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The Route of Paul's First Journey to Pisidian Antioch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2009

Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson
Affiliation:
University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa email: markwilson@sevenchurches.org
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Abstract

The route of Paul's first journey between Perga and Pisidian Antioch is still disputed. This article examines the three alternatives proposed by scholars. It explores the geographical and historical evidence for each route, looking especially at the extensive road system that existed in Pamphylia, Pisidia, and south Galatia in the first century. Bible atlases routinely depict one route and the reasons for this choice are discussed. Based on a review of the evidence, a fresh hypothesis for the route of the first journey is suggested.

Keywords

Paul's first journeyPergaPisidian AntiochVia SebasteRoman roadsActs 13.14; 14.24
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 471 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 I will use the Latin spelling found exclusively in English translations of the NT rather than the Greek spelling Perge usually found in classical and historical works.

2 Clow, working with a team of volunteers, has waymarked a 311 mile/500 kilometer trail from Perga to Pisidian Antioch (Yalvaç) according to Grande Ranonnée standards. She has also published a guidebook to assist hikers: St Paul Trail (Derbyshire, UK: Upcountry, 2004). It has an excellent map with a commentary on the ancient routes that intersect the trail.

3 Levick, Barbara, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (Oxford: Oxford University, 1967) 99Google Scholar.

4 Broughton, T. R. S., ‘Three Notes on Saint Paul's Journeys in Asia Minor’, Quantulacumque: Studies Presented to Kirsopp Lake (ed. Casey, Robert P., Lake, Silva, and Lake, Agnes K.; London: Christophers, 1937) 131–8, here 131Google Scholar.

5 As David French notes in an email (18/04/2005) about the road system in Pamphylia, ‘Perge is the starting point for almost all important routes, cp. the Hittite text of Kurunta’.

6 McRay, John, Paul: His Life and Teaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 120–1Google Scholar. David French never mentions McRay's eastern route. Instead he discusses only two options—what he calls the eastern (McRay's central one) and western routes; ‘Acts and the Roman Roads of Asia Minor’, Greco-Roman Setting (vol. 2 of The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting; ed. David W. J. Gill and Conrad Gempf; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) 50–3.

7 Ercenk, Giray in his Turkish article, ‘Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Çevresi Eski Yol Sistemi’, Türk Tarih Kurumu Belleten 56/16 (1992) 361–81Google Scholar, here 364, mentions a short-cut running from Aspendus to a junction just north of Etenna (also depicted in Map 1, p. 371). However, McRay does not account for this in his discussion. This junction to Aspendus was observed by the author and USAF Chaplain Glenn Page while traveling through the pass near At İzi, but we followed the track toward Side instead.

8 Another route struck northeast of Side following the valley of the Melas (Manavgat) River. After passing through modern Akseki, it descended to the basin of Lake Trogitis (Suğla Gölü) near modern Seydeşehir. The modern Turkish highway largely follows this route. Neither Calder, W. M. and Bean, G. E. in A Classical Map of Asia Minor (London: British Institute of Archaelogy at Ankara, 1957)Google Scholar nor the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (ed. Richard J. A. Talbert; Princeton: Princeton University, 2000) shows this track, however. In his article on Nollé, Etenna J. includes maps depicting both routes: ‘Etenna. Ein Vorbericht’, Epigraphica Anatolica 3 (1984) 143–56, here 144, 153Google Scholar. H. A. Ormerod traveled it in 1911 in his attempt to trace the route of Servilius; see ‘The Campaign of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates’, Journal of Roman Studies 12 (1922) 35–56, here 49. The stages of the journey with his discoveries are given in an Appendix, pp. 52–6.

9 Colonel Doughty-Wylie traversed this route in 1907. The stages and distances are given by Ormerod in ‘The Campaign of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates’, 49 n. 5. Ercenk also provides the stages of the route in ‘Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Çevresi Eski Yol Sistemi’, 364–5, 371 Map 1.

10 Ormerod, ‘The Campaign of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates’, 49. Magie, however, believes such a route was improbable ‘for it would have led Servilius far to the northwest of Isauria’. Instead he opts for the route east of Side to Silistat and Isaura Vetus through the steep Susam Beli (Roman Rule in Asia Minor, vol. 2 [Princeton: Princeton University, 1950] 1171.

11 Neapolis was formerly located at modern Şarkikaraağaç, but now is placed further south near the village of Kıyakdede. See Cohen, Getzel M., The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor (Berkeley: University of California, 1995) 348–9Google Scholar.

