This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 584: 1 Corinthians in Context 1 - Corinth as the Context with Sean Finnegan This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Audio file 584 1 Corinthians 1.mp3 Transcript 00:00 Hey there. 00:01 I'm Sean. 00:02 And you are listening to Restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:12 Today, we're beginning something new. 00:14 I've been working on this class on 1st Corinthians for months and months now. 00:15 I. 00:18 Had taken classes on 1st Corinthians at Boston University. 00:23 Twice, in fact. 00:23 Right. 00:24 The first time we just read through the entire Epistle in Greek. 00:28 And the second time the next semester was when we learned about what modern scholars say about Corinth. 00:34 I've also taught this epistle in the past, both in a home Bible study in Rhode Island and at the college level in Georgia. 00:41 Then last April, I had the opportunity to visit many ancient sites in both Turkey and Greece, including Corinth, which gave me first hand knowledge and experience with the site and the museum. 00:54 Course I took tons of PICT. 00:55 Well, then, we hiked U the acrointh to get a good view of the ocean and the ancient site. 01:01 From all this, I've put together a class on one Corinthians that I hope will make the Bible come alive for you. 01:08 In a new and exciting way. 01:12 Now, when most people pick up their Bibles and read 1 Corinthians, they approach it as if this was a modern document. 01:18 Addressing our concerns today, of course there is a lot in one Corinthians that directly applies to us today. 01:26 But there's. 01:27 A huge potential for misunderstanding. When we read today's issues in categories into Scripture. 01:34 A better approach and the approach I'll be taking in this class is to do the hard work of adjusting our minds to think like they thought in their time and place. 01:44 When we do that, we can see through their eyes and this will tremendously help us to understand what Paul was doing in the Epistle, he wrote them. 01:52 Today is an introduction to the city of Corinth. 01:55 Help you start getting your bearings. Then next week we'll look at what happened when Paul came there. 02:01 Here now is episode 584. 02:03 Corinthians in context Part 1. 02:05 Corinth as the context. 02:15 Welcome to the first Corinthians in context class. 02:20 So glad that you're all here with me. 02:22 Tonight I'm really excited about this class. 02:25 I have been researching it and studying it a lot over the past months and I'm excited to share what I've learned. First Corinthians is easily the most revealing. 02:37 Window into how Christianity clashed with Roman urban culture. 02:43 We may not think of it much, but Jesus operated mostly in the countryside and with farmers and fishers and people. 02:52 That were in Galilee in particular, he did make some trips to the Big city to Jerusalem. 02:56 But when it comes to one Corinthians, we're talking about urban Christians, Christians that are active in an urban environment. They're going to have all this conflict with the standard ways of thinking and approaching things that the Romans do. 03:12 In the Roman Empire, so not only do we learn how the gospel challenged worldly wisdom and assumptions, we also see how Paul reasoned and engaged with complex moral issues. 03:27 The ancient world, especially in a city like Corinth. 03:30 Even 2000 years ago was not simple. 03:34 It was. 03:35 There was a lot going on and so that's good for us because our world is also complex with a lot going on. And so by seeing how the apostle Paul engaged with their issues and handle them, we can get a good guide to deal with our issues. 03:51 When we are thinking of recent innovations like technology, sexuality, gender, morality, we have all kinds of innovations happening all the time. 04:03 And how do we handle that as Christians? 04:05 Should we? 04:06 How should we think this? 04:08 I think can really help us with that. 04:10 In this class, we'll answer questions like why were the Corinthians so into speaking in tongues? 04:17 Why was there such tolerance for sexual immorality? 04:22 What's the deal with food sacrifice to idols? 04:26 What was the Christian position on same sex? 04:30 Why were they so divided into factions? To answer questions like these were going to set first Corinthians in its original historical context. 04:41 And so our objectives for this class are one to become familiar with life. 04:46 In 1st century church. 04:49 Two to reconstruct what was happening in the church at Corinth. 04:53 Three to see how one Corinthians made sense to its original recipients. 04:58 And then four to apply First Corinthians to our context today. 05:03 Now we're not going to go through every verse. If we were to do that. 05:09 It would take a very long time because it's a fairly long book, 16 chapters. 05:14 It would just take a lot. 05:16 Lot of time. 05:17 Instead of turning over every stone or giving you my take on every sentence in the book. 05:24 We're going to have more of a modest goal. 05:27 I want to equip you with the information you need to understand for yourself. 05:33 When you read First Corinthians after this class is done, that's really my target is to give you the information you need so that when you're reading it on your own, you're like, Oh yeah, that makes more sense to me now. 05:45 Before, you just didn't even notice something that was important. 05:49 Or maybe you thought something was there. That's really not there because of just missing. 