Recent Posts
Were Mary and Joseph Married or Engaged at Jesus’ Birth?
Mary and Joseph in the Bible The atmosphere of our church service was pregnant with expectation: four candles of the Advent wreath and the colored lights fr ...
James or Jacob in the Bible?
The problem of names surfaced at a recent Bible study at the St. Paul Union Church in Antalya, Turkey. Pastor Dennis Massaro was discussing the three men named ...
Who Was St. Nicholas?
Until two years ago, St. Nicholas was little more than a legendary historical figure to me. Then my friend Stuart Bennett enlisted me as the academic resourc ...
Site-Seeing: The Hometown of Santa Claus
Myra is on my top-ten list of Biblical sites in Turkey. Often bypassed by groups because it is out of the way, Myra (modern Demre) is a two-hour scenic drive t ...
Alternative Facts: Domitian’s Persecution of Christians
Was Roman emperor Domitian really the great persecutor of Christians? As I revisited a critical biography of the Roman emperor Domitian by the scholar Bria ...
Visiting Turkey: Museums of Archaeology Dazzle
Turkey museums boast mosaics, statues and more The business of archaeology is booming these days in Turkey. For some sites, there is no longer a “season” fo ...
The Starbucks Guide to Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology
Participants on my tours buy a variety of souvenirs—olive-wood crèches in Bethlehem, ceramics in Corinth, carpets in Ephesus and parchment in Pergamum. These d ...
Tradition or History? BAS Travelers Encounter Both on Rhodes
Exploring the island of Rhodes, where Paul visited in the Bible “Tradition, tradition! Tradition!” Tevye belts out in the opening song of the musical ...
Ancient Phoenix: The Harbor That Might Have Been
Explore a Pauline site on Crete with Dr. Mark Wilson Mother’s Day found me in the Tsiknakis country bakery on the island of Crete. I was eating a muffin an ...
The Serendipities of Archaeological Travel with BAS
Basilika Therma. Photo: Mark WilsonOrganizing and leading archaeological tours in the Middle East can be challenging, given its unstable political situation. T ...
Treasures in Clay Jars
Earlier this year a well-known New Testament scholar visited Antalya, Turkey. The two of us spoke to a group of pastors and their spouses from international c ...
Destroying a Temple
The burning of the Ephesian Temple of Artemis by Herostratus The apostle Paul, writing from Ephesus to the Christians in Corinth, warned: “If anyone destroy ...
Money Talks through Ancient Coins
Usually I have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to attend a conference. But recently, one was held near my office here in Antalya, Turkey, at the Rama ...
Of Pirates and Virgins: Greek and Turkish Scholars Colloquiating
The invitation to attend the Second Greek-Turkish Symposium on Epigraphy in May was one I couldn’t turn down. It had been extended by Mustafa Adak, the chairp ...
Pella: A Window on Survival
Before writing my doctoral thesis two decades ago, the only Pella that I knew about was a small town in south central Iowa famous for its windows and doors. Bu ...
Antipatris: Another Pauline Site Off My Bucket List
Mark Wilson Follows Paul’s Footsteps Several years ago Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson brought the subject of “bucket lists” to our attention via a movie ...