antiquities in Piraeus, the port of Athens

 The Pireaus Archaeological Museum was the final historical site of our summer travels. Pireaus is the port city of Athens. While we did not get to go into the center of Athens, we enjoyed seeing this museum and wandering around the surrounding area. Below are some of the key artifacts we saw. I have particularly uploaded those that were less common within the summer's explorations, which obviously included artifacts of much greater antiquity. However, the items below are quite worth noticing, including musical instruments, a replica shrine with real artifacts, and measuring standards of various sorts. Personally, I always find the various styles of altars fascinating since I don't have a modern standard to compare them to.

Pieces of musical instruments

  It's amazing how some things haven't really changed over the centuries... look at the surgical instruments and vases and fish hooks.

Bronze statue, look at the unique eyes.

Entryway to the 'shrine' style room

A room set up like a typical ancient shrine

an altar to Hellos Mithras

Measures for liquid weights

Price list for goods (regulated)

Engraved measures

 Notice the handspan, arm-span, foot, and elbow to fingertips.

Coins of interstate commerce

A sundial

Santorini, beautiful and deeply impressing

  Volcanoes are known to have frequently affected societies or civilizations. (A Mexican volcano made the news last month due to its affect 1,500 years ago on Mayan civilization.) Or you might think of Pompeii or Krakatoa and their known affects on nearby and/or distant societies. According to our tour guide on Crete, Santorini's explosion some 3,600 years ago may well have been the event that allowed the Mycenaeans to overthrow the Minoans as the area's powerful civilization (see previous post).

 Anyways, sailing into the crater of the volcano was impressing: everything you see in the first photo below was the ancient island; the crater of the volcano is the entire center section that looks like a bay. This gave an idea of the cataclysmic nature of a major volcanic event. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Panoramic shot, entering Santorini's crater

  Besides all that, Santorini is gorgeous; my favorite shot was the nighttime one below, taken by Bethany.

one section inside the crater of Santorini

night view of Santorini

town on Santorini, looks like snow

Crete: The 'Minoans,' the first known advanced European civilization

  One of the interesting aspects of our tour of the ancient 'Minoan' city of Knossos (in modern Heraklion) was the guide's repeated comment, "We often do not know where history ends and myth begins here." Many aspects of this site are reminiscent of the Greek myths that one can still read, such as the story of the Minotaur or Daedalus & Icarus. In some areas, these myths seem to be correlated to historical events; while in other ways they are clearly fictional.

Rooms within the Palace of Knossos

  This island, which we call Crete, was called Caphtor (Deuteronomy 2:23; Jeremiah 47:4; Amos 9:7) before gaining its modern name (Acts 2:11; chapter 27; Titus 1:5, 12). However, in this earliest of known advanced European civilizations, the people's own name for themselves is uncertain - thus my quotation marks around the name of 'Minoans.' Apparently the Minoans are called this because it was their king(s)' name/title.

View from the Palace to the mountain from where water was brought by aqueducts 

  The palace complex is huge, especially considering the time and the place, more than 3500 years ago. Apparently, some scholars think that the palace itself was 'the labyrinth' in the story of the minotaur.

The replicas of the paintings that are still displayed are impressive. (Originals are in a covered museum.)

Entry to "the Throne Room"

Inside the Throne Room; the throne is on the right with a bowl for washing in the center

Pictures within the throne room

Ancient sewer system that still works, although it's covered with a modern grating

Notes about the Hall of the Double Axes

Dolphin mural in the queen's room

Reconstructed wall with bull relief 

  Did you know that bull-leaping is a thing? Apparently one of the major sports of ancient Crete (and the succeeding Mycenaean culture) was leaping over a bull acrobatically, hands to the horns, back flip or hand spring off the back! Look it up online, the remaining figurines and drawings and such like are impressive.

Another side of the palace

180-degree view to give a sense of size (about a third of the Palace complex should be visible)

Rhodes: a library, a castle, a church, a mosque, and the view

  I am hoping to post pictures from each of the places we visited on our trip, but it ought to be clear that we saw about 5 different locations for a couple hours over the course of 3 days. So, these pictures are by no means systematic. Mostly I just think people may enjoy having a picture of sites that they could read about in the Bible. The island of Rhodes is mentioned in Acts 21:1 where it is a brief stop on Paul's return to Syria after which he went to Jerusalem.

Church of the Virgin of the Burgh (14th century) - It has a weird history including having a road run through it. 

I find this style of mosque fascinating, but I've never actually been inside one. This one didn't have a public entrance that I could find; it may be closed.  

a Library founded by an Ottoman official a couple hundred years ago. Below are more details.