05:53 Cultural fact of some sort. The goal is not just to fill your head with my opinions, but to empower you to develop your own. 06:02 Here's the official description for this class. 06:06 First Corinthians is easily the most revealing letter Paul wrote to any of the churches. 06:12 Reading it, we find a church riddled with strife, sinfulness and doctrinal error. 06:19 Rather than reading one Corinthians as if it were written today, we'll read it in its original context doing so. 06:25 Will reconstruct the various situations to see how Paul addressed them. 06:30 Then we'll be in good shape to apply the truths, instructions and warnings to ourselves today. 06:36 My prayers that this class will make the Bible come alive for you in a new and exciting way. 06:41 That will not only educate you, but also challenge you to live out your faith. 06:46 Authentically. OK, so I'd be using this word context a lot. 06:51 Do I mean by context? 06:53 I mean, a lot of things. 06:55 Geography, history, politics, economics, quality of life, technology. 07:01 Religion, Housing, morality, society, culture. 07:04 I mean, what was it like? 07:06 For those people who live then in that place. 07:10 At that time, that's what I mean. 07:12 How do we find out the context? 07:14 Of reading first Corinthians. 07:17 Well. 07:18 You can go there. 07:20 You can visit. 07:21 You can get on a plane tonight. 07:23 Be there tomorrow morning. 07:25 Then you would have first hand eyewitness information about Corinth and it's actually. 07:32 Pretty useful to do that. 07:33 Also you can look at pictures. 07:35 That's a much less expensive way to do it. 07:38 Look at pictures taken by others or even these days we have drone footage which is really, really cool. I was watching a. 07:45 A drone video on YouTube trying to find, just like the perfect shot. What I really wanted and the guy had the drone do like every angle except for the one I wanted. 07:54 Was. 07:54 Most frustrating, 2 minutes of my life, but the music was epic, so I guess it was worth it. 08:01 So yeah, you could. 08:01 Could visit. 08:02 You can look at pictures. You can look at maps. 08:04 Are really. 08:05 I'm going to show you some. 08:07 We also have. 08:08 Archaeologists have excavated a lot of Corinth, and so we know a lot about the buildings over different periods of time, and part of that archaeology is inscriptions. 08:19 Are anything written? 08:21 That has survived and we have lots of inscriptions from Corinth that have survived. 08:27 I have some pictures of some that I will be sharing with you, but then the professionals take pictures of these things when they first dig them out of the ground, thankfully so that you know if something gets weathered or lost or whatever happens. 08:42 Like you at least have a really good. 08:44 So we have good information on that we also have. 08:48 Coins survive and the coins from Corinth are in like really good shape, especially some of the gold coins like they're gorgeous. 08:55 And you can see very clearly who's on the coin and what it's talking about. And like some of their symbols and stuff. 09:03 And guess? 09:04 It's not George Washington and an eagle. 09:07 Big surprise, right? 09:09 Their coins are different and then last of all we have ancient literary sources. 09:15 I break these into two categories. We have Christian literary sources. 09:19 So for example, the book of acts. 09:21 Especially chapter 18. We're going to look at this next time. Acts Chapter 18 talks about Paul going to Corinth originally and starting the church. 09:29 That's super helpful for understanding first Corinthians. First Corinthians itself obviously, is a Christian literary source that we're going to use. 09:38 2nd Corinthians as well. 09:40 And Romans 16, I believe that Romans was written from Corinth. 09:45 And in the last chapter of Romans you get shout outs. Greetings sent. 09:51 From people that are there to the church at Rome and the people who happen to be, there are Corinthian people. 09:57 So we get a little bit of information about the Corinthian Church from Romans 6. 10:03 And then first, Clement, first Clement is a document not in our Bibles, but it's very early, maybe around the year 90 AD give or take. And so this is a letter written by a guy named Clement to the church at Corinth. 10:19 Not biblical, but it is a Christian document and it it does have some information that's a little bit helpful. 10:25 Then outside the Christian liter. 10:28 This. 10:30 We have other ancient literary sources and between you and me, I'd rather listen to some ancient person. 10:37 Then to a modern person, because an ancient person is in a better position to know. 10:43 What they're talking about, because they lived in that same world, they actually could go to Corinth. 10:48 In the 1st century, whereas like modern people, so far as I know, we still don't have time machines. 10:54 So like they're just depending on these other ancient literary sources as well. 10:58 And there are a lot. 11:01 It might surprise you to know that so much of the literature of the ancient world. 11:07 Has survived to today and so we have. 11:12 I'm just gonna rattle through this list quickly here, but we have pawsenius Antipater of Sidon, Polystratus, Cicero, Chronographis, Deodoris, Siculus, Strabo, Livy proportions. 11:26 Vitruvius, Philo Petronius. 11:29 Plenty of the elder Epictetus, Josephus, Marshall pseudo. 11:34 Julian Dial chrysisstom plutarch. Juvenile. 