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Bible Encyclopedias
Pisidia
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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1. Situation and History:
Pisidia, as a strict geographical term, was the name given to the huge block of mountain country stretching northward from the Taurus range where the latter overlooked the Pamphylian coast land, to the valleys which connected Apamea with Antioch, and Antioch with Iconium. It was bounded by Lycia on the West, by the Phrygian country on the North, and by Isauria on the East; but there is no natural boundary between Pisidia and Isauria, and the frontier was never strictly drawn. The name is used in its geographical sense in the
Pisidia remained part of the province Galatia till 74 AD, when the greater (southern) part of it was assigned to the new double province Lycia-Pamphylia, and the cities in this portion of Pisidia now ranked as Pamphylian. The northern part of Pisidia continued to belong to Galatia, until, in the time of Diocletian, the southern part of the province Galatia (including the cities of Antioch and Iconium), with parts of Lycaonia and Asia, were formed Into a province called Pisidia, with Antioch as capital. Antioch was now for the first time correctly described as a city "of Pisidia," although there is reason to believe that the term "Pisidia" had already been extended northward in popular usage to include part at least of the Phrygian region of Galatia. This perhaps explains the reading "Antioch of Pisidia" in the Codex Bezae, whose readings usually reflect the conditions of the 2nd century of our era in Asia Minor. This use of the term was of course political and administrative; Antioch continued to be a city of Phrygia in the ethnical sense and a recently discovered inscription proves that the Phrygian language was spoken in the neighborhood of Antioch as late as the 3century of our era (see also Calder in Journal of Roman Studies , 1912,84).
2. Paul in Pisidia:
Paul crossed Pisidia on the journey from Perga to Antioch referred to in Acts 13:14 , and again on the return journey, Acts 14:24 . Of those journeys no details are recorded in Acts, but it has been suggested by Conybeare and Howson that the "perils of rivers" and "perils of robbers" mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:26 refer to his journeys across Pisidia, and Ramsay has pointed out in confirmation of this view that a considerable number of Pisidian inscriptions refer to the armed policemen and soldiers who kept the peace in this region, while others refer to a conflict with robbers, or to an escape from drowning in a river ( The Church in the Roman Empire , 23 f; compare Journal of Roman Studies , 1912, 82 f). Adada, a city off Paul's route from Perga to Antioch, is called by the Turks
Literature.
Murray, Handbook of Asia Minor , 150 ff; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire , 18 ff; Lanckoronski, Stadte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens ; Sterrett, Epigraphical Journey and Wolfe Expedition . A few inscriptions containing Pisidian names with native inflections have been published by Ramsay in Revue des universites du midi , 1895,353 ff.
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Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Pisidia'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/p/pisidia.html. 1915.