On the left, is the founding document for the Hafiz Ahmed Ağa Library. Surrounding it are translations into various languages. On the right, is a bit more history of the man and his times. 

I wish I could read the Ottoman (Arabic) script... maybe someday! The language is just an older version of Turkish, so the major hinderance is the orthography, as well as the changes that have occurred in Turkish vocabulary.

Library books, old and new

The view from the Clock Tower: notice the modern city beyond the old city walls

180-degree view from the clock tower

View of the castle from the tower 

 Apparently this is technically known at "The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes." Impressive, but I only saw the outside. 

Patmos - the island

  Shortly after we got married, Bethany told me that we needed to start saving so that we could "do something special" for our 10th anniversary.  Since we were barely making ends meet at the time, this seemed like an odd thing to save money for, to me.  However, she was certainly right, and we started it with a few dollars. Last week, a decade of saving came together, and we got to go on a cruise in the (nearby) Greek islands! We flew to Izmir and got on the ship, and a few hours later, we were at our first stop, the island of Patmos. 

The harbor at Patmos

  My recollection of how Patmos is described in biblical commentaries on the book of Revelation is "a small rocky island"... not that I could give a specific reference for that. That description is not particularly wrong, although the island is quite a bit bigger than I envisioned. It's small for an island, but it's not particularly small.

Harbor picture 2

  There was a tour that showed various historical (or supposedly historical?) sites on the island, but we preferred to just walk around the town and observe it from various perspectives. We also enjoyed some excellent ice cream there and bought some pistachio-chocolate sauce (imagine dark chocolate Nutella, made with pistachios!)

The town on Patmos

Sunset over Patmos harbor

the sun disappearing

The Museum that Shocked Me

The first time I visited Turkey, my host dropped me off at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. I love history, and I was shocked to discover empires that I had never heard of. I've always wanted to go back with a little more knowledge. This summer I got to go with my family (using the high-speed train)... I got to expose the kids to empires that had come and gone before the time of Abraham. Amazing! Below is a slightly blurred picture of one of my daughters observing a replica of an ancient Hittite monument depicting their gods and lions. I hope her world expanded!

13th Century Hittite monumental steele (replica; original in Konya province)

Artifacts believed to be from the 6th millenium BC

Stone knives can sound relatively harmless till you see them!
dated 6th millenia BC

Seals or stamps from the same timeframe

Check out the block of obsidian for chipping knives off of! 

 

a Hittite "holy cow"

 Remember King Josiah?

A steele from Carchemish, dated 900-700BC.
See the inscription below.

There is a ton more to see, but these were some of my favorites from a few sample empires.

Is All Sin the Same? or Are Some Sins Worse than Others?

Is there Greater and Lesser Sin?

  Over the years, I have periodically posted theological musings that are rather speculative. When I do so, I try to label them as such. I distinctly remember John Hartog's guest lecture in my sophomore class on Romans in which he discussed Abraham, his faith, and eschatology while being clear that some of his ideas were speculative. This made the lesson quite interesting; and as I recall, his basic speculation was whether Abraham would be physically raised to walk on this earth given the promises that God would give him the land. This post should not be that speculative, but it is certainly more a musing than a statement.

 You may have heard someone say, "All sin is equally bad"; you might have even said it yourself. But is it true according to the Bible?

 Here are some initial Scriptures to consider: Leviticus 4:2, 13, 22, 27; 5:15-18; Numbers 15:22-31; Proverbs 21:27; Ezekiel 8:6, 13, 15; John 19:11. Click this link to read the verses. Spread throughout the Scriptures in the Law, the Writings, the Prophets, and the Gospels, these passages certainly seem to suggest that some sins are more serious or worse or greater in some way than others. A leadership role (cf. James 3:1), motivation, and amount of knowledge seem significant in God's weighting of sins. For instance, consider what Numbers 15 shows below:

 From these passages, it seems clear that not all sins are the same. Still, someone might object that while all sins are not the same, they all still deserve the same judgment due to God's just wrath. Certainly, all sin dishonors the Creator God of the universe, separate us from Him, and can justly be punished by Him. However, the Bible does not seem to portray all sin as deserving the same degree (?) of judgment. Lamentations 4:6; Matthew 11:20-24; Mark 12:38-41; Luke 20:45-47; Hebrews 10:26-29; James 3:1 (link), as well as the details of the Mosaic sacrificial system, point to varying levels of judgment as being appropriate to varying sins. I do not mean to suggest that God is not angry at some sins; instead, I think it might be appropriate to say that some sins are more grossly and deeply offensive than others.

  This suggests the question whether all sinners are equally evil and equally deserving of judgment. That is a very different question, which I don't intend to go into in detail. However, I think the simple answer is that rejecting God's revelation in nature, Scripture, and/or His people and preferring our own way is the root sin of all sinners. Thus, we are all equally sinners separated from God whether the weight of our individual sins and their respective appropriate judgments are equal or not. 

