Acts of the Apostles & Early Church History
Damascus
  
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On the road to Damascus is where Paul found Christ. As you drive into town from the airport today, in the 21st century, you realize that you could not be far from the location "nigh unto Damascus" where Paul's blinding vision had turned persecutor to apostle.

Syria's bustling capital bulges far beyond the Roman walls that ringed it in Paul's day in the first century A.D. These days, handsome apartments climb like steps up a mountainside. But a great deal remains unchanged within the ruined walls of the city. The Roman highway, the Vicus Rectus, the street called Straight, still bisects the city from east to west. Arabs call it Suq et Twil, the Long Bazaar, for it's lined with shops selling brass-ware, Persian carpets, brocades, and inlaid furniture.

Along the street Paul was led, sightless, his mind throbbing with "the glory of that light" (Acts 22:11). An underground chapel marks the site revered as the home of Ananias, who restored Paul's sight and told him, "the God of our father has chosen you." As a hunted turncoat, Paul had to escape his erstwhile friends: "And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall" (11 Corinthians 11:33).

A recent restoration purports to show the kind of window from which he was lowered. But it opens over a gate--a poor place to escape, for gates would be guarded. Houses of the old Jewish quarter are built into and atop the present wall. From one of these windows you can envision an escape  more likely to succeed. A Syrian professor has refuted this idea. "The walls," he said, "had been built for defense. Desert marauders were near at hand. Can you image the Romans allowing houses to be built along the top of a wall? St. Paul's "window" must have been an opening in the crenellated guard walk."

(Source: David Boyer, National Geographic)