12 For photographs of sections of the eastern route, see Harada, Takeko and Cimok, Fatih, Roads of Ancient Anatolia (2 vols.; Istanbul: A Turizm Yayınları, 2008) 1.170–9Google Scholar.

13 The distances given in statute miles were measured using a Brunton Digital Map Measurer on the Barrington Atlas. The distances are over 95% accurate. Higher accuracies are difficult because of the page creases and the way the maps overlap in the atlas.

14 Farrar, F. W., The Life and Work of St. Paul (New York: Dutton, 1896) 204Google Scholar. The Roman historian Ronald Syme was more equivocal, suggesting that Paul ‘might have passed this way’ (Anatolica: Studies in Strabo [Oxford: Oxford University, 1995] 205).

15 Ercenk, ‘Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Çevresi Eski Yol Sistemi’, 366, 371 Map 1, describes a spur that ran from the crossing westward to the Climax Pass.

16 The reservoir now in the area has dramatically changed the local landscape, but its physical features can still be discerned.

17 Mesmay, Étienne de, Sur les Routes de L'Apôtre Paul en Turquie (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2005) 39Google Scholar. Witherington, Ben III must be speaking of the central route when he writes, ‘Paul and Barnabas set out on an arduous journey over the Taurus Mountains to Antioch near Pisidia’ (Acts [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998] 404; see map 875)Google Scholar.

18 Mitchell, Stephen et al. , Cremna in Pisidia (London: Duckworth, 1995) 6Google Scholar, mentions that his team was able to trace sections of this road; however, the route does not appear in the volume's maps on pages 7 and 42. The road is depicted on a map in another of his works; see Horsley, G. H. R. and Mitchell, S., The Inscriptions of Central Pisidia (IK 57; Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 2000) 179Google Scholar.

19 The only available book on Adada is a guide in Turkish with site plans and photographs written by its excavator Mustafa Büyükkolancı—Adadā Pisidia'da Antik Bir Kent (Göltaş Kültür Dizisi: Ankara, 1998). For a popular account of the city with color photographs, see Ersin Demirel, ‘Adada’, Skylife (April 2007) 98–106. Online: http://www.thy.com/en-INT/corporate/skylife/article.aspx?mkl=355 (accessed 23 February 2009).

20 Unfortunately the road at the upper end of the approach to the city is greatly debilitated due to erosion by water and probably also by earthquakes. For a photograph of this and other sections of the central route, see Harada and Cimok, Roads of Ancient Anatolia, 1.159–69.

21 De Mesmay, Sur les Routes de L'Apôtre Paul en Turquie, 40.

22 Clow, St. Paul Trail, 75.

23 Broughton, ‘Saint Paul's Journeys in Asia Minor’, 131, objects to this interpretation stating that ‘a Turkish corruption of Saint Paul's name is more likely to become Ayo Bavlo than Kara Bavlo’. Unfortunately both the church and the name have disappeared from the local area today.

24 Ramsay, W. M., The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1897) 20, 21Google Scholar. The closest village today is Sağrak on the paved road.

25 On which side of the lake this spur passed is open to question. Levick, Roman Colonies, end map, shows the road going along the west side of Lake Kovada and up the Aksu River to Prostanna. Clow instead takes her trail from Adada through the foothills east of Kovada to Sipahiler, before descending to Serpil at the north end of the lake. She thinks that the Romans would have avoided such a marshy shoreline as that found along Lake Kovada (St Paul Trail, 40).

26 Levick, Roman Colonies, 15. Levick's map does show a road running south from Adada along the upper Cestrus before descending to Perga.

27 This must be the area about which Levick, Roman Colonies, 14, writes: ‘there is a break in the second eastern range just south of Antioch, which enables the road from Antioch to reach Eğrirdir [sic] Göl and, by hugging the cliffs, Prostanna’. She is postulating another track that followed the lake's shoreline rather than going inland.

28 Mitchell, Stephen and Waelkens, Marc, Pisidian Antioch: The Site and its Monuments (London: Duckworth/Classical Press of Wales, 1998) 3Google Scholar.

29 Locally the road near Pisidian Antioch is called the Göçer Yolu (Nomads' Road).

30 Mitchell, Stephen, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University, 1993) 90Google Scholar.

31 French, D. H., ‘Roads in Pisidia’ Forschungen in Pisidien (ed. Schwertheim, Elmar; AMS 6; Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1992) 167–75, here 170Google Scholar.

