Places Paul Knew

By Dennis Hawkes

The ebook, ‘Places Paul Knew’, describes the cities and towns that the Apostle Paul would have known as he journeyed throughout the Mediterranean region during the first century A.D. The book begins with an introduction to Paul. It outlines his background and his dramatic conversion as he was on his way to Damascus on the hunt for the people who had begun to follow the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. This was the one whom they believed was the promised Messiah who been raised from the dead. The next chapter looks at Paul’s world, so very different to our own, a world under Roman occupation; although violent and often dangerous it was free from wars at that time. It introduces some relevant Roman history with a table of Roman Emperors and the relationships of the complex Herod family. The various provinces through which Paul travelled are shown and a list of the towns and cities he is known to have visited is given. Since the Roman province of Palestine figures in Paul’s story the various regions are identified with their Roman appointed leaders, a number of them being members of the Herodic dynasty. There is a description of travelling in those days, neither easy nor comfortable. Despite this Paul and his companions travelled widely covering over 16,000 km on foot and by sea. The Roman roads made long distance travel possible and the trade and commerce throughout the Roman Empire meant that there were many ships criss-crossing the sea on which passengers could travel. Through towns and cities from what are now Israel, Syria Turkey, Greece and Italy, Paul and his companions took the message that the long-awaited Jewish Messiah had come, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The implications of this message were immense and whilst accepted and embraced by many, it was also rejected violently by some of the more zealous Jews. Based on the accounts in the book of Acts in the Bible the journeys that Paul and his companions made during the years between about AD 37 and AD 60 are then covered in some detail including Paul’s so-called first, second and third missionary journeys and his final journey to Rome.
Many of the archaeological remains of the cities he visited are still to be seen today but also often they contain structures built after Paul’s time. The book attempts to imagine what Paul would have seen when he arrived at each place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis Hawkes
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310723636

Dennis Hawkes

Emeritus Professors Dennis and Freda Hawkes live in Wales, UK and have lectured and jointly led a research team at a university until retirement. They are members of an evangelical church where Dennis was a church leader until retiring and have taught the bible for many years, mostly to students and young professionals. Their experience has led them to offer these resources to help other people to start to read and understand the bible.

Book preview

Places Paul Knew

Published by Dennis Hawkes at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Dennis Hawkes

ISBN 9781310723636

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Preface

Some people reading the part of the Bible called the New Testament for the first time have little understanding of the geography or history of the area. This ebook aims to give a little background to the places that the apostle Paul would have known as he travelled during the years between about AD 37 and AD 67. It has been written by consulting many sources, some ancient authors writing in the first century and some modern books, journal papers and website articles. In many cases archaeological scholarship is not in agreement over dates of building and of populations and even location of some towns and villages. No guarantee can be given for the accuracy of the information, but where possible sources have been crosschecked carefully.

Modern dates and metric units are used throughout for convenience but I have kept the old Bible place names although many places have changed their name in 2,000 years. The distinction between villages, towns and cities is difficult to make so far from the time. In the West our dating system is defined with respect to the year of the birth of the Lord Jesus. I have chosen to use the term AD (Anno Domini), the year of our Lord instead of the neutral equivalent CE, Common Era and also I have used BC (Before Christ) rather than BCE (Before the Common Era), since I think these terms may be more familiar to the reader.

There are references to the Bible by the name of the Bible book (see the contents page of a Bible) and by the numbers of the chapters and verses quoted; for example Act 22:28 means the book of Acts chapter 28 and verse 22. This guide is best read alongside the Bible, especially the book of Acts, and I trust the information in the guide will help the reader understand more about New Testament times and the lives of Paul and his travelling companions.

‘Places Paul Knew’ is published as an ebook because more and more people are accessing books in this way and because an electronic book has greater flexibility than printed material. Font size and font face can be changed and the text can be easily searched. Smashwords produces versions in several of the most common formats in electronic form for Apple, Kindle and other e-book Readers and also in a Portable Document Format (pdf) for reading on a computer screen or printing.

I am indebted to those friends who have read through the drafts and suggested alterations especially to my wife Freda for her repeated and patient proof reading.

Dennis Hawkes

Cardiff, Wales

June 2014

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Contents

Chapter 1