11:38 Plenty of the younger swatonius, Appian, Florus alias, Aristides. 11:44 Apuleius Gelius Alyssa Froncassius dio. 11:50 Phyllis Stratus and Athenaeus. 11:53 32 sources, 32 ancient sources that talk about Corinth either, specifically the century before Paul got there. 12:03 The century wind pole was there or the century after pole was there. OK, so like that full. 12:08 Range of like 3 centuries. 12:11 All of these sources has something to say about them. 12:13 I have read everything. 12:15 They have written that relates to the city of Corinth. I've taken notes on anything that I thought would be useful for this class, and so I'm going to be sprinkling in quotations from these ancient authors. 12:26 None of these are Christians. 12:28 Couple of them are Jewish. For example, Philo and Flavius Josephus are both Jewish. 12:34 Some of them are Greek, some of them are Roman, but they're they're not part of the. 12:38 They're not part of Christianity, but they just tell us about the city and even more importantly, about the people who lived in the city. 12:47 Now, before you get too impressed with me, I want to come clean that I encountered all 32 of these sources in this one book by Jerome Murphy O'Connor called St. Pauls Corinth. 12:57 If you want to do your own research and just like get all the all the quotes. 13:02 It's actually very easy to get to in this volume that he put together some time ago. 13:08 All right. So for example, let's start with a quote from plenty of the. 13:11 Plenty of the elder died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 70. 13:17 I always feel such a connection to brother plenty because I was born in 79 and he died in 79. But you know, it's just 1900 years apart. 13:26 Anyhow, plenty of the elder said the following. 13:29 The inlets on either side are called the Gulf of Corinth and the Sermonic Gulf. 13:34 Talking about Corinth, the city. 13:36 This is a first century person who had been there in the 1st century. 13:40 So he says there's two gulfs the Gulf of Corinth, the sermon Gulf, the former ending at Lechiam. 13:45 And the latter in Ken Creey the Circuit of the Peloponnese is a long and dangerous voyage for vessels prohibited by their size from being carried across the isthmus on trolleys and consequently successive attempts were made by King Demetrius. 14:02 Caesar the dictator and the emperor's Caligula and Nero to dig a ship canal through the narrow part. 14:09 An undertaking which the end that befell them all proves to have been an act of sacrilege. 14:15 In the middle of this neck of land which we have called the isthmus is the colony of Corinth. 14:20 The former name of which was Ephira. 14:23 Its habitation is clinging to the side of a hill. 14:26 7 1/2 miles from the coast on either side and the top of its citadel called Acrocorinth, on which is the spring of Pyrene commands views of the two seas in opposite directions. 14:38 There is so much in this quote like he he just he just used words to say all the things. 14:44 That I want you to be able to picture in your mind. 14:46 I realise this is like a very fast go through, so let's take a moment to unpack it. 14:51 So First off. 14:53 Let's look at the map. Corinth exists in the midst of the Mediterranean world at a time when the Roman Empire ruled this whole region around the Mediterranean world. 15:05 Corinth is in. 15:06 This is Greece over here and Corinth is right about there, OK. 15:10 So what else is around? 15:12 Well, we've got Italy and then over here to the east of Greece, you have what they called Asia. 15:19 It's not what we call Asia, what we call Asia is way over farther E than this. 15:25 We call it Turkey. 15:26 And they called it Asia, but the western part of what we call Turkey is the place they call Asia or sometimes called Asia Minor. 15:33 Here's Judea and Galilee, and the land that used to be known as Israel at the time. Now it was known by these different names. 15:43 Samaria and Galilee, and then right above it, is Syria. 15:46 Down here, we. 15:47 Egypt in the South, it was a big world, but it was a connected world. 15:52 Is it connected roads and the ocean? 15:56 And they didn't have trains. They didn't have cars, you know, but you had roads, so you could walk. You could ride a horse and you had a lot of ships navigating. In particular. One of the things that would happen is you see how it's nice and green down. 16:11 In northern Egypt, there's a city up there called Alexandria. 16:15 Egypt was considered to be the bread basket of the Roman Empire, and so ships were regularly going. 16:22 From Egypt all the way to the city of Rome on the West Coast. 16:27 Of Italy. 16:29 That was a standard thing that happened. 16:31 That's not an easy trip for ancient people. 16:34 That don't have GPS. 16:35 Don't have a lot of our modern benefits. 16:39 This takes serious skill. 16:40 And they did it all the time. 16:42 Had the skill all. 16:44 Let's look at another map here. 16:46 In this case, I've zoomed in a little bit on grease. 16:49 You could start to see a little bit more definition. 16:52 What's the big thing? 16:53 That sticks out to you islands. 16:56 There's just so many islands. It's crazy how many islands there are. 16:59 Are islands everywhere navigating? 17:02 By ship is actually can be dangerous because of islands, but it also can be helpful because of islands because they could serve as visual markers for you to navigate across the Aegean Sea or the Ionian Sea. 17:15 This one over here. 17:17 This on the east is the Aegean Sea and this is the Ionian Sea over here. And Corinth is right in between the two of them. 17:25 So this mass right here is called the Peloponnesian Peninsula. 