So last week we talked about Assyria.
This week, John Belts will be talking about Babylon.
Next week is Easter Sunday, so no Sunday school.
And then the following week we'll conclude with Persia.
As you know, John's a Ph.D. candidate in the Assyriology program
at the Yale Department of Near Eastern.
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
Let's open in a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to learn about your word
and to learn about your world.
We ask that you would bless John with insight.
You would help him to show us all the beautiful connections, Lord,
that the Bible has with history.
We pray that you would open our hearts to your Holy Spirit,
to work in them, Lord, and that we would not merely gain intellectual knowledge,
but knowledge of you.
We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Amen.
Okay.
Welcome, everybody.
Glad that you all decided to come back and hear me ramble on again.
So that's good.
As Tom said, we're talking about some of the different major empires
and geopolitical figures that show up in the Hebrew Bible.
And last week we talked about Assyria,
and this week we're going to talk about Babylonia,
or the Neo-Babylonian Empire,
and we'll talk a little bit about what that means.
So just a quick recap from last time.
We talked a little bit about how the ancient Israelites and the Judeans
were sort of smaller, weaker powers trapped sort of in between larger sort of superpowers of their day.
And the ones that we're focusing, so Egypt on this side,
and a series of different empires on this side.
So those are the three that we're looking at, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia.
Okay.
So we talked about that.
We talked about how even though they are sort of smaller nations that don't have a lot of power in and of themselves,
they do sort of form this land bridge between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
And so these larger powers did want to control that area.
So this is why a lot of these superpowers will have an interest in the area where Israel and Judah are,
even though they're not necessarily the biggest players on the stage.
So let's go through Assyria.
You can see me being scared again.
Babylonia.
Okay.
So let's start with three.
There's a number of different verses, several hundred verses, right,
in the Hebrew Bible that mention Babylonia specifically.
But I pulled three just to sort of talk about,
just to get us sort of started in thinking about who these people are as we encounter them in the Bible.
Right.
So in 2 Kings 25,
we first hear about how King Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem,
besieged it,
and conquered the city and sacked it
and deported a large amount of the population to Babylonia.
So Babylon appears as a very sort of like destructive force,
and this is a very traumatic event that happens in the history of Israel and Judah.
But then we hear later in the same chapter
that 37 years into his exile,
King Jehoiachin of Judah
is released under Nebuchadnezzar's successor
and allowed to sort of live in Babylon
and at least not be a prisoner,
but be,
I don't know,
someone less than,
slightly less than a prisoner,
house arrest maybe.
And then finally in Jeremiah,
and this happens a number of other places,
but again,
this is just emblematic,
where God says,
promises that he is going to destroy
Babylon
for what it's done to his people.
And he says,
as I punished the king of Assyria.
So already we're seeing this sort of a,
you know,
an idea that there is a sort of succession
of these empires.
So we have these three different sort of depictions
sort of of the Babylonians that we find in the Hebrew Bible.
One very much of destruction and trauma,
one of Judeans living in Babylonia,
and one of sort of God's retribution against Babylon
for the destruction of Jerusalem.
Okay.
So let's talk a little bit about the history of the Babylonian Empire.
As I said,
last week we talked about Assyria,
and I mentioned the sort of downfall of the Assyrian Empire.
The Assyrians were sort of projected out from their sort of main core area
and took over much of the Near East as we know it,
down into even as far as Egypt,
and were known for their excessive cruelty
and bragging about their excessive cruelty.
And eventually this sort of caught up with them
and the people of Babylonia down here
and another group called the Medes up here
sort of formed an alliance
and attacked the Assyrian heartland
and sacked all of their capital cities
and basically ended the Assyrian Empire.
So with that,
with the collapse of the Assyrian Empire,
there's sort of a power vacuum.
Somebody has to take over.
And the king of Babylonia,
Nabopolassar,
who was Nebuchadnezzar's father,
we'll get to Nebuchadnezzar in a couple minutes,
sort of begins to,
there we go,
begins to sort of reincorporate
as much of the Assyrian holdings
into his empire as he could.
This happens particularly more than
under Nebuchadnezzar II as well,
who is the biblical Nebuchadnezzar.
We call this period the Babylonian Empire.
It lasts for a little under 100 years.
Babylonia and Babylon as we know it
have been around for a good 2,000 years or so
before this.
So if in school,
if you ever learned about Hammurabi
and his famous law code,
that's back maybe during the time of Abraham.
So this is a long time before this.
But sort of like we did with Assyrian history,
I want to break down
the Neo-Babylonian Empire
into three phases
because three is a good number
and it's easy to sort of divide things
into parts of three.
So the first one is expansion and consolidation.
This is sort of in the aftermath
of the collapse of Assyria
and Nebuchadnezzar
sort of are sort of consolidating
their hold on this territory.
