Biola University
After centuries of anticipation, the ancient city of Colossae—the site of Paul’s letter to the Colossians—is finally being excavated. Dr. Clint Arnold, one of the world’s foremost experts on Colossians, joins Sean McDowell to share breaking news from the dig in modern-day Turkey. They explore why this excavation is historic, what discoveries could illuminate the New Testament, and how this project might finally unravel the mystery of the so-called “Colossian heresy.”
Listeners will learn about the decades-long journey to make this dig possible, the fascinating mix of history and theology behind Colossae, and what these findings could mean for our understanding of early Christianity.
Episode Transcript
Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] For decades, archeologists and biblical scholars have dreamed of seeing the city of Colossae excavated. Well, quite amazingly, it's just beginning. Colossae, of course, is the city at the heart of Paul's letter to the Colossians, which we will unpack today with our guest, back due to popular demand. Dr. Clint Arnold is perhaps the world's foremost expert on the Book of Colossians. You've written the Word Biblical Commentary, Second Edition, and for the record, I've read about two-thirds of it.
Clint Arnold: Wow.
Sean McDowell: I worked through it. It's fascinating. We had you on earlier to talk about spiritual warfare, which is prevalent in Colossians, but you sent me these updates about the city of Colossae and the dig that is beginning there. It was not on my radar at all, and immediately, Clint, I thought, "We've gotta talk about this and bring it to our listeners and our viewers." So we're gonna dive in, but thanks for coming back and being willing to talk about this.
Clint Arnold: Well, first of all, it's a real privilege to be with you, Sean. And yeah, I'm pumped about this. I first visited the site of Colossae in 1985, which 40 years ago-
Sean McDowell: Wow, that's 40 years ago
Clint Arnold: ... In the middle of my doctoral program, and I just hoped that someday they might excavate that site. And so many years have gone by, and this summer, in July, excavation began.
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm.
Clint Arnold: And it's very exciting to see what the possibilities might be of discovery there.
Sean McDowell: So one of the updates you sent me, we're gonna get into what it looks like now, what they expect to find, what a, what an archeological dig like this entails, but in one of your updates, you describe this as truly a historic moment. Now, for somebody who goes, "Come on, you're a scholar. This is an overstatement," why do you think this is really historic?
Clint Arnold: Well, one of the key things for us as Christians is we have two New Testament books that were written to Christians at that site. We have Paul's letter to the Colossians-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Clint Arnold: ... And then secondly, his letter to Philemon, which is a very brief letter, but it was written to that site as well. So for us as Christians- ... There's just so much significance to that. But it's historic because this site is ancient. It goes way back, beyond the time of the New Testament, into the Persian era- ... Prior to that, the Hittite era, and even earlier settlement there. And so historically, there's tremendous possibility for gaining insight into the ancient Near East.
Sean McDowell: I love that. So there's biblical insight we can gain, but also just historical, cultural insight, both of those-
Clint Arnold: Huge
Sean McDowell: ... Are at play.
Clint Arnold: Huge opportunity there.
Sean McDowell: Okay, so where is Colossae? Where will people find it? [laughs]
Clint Arnold: Right. If you had your atlas open or the maps at the back of your Bible, and you locate where Ephesus is located-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Clint Arnold: ... And then if you went about 100 miles just due east of Ephesus-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... There is Colossae. It's located in a triangle of cities in that area where Laodicea is located, just 10 miles away, and, Hierapolis is located there as well. So if you looked at a modern map and, found and located the third-largest city of Turkey, which is Izmir, again, from there, it would just be about 100 miles, 110 miles, just due east.
Sean McDowell: Modern-day Turkey.
Clint Arnold: Yes-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... And I should have mentioned that.
Sean McDowell: That's all right.
Clint Arnold: And, and technically, we're supposed to call it Türkiye now.
Sean McDowell: Oh, I actually didn't know that.
Clint Arnold: A couple-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... Of years ago, they changed the name-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... Of the country, so as not to confuse it with that bird that we eat-
Sean McDowell: Fair enough
Clint Arnold: ... At Thanksgiving. [laughs]
Sean McDowell: Okay. So if somebody were to go, what did you say, 100 miles due east of Ephesus, what would they find if they went to Colossae [chuckles] today?
Clint Arnold: Well, that's a, that's a great question. When I went in 1985, there were no roads to the site.
Sean McDowell: Oh.
