History Globe
Question
Where were the seven churches of Revelation?
All seven churches were in the Roman province of Asia, in the west of today's Turkey: Ephesus (by Selçuk), Smyrna (İzmir), Pergamum (Bergama), Thyatira (Akhisar), Sardis (by the village of Sart), Philadelphia (Alaşehir) and Laodicea (near Denizli).
John on Patmos is told: "What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea." The order is a round by road: north from Ephesus along the coast to Smyrna and Pergamum, then inland and south-east through Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia to Laodicea in the Lycus valley. By the Roman roads on the map the legs measure 77, 110, 76, 56, 47 and 94 km, about 460 km in all.
Ephesus was the seat of the proconsul and one of the largest cities of the East; Smyrna and Pergamum had temples of Rome and the emperors; Sardis had been the capital of Lydia; Thyatira was a market town of trade guilds, Philadelphia a city often shaken by earthquakes, and Laodicea a wealthy city that rebuilt itself after the earthquake of AD 60 without help from Rome. The letters were written, by the usual dating, about AD 95 under Domitian; some place them about AD 68. Of the seven, only İzmir is a large city today; the others are ruins or small towns beside them.
Scripture: Rev 1:11; Rev 2:1; Rev 2:8; Rev 2:12; Rev 2:18; Rev 3:1; Rev 3:7; Rev 3:14
Sources
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30.3 (the date under Domitian)
- C. J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (1986)
- W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (1904)
- Tacitus, Annals 4.55-56 (Smyrna's temple of Tiberius); 14.27 (Laodicea after the earthquake)
- Length along the Roman roads: Itiner-e (de Soto, Pažout, Brughmans et al. 2025), the seven-churches legs
Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.