And this is going to cover,
again, we'll get to this
when we talk about biblical connections
in a little bit.
But this is going to cover
the period when Judah is destroyed.
Sorry, I missed this last time too.
I always forget to give the outline
of what I'm doing.
We're going to first talk about
the history of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
and then we'll go over some notes
about sort of their culture
and then finally we'll hit
with more biblical connections.
Again, I missed that last time too.
So.
So we first have this period
of expansion and consolidation.
After Nebuchadnezzar dies,
there's what we could call
sort of a revolving door of kings.
We have this king, Amal Marduk.
In the Bible, his name is rendered
in Hebrew as Evel Marodach.
And he reigns for about two years
and then we have three more kings,
two or three more kings after him
who reign for even less than that.
So it's a very, very quick turnover of kings,
usually not a good sign of stability.
And then we hit our third period
of what I've termed to be dramatic
the mad king, Nabonidus.
Nabonidus was a military commander
under Nebuchadnezzar
and he, after some of these weak kings
sort of launched a military coup,
took over,
and actually did sort of have
a relatively lengthy reign
even though he was sort of
an elderly man already by that point.
He and sort of his son Belshazzar
also did some of the ruling at that point.
There may have been a co-regency
between them for a little bit.
The reason I call him the mad king
is that he seems to have had
a particular,
we'll get into this
with Babylonian culture a little bit.
But he seems to have had
a particular fascination
with the moon god
and sort of really pushed
the worship of the moon god
over and above
some of the other deities
that were more common
in Babylonia.
And this may have put him at odds
with some of the priesthood
of some of these different gods
and other sort of powerful figures
in Babylonian society.
He also campaigned down into Tema,
which is today in Saudi Arabia,
and spent a number of years living there,
which is when he left his son Belshazzar
as sort of either a co-regent
or a governor in Babylonia itself.
And historians are a little divided
as to why he ran away
to the Arabian desert
for several years.
Some people who really lean into the idea
that he was like a mad king
really think that he had,
you know,
some kind of religious epiphany
that like he was just like,
I need to go to the desert
and worship the moon god.
Other people think,
I think that it's more likely
that he's trying to control
certain trade routes
that came up through.
Down,
okay,
off the screen,
in Yemen today,
right?
There's a trade in frankincense
and spice
that would,
moves up through this area here.
And this was becoming
a real lucrative trade
at this point.
Think like oil today,
right?
You can control an oil pipeline,
right?
This is one of the things now
with the Russia and Ukraine thing
is,
you know,
if people cut off,
anyway,
modern geopolitics.
We'll stick with Babylon.
I'm better with Babylonian geopolitics.
So he,
it's possible
that he may have wanted
to control
some of these trade routes
in spice
because that's a very,
would have provided
a lot of wealth.
But at any rate,
he stayed there
for a number of years
and then
ended up returning
to Babylon.
But later,
later,
Babylonian authors
who wrote about this
sort of portrayed him
as,
as kind of a mad king
who angered the gods
by pursuing this other cult
and stuff like that.
So there were a lot of people,
even in Babylon itself,
who really didn't like him.
And so when we get to,
do I have a slide here?
Oh,
we'll come back to that.
So basically,
the end of
the Babylonian empire
will come when
the,
and we'll hit this again
next time,
more in detail,
but when the Medes,
again,
team up with a different group,
the Persians,
actually the Persians
team up with the Medes,
if you want to look at it
that way,
that Persians take over
the Medes.
But a guy named,
by the name of Cyrus,
who is the king
of the Persians,
invades Babylonia
and probably,
seems to have had
a pretty easy time
conquering it
and it's thought
that there were
a lot of people
who wanted a turnover
of regime
after Nabonidus' reign.
So,
Cyrus will take over
and inaugurate
the Persian empire,
which we'll look at
next time.
So this is a,
it's a fairly short,
again,
moving from about
the 620s
to the 530s
BC,
right?
So that's just
90-ish years
for an empire.
It's not very,
not very long
compared to the Assyrians
who had a couple
hundred years
under their belt.
But it's incredibly
influential,
partly because of
some of the things
that they do,
such as sacking Jerusalem,
which, of course,
ends up in the Bible
and we have it today.
But I wanted to
next look at
some things about
Babylonian culture.
So these are
some different
clay tablets
that we have here
in the Babylonian
collection at Yale.
I showed,
when we did
the Assyrians,
I showed some
clay objects
before with
writing on,
so these have
a writing system
called cuneiform
on them,
which is written
with signs
that are sort of
these little
triangular wedge
shapes
that are incised
into clay.
And I should have
put a better
view of what
that looks like,
but I didn't.
We'll have to
look at these.
And this is
what I spend
a lot of my
time looking at,
are these
beautiful objects
that some people
think look like
rocks and some
people think
look like
cookies.
