Ancient Corinth | Biblical Sites

Corinth was a wealthy Roman colonial city on the isthmus linking mainland Greece to the Peloponnese, and Acts 18 says Paul stayed here about eighteen months, working as a tentmaker and founding the church he later wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians to. The site has been excavated since 1896 (chiefly by the American School), exposing the sixth-century-BC Temple of Apollo with its surviving Doric columns, the sprawling forum, and the bema, a raised public platform later marked as a church of the Apostle Paul. Two inscriptions give Corinth unusual evidential weight. The Gallio Inscription from Delphi names Lucius Junius Gallio as proconsul of Achaia and, by tying his term to Emperor Claudius's reign, fixes it to roughly AD 51-52, which anchors Paul's trial before Gallio (Acts 18:12) and with it much of Pauline chronology. A separate Latin paving inscription found near the theater names an Erastus who funded work in return for his aedileship, which some connect to Erastus the city treasurer in Romans 16:23.

Where it is: Peloponnese, Greece
Scripture: Acts 18:1-18 · 1 Corinthians 1:1-2 · Romans 16:23

What the evidence confirmsA major Roman Corinth with a public bema, forum, and temple has been thoroughly excavated, and the Gallio Inscription independently confirms a proconsul of Achaia named Gallio serving under Claudius around AD 51-52, providing a rare fixed date that squares with Acts 18.

What it does not proveThe Erastus paving inscription names an aedile, not a 'city treasurer,' and its identification with the Erastus of Romans 16:23 is probable at best and openly contested; the inscription itself does not prove the New Testament figure, and the bema shown to visitors is the excavated Roman platform, not a spot that can be tied to Paul with certainty.

Sources & further reading