Where was Lystra, the home of Timothy?

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Accepted Answer

Lystra was a small Roman colony in Lycaonia, on the high plateau of central Turkey; its mound rises by the village of Hatunsaray, about 33 km south-south-west of Konya, ancient Iconium, in a straight line, and the map point stands on it. Derbe lay about 95 km to the east-south-east, Pisidian Antioch about 128 km to the north-west, and Jerusalem about 700 km away. Augustus settled veterans there as Colonia Iulia Felix Gemina Lustra, and a Latin inscription read on the mound by J. R. S. Sterrett in 1885 fixed the site. Paul came to Lystra on his first journey, when he was stoned there, and came back on his second: “Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.” Paul later recalls the faith of Timothy's grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and that “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures”. Most take Lystra as Timothy's home town; some read Acts 20:4, “Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus”, as making Derbe his home instead. Lystra was a mixed place: Roman colonists and Latin inscriptions above, and below them townspeople who still spoke “the speech of Lycaonia” and worshipped Zeus, whose priest had his temple before the city. On the way back through it on the first journey Paul and Barnabas were “confirming the souls of the disciples… that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God”, and ordained elders. The mound itself waited for systematic excavation until 2024, when Necmettin Erbakan University in Konya began work there; the stoning is told in the question “Where was Paul stoned?”.