place · also Ephesian
Ephesus
Ἔφεσος
- verses
- 22
- first named
- Acts 18:19
- last named
- 2 Timothy 4:12
- feature
- settlement
- coordinates
- 37.94°N · 27.34°E
Ephesus (OpenBible)
The gazetteer records one identification, and no competing one.
Description
Ephesus in the text
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city located on the western coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). It was one of the largest and most important cities in the Roman province of Asia and played a significant role in the early spread of Christianity.
The apostle Paul visited Ephesus during his second and third missionary journeys (Act.18.19-21; 19:1-41). During his third journey, Paul stayed in Ephesus for over two years, preaching the gospel and establishing a strong Christian community (Act.19.8-10). Many Ephesians turned from their pagan practices and embraced the faith, which led to a decline in the sale of silver shrines of the goddess Artemis (Diana), causing a riot instigated by the silversmiths (Act.19.23-41).
Paul later wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians, one of his prison epistles, to strengthen and encourage the believers in Ephesus (Ephesians 1:1). In this letter, Paul expounds on the nature of the church, the unity of believers in Christ, and the importance of living a life worthy of the calling they had received.
Ephesus was also one of the seven churches addressed in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1:11; 2:1-7). In the message to the church in Ephesus, the risen Christ commends their hard work and perseverance but admonishes them for having forsaken their first love and calls them to repent and return to their former devotion.
The city was famous for its Temple of Artemis (Diana), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (Act.19.35). It was also an important center of learning, with a renowned library. Today, the ruins of Ephesus, including the remains of the theater where the riot took place (Act.19.29), are a popular tourist attraction and a testament to the city's rich history and its role in the early Christian church.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
The pattern
Where Ephesus is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
22 verses across 6 of 66 books; 60 write the name nowhere. Named in Acts (12), 1 Corinthians (2), Ephesians (2), 1 Timothy (1), 2 Timothy (3) and Revelation (2).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 22, across 6 books. The name is written 23 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
What happened here
Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources