Cities in Paul’s Letters

I’ve mapped the cities mentioned in Paul’s letters, including deutero-Pauline and pastoral letters. I include the disputed Pauline letters for two reasons: (1) I’m looking at the reception of cities in biblical interpretation, and early interpreters would have read these letters as authentic Paul. (2) They provide a larger base of cities associated with Paul, remembered by his followers.

The green markers are cities to which Paul wrote letters. The blue markers are other cities mentioned in Paul’s letters, mostly cities to which he or his colleagues travel.

Paul mentions cities in most of his letters, usually in the opening and closing of the letters in greetings and descriptions of his and others’ travel plans. Jerusalem comes up often in scriptural quotations or interpretation, discussion of the offering that Paul intends to take to Jerusalem, and description of the early days of his apostleship.

In three letters, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon, Paul does not mention cities other than Ephesus (Ephesians) and Thessaloniki (2 Thessalonians).

Cities in Paul’s Letters by Jill E. Marshall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.