Corinth, Isthmia, and Cenchreae

We visited Isthmia, Cenchreae and Corinth today. Isthmia is where the famous Isthmian games of ancient times originated and Cenchrea is mentioned in both Romans 16 and Acts 18 as the harbor Paul used coming in and out of the Corinth area. But since Corinth is such an important Biblical site, I'll keep my post focused there.

This is a view ALMOST from the top of Acro-Corinth where the Temple of Aphrodite and her 1000 temple prostitutes were. Sailors would come into port and hike two hours up a grueling path just to ...um ... visit with the temple workers. In the background nestled in the mountains is the city of Delphi.

This is a very important inscription. It used to be filled with bronze letters but those were stolen. It reads "Erastus in return for his aedileship [a top city official position] laid [this pavement] at his own expense." Due to several factors such as Erastus being a very uncommon name as well as the job description we are virtually certain this is the samae Erastus of Romans 16:23 and 2 Timothy 4:19.

This is the Bema seat that Paul would have stood before Gallio at. This was a huge event because when Gallio refused to hear the case, he was acknowledging Christianity as a part of Judiasm (which was a protected religion). When the Roman governnment realized Christianity was something very different several years later, that is when the persecution began.

This is the Corinth Canal. It was built in the 1800's so that they no longer had to put boats and cargo on rollers to get across the isthmus.

Here is one of the few known busts of the infamous Nero. Do you think perhaps his insanity was due in any small part to the fact that he had enormous ears? (Click on the photo to see what I mean).