Clint Arnold: It's basically just wide-open space.
Sean McDowell: Huh.
Clint Arnold: There's farming and agriculture around there, orchards, and it took a couple of, locals to help us locate even where the site was at. But it's wide-open space. There is a big mound that is there today. Its, uh- ... Highest point is about 220 feet. Lower point is about 130. So this big mound looks like just a hill out in the middle of nowhere. And that would be the site of the Acropolis, the city on a hill there. Of course, over the centuries, it's just been covered with dirt. But you walk around it today, you see building material protruding out. My wife was walking around, and she hit this bush and uncovered a mosaic. So it's all there tantalizing me.
Sean McDowell: [laughs]
Clint Arnold: I grew up on a farm, and it was so difficult to resist the temptation of just grabbing a shovel and starting to dig myself.
Sean McDowell: Oh, my goodness. Like, it's, Like, I can't even picture that this ancient city of Colossae, so significant historically and biblically, is just kind of in the middle of farmland.
Clint Arnold: Yeah.
Sean McDowell: You can see cities coming out. There's dirt all over it. And I kinda learned, like, it looks like a hill, but it's called a tell.
Clint Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Sean McDowell: 'Cause when they'll have a city, and then sometimes, 'cause the base build a city on top of a city, like a Jericho multiple times, and it just looks like a mound because dirt, I guess, just blows in over time. I mean, I don't even understand how it all gets there. Is that really what happens?
Clint Arnold: That's exactly what happened. It's, just accumulated over the years.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: And so the population, left the city probably around the 6th or 7th century AD-... So a few hundred years right after Christ, but now we're talking 1300, 1400 years of no occupation, and big dust storms, and just accumulation over the years. It just covers up the city. Now, a lot of it has been the building material that was open and exposed has been carted off and- ... Found its way into other building projects- ... Into people's garages, [chuckles] into all kinds of things. So there's a lot of excavation that could take place in people's homes. [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: [lips smack] Oh, that's really interesting. So w- tell us maybe a little bit more what Colossae was like at the time of Paul and Jesus. How populous... What, what made Colossae different and unique compared to other cities?
Clint Arnold: At the time of the Apostle Paul, it was a city that had become less significant than the others around it.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: So big city in the region then was Laodicea, and-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Clint Arnold: ... But it was fairly recent. It had only been around for a couple hundred years, and Hierapolis became a very large city, and Colossae kind of dwindled in size. The size of the mound where Colossae is located is only 25 acres, which is not very big. 40 acres is a quarter of a mile by a quarter of a mile, so we're talking something close to an eighth of a mile by an eighth of a mile.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: You know, not much bigger than a football field, really. That's the city center. The territory around it would've had many homes and a variety of things as well. So, we don't know the exact population of what the city- ... Would've been during the Apostle Paul's time, but it's a little, a little town-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... At that time.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: They did have a theater in the city that we- you can see the outlines of it today, and the estimates are that that theater would've contained or could've held as many as 7,000 or 8,000 people.
Sean McDowell: Oh, yeah.
Clint Arnold: So, some have tried to infer population based on the size of the theater, but everything is a little bit slippery right now-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Clint Arnold: ... To figure out the size of the city.
Sean McDowell: Huh.
Clint Arnold: But, I mean, we know it because there was a thriving church there.
Sean McDowell: So it was, it... The population left 600, 700, so 1,300 years ago. Obviously, people weren't doing archaeological digs in the 1000s or 1100s or 12th century, but why, over the past couple centuries, has this never been excavated before?
Clint Arnold: Well, there was a period of time in there where, scholars and people writing about the scripture were just not sure about where it was located.
Sean McDowell: Oh.
Clint Arnold: And so, in fact, some early biblical interpreters-
Sean McDowell: Huh
Clint Arnold: ... In the 1700s and 1800s confused this site of Colossae, or confused the city of Colossae, mentioned in the New Testament, with, the site of the Colossus at Rhodes, which is an island out in the Mediterranean.
Sean McDowell: Huh.
Clint Arnold: But the text of Colossians associates it very closely with Laodicea and Hierapolis, and we knew where those sites were. So it wasn't until, early 1800s that English explorers and antiquarians found and definitely identified the site. And we know it based on some inscriptions that have been discovered, some coins that have been discovered-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... That specifically mention, uh- ... Colossae.