But I had a
picture,
every now and
then I'll post
a picture online
of myself
holding a tablet
and someone
will be like,
oh, wow,
did you bake
cookies?
No, no.
No, it's not
a cookie.
But I do see
the resemblance.
It's fair.
Anyway, so
this is what
a lot of
these big
empires in
Mesopotamia
wrote on.
They wrote on
these tablets
of clay
with this
sort of
impressing
these sort
of wedge-shaped
signs into
them.
And the
Babylonians in
particular had
a very rich
culture in
this.
So much
so that
they
were in
many ways
more culturally
powerful than
Assyria.
So the
Assyrians
actually would,
when they
were the
big power
on the
scene,
would actually
imitate
Babylonian
culture.
So they
would import
Babylonian
literature and
scribes and
ideologies and
different things
like that.
And even in
some of the
royal inscriptions
that the
Assyrian kings
made, they
would imitate
the language
of Babylonia
because it
always just
had more of
a cultural
force to
it.
But the
Babylonians
were, like
the Assyrians,
also very
militarily
powerful.
They
practiced, we
talked about
with the
Assyrians, how
they practiced
sort of this
form of
mutual deportation
as part of
their sort
of campaign
of terror and
psychological
warfare that
they would
take people
from one
side of
their empire
and move
them to
the other
once they
would conquer
a place.
And this
had the
effect of
breaking up
people's
attachment to
land, the
ability to
resist and
fight back.
The Babylonians
did something
similar, except
they practiced
what we sometimes
call one-way
deportation, which
is they would
take people from
an area like
Judah when they
conquered it, and
they would just
move them into
their heartland.
It's thought
that they may
have had a
labor shortage, and
they were trying
to get an
influx of
people who
could then
become workers,
so they would
forcibly move
people closer
to their
heartland.
Here we are.
So as I
said, culturally
the Babylonians
were very
powerful, and
they have, so
a lot of the
major literary
works that
come out of
Babylonia, or
sorry, that
come out of
Mesopotamia are
Babylonian in
origin.
So if you
ever had to
read the
Epic of
Gilgamesh, for
example, in
like a high
school literature
class or
something, world
lit, this is a
tablet from that
epic.
This particular
copy is actually
a lot older than
the period we're
talking about.
This is closer to
Hammurabi's time,
right?
So that's closer to
Abraham.
So there's a
creation myth
called Numa
Elish that was
Babylonian and
very popular, a
flood story about
a guy named
Atrahasis who
survives a
worldwide flood,
lots of, again,
really interesting
literature that
comes out of
Babylonia.
And I,
oops, hit my
mic, and I in
particular like
working with
literary sources.
last week we
also talked about
the Assyrian king
and how the
Assyrian king was
sort of the
high priest of
the Assyrian
chief god
Ashur, and so
he had a lot of
like autocratic,
authoritarian power
that came out of
that.
The Babylonian king
had a little bit of
a different
relationship with
the priesthood
around him.
He was not the
high priest of the
Babylonian chief
deity whose name
was Marduk,
not Marmaduke,
that's the comic
from the newspaper.
So he was still
very authoritarian,
very much in
control, but the
priesthood of
Marduk and of
other individual
deities also had a
significant amount
of power.
And again, think
back to Nabonidus
who really wanted
to stress a
particular god and
other priests
didn't like that,
and he was still
able to force them
to go along with
it, but when they
had a chance to
take an out,
they did.
And the power
of this priesthood
also comes from
the fact that
a lot of,
in Mesopotamia,
they,
sorry, in
Babylonia in
particular,
there were large,
temples were not
just like our
equivalent of a
church, right?
Temples in
Babylonia specifically
were often large
estates.
They controlled
vast amounts of
agricultural land
and the income
from that land,
and so there's
people, for example,
who are economic
historians who just
dig into that whole
system and how that
worked, and I don't
know enough about
money to do that.
I just know that it
was very powerful,
and it gave them a
lot of ability to
affect society and
to affect sort of
the way things
where it is, where
they derived a lot
of their power
from that meant
that they could
keep the king in
check sometimes.
So one final
example on that
is that the,
one of the
projects that
took place in
these Babylonian
temples was a
series of
astronomical
observation
projects.
So from about
the, we think,
from about the
600s down to
about the turn
of the era,
every night
Babylonian priests
would go up to
the top of
their, these
temples, which
were sort of
these big kind
of stepped
pyramid-looking
things, and
they would take
observations of
where different
planets were in
the sky, and if
they saw a
comet, and if
there were, what
the weather was
like, and all
these different
things.
And, so this
is a whole side
thing I could
give a whole
thing on, but
they were able
to sort of
create the
beginnings of
mathematical
observational
astronomy.