  In summary, we must realize that God does not necessarily evaluate sins in the (constantly shifting) way that human cultures do. Ingratitude is a major sin in Scripture (Numbers 21; 2 Timothy 3:2), as is disobedience to parents. Thus, a Scripturally-tuned conscience and set of evaluations is needed for these topics. At the same time, all sin, no matter how small or large, is abhorrent to the holy God and should be as abhorrent to us. 

 Do you have any thoughts or additional texts to mention?

Additional texts to consider:
~ Romans 1:18-32 begins with God's wrath against ALL ungodliness and then describes some of the different developments and aspects of sin.
~ Luke 7:36-50 seems to suggest something about both quantity and weight of sin committed by different individuals in both the parable and the subsequent comments by Jesus.
~ Matthew 23:23 seems to suggest that some good actions are more significant than others. We can wrongly evaluate positive things we do as well.
~ Matthew 12:31 - the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit
~ 1 John 5:16-17 - the sin that leads to death 
~ Matthew 5:17-22
~ John 15:22-24
~ 1 Corinthians 14:20 - be infants, not mature in evil.

The Necessity of a Practical Ecclesiology

 The other day, a mentor commented to me again on the practical importance of a strong theology of the church and its workings, good ecclesiology. When Christians do not have a strong, practical ecclesiology, we are more likely to act in ways that disagree with the spirit of the Scriptures. I am not referring to breaking explicit "rules" of Scripture, but to the fact that we may fail to fulfill our roles as integral and integrated parts of the body of Christ. Thus, there could be a failure to care for a sister or brother in need, to submit to the (church) body or its leaders, to value troublesome and supportive members equally, to provide for those who minister the Word, etc. These problems could be supplemented with a list of difficulties that a weak theology of the church can impose on the structuring of the church, such as choosing proper leadership and removing those who are persisting in behaving in ways that disagree with Scripture.

  As I was reading 1 Corinthians 12 in the last couple days, I was struck by one of these practical aspects of ecclesiology:

  Shepherds of churches may see a requirement here to spend more time and energy on those people who seem 'less lovable', but the point in 1 Corinthians seems much wider. This is BODY work. The whole body of Christ, everyone in a church, should be united in intimate concern with the health and progress and honor and needs of every other member or organ. (As I've shared before, the word "member" here has more of the modern idea of "body parts" or "limbs and organs.") Anthony Thiselton (2006) comments, "So-called unpresentable parts play an even more indispensable role in sustaining the life of the body than, for example, an eye or an ear, which on the surface may appear more important." While a body can live without an eye, living without an intestine or stomach - as unpresentable as those may be - is obviously far more problematic. The "unpresentable" parts are "indispensable," and if there were not such differences - gross and under-appreciated though some of them may be, there would be no body. Many indispensable and honorable parts must always be contributing to the "common good" of one body.

 In the context of 1 Corinthians 12, the Holy Spirit and Paul apply this truth by warning the Corinthian believers not to see certain members as having "lesser gifts." There are no second-class followers of Christ! The Spirit has carefully distributed the gifts to the church in such a way that honor and responsibility will be given to all. This, of course, has practical implications for how each one of Christ's living body parts should behave and feel toward each other part. Two more quotes from Thiselton and one from MacLaren's Expositions expose some practical implications of this:

Thornton observes, "In the Body of Christ there are, strictly speaking, no private sufferings. All are shared because there is one life of the whole. Accordingly wrong done to one member is wrong done to the whole Church, and therefore to Christ himself" (Common Life, p. 36). This principle also demands the utmost sympathy and sensitivity between fellow Christians, to share in the joys and sorrows of each. 

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How often do we use this model (as Paul does) to stress that the vulnerable and less favored need the support and service of the strong? 

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For every one of us has something, and no one of us has everything; so, on the one hand, we want each other, and, on the other hand, we are responsible for the use of what we have. (MacLaren)

 In applying this to ourselves, I have two questions for you: How many body parts do you have as a human? Do you keep a list of them? I imagine that you don't know and that you don't have one. Me neither. We don't usually make lists of the things closest to us; but, we recognize our body parts when we see and feel them. In the same way, we should recognize those who are part of the body of Christ which we are part of. Don't simply look to a list of people as the organs and limbs of Christ in your local church: who is there, how are they functioning, how can you support them? You may not know their exact function or gifting, but value and honor them as those whom Christ and the Spirit have valued and honored. Remember they may well be more indispensable than you or I.

~ Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) (Maclaren, Alexander)
~ 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary (Anthony C. Thiselton)