17:31 It's a great. 17:32 Double P name for a place right? 17:37 We just call it the. 17:38 Typically you can see the Peloponnese peninsula is not attached in the north. 17:44 This right here, this is not an attachment. 17:48 If you zoom in far enough, you'll see there's ocean there. 17:51 In modern times, there's a bridge. In ancient times there's no bridge. OK, so it's not attached there. 17:56 Where is it? 17:58 It's attached by this isthmus right here. 18:02 And on the skinny part of the isthmus is where you have cords. 18:07 So if you're a ship, that is. 18:10 From Rome. 18:12 To Ephesus, guess what? That will be a tremendous shortcut to take because. 18:18 You could come through here and then if you could get your stuff to the other side. 18:23 Ephesus is right over there. 18:26 Otherwise, what do you have to do? 18:28 You've got to go all the way down here and then. 18:31 Skip right through there and then come up this way. Six days difference in travel. 18:38 You could cut 6 days off if you went through the isthmus. 18:43 So what they would do is they would go to the isthmus, unload the boat, transport the cargo and then put it in a different boat, waiting on the other side, and they would go to the next place. 18:55 So I. 18:56 Just want to say a word about the Cape down. 18:59 This right here. 19:01 This little spot right there is called Cape Malia. 19:05 And it is a very dangerous place. Many times of the year. 19:10 To navigate by ship. In fact, as old as Homer. 19:17 Homer's odyssey, Odysseus said. 19:20 And now all unscathed. Should I have reached my native land, but the wave and the current of the north wind beat me back as I was rounding Malia and drove me from my course past Sithera. 19:34 Sithra is this island right here? 19:36 So he was trying to go around the Cape and. 19:39 The win was against him and that's what sets up the whole story of the. 19:44 That's why he goes on an odyssey. Why he's on an adventure. Because he didn't get home. 19:47 Because it's so hard to round the Cape at the bottom of the Peloponnese, Strabo relates a proverb, he says. 19:55 When you double Malia, forget your home. 19:58 Double means you've gone around one side and now you're going around the second side of it. 20:02 You're seeing it twice as long rather than just going past it. 20:06 You're actually making the turn and trying to go around. 20:09 He. 20:10 Just forget your home like it's just suicide, buddy. 20:12 Like, don't even try it. 20:14 People did it, but it was dangerous and it took six more days so that all plays into what we're talking about here now. 20:23 Zooming in a little bit more and now we can see a little more clearly. 20:28 The two gulfs on either side of the isthmus. 20:31 So on this West side, we have the Corinthian Gulf right here and on the east side we have the Ceronic Gulf and then the part where the isthmus is narrowest is where they would transport everything across. 20:47 Here is a panoramic taken by Jerry, Werewolf of the West Gulf there, which is a Corinthian Gulf. 20:56 And then you have the land in between and then to the east. 21:00 You have the seronic gulf out in the distance, so you can see. 21:06 It is a narrow piece of land 4 miles across at its narrowest. 21:12 You can see why Corinth would be the crossroads of the north and the South. 21:18 Because if you wanted to get from the mainland of Greece down to the Peloponnesian Peninsula. 21:24 By land you had to go through that isthmus, and if Corinth is in the middle of that Isthmus. 21:29 Then guess what? 21:31 That's the city you stop at when you want to go and you want to spend the night or you want to. 21:36 You want to buy supplies or you want to go and you want to make a deal to sell some goods because it's got 2 ports. 21:44 City has 2 ports. 21:45 That's so weird. 21:47 Cities have one port. 21:49 Typically this one has two ports to two seas. 21:53 It is also the crossroads for the east and the West. 21:56 Like I said before, if you want to get stuff from Italy out to Asia, then you've got to go through this isthmus. 22:05 Now the Two Harbors. 22:08 Lekium on the West was a harbor that was man made and it was. 22:14 It was like one of the most impressive engineering feats and then on the East, Ken Crei the harbor is mostly still there. Like you can see it even when you go, you can kind of see like the leftovers of where they had kind of mounted up. 22:28 The ground to break the waves, even though it's they're under the waves now. 22:32 I have this really helpful description from Donald Angles in his book Roman Corinth. 22:36 Writes. 22:37 The man made harbor one of the largest in the Roman world, would be crowded with vessels from all over the Mediterranean. 22:45 It's Quays and warehouses would be packed with goods coming from as far as India, China and even Indonesia. 22:52 Yeah. Spices, silks, precious stones, exotic woods, marble blocks of every color in the rainbow from Anatolia. 23:01 North Africa, Italy and producing areas of Greece, amphhra is filled with wines. 23:07 Olive oils and other vegetable oils, copper and 10 ingotes for the city's bronze. 23:13 Foundries and block of Corinth's own building stone for export. 23:19 One of the main things I'm trying to do in. 23:21 Class. 23:23 Is to train. 23:24 Your imagination. 23:26 I want you to see. 23:28 The only way to see it is to get a little bit detailed. 