And so if
you look at,
for example,
the later
Greek
astronomer
Ptolemy,
when he wrote
his big book
of astronomy,
the Almagist,
he has a bunch
of charts in
the back of
it that give
a whole bunch
of data and
numbers about
things.
And he says,
I got this
data from, he
calls them
Chaldean priests,
he means
Babylonian
priests.
And it's very
clear from the
data he has
that he got
it from them.
And that book
is considered
one of the
foundations of
the beginnings
of Western
astronomy.
So if you
like astronomy,
you have
Babylonian
priests in
some sense
to thank for
that.
But they
were able to
continue doing
these observations
even when there
were regime
changes, even
when the
Assyrians would
come in and
conquer Babylon,
even when
later the
Persians came
in and later
Alexander the
Great came in
and conquered.
These Babylonian
priests, their
temples had
enough autonomy
that they were
able to just
kind of keep
doing this
astronomy project
for several
hundred years.
It's actually
the longest
running human
research project.
So, you
know, and
this tablet
that I'm
holding here
is actually
an astronomical
it's not one
of the diaries.
I think it's
one of the
if I remember
I think it's
a predictive
text, a text
where they're
actually going
through and
trying to say
like okay if
that planet's
here at this
time and
here at that
time then at
this time it's
going to be
there.
So, yeah.
John, is that
the background
for the Magi
viewing star
in Matthew,
the Chaldeans
who are
observing the
heavens?
It very well
could be.
There's a lot
of debate
about who
the Magi
were that
come and
visit Jesus
in the
Gospel of
Matthew but
yeah, the
possibilities for
that range
from Persian
astronomers who
would have
gotten their
data also from
Babylonians to
maybe Babylonians
themselves who
were still doing
astronomical
projects at that
time.
We just don't
know.
But it's a
possibility.
So a lot of
biblical
connections here
mostly because of
the Babylonian
exile.
As I said,
you know,
at the end
of the Book
of Kings,
the Kingdom
of Judah
finally ends
up succumbing
to Babylonian
conquest.
The Assyrians
before them had
never actually
managed,
if you remember
from last week,
had never
managed to
actually fully
conquer
Judah.
They had
tried under
Sennacherib and
we talked about
that invasion and
how that may or
may not have
gone.
according to
Sennacherib and
in the Bible.
And Nebuchadnezzar,
at first, it
seems like he
may not have
initially wanted
to fully conquer
Judah.
It seems that,
again, because
they're here and
they're on that
highway that sort
of runs between
his empire and
Egypt, a lot of
historians think
that he may have
intended to
simply just,
he wanted the
Judeans to be
on his side
as a buffer
state against
Egypt so that
the Egyptians
couldn't come
and cut into
his empire.
But the
Judeans didn't
really want to
do that and
seemed more
likely to cut a
deal with the
Egyptians.
And so he just
decided the
easiest thing in
that case was
just to conquer
them.
So from a
geopolitical
perspective,
that's how we
get the
Babylonian exile.
And this is,
again, one of
the most pivotal
events in the
shaping of what
will then become
early Judaism.
And a lot of
the biblical
books that we
have come from
this time period.
a lot of
prophets, for
example, I've
just listed
Jeremiah and
Ezekiel here
who write at
that time.
Jeremiah kind
of, he gets
the, he sees
where things are
going.
He says,
look, he
says, we
can't be cutting
a deal with
Egypt, right?
We, you
know, God
wants us to
just lay
low.
If the
Babylonians want
us to do
their thing,
let them do
their thing.
And
interestingly, it
seems that when
you look at the
things that the
people, the other
people who are
speaking against
Jeremiah say,
they reference the
earlier campaigns
by Sennacherib,
not so much in
directly, but
they have this
idea that they're
like, well, the
Assyrians couldn't
take Jerusalem,
so what do we
think the
Babylonians are
going to do?
God won't let
anything bad
happen to us.
And Jeremiah
says, well, that's
not how things
work.
So Ezekiel, also
writing in the
same time, actually
writing in exile.
He was a
priest who was, a
Judean priest who
was taken into
exile.
So he is probably
actually writing from
Babylon itself and
delivering his
oracles from there.
He works, he's, a
lot of his oracles
come at this
interesting time when
some of the
people have been
taken initially and
Nebuchadnezzar is
hoping that like
this, the Judeans
will kind of get
in line and he
won't have to do
anything more.
And he hasn't
actually had to
come in and
destroy the city
yet.
So Ezekiel writes
at this interesting
time when he's
kind of, at least a
lot of his
material, partway
through his career
the whole city
gets destroyed.
But his early
career, there's a
lot of stuff where
he talks about,
you know, sort
of like, guys,
I'm in exile and
if you don't get
your act together
you're going to
be here too.
So we sort of, we
see the whole thing
in process.
