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2025-08-21T22:22:32-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia, Rome’s Port: Part Six

Last updated on: August 21, 2025 at 10:22 pm By Ben Witherington

While our vision of temples may be of big buildings, there were in fact small temples in various places in the ancient cities including in Ostia. These temples were built for gods believed to protect sailors and sailing. And adjacent to these buildings were collegiale, or association buildings for those who were guilds of workers who built and maintained these buildings, as well the business buildings nearby— so carpenters, stone masons, pipe fitters, plumbers and more. Some of the... Read more

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Business is busy

2025-08-22T07:55:31-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia, Rome’s Port: Part Five

Last updated on: August 22, 2025 at 7:55 am By Ben Witherington

In downtown Ostia there was a huge laundry enterprise, taking up a whole city block. Do you want to keep those togas looking bright white? Urine luck. Yes it was soaked in urine used as a bleach. And there would be a pee bucket outside the shop so men could liquidate their assets for a good cause. But there was also a huge bakery in the downtown as well. There were tabernas and cauponas as well, for those who... Read more

Business, Finance and Religion

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I'd rather smell the bread than the laundry

2025-08-22T08:10:12-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia, Rome’s Port: Part Four

Last updated on: August 22, 2025 at 8:10 am By Ben Witherington

The wealthy could live anywhere they chose to live. So it is somewhat surprising that many of them wanted to live in crowded, smelly downtown Ostia. The other surprising thing is that the two largest houses in downtown Ostia were owned and run by wealthy women. Notice the indoor toilet in the house of Diana, and oh yes, the sliding glass doors on the front of the first floor shop in this building. They were not far... Read more

Family, Parenting and Religion

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Money can be called bread when the rich own the bakery

2025-08-22T08:07:43-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia, Rome’s Port: Part Three

Last updated on: August 22, 2025 at 8:07 am By Ben Witherington

Even the dead wanted to be noticed, and the living wanted to set up honorific columns to themselves, or to the Emperor or both…. and so they would put these things along the major roads, or in a town the major streets such as the Decumanus Maximus…. This interesting inscription is from a much later period, honoring a Christian who was martyred here in Ostia, one deacon named Archelaus, who achieved the crown of martyrdom. By contrast to the... Read more

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Are you among the living or the dead

who are not actually gone. They are spirits in the underworld.

2025-08-21T08:55:48-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia– Rome’s Port:Part Two

Last updated on: August 21, 2025 at 8:55 am By Ben Witherington

One doesn’t have to go far down this main street to find a thermal bath. Being so near the sea, this was undoubtedly a very humid town especially in summer, and so a place where the elites especially were looking for shade, and places to bath. Not surprisingly, on the floor of the bath were images from the sea, among other familiar motifs (notice the various means of transportation emphasized, so important to a port city. There were various shrines... Read more

Health, Fitness and Religion

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Soak in the ambience

2025-08-18T13:28:35-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ostia: Rome’s Port– Part One

Last updated on: August 18, 2025 at 1:28 pm By Ben Witherington

By the time the NT was beginning to be written, Ostia had become a crucial port city (not just a port), which included many wealthy people’s houses, mostly people who had become rich from the sea trade, and we will see the floor of a major house which makes clear the house belongs to a ship’s captain, or owner. This city was not just a place where goods were stored or transported elsewhere, because of it’s location near the mouth... Read more

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The city called River Mouth (Ostia)

2025-08-18T10:40:49-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Holiness Podcast with Bishop Carolyn Moore

Last updated on: August 18, 2025 at 10:40 am By Ben Witherington

https://artofholiness.com/ben-witherington/ Read more

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Be ye holy as I am holy

2025-08-09T10:46:54-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Herculaneum– A City by the Bay

Last updated on: August 9, 2025 at 10:46 am By Ben Witherington

The other major city destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was Herculaneum. It too has been extensively excavated however not to the degree of Pompeii, which is a much larger site, which has being dug off and on for 150 or so years… and still is not even half excavated! Herculaneum was right on the bay and many tried to escape by boat. In the little Herculaneum museum we have a boat dredged up from that very place. ... Read more

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The city of Hercules

2025-08-12T10:54:47-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Immortal Murder– a 25th Hugh Corbett Mystery

Last updated on: August 12, 2025 at 10:54 am By Ben Witherington

One of the most prolific writers of good historical fiction is Paul Doherty, and he’s been at it a long time. He has several long running historical novel series, more than one of which focus on English history of the Middle Ages. For my money the best of these series is the Hugh Corbett series set in the late 12 hundreds and early 13th century A.D. dealing in particular with English kings Edward I and II. The stories are full... Read more

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The Hangman's noose is never ever loose.

2025-08-09T08:50:02-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Interesting Features of the Joseph Saga

Last updated on: August 9, 2025 at 8:50 am By Ben Witherington

Joseph in Jail The Joseph saga encompasses Gen. 37-50 and provides a fitting and fascinating finale to the book of Genesis. It is very different from what precedes it, not least because it appears to be a narrative composed by one very skilled writer of Hebrew, rather than being a compilation of a variety of oral traditions about the patriarchs like what precedes it beginning with the Abraham narrative. Unlike what precedes it, Gen. 37-50, God plays a different role... Read more

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but the mind can be cloudy

The text may be clear

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