Ephesus (Ephesos): An Abbreviated History from Androclus to Constantine XI. The reader is provided with what is known about the city of Ephesus, its people, and its place within the larger framework of ancient and medieval Mediterranean history. Beginning with the Ionian migration and the founding of Ephesus on the west coast of Asia Minor around 1050 B.C., the story moves quickly through periods when the city was ruled successively by local tyrants, Persian kings and satraps, Athenian and Spartan generals, Antigonid, Ptolemaic and Seleucid kings, Roman emperors and Pergamene dynasts, Byzantine emperors and Greek patriarchs, Arab caliphs, Latin popes and crusaders, Seljuk and Beylik Turks, Mongols, and ending with the conquest by the Ottoman Turks in A.D. 1453. Throughout emphasis has been placed on the lives of Ephesian individuals and groups, and their respective contributions to architecture, law, literature, painting, medicine, philosophy, poetry, politics, religion and sculpture, often at times characterized by political and territorial power struggles and ecclesiastical doctrinal controversies and disagreements. The history of Ephesus is of ongoing interest to historians, archaeologists and students of classical literature, science, religion and philosophy, as well as to amateurs and laymen who are keenly interested in Mediterranian antiquity. It is documented with excerpts, biographical references, explanatory footnotes and a few illustrations.

Destined to become the definitive commentary on Ephesians, this resource combines detailed exegesis and extensive interaction with contemporary scholarship.

Concentrate on the biblical author's message as it unfolds. Designed to assist the pastor and Bible teacher in conveying the significance of God's Word, the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series treats the literary context and structure of every passage of the New Testament book in the original Greek. With a unique layout designed to help you comprehend the form and flow of each passage, the ZECNT unpacks: The key message. The author's original translation. An exegetical outline. Verse-by-verse commentary. Theology in application. While primarily designed for those with a basic knowledge of biblical Greek, all who strive to understand and teach the New Testament will benefit from the depth, format, and scholarship of these volumes.

DIV Artemis of Ephesos was one of the most widely worshiped deities of the Graeco-Roman World. Her temple, the Artemision, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and for more than half a millennium people flocked to Ephesos to learn the great secret of the mysteries and sacrifices that were celebrated every year on her birthday. In this work Guy MacLean Rogers sets out the evidence for the celebration of Artemis's mysteries against the background of the remarkable urban development of the city during the Roman Empire and then proposes an entirely new theory about the great secret that was revealed to initiates into Artemis's mysteries. The revelation of that secret helps to explain not only the success of Artemis's cult and polytheism itself but, more surprisingly, the demise of both and the success of Christianity. Contrary to many anthropological and scientific theories, the history of polytheism, including the celebration of Artemis's mysteries, is best understood as a Darwinian tale of adaptation, competition, and change. /div

In this study, Michael Immendorfer examines the relationship between the New Testament letter to the Ephesians and the ancient city of Ephesus, which had the great Artemis as its goddess. He seeks to make a contribution to the discussion on the extent to which conclusions can be drawn concerning the local-historical explanation of New Testament epistles by viewing the latter through the lens of Greco-Roman cultic practices. Thus the contents of Ephesians are compared with the abundantly available archaeological and epigraphical sources of the Asia Minor metropolis. This endeavour reveals that the letter contains numerous unequivocal references to the cult of Artemis, a nexus suggesting that the author was very familiar with the historical background of ancient Ephesus and contextualised his letter accordingly for the intended readers who lived in this particular cultic environment.

In this volume, Elif Hilal Karaman examines the lives of Ephesian women in their historical and social contexts, considering in particular their roles as mothers, wives, teachers, and individuals in the private and public spheres. She presents Greco-Roman and early Christian sources relevant to Ephesus and relating to women, including more than 300 Ephesian inscriptions, and analyses them comparatively. By doing this she illuminates the impact of early Christianity upon the roles of women. The evidence presented demonstrates the extent to which early Christian authors utilized Greco-Roman cultural elements to construct a social background for the nascent Christian communities for whom they wrote. Elif Hilal Karaman's work thus advocates for the interpretation of early Christian texts in conversation with local archaeological and literary evidence in order to develop more nuanced understandings of the social and historical contexts of these important works.

In Ephesian Miracle things begin on an ominous note. Two Christian priests are murdered in Istanbul shortly before Art and his fiancee Marissa are to be married in the Chora Church in that cosmopolitan city. On top of that, it appears the bones of Mary the mother of Jesus have been found in Ephesus! Art and Marissa's honeymoon plans go awry when suddenly Marissa is missing and a ransom note is found by Art under the door of his hotel room in Kushadasi. It will take a miracle, an Ephesian miracle, to save her life. Fascinating archaeological discoveries, a romantic mid-life wedding and honeymoon, kidnapping and the martyring of Christians dot the landscape of this sixth thriller in the Art West series.