“Hot or Cold” at Laodicea
A common myth regarding Laodicea has to do with Jesus’s statement to the church there, “I wish that you were hot or cold; because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:15-16). The misconception is that this figure of speech is based on water supplied to Laodicea from the hot springs at Hierapolis and the cold springs at Colossae. The Romans mastered the construction of aqueducts to bring large amounts of water to cities, but water was never brought to Laodicea from......
More Evidence of Crucifixion
Despite numerous historical references to crucifixion in the ancient literature, it was not until 1968 that the first physical evidence for the practice was discovered. It came in the form of a heel bone that was recovered from an ossuary in a 1st century AD tomb in the neighborhood of Giv’at ha-Mivtar, outside of Jerusalem. The heel bone still had an iron nail embedded in it. Then in 2019 a skeleton was uncovered in Gavello, Italy, that included a heel bone that had been pierced by a nail, indicating that the man had......