Daniel and his
friends are also
said to have been
taken into exile by
Nebuchadnezzar,
right, especially in
Daniel 1.
You read about them
being taken there
and not being
trained in all the
different, in all
the Babylonian
culture, right, so
their literature and
they probably learned
some Babylonian
astronomy and all
this stuff, right?
And the historical
work that is the
Book of Kings, right,
since it ends right
with the exile, the
exile, or right
around the exile,
seems to have been
sort of something that
was compiled and
written sort of
around that time as
a way of explaining
to people, like,
guys, this is why
we were taken into
exile.
If we look back
through our history,
we can see how we
consistently didn't
follow God, and he
told us we're not
going to get to stay
in our land if we
don't follow him, and
then here we are, the
exile.
So it serves this
sort of purpose of
explaining how they
got where they were,
right, which is a lot
of good history does
that.
Interestingly, too,
again, looking at
things in my field,
there's also, just a
few years ago, there
were a number of
texts published from a
site called Al-Yehudu,
which in Babylonian just
means the, like, Judah
city, city of Judah.
And it's from a place
that seems to be, it's
right in the heartland
of Babylonia, and
there's a number of
people there who have
names that sound an
awful lot like good
Judean names.
And so we can
actually see some of
these people who are
living in exile.
And I know some
people who work on
these texts, and it's
very interesting.
They have a lot of,
we get to see that, I
mean, a lot of these
texts are things like
loan contracts and
marriage contracts and,
you know, the minutiae
of life, right?
We don't have, like,
hello, I'm a Judean
exile, and my name is
Bill.
And, you know, we don't
get that, unfortunately.
But we do get their
financial records, which
is kind of fun, and we
can sort of begin to
reconstruct aspects of
what life may have been
like for them in exile.
So that's really
exciting.
Yeah, I think that's
basically, I talked
about Amal Marduk,
Evel Marodach, releasing
Yehoiachin, the Judean
king, a little bit
already at the
beginning, right?
So this is another
example of somebody who
gets to sort of live,
you know, a Judean who's
taken into captivity, but
then gets to sort of live
in Babylonia.
So again, to draw it
back to where we
started, with these sort
of three themes of
Babylonia, right?
Babylon as the
destroyer of Jerusalem,
Babylon as a place
where Judeans now live,
right?
In fact, until the
20th century, really,
there was a huge, huge
Jewish community that
lived in Babylonia,
right?
The Babylonian Talmud,
one of the major works
of Rabbinic Judaism,
was compiled in
Mesopotamia at a much
later time than this,
right?
This is a couple
centuries after Christ.
But that Babylonian
Jewish community gets its
start from these exiles
because when they get a
chance to go back, not
everybody goes back.
And finally, then, as we
touched on a little bit
and we'll hit next time,
Babylon will suffer
punishment from the Judean
perspective of what it's
done to Jerusalem, just as
Assyria suffers punishment.
So, okay, that's all I have
for this week.
Questions?
Yeah?
Under what king was the
Hanging Gardens of
Babylon built and did the
Hanging Gardens of
Babylon really exist?
Great question.
So, according to, so the
Hanging Gardens of
Babylon are something that
we know of specifically
from Greek historians who
were writing a little bit
after this period, often in
the Persian period, right?
And so, and they
attribute it to, if I
remember correctly, whoops,
why did I go there?
They attribute it
specifically to
Nebuchadnezzar, right?
Archaeologically, we
haven't found anything in
Babylon that seems to be
something like this.
There is an Assyriologist
who has suggested that
actually the, that the
Hanging Gardens of
Babylon were actually in
Assyria and that it was an
Assyrian king who built
them.
And she thinks there's a
specific part of the
archaeological site of
Nineveh, which hasn't been
fully dug, that might have
these gardens in them.
It's a theory that some
Assyriologists agree with and
some don't.
I haven't, I haven't looked at
it enough to know what I
think.
I know, I think my advisor
doesn't buy it, but it has
some strengths, it has some
weaknesses.
But yeah, it's probably
based on something.
I'll put it that way.
Yeah, Tom?
I just wanted to point out the
start of the Jewish community
in Babylon, that in the area
where I studied, like the
ancient Near East and the
medieval period, there's still
tons of Jews living in what
was Babylonia.
Now we call it Iraq, but like in
the 7th, 8th century, you get
Persian kings talking about this
huge Jewish community.
So that started 1200, or like
you said, I mean, even until
the 1930s, there were lots of
Jews still living there.
Yeah.
It lasted like 2,500 years.
Yeah.
That community.
It's a long time.
Yeah, your stuff is a lot
closer to the Babylonian town
than my stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was, I mean, it
wasn't just for a period, it
wasn't just a Jewish community.