23:31 So I'm going to be getting a little bit detailed as we go and I think that would be helpful, but I want you to imagine Corinth as a prosperous place because of merchants and business. If you want to ship something, you're going to go through Corinth if you can. 23:47 And they use this wealth to beautify the. 23:50 And we know this from archaeology because they've found all these. 23:52 Huge buildings and they're like, wow, how did they buy that? 23:55 Did they pay for that? 23:56 Well, it was all this money coming in. 24:00 All right. So let's talk about the. 24:02 How did the goods cross the isthmus in the 7th century before Christ? 24:07 A guy named Periander, the ruler of Corinth, wanted to dig a canal. 24:13 So already 7 centuries before Christ, they're thinking of themselves. You know, we could just dig a canal here. 24:18 It would really be great. 24:20 And so he attempted to do it failed. 24:23 Instead, he built an overland stone Rd. that's called the Diolcos. 24:29 Merchants could unload their boats and transport their cargo across it to another boat. 24:35 In the year 44 BC, the. 24:39 Well, not really emperor, but the plenty of the elder called him the dictator. 24:43 And. 24:43 Plenty of the elder calls. 24:44 A dictator is not trying to be rude like he actually had the title dictator conferred upon him by the Roman Senate because he was fighting wars and you would assign somebody the title of dictator for one year to like just deal with military stuff that needed to be. 24:59 Done. It's just. 25:00 Julius Caesar didn't give it up after. 25:02 He was declared dictator, but anyhow, Julius Caesar in the year 44 BC planned to cut a canal through the isthmus. 25:12 But was murdered. 25:14 Then, during the reign of Tiberius from 14 to 37. 25:18 He sent engineers who attempted to dig a canal but couldn't make much progress. 25:23 So instead they fashioned logs. 25:25 So that they could roll boats across the diolcos. 25:29 This is like the same way the Egyptians moved huge blocks to make their pyramids. 25:34 You put logs and then you can roll across them. 25:36 Eventually they cut channels in the pavement to guide the wheels of trolleys. 25:41 And these wheels are about 5 feet. 25:43 The Diolcos was a major source of income for Corinth, even though it didn't have a canal, it had a stone Rd. And guess what? 25:52 Corrith is going to control that Stone Rd. and they're going to charge people for it. 25:57 Makes sense, right? 25:58 What? 25:58 Do. 25:59 We call that. 26:00 A toll right, like toll booths and you're on the highway and they charge. Oh, you can't go over this bridge. 26:06 20 bucks. 26:07 Oh, OK. 26:08 No. Then we have Caligula. 26:11 He reigned from 37 to 40. 26:13 He really wanted to dig a canal too, through the isthmus. 26:17 And he sent a Chief centurion to survey the work. But nothing came of it. 26:22 Then in 67, Nero gave it another try. Swetonius, a historian, says Nero took a medic himself and at a trumpet blast, broke the ground and carried off the first basket of Earth on his back. 26:37 So it was a ceremonial groundbreaking that Nero was involved with Nero's General Man named Vespasian. 26:45 Was out in the east, conquering Galilee, putting down Jewish revolts. 26:51 And he rounded up 6000 of the strongest men in the city of Tiberias, which is in Galilee. 26:59 Captured them and brought them to the isthmus to dig the canal. 27:04 So he took Jews and brought them over to be slaves. 27:08 Hey. 27:09 And force them to dig. 27:10 They made it a half mile and then Nero died suddenly, and his successor Galba didn't care about the project. So. 27:19 Nobody kept building it. 27:23 And that's the way it was for centuries. 27:26 Like basically plenty of the elders attitude in the year 79 is the attitude everybody had for centuries and centuries. 27:32 There was one guy. 27:34 Who was saying? 27:34 Well, the Ionia C is a different level than the A GNC. 27:40 So if you dig a canal could just like it could just drown everybody, which is ridiculous. But like, that was another reason they had for not doing it. 27:48 Wasn't until the year 1893. 27:52 1893 after 11 years of work that Greece had. 27:57 One, it's independence from the Ottoman Empire and had this canal actually dug. 28:03 And you can see from this satellite picture, the canal goes straight through the isthmus. 28:08 Which is pretty cool to see. They have lots of bridges over it. When you stand atop the bridge looking down on the modern canal from the 19th century, you're amazed by how steep the walls are and how they're solid stone, which is like. 28:22 I wonder why the Roman emperors had such a hard time digging this thing. Like you need a dynamite modern excavation tools to do it. When I was there, I saw 4 sailboats making their way through it. 28:34 But sadly, 19th century sized boats are not 21st century sized boats. 28:39 So, like our modern, you know, big barges. 28:43 Can't go through. It's too narrow. 28:45 But it did finally get done. 28:47 Well, let's go back to the history of Corinth here. 28:50 Let me just give a brief historical survey of how the city got started and stuff like that and and explain the difference between ancient Greek Corinth and then Roman Corinth, because they're very different. 29:05 But they're also the same location, and there are some similarities. 29:10 The ancient city is alleged to have been built, founded by Sisyphus. 