Sean McDowell: So there's really no debate now anymore that this-
Clint Arnold: No debate, no
Sean McDowell: ... Is Colossae.
Clint Arnold: No.
Sean McDowell: Okay. So how much money and connections are necessary for something like this to happen? Like, and part of my question is, okay, so for a couple hundred years, we've known where it's at. You went in 1985, and it just looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Nobody's doing anything. What does it take, and why is it being done now?
Clint Arnold: [lips smack] It's not because there hasn't been interest in the excavation.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: In the '70s, there was a group called the Near East Archaeological Society-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Clint Arnold: ... And a guy named Harold Mair that led that society, and he petitioned the Turkish government for permission to excavate the site of Colossae, actually multiple times, but was always turned down. After that, there was a group from Flinders University in Australia that- ... Petitioned the Turkish government. Always turned down. Then there was an archaeology department that surfaced at University of Pamukkale, a big-sounding Turkish word, which is the nearby-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... City, one of the nearby cities, and there's a university there. And the chief excavator of Laodicea has just kind of lit things up with archaeology. And so he had a student named Bahadir Duman that was going to excavate the city. I met him. We talked about it-
Sean McDowell: Oh, wow
Clint Arnold: ... And it was exciting to see his vision for that, but then his professor assigned him [chuckles] to a different city called Tripolis.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: And went, "Oh, no-
Sean McDowell: [laughing]
Clint Arnold: ... It's not gonna happen. I am gonna die before this thing gets excavated." [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: Oh, no. [chuckles]
Clint Arnold: And then a few years ago, it was announced that another student of Celal Simsek, the chief archaeologist there, would be the one, to carry the mantle and excavate Colossae. And so that was just the beginning because then it had to go through a massive application process with the Turkish government, the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture, and that received final approval just this year.... In January, and so excavation actually began in July.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: So we're in August, so, I mean, we're talking-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Clint Arnold: ... It's just breaking news right now that this is taking place.
Sean McDowell: So it just, in our age of instant things, like somebody sends out a text or sends out an Instagram post or TikTok video or an X, whatever it is, it just moves a little more slowly because there's political things at play, there's economics, there's relationships. There's a whole lot of factors that have to coalesce together for this even to be possible, which is probably true for any archeological dig, right?
Clint Arnold: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: And there's just been a lot of steps along the way, and one of the other steps that I hadn't even thought about is this land was owned by a farmer. [chuckles] And so you can't just go in-
Sean McDowell: Gosh
Clint Arnold: ... And start digging up a farmer's field.
Sean McDowell: A farmer-owned Colossae.
Clint Arnold: I know,
Sean McDowell: I mean, just like [chuckles]
Clint Arnold: It's just crazy.
Sean McDowell: It just seemed to think about how, like, this guy's out farming, trying to care for his family, and like, one of the most important cities in the Bible. Like, you can't make this stuff up.
Clint Arnold: So the local municipality had to negotiate with the farmer for a land swap deal, and I don't know all the details surrounding that-
Sean McDowell: Sure
Clint Arnold: ... But there was a lot of [chuckles] a lot behind the scenes that was taking place.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: But they finally secured the property. They can go in, and they can excavate, which they've already done. But to get this thing off the ground, the archeologist, and I should mention his name, his name is Dr. Baris Yener. And he's a professor, and he's an archeologist. He and his wife are archeologists. They've both worked, extensively on the city of Laodicea, so he has a lot of experience, and he's gathered a team of about 13 Turkish archeologists, anthropologists, and so on, to form this initial team. To get it off the ground, they needed a little over $400,000 for startup costs. A lot of that was equipment. They needed, by law of the Turkish government, an excavation house where they could meet, where they could, securely place any valuable things that they found and just a variety of things like that. And, fortunately, they were able to raise quite a bit- ... Of that. And I should say that this is not a project-- This project needs to be funded by private donations, individuals and corporate. It's not receiving much from the Turkish government.
Sean McDowell: Why does... Wait, why does it need to be? Is it just to protect certain things, or?
Clint Arnold: Just the Turkish government doesn't have funding for all-
Sean McDowell: Oh, okay
Clint Arnold: ... The digs that are around in Turkey.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: And you walk 10 feet, and you're in a new archeological site-
Sean McDowell: Yeah, that's-
Clint Arnold: ... It seems like in Turkey.
Sean McDowell: That's incredible.
