Where was Derbe?

Question

Where was Derbe?

Accepted Answer

Derbe lay in south-eastern Lycaonia, on the plain of central Turkey, at or very near the mound of Kerti Hüyük about 22 km north-east of Karaman, ancient Laranda; the map point stands on the mound. It is about 95 km east-south-east of Lystra and 96 km south-east of Konya, ancient Iconium, in a straight line, and about 645 km from Jerusalem. Older scholars, following William Ramsay, put Derbe at Gudelisin farther west; in 1956 Michael Ballance found at Kerti Hüyük a dedication of AD 157 by “the council and people of Derbe”, but after a bishop of Derbe's tombstone turned up at Devri Şehri, about 4 km away, he proposed that site instead, so the exact spot is not fully settled. Derbe was the farthest point of Paul's first journey. Stoned at Lystra, Paul “rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch”. From Derbe the road ran on east through the Taurus by the Cilician Gates to Tarsus, Paul's home town, about 145 km away in a straight line, the short way back to Syria; instead they turned round and went back through the towns that had driven them out, to strengthen the new churches. Acts tells of no trouble at Derbe, and when Paul later lists his persecutions “at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra”, Derbe is missing. He came back on his second journey, and among the men who went with him to Asia was “Gaius of Derbe”. In the first century BC the town had been the seat of Antipater of Derbe, a friend of Cicero, until Amyntas of Galatia killed him; after 25 BC it belonged to the Roman province of Galatia and later called itself Claudio-Derbe on its coins.