The first Refugees in Greece came 2,000 years ago – as slaves or refugees left behind when Greek Soldiers took over a variety of people groups. The ancient ruins of Athens shows us the world as the readers of the New Testament would have known it. We even got to see one of the places St. Paul preached in the book of Acts!
First- the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis. This beautiful building was designed to be a temple to Greek Gods. After the Byzantine Empire became Christian, it was ok for soldiers to destroy the Greek temples in the name of Christianity. Not very polite, but nevertheless, a lot of destruction was caused. today, they are re-constructing it.
What the City of Athens would have looked like in the 2nd Century AD – just after the writing of the New Testament, and before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The buildings on the hill in the center bottom of the city are the “Acropolis”. Today, most of the city looks about the same! A few major ancient buildings surrounded by millions of apartment buildings!
The view of the city today from the top of the Acropolis. The temple in the center right is the temple of Hephaestus. Houses aren’t built on the Acropolis, bc it is a huge rocky hill. In ancient times, they thought the Gods lived on Mt. Olympus but visited the priests on the Acropolis. In Modern Times, even before excavating the Acropolis ruins, it just wasn’t practical to build in that area, which saved a lot of ancient ruins.
MARS HILL!! This is in the Bible. It is the location of one of Paul’s most important gospel presentations at the time of his visit to Athens during his second missionary journey (Acts 17:16–34). It was where he addressed the religious idolatry of the Greeks who even had an altar to the “Unknown God.” Today, there’s a mega church in Michigan called “Mars Hill”, and that story is in a mural at St. Paul Lutheran Church & School in Ann Arbor, MI.
This is me at the ancient Library – the oldest library in the world – reading all about it to David 🙂
David at the modern Olympic Athletic Center – the “Spiros Louis” archway outside of the main Olympic Stadium used in 2004.
The sunset on the Mediterranean Coast. Beautiful.