29:18 Now, if you don't know your Greek mythology very well, Sisyphus was so badly behaved that he was punished by the gods. 29:24 To roll a boulder up a hill and then just as he's about to. 29:30 Get it on top of the hill. 29:32 It rolls back down and then he has to go back down. 29:35 And get the boulder and roll and he just does that for all eternity. 29:39 That has poor Sisyphus. Whether there was a historical Sisyphus is irrelevant. 29:43 The fact is, by the time we're talking about by New Testament times, his name is associated with this city, and there's a little shrine to Sisyphus nearby. 29:51 You know, people are just kind of telling that story about. 29:54 Him the city. 29:56 However, it was founded eventually becomes a Greek city. 30:00 Great significance. 30:01 I won't go into all the details of how it happened, but it rebelled against the Roman Empire. 30:07 There really wasn't much of A Roman Empire yet, and it it wanted its independence. 30:11 It didn't want to be part of the Roman Empire. 30:14 The Roman Empire disagreed. 30:16 They sent a guy named mummies in the Year 1 fourty 6BC and he conquered Corinth. 30:22 He destroyed it. 30:24 He destroyed the walls, he burned the city. 30:28 He killed many of the men and he captured the women and the children, making them slaves, taking them back to Rome. 30:36 Italy, mostly in ruins, though there were some surviving structures and some minor population stayed there through the century when it was basically abandoned. 30:48 So from 1:46 BC until 44 BC. 30:53 There basically isn't even a Corinth on the map. 30:56 It's done. 30:57 It's destroyed. 30:59 Before that, it was a legendary Greek city. 31:02 And after that it was a legendary Roman city. 31:04 OK. But in the middle there wasn't anything going on in 44 BC. Julius Caesar decides to refound Corinth as a Roman colony. He calls it Colonia Laos. 31:18 Julia Corinthiansis, which translated means the renowned Julian Colony of the Corinthians. 31:24 This is important because Corinthian people love this guy. 31:29 They love Julius Caesar. 31:32 They love all the julians. 31:34 They love his. 31:35 Relatives, people that he adopted, everybody associated with him. 31:41 The people in correspond. 31:44 Were big fans of the royal family. 31:47 If we could put it that way. 31:49 So Julius Caesar says I want to found. 31:52 Corinth. He starts things in. 31:55 And then he gets assassinated by his own Senate. 31:57 Because he's a dictator. 31:59 Yeah, you just kind of got to own it sometimes yet. 32:03 The project goes forward. 32:05 It does. 32:05 The city does get refunded. That's in. 32:08 44 BC the first colonists were primarily freedmen and poor Romans seeking land, along with some veterans. 32:17 Freedmen were Greek slaves to Romans who had served their masters well. 32:23 And were set free. 32:25 And now had the business connection of their previous master. 32:30 It's called a patronage. 32:31 Relationship or a benefactor where now you can go do your own business. You're freed, but you can use my connections to get going. 32:42 So from inscriptions and coins and literary sources, we know the names of a number of the Roman. 32:48 Corinth Elite, and they're overwhelmingly freedmen. 32:52 We'll talk more about Friedman later, but these are businessmen. They know how to do things in Latin. 32:59 Know how to do things in Greek. 33:00 They know the West, they know the east. 33:02 Competent. 33:03 They know trade. 33:04 They buy in bulk, they sell. 33:06 You know, these are the kind of people that really get started in Corinth. 33:10 Here's a quote from Jerome Murphy O'Connor. He says the 1st. 33:13 This would also have numbered slaves, and of course free men willing to gamble on the advantages of being in on the ground floor of an enterprise which promised great reward. 33:25 Once the new colony grew, it would have attracted far sighted entrepreneurs from both Greece and from the major trading countries in the eastern Mediterranean, notably Egypt. Such infusions of new capital in a prime commercial situation inevitably generated more wealth. 33:42 And within 50 years of its foundation, many of the citizens had become men of very considerable means in order to gain capital. However, many of the first settlers turned to grave robbing. 33:54 There was a ready market in Rome for Corinthian artifacts in Terra cotta and bronze. 33:59 And the graves had not been looted by the army of Mummyas. 34:04 Interest in terracotta soon waned, but desire for bronze waxed well into the 1st. 34:11 Ad the avidity with which collectors sought Corinthian bronze, could be termed a mania by plenty of the elder. 34:17 There's a lot. 34:18 I'm not going to unpack it. 34:19 We're going to come back to Corinthian bronze. 34:21 I just want to make one quick distinction, which is there's a big. 34:25 Between. 34:25 Freeman and a Freedman. 34:28 Free men, free people. We would just say free people. They would say men referring to men and women. 34:36 It's an old English thing. 34:38 They're saying that these people were Born Free, whereas with the D freed men, these are former slaves and they will always be attached to the name of the previously owner. 34:49 Would literally take that as a name. 34:52 So their slave owner is going to be a. 34:54 It's going to be a Latin name. You can hear the difference, like Greek and Italian people know the difference. 35:00 Okay so when they look at the inscriptions, they see Roman name Greek name and they're like, oh, Friedman, this person had been a slave. And they took that name because the name was prestigious. 35:10 You pass the name down like Flavius Josephus. 