{"id":984,"date":"2010-01-27T17:21:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T17:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/01\/the-athens-of-the-south--nashville.html"},"modified":"2010-01-27T17:21:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T17:21:52","slug":"the-athens-of-the-south-nashville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/01\/the-athens-of-the-south-nashville.html","title":{"rendered":"The Athens of the South—- Nashville"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

Behold the Parthenon— in Nashville.  Who knew?  Yes there is a life size replica of the Parthenon built in 1898 for an Exposition and refurbished in the last ten years.  Built to the exact specifications of the original, complete with 90 foot stature inside of…… wait for it—- a solid gold Athena!!<\/p>\n

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span> <\/div>\n

 She’s holding Nike in one hand, and her shield in the other. And looking mighty impressive— even has pure white skin and blue eyes.  <\/p>\n

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Yes that’s Medusa on her shield and also on her breastplate… having another bad hair day. <\/p>\n

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Now you may well be wondering, how the Parthenon ended up in a field in Centennial Park in Nashville.  Well,  it goes back to the fact that Nashville with its famous University (Vanderbilt) had come to be called the Athens of the South a center for philosophy and learning— hence the building of the Parthenon, hence the 90 foot golden girl within.  If you are wondering where her Owl is, she is wearing them on her earrings and she’s got the Python behind her shield to back her up (symbol of the Python spirit of prophecy). 
\"Nashville<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course the problem with replicas is that they depend on your conception of the original, which is partly in ruins, and in any case doesn’t look like we might think—- here is what the original in Paul’s day probably looked like…. really spectacular and colorful, rather like what was discovered recently about the Sistine Chapel once the grime was removed. <\/p>\n

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

And then there is the difference between a construction made out of limestone and marble (the original), and the Nashville Parthenon out of reinforced concrete… a truly modern medium.   But,  hey,  if you can’t afford to go to Greece and see the original one perched on a hill, you can come to Nashville, visit the Opry, and then go see the Parthenon perched in park.    Only in America!!     But there is one more surprise.   Originally there was not just a Parthenon here….. there was a Pyramid in 1898 as well. <\/p>\n

\"Nashville<\/a><\/span> <\/div>\n

So, I’m thinking instead of going to Gatlinburg  Tn.(aka Mountain tacky holiday spot)  you should visit Nashville, and check out what them cats have done down there.  Its amazing.  Then afterwards, go visit Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge  \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behold the Parthenon— in Nashville.  Who knew?  Yes there is a life size replica of the Parthenon built in 1898 for an Exposition and refurbished in the last ten years.  Built to the exact specifications of the original, complete with 90 foot stature inside of…… wait for it—- a solid gold Athena!!    She’s holding…<\/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-984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Athens of the South- Nashville - 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\/01\/the-athens-of-the-south-nashville.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Athens of the South- Nashville - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Behold the Parthenon— in Nashville.  Who knew?  Yes there is a life size replica of the Parthenon built in 1898 for an Exposition and refurbished in the last ten years.  Built to the exact specifications of the original, complete with 90 foot stature inside of…… wait for it—- a solid gold Athena!!    She’s holding…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/01\/the-athens-of-the-south-nashville.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-27T17:21:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Nashville%20102-thumb-400x300-11061.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":"The Athens of the South- Nashville - 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\/01\/the-athens-of-the-south-nashville.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Athens of the South- Nashville - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"Behold the Parthenon— in Nashville.  Who knew?  Yes there is a life size replica of the Parthenon built in 1898 for an Exposition and refurbished in the last ten years.  Built to the exact specifications of the original, complete with 90 foot stature inside of…… wait for it—- a solid gold Athena!! 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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&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\/984","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=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}