A tour of Turkey brought ancient, early Christian times to life | Along The Way

In the foothills of the beautiful Taurus Mountains of southwestern Turkey lies a World Heritage site called Pamukkale-Hieropolis. Its thermal spring waters have drawn people since ancient times and the carbonate minerals the waters deposit have formed a limestone cliff more than a mile long that a person can walk on to view the productive farmlands of the Curuksu Valley below.

The nearby ruins of ancient Hieropolis, a once thriving city destroyed by an earthquake, are impressive.  A byproduct of carbonate minerals as they interact with air is carbon dioxide.  At the edge of Hieropolis is a fissure that emits carbon dioxide gas, which, heavier than air, never rises high enough to threaten humans.

It can, however, suffocate small lambs and goats.  In ancient times, priests of Rome’s pagan religious culture would scare a gullible public by saying Hades had reached out of the fissure to snare the small animal.  The apostle Saint Paul, ever outspoken, denounced the site as religious chicanery reminding his followers that there is only one God revealed through the life of Jesus.

What I learned about Pamukkale-Hieropolis is because of a wonderful two-week Bible tour by bus of ancient Turkey and Israel that Janet and I participated in recently. The Rev. Dr. David Palmer, the retiring senior minister at Kent’s United Methodist Church, the church I grew up in, organized and led the tour group that consisted of 28.  The tour focused for a week on the ministry of Paul in Turkey, formerly known as Asia Minor, followed by a week of tracing the three-year public ministry of Jesus.

I am no Biblical scholar, but Paul, whom the church designates as a saint, is interesting. Like nearly every leader of early Christianity, Paul was Jewish. Born in Asia Minor, he was well-educated and enjoyed Roman citizenship. Defending Judaism in its struggle to survive within the pagan culture of the Roman Empire, Paul spent his early years persecuting Christians whose preaching he thought defiled Judaism.  In 34 A.D., Paul witnessed the murder of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and (my opinion only) was probably an accomplice who incited the mob that stoned Stephen to death.  Shortly thereafter, traveling to Damascus to persecute more Christians, Paul suffered a mental break-down and a major crisis of conscience. The Bible tells us he was confronted by the risen Jesus.  He spent the rest of his life propagating Christianity, advocating for it as a religion for everyone and not as a branch within Judaism that some early Christian leaders at first wondered might be the case.

Thanks to the tour, our group was able to see some of the sites where Paul evangelized 2,000 years ago. We visited the well-preserved ruins of Ephesus near the Aegean Sea.  The thriving city of 250,000 at its zenith kept Paul three years there.  The city’s major attraction was a temple devoted to Diana, goddess of the hunt.  Paul would tell the crowds who came to hear him that the temple and Diana were a hoax.  Since pilgrimages to the Temple of Diana were a major source of revenue for Ephesus merchants, they collectively decided to have Paul killed.  Paul had to flee for his life.

Turkey has been Muslim for 700 years. We sometimes forget that greater Istanbul, a city of 20 million that straddles the Bosporus and exists in both Europe and Asia, was for more than a thousand years called Constantinople, the center of Byzantium from which the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches trace their origins. We visited Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia, a fabulous Romanesque church built in the sixth century whose dome was the world’s largest until St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome was built 1,000 years later. Constructed by Byzantium, Hagia Sofia currently is part museum and part mosque.  We saw a large basilica near Ephesus, built by the emperors of Byzantium.  It hosts the grave of John, the youngest of Jesus’ 12 disciples.  He cared for Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is believed buried there also.  The basilica, long neglected, lies in ruins.

Outside of Antalya, a modern coastal vacation city on Mediterranean, are the extensive and well-preserved ruins of Perge.  During Roman times, Perge was a bustling seaport from which Paul sailed on his adventurous missions that took him to Greece and ports in Asia Minor.

During our stops at cities where Paul evangelized, our leader, Dr. Palmer, would read pertinent scriptures that came to life in these ancient settings.  He had told us at the outset that he wanted us to see that the people in the Bible were real people with all the hopes, disappointments, challenges and joys that life dishes out.

Respecting the religious traditions of others, our group visited the beautiful Blue Mosque in Istanbul.  In the ancient city of Konya in the Taurus mountain range, we stopped at the Mevlana Museum, dedicated to Rumi, an important Islamic mystic and later attended a religious service of whirling dervishes.

An hour east of Konya, still in the mountains, we arrived at a town called Sultanai, a way station on the old Silk Road that connected China with the Roman Empire and then in Medieval times, the Byzantine Empire.  Our Turkish guide, Hakan, said the Silk Road is being revived under Chinese leadership and eventually a modern highway and railway will connect China with Europe.

Herding 28 Americans around Turkey was no easy task.  Kudos to David Palmer’s wife, Mavis, a retired surgical nurse and indispensable to her husband in guiding us.  Mike and Laurel Stiller pitched in admirably as did Amanda Ballentine who watched over those of us who are seniors.  Traveling with Common Pleas Court Judge John Enlow gave me the opportunity to renew a friendship that began more than 50 years ago when we were both in law school.  A stellar Portage County judge for 33 years, he did more with his degree than I did.  Janet’s friends, Jane Hornyak, Gail Pytel, and Chris Schjeldahl gave us a little group to compare notes with at the end of each busy day.

Turkey has enough from ancient times yet to be discovered and reassembled that archeologists will remain busy there for generations. Productive farmlands in valleys with freshwater streams flowing from mountains, hillsides of olive, pistachio, and walnut trees, well-built roads, handsome cities, and well-mannered people were what we saw.  It made me want to see more of Turkey. I will write about Israel next week.

David E. Dix is a retired publisher of the Record-Courier.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: A tour of Turkey brought ancient, early Christian times to life