The ancient 24,000 seat theatre mentioned in Acts 19
June 26, 2022
I took a solo trip from Samos Island to Turkey to visit the ruins at Ephesus. A few reflections:
- Not for the faint of heart: the boat ride from Samos was choppy (one passenger threw up), the heat is fierce even in June, and the street venders are more aggressive – literally climbing into the tour bus to hawk their wares.
- The scale and range of the ruins is spectacular. The city is nestled in a valley and goes on for about 1.5 km. No modern buildings compete with the ruins, so you have a much clearer sense of what it was like to live there 2000 years ago. Many ‘ordinary’ buildings have been identified – the bank, high-end shops, the library, the public toilets.
- The secret to Ephesus’s preservation is the Cayster river. Thousands of years ago, Ephesus was an oceanside city nestled along the Cayster. Over time, as the river silted up and filled in the harbour, the city kept pace, adding new sections to remain on the waterfront. When the city was abandoned, the silting continued through seasonal floods and the ruins of Ephesus are now a full 8 km from shore. The unique advantage of this is that the modern port city of Kuşadasi does not encroach on the ruins, leaving them essentially intact.
- You can touch almost anything. This is very different from Greece, where most of the interesting ruins are roped off.
- For all these reasons, Ephesus is completely overrun with visitors. I’m not sure when low season is, but it’d be great to return then and make a reservation to see the mosaic-adorned apartments in midtown.
- I will never read Acts 19 the same again. You can easily imagine how the riot rushed down the main street of Ephesus to the 24,000 person theatre near the port, how the cries of the metalworkers would have been deafening in that acoustically perfect space. Remnants of Artemis worship are also evident in bull carvings throughout the city.
- Ephesus is also the likely spot where John wrote his gospel and mother Mary lived as well. They set up shop in a bustling, multi-religious, hedonistic city of a quarter million. And the message they shared flourished in the chaos.
- The city has been excavated by archaeologists for around 150 years. They’ll probably keep going for another 150 years. Many nearby hills seem unexplored and the ancient homes of common people haven’t been found yet. Maybe they’ll also unearth the Hall of Tyrannus where Paul lectured.
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