Though I later found myself spellbound by The Green Pastures, I had a hard time understanding what it was talking about when first viewing it. It is a dense movie for people who are not familiar with the Bible stories; its grammar and dialect make it even more difficult to understand- pe...
Whore of Babylon, in Christianity, a portentous figure described in the apocalyptic Revelation to John. She is seen as analogous to the pagan nations and governments considered in direct opposition to the Christian faith, particularly the imperial city o
Marduk, in Mesopotamian religion, the chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia; as such, he was eventually called simply Bel, or Lord. Originally, he seems to have been a god of thunderstorms. A poem, known as Enuma elish and da
Because the city of Babylon was the capital of this area for so many centuries, the term Babylonia has come to refer to the entire culture that developed in the area from the time it was first settled, about 4000 bce. Before Babylon’s rise to political prominence (c. 1850 bce), ...
Aramaicdialectssurvived into Roman times, however, particularly in Palestine andSyria. Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews as early as the 6th centurybce. Certain portions of theBible—i.e., the books of Daniel and Ezra—are written in Aramaic, as are the Babylonian andJe...
it was not meant to settle issues involving contradictory interpretations. Almost immediately, however, Jewish scholars in Palestine and Babylonia began to elaborate extensive interpretations of the Mishna that were calledGemara. When the work was completed several centuries later, the Mishna and the Ge...
In the ancient civilizations of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt, the selection, preparation, service, and enjoyment of food were practiced on an elaborate scale. In the Book of Daniel the Bible relates the story of how Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, “made a great feast to ...