There was a period where it
was like the Jewish community,
where it was the most powerful,
most educated Jewish community
in the world for hundreds of
years.
There's another question in
here somewhere, I think.
Yeah.
So this may be beyond what you,
but obviously Genesis 11, you
have a Tower of Babel, and then
you have this place later called
Babylon.
Is there a relationship
archaeologically, historically,
biblically?
Yeah, so it's...
This is hotly debated as well,
as I think you know.
Yeah.
So there is a connection
between the name, right?
Babel, Babylon.
There's different sort of
etymologies that, you know,
ancient people love coming up
with...
Well, even we do this today as
well.
I shouldn't say ancient people do
this, but people love coming up
with etymologies for how things,
where words come from, right?
So the Babylonians, for example,
said that Babel, which is how
they pronounce Babylon, right?
Actually, Babylon is how the
Greeks pronounced it, right?
So it's really Babel, right?
But they said Babel comes from
Bab-ili.
And Babu in Akkadian is gate,
Elu is God.
So Bab-ili is gate of the gods.
And so that's how...
That's what they etymologize it as.
The...
In the Bible, right,
we get this story about
how it comes from a root meaning
to mix, right?
Because it's where God
mixed up the languages.
So we don't know exactly
what site is being referred to
by the Tower of Babel narrative,
whether it's Babylon itself.
Some people will suggest
that it might be something
in one of the Assyrian capitals.
We're not quite sure.
It's hotly debated.
Sure.
John, is it fair to say
that some of this stuff,
before the Neo-Babylian Empire,
when we get to the time
of, quote, the Tower of Babel,
we're dealing with, like,
the mists of history here.
Like, this is so far back
that we have...
Right.
And this is...
We don't have cuneiform tablets
that even would have gone
back that far, right?
Like, two...
I guess maybe...
Well, back as far...
So we get cuneiform writing
as far back as, like,
3,200.
Okay.
Right.
So pretty far back.
But we also just keep in mind,
it's also very spotty.
Right?
So sometimes we're like,
oh, we have a huge archives,
but it's only economic tech.
It's all receipts.
Right?
So we're like,
well, we know what the city
looked like,
and we know what people
were buying and selling there,
but we don't know
anything else, right?
Or sometimes we'll dig up something
and we'll get something
that I like,
which is literary texts.
And then we're like,
oh, well, we know what...
At least the scribes,
anyway, were reading.
And maybe what stories
people were telling each other.
But what do you go from that?
So there's a lot
of different things.
And this is where
it gets interesting,
you know,
in trying to...
as readers of the Bible,
when we look at this kind of stuff,
because we have both, like,
what we read in the Bible
and what we do with it theologically,
and we also have
what we can sort of talk about,
what we can verify historically,
where things overlap.
Part of the reason
I've focused on the periods
that I've focused on here
is because we actually have
a lot more sources
that allow us to sort of
line these things up together
and then sort of look
at how they're interacting
a little bit more so.
I mean, we have things
from earlier periods,
don't get me wrong.
But there's plenty of gaps
in there
where certain things
can be happening, right?
Like, we don't have Abraham
attested in a cuneiform document,
even though we probably have
documents from the time period...
We have documents
from the time period
when he lived.
It's just...
the ones we happened to find
don't mention him.
Or maybe because he was living
sort of as a nomad,
and he may not have shown up
in those records, right?
So there's a lot of things
like this that we sort of
have to take into account.
And this goes in, I think,
also with the Tower of Babel
narrative as well,
is, you know,
they can be referring
to something that we
simply may not have
the text for.
Yeah?
Do you think because of the...
Okay, whoever was king
at the time,
or whatever empire
was in power,
that money was more
the focus,
and that's why you're saying
some records that only
contain receipts,
power over money?
Sort of.
So one of the things
is that, like,
when we think of writing...
Because we write everything,
right?
I mean,
I wrote my notes,
you know?
I still write, too,
even though there's computers.
Exactly.
Well, whether we're typing
or writing by hand,
like, the written word
is such a huge part
of our lives.
But when we look
at the development,
particularly in Mesopotamia,
the development of writing,
it's very much centered
around administration.
So most of the very early sources
we have,
these things from, like,
you know, 3,100
up through the 2,000s,
a lot of that is...
And even beyond that,
a lot of what we have
are these sort of economic
and administrative records,
simply because that's...
You know, accounting
was one of the main things
they used it for.
And so it's...
I think even today,
if we looked at, you know...
If we actually kept
all the receipts that we got
and didn't just throw them out
like I always do
instead of being better
at my own personal accounting,
right?
Like, we might have,
in many cases, like,
if we looked at all the paper
we have,
we might actually have
a lot more receipts
than we do, you know,
novels, right?
So if we actually kept
every single one
from every transaction.
And so this is, you know...