Clint Arnold: Turkey is just loaded with archeological sites. So, yeah, so there's an ongoing need for funding, and- ... The,
Clint Arnold: The excavation can actually go year-round, and not just a seasonal excavation, depending on the funding that comes in.
Sean McDowell: So what is this process like? It started in July. I mean, just trucks coming in. S- like, just paint the picture for us of how they start on one end and start moving across. They climb to the top and dig down. How long does this take? Like, I don't even have a sense of how you would dig-
Clint Arnold: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... A place like Colossae.
Clint Arnold: Yeah, this is an interesting phenomenon. It's very different than archeology in Israel. Uh- ... But, the first thing that they did was, Baris Yener is an expert with ground-penetrating radar.
Sean McDowell: [chuckles] Okay.
Clint Arnold: And so he went around the site with his ground-penetrating radar and located the likely spot of principal and important buildings up on that mound.
Sean McDowell: Unbelievable.
Clint Arnold: And through that, was able to identify, "Yeah, when we get the green light, this is where we're gonna start, 'cause there's probably a temple right here." "And so this seems like a productive way to start." this July, where they started was not on the mound but on the ground below it, where there is a necropolis, a cemetery, graves, and they, began excavating these. These would date probably to the Roman and maybe early Byzantine era. But within those, you can often find inscriptions, writing on stone. You can find coins. You can find a variety of other things. Now, you mentioned earlier, yeah, it's never been excavated. Well, unofficially, some of these things have been excavated, with people going in and robbing graves. So- ... Yeah.
Sean McDowell: That's unfortunate. So your expertise, obviously, you writ this whole- wrote this whole commentary. I don't know how many pages this thing is, 800 pages with footnotes. How could an excavation like this illuminate or maybe even help us understand the truth behind the Book of Colossians?
Clint Arnold: Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question because, I mean, one way we can look at it is whatever is found will not change the theological truths that are in that book. So the fact that Jesus is Lord, and he's proclaimed as Lord through this book, that's not gonna change- ... By any excavation. Our salvation in Christ, forgiveness of sins, all of that's gonna remain the same. So where does the excavation lead us? There's some weird stuff going on in Colossians. It's often referred to, as the Colossian heresy. In other words-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Clint Arnold: ... There's this problem looming in the background where Paul warns the Colossian believers about a false teaching that's emerging, and he says, "Don't let anyone disqualify you from the prize. Don't let anyone deceive you. Don't let anyone judge you." I mean, there's looming a set of teachers or false teachers that are saying some weird things.... And I say weird things because from our vantage point, it truly seems weird. You go to Colossians 2:18, and Paul is, describing some of these things that these guys are teaching, and he is warning them about the practice of worship of angels. Like, okay, what's going on there? Are groups of people going off on Sunday evening and grabbing their guitars and, you know- [laughing] ... Singing hymns of praise to angels? What is this worship of angels? That's a unique word for worship there. It's hardly ever used. And it has more to do with rituals involving angels. There's visionary experience. There is, taboos. You find in Colossians 2:21, these statements, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch." There's mutilation of the body. Like, how do you make sense of all of this? And at one point, it's even called a philosophy, and-
Sean McDowell: In 2:8, right? Yeah.
Clint Arnold: Yeah, chapter 2:8.
Sean McDowell: Yeah.
Clint Arnold: And it's like, what philosophy does all of that? You know, there's not many Platonists running around worshiping angels and visionary experience. And so these things lend themselves very distinctly toward illumination from any insight we can gain about the religious background of the people who were becoming Christians.
Sean McDowell: Got it. So there could be clues and hints of what lies behind Paul's cautions to the people that-
Clint Arnold: Exactly
Sean McDowell: ... Lived there. Now, you say a few times that you have a few theories that could be proven correct, could be challenges. Is there any part of this that you're like, "Oh, man, I've put myself out there with this theory, [chuckles] and I could be disproven," or do you just look at it like, "You know what? I'm a scholar. I make the best assessment I have, and if I'm wrong about this, great, we're closer to the truth?" [chuckles]
Clint Arnold: Yeah, no, that's-
Sean McDowell: Or somewhere in between both those. [laughing]
Clint Arnold: That's a threatening question. [laughing] No, but actually, in the preface, I say, with the impending excavation of Colossians-
Sean McDowell: Me too
Clint Arnold: ... I wonder how many times I'm gonna have to say I'm sorry for getting it wrong.