35:13 Wasn't his birth name? 35:14 He took that name on because of his patron. So that's how it goes. 35:19 Received plots inside and outside of Corinth those. 35:22 They received outside were for farming. 35:25 Were inside were for living. 35:28 They instituted a Roman government with Roman institutions. 35:32 Latin was the official language, according to John. 35:35 There are 104 inscriptions from the 1st century. 35:38 Have been found in Corinth. 101 of them are in Latin. 35:44 Three are in Greek. 35:46 What does that tell you? 35:49 It tells you that the important people who make decisions on. 35:52 What gets carved into stone? 35:54 Letters get. 35:55 They're overwhelmingly saying we are a Roman colony. 35:59 Not all cities were Roman colonies. 36:01 Most cities were not Roman colonies. 36:03 Corinth was a Roman colony, so they're going to have Latin as their official language, which is super weird when you're. 36:09 The middle of Greece. 36:10 Just keep that in mind and it only lasted for a little while because in the 2nd century it's all Greek inscriptions again. 36:16 You know, so it's just this little window when we're talking about when Paul visited that it has this Roman flavor to it, although the graffiti said, which was like what the common people are writing on the walls. Like you go to a public bathroom like in a gas. 36:32 You see graffiti. 36:33 That's what I'm talking about. 36:35 Bethel Greek there's no surprise that Paul wrote to Corinth. He wrote in Greek. 36:41 Because that's really what the common person spoke, even though that the official. 36:46 Governmental language was Latin. 36:49 There are two kinds of people. There were the colonists who had civil rights and they could vote. 36:55 And then there were resident aliens and everyone's trying to get their start in the beginning. It's like the rush to the West, the gold rush. You know, everyone's like, oh, I'm gonna go get my plot of land. 37:06 It's like that in the beginning in 44, but then over time they develop. 37:12 A system of government that is patterned on the city of Rome. 37:15 And they have these different positions you can be, if you are a wealthy, noble person, you were called a. 37:22 And somebody of decurial rank could hold public office if you weren't wealthy, you could not run for public office because the only people fit to be a public office were people that were going to spend big money on the city. 37:36 Why would they want anyone else? 37:39 You don't get paid big. You spend big if you get elected in the ancient world each year. 37:44 Voted in two men to be E dials and they maintained streets and public works and marketplace. 37:51 And there are also two men called the Duoveers, and they were like, the ultimate authority in the city. 37:57 Maybe we would call it a mayor, something like that. 38:00 OK. In 27 BC, Augustus, who's the 1st Roman Emperor, formed the province of Achaia and made Corinth the capital of that province. 38:11 The colonists began huge building projects, including many temples and two major marketplaces, which are called forums, not agoras. In a Greek city, we would call it an Agora or an agora, right? 38:22 But in a Roma state. 38:23 Call it a forum. 38:24 So we call these forums. 38:26 And they're very intentionally the Roman way of building a marketplace. 38:30 Not the Greek way of doing it. 38:32 There are two major temples flanking the forum on the West and the north. 38:38 Talk more about temples later. 38:39 I'm just going to throw out a few names real quick. 38:41 Poseidon was a big deal in Corinth. 38:44 Why Poseidon? 38:45 He's the God of the of the Seas. 38:47 You have two gulfs on either side of Corinth. Obviously this place is blessed by Poseidon. 38:54 That's. 38:55 Say they loved. 38:58 She's on so many of their coins and they loved asleep as he's a God of healing and he has a temple in the city itself. 39:07 And then there are lots of other gods. 39:08 Apollo, this is actually a shot on the slide here of the Apollo Temple. 39:13 The Apollo temple. 39:15 Was 6 centuries old when Paul got there. 39:18 So it's already 6/6 and 1/2. 39:20 Old when he got there. 39:22 It's incredible how old this stuff is. 39:24 Corinth had many fountains and lots of good water. 39:27 I'll talk about more of this later, but there was like, a mountain nearby, I say like a mountain because it's just sort of like comes out. 39:34 Nowhere it. 39:34 It's not like our mountains where, you know, you kind of work up to it. 39:38 Just like look at that. 39:40 And so water came down from the Acro Corinth, which is what you call that mountain. The city had really great water, which is if you want to have a big city. 39:47 Need lots of good water. 39:51 The wall of Corinth had a circumference of 6 miles. 39:56 Which is 2 1/2 times the size of Athens at the time. 40:00 Athens trash talks Corinth. 40:03 Corinth trash talks Athens, ancient Greek cities and Roman cities competed with each other. 40:07 The time. 40:08 By the time Paul got there, Corinth had surpassed Athen. 40:12 Events, which is interesting because like Paul comes from Athens to. 40:16 He doesn't stay in Athens, he's just like, kind of weirded out by it. 40:19 And like, he makes a couple of converse. And he's like, yeah, whatever. 40:22 And then he gets the corn. And he's like, I'm staying. 40:24 Is amazing. 40:25 I'm staying here for 18 months. 40:26 Right, so Corinth was a much bigger deal than people realize. And. 40:32 It had a theater that could seat 14,000 people, recently renovated by the time Paul got there. 