Turkey's Role in the Spread of Christianity

 

Archaeologists discovered five small 1,300-year-old loaves of bread at the Topraktepe archaeological site in Turkey. One of them bears the image of Jesus Christ the Sower. This loaf was intended for use as Communion bread. 

The part of Southern Europe where Turkey is located was Christianized very early. Certainly, long before the emergence of Islam as a world religion. This Communion bread testifies to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist among the Christians of Turkey. 

It was in Antioch Turkey that Christ's followers were first called "Christians" (Acts 11:26). The evangelistic work of Paul and Barnabas was promoted by the leaders of the Antioch church.

St. Paul was from Tarsus in Turkey. Paul enjoyed a classical Greek education in his hometown, a recognized center of learning, with a famous university that the Greek geographer Strabo considered better than the academies of Athens and Alexandria. The Stoic philosopher Athenodorus lived and taught in Tarsus before Paul was born, and Paul was acquainted with his teachings on the conscience. Athenodorus said that, “Everyman's conscience is his god.” The conscience does not occur in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). However, Paul makes abundant use of the Greek word for conscience in his letters to the early churches.

The Orontes in Turkey marked the northern boundary of Amur-ru. The Orontes (Draco) was the chief river of the Levant and had sufficient depth for boats to sail up the river from the Mediterranean near modern Beirut in Lebanon. This was aided by the north-flowing currents. Meroe on the Orontes was a fortress on the spur of Mount Silpius overlooking the Orontes. It was named IO, which designated it as a “pillared place dedicated to the Creator.” The O is a solar symbol and the emblem of the Creator. IO had a twin city on the opposite side of the river: AntIO, known as Antioch. Meroe on the Orontes was thousands of miles from Meroe on the Nile. Meroe in Turkey was the farthest outpost of the Egyptian Empire, and the city would have had Amur-ru. "Amur-ru" is also the name of the northernmost district of Egypt's empire and it included the coastal region from Ugarit to Byblos.

Twin cities were established along major rivers such the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Orontes. The twin cities of Nekhen and Nekheb, were on the Nile River, and the twin cities of Pe and Dep are examples. Pe and Dep merged into the city that the Greeks later called Buto. Buto sits on the Butic River, a tributary of the Nile Delta.

Related reading: Excavation finds 1,300-year-old breads stamped with Christ | The Jerusalem Post; The Amorites: Royal Hebrew Scribes?; Horite and Sethite Mounds

The Prehistoric Anatolians Lived Well

The prehistoric settlement of Çatalhöyük has fascinated researchers for decades. The site reveals a very sophisticated way of life. There were temples and the priests of Çatalhöyük wore leopard skins like the ancient Nilotic priests.

Excavations at Çatalhöyük reveal primary and secondary burial, obsidian blades, a clay stamp seal, and more than 2000 zoomorphic clay figurines. The majority are representations of cattle, sheep and goats. Copper beads found in 8,500-year-old graves at Catalhöyük were made by hammering native metal found in nature. 

The trapezoid shape appears to have been an important symbol among the peoples of this region. The pillars at Göbekli Tepe have a trapezoidal shape. Many of the pits at Blagotin in Serbia have entrances with the trapezoid shape. The architecture of the later Hittites included trapezoidal doors such as this entrance to the chamber of Suppiluliuma II in Hattusa.

In many houses at Catalhöyük the main room was decorated with plastered bull skulls (bucrania) set into the east or west walls. These reflect the religious sun symbolism of these archaic people and the same symbolism is found among the later Hittites of Anatolia also. The bull with the sun resting on its horns represented the overshadowing presence of the Creator, whose emblem was the Sun.

Analysis of the foods in ceramic vessels reveals that the people of Çatalhöyük put both milk and meat in the same container. They also herded and ate pigs. Clearly, they were not observing Kosher guidelines. Jewish dietary law (Kashrut) dates to the latter Neo-Babylonian Period (c.730-500 BC).

The dietary restrictions outlined in Deuteronomy and Leviticus are the work of the Deuteronomist Historian, a Neo-Babylonian source. In the Book of Daniel we find three Jewish men insisting on eating differently as a way to express their ethnic and religious identity. This is one of many ways Jews have to distinguish themselves from their non-Jewish neighbors. Archaeological excavations of Iron Age I sites in Israel have shown that pigs were entirely absent from the herd-based economy of the Israelites though they were a food source for all the other peoples of the region. According to Ronald Hendel, such culinary distinctions soon became codified markers of cultural identity, whereby “the Philistine treat became an Israelite taboo.”

The diet of the people of Catalhöyük appears to have been varied and relatively nutritious, according to a recent report (October 3, 2018) from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History:

An international team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of York has uncovered details about the diet of early farmers in the central Anatolian settlement of Çatalhöyük. By analyzing proteins from residues in ancient pots and jars excavated from the site, the researchers were able to find evidence of foods that were eaten there. Although previous studies have looked at pot residues from the site, this was the first to use proteins, which can be used to identify plants and animals more specifically, sometimes down to the species level. 

Knowledge of the diet of people living in the prehistoric settlement of Çatalhöyük almost 8000 years ago has been completed in astonishing scope and detail by analyzing proteins from their ceramic bowls and jars. Using this new approach, an international team of researchers has determined that vessels from this early farming site in central Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, contained cereals, legumes, dairy products and meat, in some cases narrowing food items down to specific species.

Read more here.

Related reading: The Hittites of Anatolia; The Trapezoid in Ancient Architecture and Technology; ÇATALHÖYÜK 2005 ARCHIVE REPORT Çatalhöyük Research Project; The Last Days of Hattusa; The Luwian: Another Theory; A New Hieroglyphic Inscription from Pancarlı Höyük