Sean McDowell: Fair enough.
Clint Arnold: And I'm happy to. I'm really, honestly- ... Very happy to- ... Because the exciting part is to get to the truth of what was going on- ... To find out what was really happening there. And so anything that w- any insight we can gain into the religious background of the people becoming Christians might help to explain this problem- ... That Paul is facing, and that was coming up in the church. Of course, the other thing that is a possibility in the excavation is, if we could find a Jewish synagogue there. Uh-
Sean McDowell: Oh.
Clint Arnold: That would lend a lot of insight. If you had inscriptions, Jewish inscriptions,
Clint Arnold: Various other kinds of Jewish symbols, artwork, anything out of a synagogue, would help us better understand what the nature of the problem was there. I've seen this problem as a mixture of religious traditions, thus a syncretism.
Sean McDowell: Yeah.
Clint Arnold: And one of the things that's mentioned in Colossians 2 is, the worship of, Sabbaths. And, like, how does-
Sean McDowell: Which sounds Jewish, right?
Clint Arnold: Very Jewish.
Sean McDowell: Yeah.
Clint Arnold: It has to be. It's uniquely Jewish.
Sean McDowell: Yep.
Clint Arnold: So how does this mix in with things that sound very much like pagan Greek religion?
Sean McDowell: So this is the challenge, to make sure people are tracking, is that part of Colossians, Paul is warning against certain philosophies. Now, he's not saying against philosophy per se.
Clint Arnold: Right.
Sean McDowell: That's not it, but which philosophies that involve Sabbaths, right? That sounds Jewish. But then you've got new moons. Okay, is that also Jewish or some other practice? And so, you know, worshiping of angels clearly wasn't a normative Jewish practice. [chuckles]
Clint Arnold: No.
Sean McDowell: So we're trying to find inscriptions or buildings that really reveal to us what was going on at that time, and hence brings clarity to the book of Colossians. It's kind of amazing to me. I mean, in some ways, I get goosebumps thinking about it. Like, this book was written 2,000-ish years ago- ... And there could be, like, some major breakthroughs theologically in this dig. I mean, you think about all the church historians through history and, theologians and biblical scholars who've wrestled with these passages, and maybe we get to live in a time where we uncover something and goes, "Whoa, this is what Paul meant?" Like, that's a pretty phenomenal thing.
Clint Arnold: It's huge.
Sean McDowell: Like, it's hard to get-
Clint Arnold: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... In some ways, more exciting than that, huh?
Clint Arnold: It's, it's really huge potential. And one way of putting it, I mean, it theoretically could solve the riddle of what the Colossian heresy was all about.
Sean McDowell: [chuckles]
Clint Arnold: I really think it could. A few key inscriptions that give us those kinds of insights would be really helpful.
Sean McDowell: That'd be awesome. Well, I hope you're found right in your commentary.
Clint Arnold: Me too. [laughing]
Sean McDowell: You put forward some... [chuckles] Of course we do, right? But, you know, everybody's got a theory about it. Are there other cities comparable to Colossae that have been excavated? Like, Ephesus, 100 miles west, obviously much bigger, but are there some comparable cities that have been excavated that might give us a clue of certain things we could find or how this might unfold?
Clint Arnold: Yeah, just 10 miles away is the city of Hierapolis. And it's a beautiful site, and you're familiar with it from-
Sean McDowell: That's right
Clint Arnold: ... From the apostle or Evangelist Philip.
Sean McDowell: Philip, yep.
Clint Arnold: Yep, and who was buried there, and that was a fairly recent discovery, that they found his tomb and martyrium there. But, one of the things that has been discovered there is they discovered lots of inscriptions, temples, and a variety of things that give us insight into the religious background. But fairly recently, in the necropolis or the graveyard at Hierapolis, and it's immense there in Hierapolis, it goes on for a mile and a half, because there was thought to be an ancient opening into the underworld in Hierapolis. But they found an inscription on silver-... In a tomb that was rolled up, and they unrolled it and looked at it, and it was basically an invocation. It, it calls upon angels, it calls upon Michael and Gabriel and the-
Sean McDowell: Wow
Clint Arnold: ... Heavenly harmony, and then it calls on a pagan deity, Abrasaaks, to protect- ... The one who wears this from any kind of injury. Now, one of the theories that I have regarding the background of Colossians is that this worship of angels has to do with invoking angels for protection, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, of just calling on names of power who could provide protection for me. And that's where we have to recognize that the worldview of people at that time was so vastly different than it is for us here in the United States.