32 Levick, Roman Colonies, 38. She notes that while the name Via Sebaste is documented for only certain stretches of the road, ‘it is convenient to describe here the whole Roman road system in Pisidia, but how much was built in 6 B.C. remains uncertain’ (39 n. 1).

33 For a discussion of this section of the route, see Takmer, Burak and Öner, Nihal Tüner, ‘Surveys of the Route-Network in West Pamphylia: A New Portion of the Via Sebaste Extending Between Perge and Klimax’, Adalya 11 (2008) 109–32Google Scholar.

34 This pass is marked ‘Klimax’ in Talbert, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Section 65, E3.

35 For photographs of sections of the Via Sebaste from Perga to Pisidian Antioch including the Climax Pass, see Harada and Cimok, Roads of Ancient Anatolia, 1.124–35.

36 The Roman mile was approximately 8% shorter than the statute mile, running 1618 ½ yards, 4856 feet, or 1480 meters. However, measured distances between mileposts suggest a length closer to 5000 feet or 1520 meters. See OCD, 943.

37 The Climax Pass at Doşeme Boğazı with its monuments and inscriptions is described by Horsley and Mitchell in Inscriptions of Central Pisidia, 168–74. It is also discussed by David H. French in ‘A Road Problem: Roman or Byzantine?’ Istanbuler Mitteilungen 43 (1993) 445–55, here 447–50.

38 There might possibly have been a branch of the road here that ran northeast to the Roman colony of Cremna; see French, ‘Acts and the Roman Roads of Asia Minor’, 52. It is interesting that Ercenk, ‘Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Çevresi Eski Yol Sistemi’, 368–9, 371 Map 1, shows this spur but ignores the more important Via Sebaste.

39 Levick, Roman Colonies, 51.

40 Levick, Roman Colonies, 94 n. 4.

41 Although this boundary stone dates to the reign of Hadrian, some sort of provincial boundary marker must have existed before this time. See Calder, W. M., Monuments from Eastern Phyrgia [MAMA] 7 (Manchester: Manchester University, 1956) ixGoogle Scholar.

42 Little in modern Uluborlu indicates that it was once a Roman colony. Yet the ancient acropolis still preserves traces of ancient Apollonia. Cut stones appear in buildings, and inscriptions have been used in well houses. Although the castle was rebuilt in Seljuk times, it was Augustus who initially fortified the position when he established the colony. An aqueduct that supplied the city's water bridges a steep ravine to the south.

43 These are numbers 395 and 397 in French, David, Roman Roads and Milestones of Asia Minor, Fasc. 2: An Interim Catalogue of Milestones, Part 1 (Oxford: B.A.R., 1988) 151, 152Google Scholar. The location of these milestones can be found on Map 8 in Part 2, p. 541. For photographs of these milestones, see Harada and Cimok, Roads of Ancient Anatolia, 1.133, 134.

44 Levick, Roman Colonies, 14.

45 Broughton, ‘Saint Paul's Journeys in Asia Minor’, 131–3; Conybeare, W. J. and Howson, J. S., The Life and Epistles of St. Paul (London: Longmans, Green, 1901) 134Google Scholar, suggest a route ‘passing somewhere near Selge and Sagalassus’ and approaching the margin of the ‘beautiful lake Eyerdir’ [sic]. Conybeare and Howson's hybrid itinerary, a blend of variations of the western and central routes, has no basis in geographical possibility. Yet the map of Paul's journeys at the end of the volume shows a direct passage up the Cestrus valley following the central route.

46 See Levick, Roman Colonies, 39nn., for the various milestones found along the route.

47 Using the Brunton map marker I measured a distance of 133 miles from Climax Pass to Pisidian Antioch. The distance of 139 Roman miles indicated on the milepost, when converted, is 128 miles, an error of approximately 4%. It was 46 Roman miles from Apollonia to Pisidian Antioch, 42 miles when converted; I measured 44 miles. See n. 36 for the difficulty related to calculating Roman miles. If the longer distance of 5000 feet to the Roman mile is used, the results would be much closer—131.6 miles and 43.6 miles.