I think I might have mentioned
this a little bit last time, too,
but because they wrote
on clay, you know,
especially if it's fired
or even if it's just sun-dried,
right?
You have something that is...
Especially if it's fired,
you have something
that's essentially
as robust as your coffee cup,
as your coffee mug, right?
But that you bury it
in the ground,
it's going to survive.
So because they wrote
on a very durable material,
we have a lot of this stuff
that still survives.
Whereas if...
When they start writing
on papyrus and parchment
in the Persian period,
we start losing sources
as historians
because a lot of that stuff
just disintegrates over time.
Got it.
Thank you.
I'm curious,
what are the...
Are there estimates
on how much is yet
to be dug up
out of the ground?
Probably a lot.
It's hard to sort of estimate
what you don't have
or how much you don't know.
Well, like you said,
there was a site in Nineveh
that is known to exist
that just hasn't been dug up.
Like, is that...
Are there many such sites?
Yes.
So there are a number
of sites and parts of sites.
The other thing, too,
is a lot of times
when a site...
When an archaeological site
is dug,
especially if it's a big one
like Nineveh,
they focus on certain areas
of the site
because you can't really...
Unless you just trash the site,
you can't scientifically
excavate a whole area
unless you have, you know,
millions and millions
of dollars
and all kinds of logistics
and stuff like that, right?
So there's a lot of...
There's still a lot of areas
that still need to be dug up.
One of the...
One of the complicating factors
is that we have
not only, you know,
archaeological excavations
that dig things up,
but looters,
especially in the wake
of the Second Gulf War
and ISIS
and the Syrian Civil War.
There are a lot of sites
throughout this whole area here,
especially,
that you can see...
I've seen satellite images,
right?
And they'll show you,
you know,
before some of this stuff
and, you know,
three years later.
And you have what looks
like a nice hill
in the before
and in the after
it's just pockmarked.
And you can tell
that you've had looters
in there with
sometimes shovels,
sometimes backhoes,
right?
just digging stuff up
to sell in the black market.
And as a historian,
it's heart-rending.
I feel for the people as well
because the reason
they're doing it
is because they need
to make money
to feed their families
and there's a war on.
But it's heart-rending
because that's a lot of...
Sometimes this material
does come to light
and scholars do get
to look at it.
But a lot of the
valuable information
about where it comes from,
you know,
was it found in, like,
some sort of
administrative building
or a palace archive
or someone's private home?
This is all information
that historians can use
to help tell us more
about what's going on.
And we lose all that information
if someone just takes it
and then sells it somewhere.
Yeah.
The Bible records,
you know,
Daniel being brought over
to Babylon.
We know about the writing
on the wall.
To me,
spectacular things
in terms of,
you know,
Daniel surviving
in the lion's den
and the fire of the darkness
and the writing on the wall
and all that other stuff,
which is in the Bible.
Now, my question to you is,
is there anything
in the Babylonian literature
or archaeological findings
that verify that?
Yeah.
Not a lot specifically.
It's not necessarily
the kind of thing
that if it happened,
a Babylonian king
is going to have put
in their records.
right?
Like,
I got really mad
at one of my courtiers
and I threw him
in a lion's den,
but he wasn't eaten
and now I feel
a little bit chagrined.
You know,
like,
this stuff doesn't end up
in their records.
There's some people
who have suggested,
you know,
there's the story
where Nebuchadnezzar
goes insane
for a couple of years
and people have debated
about,
you know,
somebody even fairly recently
in a seriologist
has written suggesting
that, you know,
because there are gaps
when we don't have
a lot of sources
from Nebuchadnezzar's reign
and we are always
asking the question
of, like,
was,
is that just because
we don't have sources
for those,
you know,
just luck of the draw,
luck of what we did
or didn't dig up
or was,
did he actually have
some sort of
mental breakdown
at some point?
So that is a possibility.
Some people also connect
that more with Nabonidus
and the sort of
mad king tradition.
Even though, again,
it's a different king,
so there's a problem there,
right?
But,
yeah,
so we don't have
a lot of it.
It is interesting
in Daniel
that Belshazzar,
Nabonidus' son,
shows up
as the last king
before the Persians
come in,
right?
So,
which,
which is reflected
in,
in the historical text,
the fact that we have
Belshazzar
ruling
either as a co-regent
or as a governor
under
his father,
Nabonidus.
So,
I think it's interesting
that that
shows up
as something
that comes through
in Daniel
that doesn't
come through
some of the
other sources
because we didn't
know this
until,
or we didn't
have evidence
of this
in the cuneiform
records,
I should say,
until about 50
years ago.
Yeah,
Tom.