Sean McDowell: Yeah.
Clint Arnold: They really were afraid of being cursed. And for cursing back then- ... It was a situation of people calling on spirits, people calling on underworld spirits and various deities to come and cause harm. So how do you protect yourself against that? And one of the ways they did that was invoking angels.
Sean McDowell: Interesting. So that ties to, you know, what the worship of angels meant. 10 miles away, dates to the same time, biblically significant, that's, that's pretty fascinating. How long is this going to take? Now, I realize- ... There's funding issues. There could be some political lockdown. Like, nobody has control over this, but if things, what reasonably could we expect for this dig? Now, maybe in some ways it goes on-
Clint Arnold: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... Like, on and on, and it never really stops, but to say we've sufficiently excavated it, two years, five years, 50 years? Like, how long would something like this take?
Clint Arnold: Well, if we looked at Ephesus, we would see a site that has been excavated since the late 1800s- ... And they're now estimating that 15% of the site has been excavated.
Sean McDowell: Are you serious?
Clint Arnold: So-
Sean McDowell: 15% of all of Ephesus?
Clint Arnold: It was a massive site, though. It's a massive site, and they've got a lot more work to do.
Sean McDowell: Wow!
Clint Arnold: Colossae-
Sean McDowell: Huh
Clint Arnold: ... Is a lot more compact, and if we look at what's happened in the last 20 years with Laodicea, I mean, you cannot believe what's gone on in Laodicea. When I went there in '85, nothing had been excavated. Now, so much of the city is excavated, and a lot of restoration work has been done, and I don't know what percentage of the city, but they have gone like gangbusters in excavating the city and restoring elements of the city and have found so many different things. In fact, in Laodicea, they've found... I think the count is now up to 15 churches. Now these are churches that, existed from about the 4th century on, but s- building materials and sites relevant for the church-- 15 different churches in that area. So the Turkish way, led by this chief archeologist, is to excavate year-round and to really make a lot of progress, and I could see that potentially happening at Colossae, but it's dependent on funding. If they can get the funding that they need to go year-round, they would do it. If they don't, they'll just go w- as they have funding for it. But because of the size and the way that they do excavation in that area of Turkey, it could happen pretty fast.
Sean McDowell: And what does fast mean? Like [laughing] ...
Clint Arnold: Well, [laughing] you know, I would say within the next 10 years-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... If they went year-round, they would ex- they would have a lot of the principal buildings uncovered.
Sean McDowell: So you start thinking about going year-round. You said a team of 15 people-
Clint Arnold: Roughly
Sean McDowell: ... Working on this-
Clint Arnold: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... In different ways?
Clint Arnold: And that can vary-
Sean McDowell: With their
Clint Arnold: ... Year to year.
Sean McDowell: That can go up and down.
Clint Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Sean McDowell: So you've got their salaries, you've got the, their living conditions.
Clint Arnold: Yeah.
Sean McDowell: I mean, you've just got all the materials that they need. I mean, this is a multimillion-dollar endeavor, right? I mean, do we even have a sense of what it would cost?
Clint Arnold: Probably so, and I mentioned they got started with $400,000, and that was to get the excavation house-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Clint Arnold: ... And everything else going on. So they can do a lot with very little. The exchange rate is ripe for us [laughing] in helping them in this regard. But, they can do quite a bit with very little, but according, to the funding they get, they can just speed the whole process up.
Sean McDowell: What, what assurances do we have that they're gonna do this carefully, they're gonna do it well? Like, tell me a little bit about that.
Clint Arnold: Yeah, yeah. I think the assurance that we have is seeing what they've already done. So if we look at what has happened at Laodicea and at Hierapolis, but particularly Laodicea, because that chief archeologist is giving oversight to Colossae. For every dollar they spend digging, they spend $10 in restoration.
Sean McDowell: Oh.
Clint Arnold: So there's-
Sean McDowell: Wow
Clint Arnold: ... Massive amount of resources- ... That are put in restoring and preserving. They've built a beautiful museum at Hierapolis, where they house the, various things that they've found that are of value, like statues and coins and all of these sorts of things, and then things that aren't going to be, disturbed by being on site remain on site, and they just erect them. So they've, they've set up many columns around the Agora. They've set up old temples that had fallen and crumpled, 'cause that place is really susceptible to earthquakes. And they're doing the kind of reinforcing that should keep it from falling [laughing] in the event of another earthquake, uh-
Sean McDowell: Amazing.