40:38 And Corinth was an international port city. 40:43 Have been rapidly growing lots of visitors but also a stable population. 40:48 Witherington 3 estimates 50,000. 40:51 Paul Gardner estimates 100. 40:53 Nobody really knows. Just for the record, but like somewhere between probably 50 to 100,000 people. 40:59 Permanent inhabitants of Corinth when Paul visited. 41:03 So this is the context for the Epistle to the Corinthians. This is that city. 41:09 Are those people? 41:12 Corinthians was written in the 50s. One Corinthians was written in the 50s, and two Corinthians, so it's right in the center of this Roman period. It had been re established in the year 44 BC. 41:23 Paul's going there in 51 ish somewhere around there. 41:28 So it had been in existence almost a century. 41:31 All those freedmen and. 41:32 All that stuff has already happened. It's grown. 41:35 You have lots of international flavour. Lots of people from diverse backgrounds. 41:41 It's a bustling port city. 41:44 And we're going to learn about what kind of people we're in Corinth, what kind of religious practices they had. 41:51 How the city government functioned a little more. 41:54 We'll look at the philosophical schools that were. 41:57 Present how status function and much more. 42:00 Our approach is not to go verse by verse like I already said, but instead we're just going to cover themes. 42:05 And as often as I can, I'm going to bring out historical information that I think will be helpful for you to understand it. 42:12 As it was in that time, rather than as 21st century Americans or wherever it is you live. 42:18 If you're watching this. 42:20 This way when you go to read I Corinthians next time you'll be able to understand it much better on your own. 42:26 But first we need to do business with how Corinth got founded. 42:30 How did there end up being a church there? 42:33 And we'll do that in our next session. As we look at how Paul founded the church at Corinth. 42:44 Well, that brings his first presentation to a close. 42:46 Did you think? 42:47 Come on over to restitudio.org and find Episode 584 Corinth as the context and leave your questions and feedback there. Now on the YouTube version of this class which is coming out a little earlier than the audio version. Of course the audio versions are Ed. 43:05 And very nice. But anyhow, on the YouTube version of this class, Bobby wrote in on the comments saying I love the way you teach Sean. 43:12 You dive so deeply into the time the New Testament writers. 43:16 What was? 43:17 Why? What people thought about was happening, et cetera, that we literally feel as though we are there receiving the letter. 43:25 Bless you, brother. 43:26 Well, Bobby, that is the goal. 43:28 So it's very gratifying to see that you are picking up what I'm putting down because. 43:34 I want you to be able to read First Corinthians and understand it on your own like they did, and then to ask the question. 43:44 And there is an imortant question to ask. 43:46 What does this mean to me in my context today as? 43:50 I think that's an important question to ask and in my experience, the more liberal leaning scholars will tend to only focus on the past and the more conservative leaning scholars will only focus on the present. 44:05 And I think we need to do both. 44:07 But really, the bulk of the work is tuning our ears to hear the way they heard, and then also asking what does this mean to us today? 44:15 On our previous episode, 583, not alone anymore with von Madsen. 44:21 Someone named Ken wrote in on YouTube, saying another good one. 44:25 Hey. 44:25 And you other New Zealand Unitarians? 44:28 Why don't you comment here on these videos? 44:32 Attention by comments and likes. 44:34 It's the cheapest missions work you will do. 44:37 Yes, I know it's only YouTube and Sean wants feedback on podcast, but this is there in the public face for everyone to see. 44:45 Well, Ken, that's a good. 44:46 Comments do help the algorithm. Put the video in front of more people, because if a video has lots of comments, then the system concludes it is an interesting video and it will put it before more people and it will have a snowball effect. 45:01 Also, the other thing that people can do is share whether you are listening to this on Apple Podcast, on Spotify, on YouTube, or whatever your app is that you use most of these apps, if not all, have a share button. 45:15 And if you find an episode, in particular, something that you think other people would benefit from, please share. 45:21 That's really the best way to support this podcast and help us to grow and reach more people. 45:27 And then other ways you can support this podcast is through prayer. 45:31 I can certainly use your prayer and also those who want to make donations can do that on the website restitudio .0 RG. Select the word restitution with no n.org and you can find the donate button there. Thanks to those who have and as it. 45:46 Out for this class, I did need to acquire. 45:48 Slew of new books, both digital and. 45:52 Aer both for primary sources and for secondary. 45:56 Ancient sources of modern sources so that I could put this together. 46:01 Thanks so much to those of you who have been supporting. 46:03 It really does help a. 46:04 Well, that's going to be it for this. 46:06 Stay tuned for next week. We'll get into Paul and looking at acts Chapter 18 and what it was like when he came to Corinth. As we continue through. 46:14 Thanks for listening, everyone. And remember the truth has nothing to fear.