Hierapolis in the Heavens is a project which brings together several articles and essays Kreitzer has written on the letter to the Ephesians and follows up a new suggestion he first put forward in 1997 as to the setting and provenance of the epistle. Nothing quite like this has yet been published on Ephesians, particularly as it does offer some important new archaeological, textual and numismatic evidence for scholarly consideration. The book should also be of interest to social-historians of the first-century world as it argues that the letter we know as Ephesians was written to what was, in effect, a daughter-church of the church in Colossae; some intriguing questions about power-relations between churches such as this are opened up as a result.

1. Hierapolis in the Heavens: A New Proposal for Reading the Letter to the Ephesians

2. Epaphras and Philip: The Undercover Evangelists of Hierapolis

3. The Plutonium of Hierapolis: A Geographical Solution for the Puzzle of Ephesians 4:9-10

4. The Descent of Christ into the ‘Lowermost Parts of the Earth’ (Ephesians 4:9): Some Numismatic Evidence from Hierapolis

5. Facing Hades: Images of the God of the Underworld from Hierapolis

6. ‘Crude Language’ and ‘Shameful Things Done in Secret’ (Ephesians 5:4, 12): Allusions to the Cult of Demeter/Cybele in Hierapolis?

7. Living in the Lycus Valley: Earthquake Imagery in Colossians, Philemon and Ephesians

8. The Messianic Man of Peace as Temple Builder: Solomonic Imagery in Ephesians 2:13-22