Clint Arnold: ... But yeah, and I've been very impressed with the work of Celal Simsek and the Turkish archaeologists in the way they have conducted their excavations.
Sean McDowell: Are you gonna keep going back now and then and just seeing-
Clint Arnold: I can't stay away
Sean McDowell: ... The progress, like, personally? [laughs]
Clint Arnold: I can't stay away, so.
Sean McDowell: How often are you able to go?
Clint Arnold: So lately it's been every year.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Clint Arnold: And so I don't have plans for this coming year, but I do- ... From two years from now.
Sean McDowell: Amazing. So last couple questions is, I imagine, I guess, they- there's funding that's needed. If there's some people watching, like, "You know what? I'm motivated to help with the funding," or second, others just wanna kind of follow the story and the progress, what would you say to those two people?
Clint Arnold: For anybody that's interested in, maybe, helping out with the excavation or, in terms of providing some funding or just wanna follow more closely what's happening, there is an email that you can email, to get more information, and it's simply colosse.excavation@gmail.com.
Sean McDowell: So C-O-L-O-S-S-A-E-
Clint Arnold: That's correct, yeah
Sean McDowell: ... .excavation.gmail-
Clint Arnold: @gmail.
Sean McDowell: Oh, sorry, @gmail.com.
Clint Arnold: .com. That's it, and, we'll send you all the information you need.
Sean McDowell: So you'll just send updates of what's happening, and how it's going, and people-
Clint Arnold: There's regular updates that are going out through that email. Mm-hmm.
Sean McDowell: And people can track it.
Clint Arnold: Mm-hmm. The, archaeologist is also creating a Twitter, feed-
Sean McDowell: Okay. Okay
Clint Arnold: ... And a website, and those are still in progress, but th- we'll update people through the email when those go live.
Sean McDowell: Do, do they need, or could they use labor? I've done shows in the past where I've had archaeologists on, and they're like, "Come for a week and just dig and move dirt and just help." Do they need that, or is it more like, "You know what? Just send the funds. [chuckles] Let us do our thing"? Like, what if some family's like, "We wanna go for a week and just-
Clint Arnold: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... Experience this," is that even possible?
Clint Arnold: It may very well be-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Clint Arnold: ... In the future. Right now, there's not that opportunity because they're just getting- ... Rolling. As things develop, though, and, the dust settles a little bit, there will be likely opportunity for that kind of thing.
Sean McDowell: What a cool thing to do. At the time we're recording this, in a couple weeks, I'm taking my almost 13-year-old son to Egypt, and we're not doing any cool Indiana Jones archaeological dig, but it's important for me to take him to see different places in the world. I can imagine if they're like, "Hey, you can just come for a week and just serve and see this firsthand and see the area," like, there's a decent chance I'd grab my son or somebody and come, and I imagine some people watching, just to be able to experience that and help out. So keep us posted on that as well on the email if you can send the powers that be. Did I miss anything? Anything else about the story that would be helpful or interesting to folks?
Clint Arnold: Well, I don't think you want this to be a 15-hour podcast. [laughs]
Sean McDowell: I don't.
Clint Arnold: There's so much more-
Sean McDowell: Yes
Clint Arnold: ... I could mention.
Sean McDowell: Yeah.
Clint Arnold: It's just, very exciting to me. But we've covered a lot of the basics, and, yeah, great questions, and I look forward to seeing what they find there.
Sean McDowell: Awesome. Well, what- partly what I learned about this is you have in your commentary... Again, I've read about two-thirds of this. My Bible study for awhile as I was reading the Gospel of John almost every day. Then I've been reading Colossians, obviously a lot shorter, daily, and then I was just kind of working through some of the content in here- ... Learning it. So it is an academic commentary, but somebody's like, "I wanna go deeper and just study this book. This intrigues me," your Word Biblical Commentary, Colossians, second edition, Clint Arnold, is excellent. So thanks for coming on. Those of you watching and listening, make sure you hit Subscribe. We've got a lot more content like this coming up. You won't wanna miss it. We'll have you back. Thanks.
Clint Arnold: Hey, thanks, Scott. [upbeat music]
