Greece & Italy Day 7: Paul was here! Or maybe here…

We didn’t have to leave the hotel until 9am this morning and for the first time I felt I got adequate sleep (the mattresses here are HARD and make it difficult to fall asleep). We immediately set off in the bus for a city tour of Athens, stopping only to take pictures of the Olympic stadium built for the first modern Olympic games in 1896. The original stadium was built in 334 B.C. and made out of wood. The Romans later covered it in marble and this one is an exact copy of that Roman stadium, built in the same location (you can even see some of the original marble).

Olympic Stadium

After our city tour, the bus dropped us off at the Acropolis. What to say? It’s amazing. We saw the remains of the Odeion, built in 160 A.D.; the Parthenon, which was built in a “rapid” nine years as a gift to the goddess Athena Parthenos; the Erechtheion; and assorted other temples and such.  The Parthenon was kind of a let-down having already seen the original in Nashville.  Just kidding!

Parthenon

Erechtheion

We then proceeded a short distance away to Mars Hill aka the Areopagus, potentially the spot where Paul spoke about the “unknown god” to Athenian philosophers. We were later to see the site of the Royal Stoa, which is the other potential location where the address may have occurred. This is recorded in Acts 17:18-34, where the Greek text says “Areopagus.” The Areopagites, however, met in two places and the more popular (and scenic) site is typically where they met only for cases of religious crimes while the other is where they met regularly. Our guide still favored the one more widely identified as the site.

Heather atop Mars Hill

Royal Stoa, other possible Areopagus site

What’s notable about Paul’s speech at the Areopagus, of course, is that he contextualized the Gospel. Rather than referencing the Jewish Scriptures which would have been foreign to his audience, he instead quoted Greek poets. This reminds us of the importance of understanding our own culture so that we can use its language to communicate the Gospel in a way that it can be understood. One of my textbooks this semester pointed out to what extent the contents of the New Testament were contextualized for their audiences, which boggled my mind. But that’s a blog post for a future time.

After the initial Mars Hill exploration, we headed downhill to the agora, where we saw the ancient forum mixed together with several layers of history. This is also where we saw the Royal Stoa (the alternate Areopagus), as well as the Hephaisteion, a Doric temple from 449-415 B.C. which is the best-preserved temple in Greece.

Hephaisteion viewed from Mars Hill

Hephaisteion close up

We also visited the Stoa of Attalos, a colonnade reconstructed by the American School of Classical Studies with funds from John Rockefeller (our guide didn’t know which middle initial went with that name). We’d been hearing about colonnades all week, so it was really great to experience what a complete, undeteriorated one would have looked like.

Restored Stoa of Attalos

After a failed attempt to return to Mars Hill to record a video (the Acropolis shut down at 3pm), Heather and I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Scott and Vicki McCracken, missionaries who have been working with refugees here in Athens for the past 20 years. Scott is originally from Mobile (hence the connection with Heather) and lo and behold Vicky is a graduate of George Fox University, my alma mater. Small world. And awesome folks!

With the McCrackens

After our meeting, it had begun to rain but we were undeterred and headed off to check out the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch which we had seen from the bus earlier. Along the way we were barked at by two unfriendly dogs (Greece is full of stray dogs). We ignored them, but they immediately started tailing us through the streets, leaving us largely alone but occasionally growling and barking at passersby and snapping at a guy on crutches. We were afraid they’d eventually turn on us, but we finally ditched them.

Temple of Zeus

Hadrian's Arch

We then weaved our way through the streets to find a vantage point from which we could shoot a video of Heather with the Acropolis in the background. Next up was dinner, grabbing gyros yet again, this time from a place our missionary friends told us had the best ones – they weren’t kidding. Fantastic!

After that we called it a day. Our time in Greece is now at an end.  We’ll be up bright and early tomorrow for a 9am flight to Rome. Italy here we come!

Our guide's map of our route through Greece