48 For photographs of sections of this route, see Harada and Cimok, Roads of Ancient Anatolia, 1.152, 156–7.

49 French, ‘Acts and the Roman Roads of Asia Minor’, 51.

50 Atlas of Ancient History: 1700 BC to 565 AD (ed. Michael Grant; New York: Dorset, 1984) 63; The Kregel Bible Atlas (ed. Tim Dowley; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 82; Smith, Marsha A. Ellis, The Holman Book of Biblical Charts, Maps, and Reconstructions (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994) 128Google Scholar; Aharoni, Yohanan and Avi-Yonah, Michael, The Macmillan Bible Atlas (New York: Macmillan, 1977) 154Google Scholar; Zondervan NIV Atlas of the Bible (ed. Carl Rasmussen; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), 181; The Harper Atlas of the Bible (ed. James Pritchard; New York: Harper & Row, rev. ed. 1989) 173; Atlas of the Bible and Christianity (ed. Tim Dowley; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997) 68; Blaiklock, E. M., The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969) 332Google Scholar; May, Herbert G., Oxford Bible Atlas (New York: Oxford University, 2nd ed. 1984) 91Google Scholar; Beitzel, Barry J., The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 179Google Scholar; Hammond's Atlas of the Bible Lands (ed. Harry T. Frank; Maplewood, NJ: Hammond, 1977) B-32 [This same map is found in Baker's Bible Atlas (ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965) 126, and in The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands (ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer and Howard F. Vos; Chicago: Moody, 1967), in Maps section 15]; Reader's Digest Atlas of the Bible (ed. Joseph L. Gardner; Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest, 1981) 193; Atlas of the Christian Church (ed. Henry Chadwick and G. R. Evans; New York: Facts on File, 1987) 7 [This same map is found in The Atlas of the Bible (ed. John Rogerson; New York: Facts on File, 1985) 41].; Harpur, James and Braybrooke, Marcus, The Collegeville Atlas of the Bible/The Essential Bible Atlas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998Google Scholar; London: SPCK, 1999) 120.

51 Lawrence, Paul, The InterVarsity Atlas of Bible History (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006) 152Google Scholar.

52 The Sacred Bridge: Carta's Atlas of the Biblical World (ed. Anson F. Rainey and Steven R. Notley; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006) 373.

53 Brisco, Thomas V., Holman Bible Atlas (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998) 119Google Scholar. The text states that the Pisidian highlands beyond the western edge of the Taurus Mountains ‘presented considerable challenges to travelers; peaks and valleys harbored brigands, while the rough terrain required careful attention to the pathways’, a description not fitting for the Via Sebaste.

54 Brisco, Holman Bible Atlas, 244.

55 McRay, John, Paul: His Life and Teaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 120–1Google Scholar. McRay does not differentiate between the two eastern routes but mentions only the route through Side, then northward to Lake Caralis. However, the map of the first journey that illustrates the text (114 Map 5.1) shows Paul traversing the central route, not the eastern route!

56 Finegan, Jack, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Mediterranean World of the Early Christian Apostles (Boulder: Westview, 1981) 90Google Scholar.

57 Finegan (Archaeology of the New Testament, 90) greatly underestimates this distance—80 miles (130 km) from Perga, ‘a journey of perhaps six days’ duration'.

58 Mitchell, Anatolia, 1.70. Mitchell likewise mentions the three routes that McRay identifies.

59 This is Ramsay's view in St. Paul: The Traveler and Roman Citizen (ed. Mark Wilson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. ed. 2001) 110; also in Church in the Roman Empire (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904) 16 and sustained by Mitchell, Pisidian Antioch, 12, and Campbell, Douglas A., ‘Paul in Pamphylia (Acts 13.13–14a; 14:24b–26): A Critical Note’, NTS 46 (2000): 597–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some scholars suggest instead that the landfall was at Attalia, the port of Pamphylia; see Polhill, John B., Paul and his Letters (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999) 87Google Scholar.

60 de Mesmay, Sur les Routes de L'Apôtre Paul en Turquie, 38–42.

61 Ercenk, ‘Pamphylia Bölgesi ve Çevresi Eski Yol Sistemi’, 366–67, 371 map 1.

62 Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, 12.

63 French, ‘Acts and the Roman Roads of Asia Minor’, 52. Hansen, G. Walter, ‘Galatia’, Graeco-Roman Setting (ed. Gill, David W. J. and Gempf, Conrad; BAFCS; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 2.385Google Scholar, following French, prefers the route of the Via Sebaste and writes regarding Paul, ‘No doubt he used the same roads on his return trip to Perge’.

64 This is unlike Acts 13.14, which vaguely reads ‘after passing through’ (διϵλθόντɛς), omitting an object. Traveling through this region, one is reminded of Paul's recollections in 2 Cor 11.26 where he describes the dangers of ancient travel, particularly rivers and bandits. As they passed through Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas would certainly have been vulnerable to both.