title":{"rendered":"Lands of the Bible 2010&#8211;The Cave Church of Paul and Thecla"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before the time of Constantine when Christianity became a legal or licit religion, Christians met in private places&#8212; homes being the most obvious. But they also met in caves, and turned caves into churches.&nbsp; This seems to have especially happened in Turkey, and one such example is right in, or better said, above Ephesus.&nbsp; High up on a ridge overlooking the theater and harbor of Ephesus&nbsp; is the cave church of Paul and Thecla. If you don&#8217;t know the story of Thecla of Iconium, you should look it up&nbsp; in the second century source (the Acts of Paul and Thecla). Its an interesting story, and probably grounded in some history, though the material must be read critically and carefully.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Though it is not on the usual tourist tours, our friend Levent Oral managed to arrange for us to meet the archaeologist who is most responsible for the work done in this cave church.&nbsp; It was a long journey up the ridge, about 40 minutes worth of good climbing, some of it rather slippery, but it was worth it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Here below is the unassuming entrance to this cave church. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20348.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bble Lands 2010 348.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20348-thumb-500x888-14928.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"500\" height=\"888\" \/><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n<div>What is most interesting about this cave church is its frescos, and the one on the left side of the back of the cave is a picture of Paul and Thecla. In this case, black and white images are easier to appreciate, so consider the following&#8212;<br \/><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/ephesus_cave1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ephesus_cave1.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/ephesus_cave1-thumb-500x257-14930.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"500\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div>But these are by no means the only frescos in this church. Here is an additional picture which I took. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20349.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bble Lands 2010 349.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20349-thumb-500x888-14932.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"500\" height=\"888\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>What should we make of such cave churches?&nbsp; Well in the first place, these cave churches date from after the lifetime of Paul, the earliest being from the second century A.D. It is a reasonable historical conjecture that these cave churches began to proliferate when the church needed to go underground, namely during the reigns of Diocletian or Septimus Severus when there was considerable persecution.&nbsp; The down side of meeting in caves and the like is that pagans were likely to see such a religion as like a mystery cult, with secret and perhaps even abhorrent rituals. One of the accusations in the second century was that Christians practiced cannibalism, due to the words of Christ in the Lord&#8217;s Supper. <\/p>\n<p>When the Christians in Ephesus emerged from this lofty cave, what they will have seen was impressive&#8212;<br \/><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20346.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bble Lands 2010 346.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20346-thumb-500x281-14934.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><\/span>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>And to the left one could see what used to be the harbor, now a swamp a long way from the sea. <br \/><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20347.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bble Lands 2010 347.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/137\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20347-thumb-500x281-14936.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the time of Constantine when Christianity became a legal or licit religion, Christians met in private places&#8212; homes being the most obvious. But they also met in caves, and turned caves into churches.&nbsp; This seems to have especially happened in Turkey, and one such example is right in, or better said, above Ephesus.&nbsp; High&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lands of the Bible 2010-The Cave Church of Paul and Thecla - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/06\/lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lands of the Bible 2010-The Cave Church of Paul and Thecla - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before the time of Constantine when Christianity became a legal or licit religion, Christians met in private places&#8212; homes being the most obvious. But they also met in caves, and turned caves into churches.&nbsp; This seems to have especially happened in Turkey, and one such example is right in, or better said, above Ephesus.&nbsp; High&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/06\/lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-18T19:45:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/Bble%20Lands%202010%20348-thumb-500x888-14928.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lands of the Bible 2010-The Cave Church of Paul and Thecla - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/06\/lands-of-the-bible-2010-the-cave-church-of-paul-and-thecla.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lands of the Bible 2010-The Cave Church of Paul and Thecla - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"Before the time of Constantine when Christianity became a legal or licit religion, Christians met in private places&#8212; homes being the most obvious. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}