IS  CORINTH

ON  YOUR BUCKET  LIST?

The title of my reflection for this 24 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Is Corinth, Greece On Your Bucket List?”

It was on mine and on a 2011 cruise to the Mediterranean Sea - we visited, Spain, Italy, Southern France, Turkey, Greece and the Greek Isles. When it came for a bus ride down from our boat near Athens only two of us signed up for Athens to Corinth - 48 miles away.

So on October 6, 2011 we went to Corinth. I looked it up last night in my journal notes.

It wasn’t what I expected. I  thought it would be a sea port town  - and we would be near docks. I was waiting to see some rough city spots. On the waterfront ….

Athens is around 665,000 people today and 200,000 in the time of St. Paul. Corinth is about 58,000 people today and many more people in the time of St. Paul. The  number I could find for Corinth’s population count in Paul’s time was 90,000 - but I also saw listed that it had 500,000 slaves.  I also noticed that Corinth had 1000 Sacred Prostitutes. It had lots of temples - with ceremonies to ask all the gods for help.

In Paul’s time Corinth was big time rich time. it was much richer and more cosmopolitan than Athens. It had location, location, location.  Lots of trade went through Corinth.

So when we saw Corinth we   saw  temples, a museum, rocks, lots of rocks, and lots of ruins.

We saw the Corinth Canal. Besides the old city, with all its digs and ruins, this was the thing to see. It’s only 4 miles long and it’s very narrow - so only smaller boats can make the trip that cuts about 450 miles off a trip.

The idea of a canal was always there  - but it always had problems. Nero was there with shovel in hand in the 60’s. It didn’t work. They had lots of Jewish slaves working on it - it didn’t happen. Boats would unload their stuff and that would be moved along roads to the other sea. And boats were put on rolling wheel kinds of wooded gadgets and pulled from one sea to the other sea and then reloaded.

It wasn’t finished till 1892. Small boats, small ferries, go through it for the bragging rights of doing it and to check it off on bucket lists.

I wanted to see it because Corinth is a major place in the New Testament - other than the gospels.  It’s featured in Acts. It’s mentioned in various Pauline Letters - not just 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians. A few letters were written there.

I’ve always been wondering why Paul didn’t make it in Athens - but he made it in Corinth. He tried Athens, but he failed.

Corinth had the sea lanes - lots of Jews and lots of  Romans and lots of stories and stuff to get Christianity off the ground and out into our world.

Remember all this is before Matthew, Luke and John - with Mark beginning to come into play.