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== Temple of Diana == | == Temple of Diana == | ||
[[File:Ephesus.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Christians were accused of robbing the '''[[Temple of Diana]] in Ephesus'''. How?]] | [[File:Ephesus.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Christians were accused of robbing the '''[[Temple of Diana]] in Ephesus'''. How? The [[Fathers]] of the earth were [[investing in Diana]]. Why?]] | ||
'''[[Temple of Diana]] in [[Ephesus]]''' Also known as the Temple of Artemis served as an underwriter for social [[welfare]] insurance through government investments | '''[[Temple of Diana]] in [[Ephesus]]''' Also known as the ''Temple of Artemis'' was a central bank for at least the 127 countries which built the temple. Because of its extensive investments and secure vault, it served as an underwriter for social [[welfare]] insurance through government investments. It was a major depository of the [[Corban]] of the [[Imperial Cult of Rome]]. | ||
What is the meaning and significance of the Christian Apostles being accused of robbing the Temple of [[Ephesus]]. | |||
Were Christians actually ''bank robbers''? | Were Christians actually ''bank robbers''? | ||
Revision as of 08:44, 24 May 2018
Temple of Diana
Temple of Diana in Ephesus Also known as the Temple of Artemis was a central bank for at least the 127 countries which built the temple. Because of its extensive investments and secure vault, it served as an underwriter for social welfare insurance through government investments. It was a major depository of the Corban of the Imperial Cult of Rome.
What is the meaning and significance of the Christian Apostles being accused of robbing the Temple of Ephesus.
Were Christians actually bank robbers?
Or has something been lost in translation?
- "The temple of Artemis seems not only to have been used as a religious site, but also as an institution similar to a bank. Dio Chrysostum describes how the money of private citizens was deposited in the building, and even foreigners and "commonwealths and kings", which was apparently due to the "safety" of the sanctuary.[1]
- One of the great historian of the period, Aelius Aristides described Ephesus as "Asia's greatest center of trade and banking" [2] and the temple as “the general bank of Asia" [3] The temple of Artemis “...the largest and most important bank on the west coast of Asia Minor, was inseparable to the economic structure of the city and indeed the entire province.” [4]
- "In time the temple possessed valuable lands; it controlled the fisheries; its priests were the bankers of its enormous revenues. Because of its strength the people stored there their money for safe-keeping; and it became to the ancient world practically all that the Bank of England is to the modern world."[5]
- “The temple was so rich and prosperous that it became, with the temple in Jerusalem, one of the world’s first banks.”[6] Read Investing in Diana.
In Ephesus, there was an uproar about the apostles with a reference to robbing the temple. What was actually going on in these temples?
We have seen that the temple built by Herod collected vast sums of money and contained a great treasury. Through its daily administration, it oversaw a welfare program for the needy, built aqueducts, and provided common government services.
It contained a great vault, which was considered one of the safest depositories in Asia Minor. This temple actually functioned as a world bank. What we might call the “high priest” was also a credit officer making loans and collecting interest, managing valuable property, and in charge of security for those who deposited valuables in the temple in the course of commerce and trade.
It was literally an underwriter of national social insurance systems including the coinage of money and the issuing of scrip. Ephesus was a World Bank of the world order of Rome.
Some temples acted as investment houses for mining, trade, and even military ventures. Great returns could be had with such investments in temples like Janus and Diana. The members were investors and the Temple of Diana could seat over 24,000 people.
Christians were investing in the Kingdom of God but Jesus had opposed the idea of central banks where thieves and robbers could break in and steal your money or "moths" could eat it up.[7] He and John the Baptist had preached another way of providing social security through charitable practices charity and voluntarism.
The honesty and integrity of those incharge of this great stored wealth had already come into question when Lysimachus, the successor of Alexander the Great, transferred overseeing of the operations of the funds of temple from the priests to the more trustworthy gerousia[8], an appointed council of elders.[9]
Many who had once invested in the Ephesus were now investing in the system of daily ministration set up and appointed by Jesus through the early Church. The Christians did not have a need for a central bank nor a ruling class for they were organized in a network of Tens as Christ commanded. Their public ministers were titular "bondservants" who did not exercise authority one over the other like the Fathers of the earth and those men who called themselves benefactors.
Peter and the Apostles would appoint Seven men who by mutual election would attend to the business of the Church which was being neglected.[10]
- ↑ Dio Chrysostum, Greek orator, writer, philosopher and historian of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, Or.31.54. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The University of Warwick
- ↑ History of Ephesus
- ↑ Aelius Aristides (Orations 23.24) Cf Murphy-O'Connor 2008:23, 65.
- ↑ Ephesians and Artemis: The Cult of the Great Goddess of Ephesus as the Epistle's Context By Michael Immendörfer. see chapter 4.1.3.2. Bank.
- ↑ from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft
- ↑ Trinity College of Biblical Studies
- ↑ Matthew 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
- ↑ In Sparta the Gerousia was composed of men over the age of sixty, an office created by Lycurgus in the seventh century BC, in his Great Rhetra.
- ↑ Strabo 14.1.21.
- ↑ Acts 6:2 Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples [unto them], and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.