Bible Synapse
Bema of Corinth
Site · mid-1st century AD · The early church · also called Judgment seat at Corinth, Rostra of Corinth
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- mid-1st century AD (the platform's building)
- Found
- Roman forum, Ancient Corinth, Greece. Uncovered in the forum by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, which has excavated Corinth since 1896.
- Now
- At the site, Ancient Corinth, Greece
- Passages
- Acts 18:12–17
What it is
A raised marble platform in the middle of Corinth's Roman forum, built in the mid-1st century AD on the terrace between the upper and lower parts of the forum. Open rooms with benches flanked it, and marble stairs linked the two levels beside it. The excavators see it as the place where public ceremonies were held and from which the proconsul addressed the citizens. In the Byzantine period a church was built over its ruins.
How it connects to the Bible
Acts 18 says that Paul's opponents brought him “to the judgment seat” (Greek bēma) before the proconsul Gallio, who refused to hear the case; the crowd then beat Sosthenes in front of it. The excavators' record says this platform is thought to be the bēma meant in Acts.
What scholars debate
The identification is widely accepted but cannot be confirmed: nothing on the platform names Gallio or Paul.