Behold the canal carved through the isthmus just north of ancient Corinth. This canal has a long history, going back to Nero, who began to have the canal dug so ships would not have to be dragged across the isthmus on the dilkos, or all goods off-loaded on the Italy side of the isthmus and then reloaded on the other side.  Nero however was warned by priests that such an action might bring on the wrath of Neptune or some other god, and so it was never completed in antiquity.  

Certainly one of the more interesting and remarkable archaeological finds at Corinth is depicted above.  An inscription in stone that refers to the synagogue of the Hebrews.  This presumably means a synagogue where Hebrew was spoken, and this particular inscription is typically dated to the second century A.D.  It confirms what we already knew from Acts and Paul’s letters namely that there were diaspora synagogues in that era, and Paul would, as often as possible, begin his mission work there, proclaiming the  Good News, in part by exposition of OT texts.

 

Above you see one of the shops at Corinth, the sort of shop Paul as leather worker or tent maker would have used to sell his wears, along with Priscilla and Aquila.  One could say Paul had an in-tents ministry 🙂   But in fact the sort of tents he was likely making were made of goat’s hair cloth, the famous cilicium made from the wool of black goats. Here below is an example of these creatures, taken in Turkey this month—-

One of the myths about Paul’s ministry is that he was always running breathlessly from one town to the next on a preaching tour.  In fact he stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, and visited it again later, in order to plant the Gospel seed firmly in that soil and help house churches to be formed.  This was hard work and it took time. There were other cities like Ephesus where Paul stayed for closer to three years at one stretch.  Paul was not a mere circuit rider nor like a modern traveling evangelist.

One of the things Paul certainly would have seen in Corinth was the ancient temple depicted above— a temple of the God Apollo, the God of prophecy. Greco-Roman persons had very different views of prophecy than Paul and other Jews did.  They believed they could go to a prophet and ask yes or no questions about their personal problems or issues, and get direct answers.  Prophets tended to be consulting wordsmiths, rather like palm readers today.  So it was that Paul had to reform the notions of prophecy his audience had when he came to Corinth. Notice for example how in 1 Cor. 14 he tells some folk that if they have questions, they should ask at home, not interrupting the worship service when prophets were speaking.  Christian worship was not meant to be Q and A.

Perhaps the most famous artifact in Corinth from a Christian point of view is the celebrated Erastus inscription found above.  It says that Erastus in order to obtain the office of aedile paved the parking lot in front of the theater. This seems to be the same Erastus Paul sends greetings from in Rom. 16.   We will talk about the cult of Asclepios in Corinth and ancient people’s views of salvation in the next post.