John,
I wanted to ask you
about the genre
of history
because you're
talking about
different genres
that are referenced
in the cuneiform
tablets,
so receipts
and then some
mythological,
fictional writings
or mythological
writings or stories
people would tell,
but in terms of
the genre that we
would call
history writing,
I've heard at least
that that's kind of
a relatively new
genre as far as
human civilization
is concerned.
It didn't come about
until more recently
than we would think,
and that,
so I guess I'm
wondering about the
Babylonians.
Did they do that?
Did they just have
some list of dates?
I know they had
date lists and stuff,
but did they actually
say,
the king went and
did this because
of the following
reasons,
but the right,
you know,
like a full-blown
historical narrative,
or does that genre
not even exist yet
in Babylonian?
Yeah,
so this is also
a hotly debated
question.
You know,
when does history
writing start?
When do we go
from just sort of
recording dates
when things happen
to sort of
giving a narrative,
giving an interpretation
for what happened?
I mean,
in the Greek tradition,
right,
Herodotus is usually
called the father
of history,
and he's writing
in, you know,
the mid-Persian period.
So...
That's like 450,
right,
what's that?
Yeah,
something like that.
Yeah.
So the Cineiform tradition
often in historiographical
circles gets a lot
of flack for
having texts
that are mostly
like,
in this date,
I went and I conquered
this city,
in that date,
I went and conquered
this,
that other city,
right,
and not having
like a narrative
historiographical tradition.
I tend to think,
though,
and I have not
studied this
as in depth
as I would like,
I've not published
on it,
but I tend to think
that some of their
historiographical texts
do contain
a lot of
implicit,
implicit but intended
interpretation.
This idea that,
you know,
sure,
he's listing
places that he went
and places that he conquered,
but he's doing that
to tell a narrative.
He's doing that
to say,
like,
look,
we all know
that,
like,
these are,
the first few places
that I go
are places
where most of
my forefathers,
the kings before me,
have gone,
but the later places
are all places
that seemed,
like,
almost mythological
to us
until my reign
when I went there
and conquered them,
right?
So,
look at me being
the most advanced
of all kings
out there,
you know.
So,
there's,
which,
again,
it's still a very
simple narrative.
It's self-aggrandizing.
There's also other texts
that are less
pro-royal.
Some of these ones,
again,
that we'll get
that present
Nabonidus
as sort of a mad king
will sort of
are presenting,
like,
well,
there was a bad king
who angered the gods
and made all the people
unhappy,
and then there was
a good king
who came in
from the outside
and initiated
a regime change
and a set of reforms
and everybody was happy,
right?
Like,
that's a narrative.
Again,
very simple narrative,
but it's a narrative.
So,
I think it's there
more than,
more than we,
more than we traditionally
have thought,
but there's a lot
of,
a lot of that
sort of
self-awareness
that we tend
to think of
more with the
Greek tradition
and later,
I think is,
I think is there
in the Kineoform tradition,
but they,
they have a different
way of talking
about it.
And I have a lot
more,
like,
longer thoughts
on that
in a number
of different genres
that we can
talk about later,
but I don't want to
bore everybody
with my thoughts
on that.
So,
when we preached
through Daniel
a couple years ago,
you start with Daniel 1,
and there's a group
of young men
who seem particularly
who were brought in
and given a particular
place in the,
in the,
the court,
so to speak.
Like,
they're brought in,
it seems like
they're being groomed
to become insiders
in a global
sort of,
you know,
ruler system
where they might be
then appointed
to governors
to go back.
Is there actual
historical evidence
or is that just
biblical,
you know,
inference?
I think,
I can't think
of as many,
like,
Neo-Babylonian
examples,
but I can think
of some
Assyrian examples,
for example,
where the Assyrians
would take,
especially when,
when the Assyrians
were trying to control
Babylonia because
they had a really
hard time with it.
Part of it was because
Babylonia was another
superpower and it's hard
for a superpower
to control another
superpower.
And part of it
is also that,
again,
like I said,
the Assyrians
respected and admired
Babylonian culture
and so it's kind of
hard to sort of
say,
like,
well,
we're better than
you,
but also we really
like your culture.
Can we have your,
like,
literature and music
and things?
You know,
so they had a hard
time controlling
Babylonia.
One of the ways
that they would
try to do it
is they would get,
you know,
they'd have,
like,
the son of a
Babylonian king
and they would
raise him in the
Assyrian court,
right?
And then they would
send him back in,
like,
if his father got,
you know,
a mind of his own
to start trying to
do things independently,
they'd go in,
take out the dad
and then send in
the son and be like,
hey,
you know,
you like us,
right?
We've been on
hunting trips together,
you know,
and then they would
send him in there
and then they would
have him,
you know,
take over the throne.
It didn't seem to
work very well.
That son,
when he got a chance,
usually also rebelled,
but they tried.
And we know that
similar things happened
right in,
like,
medieval Europe,
right?
You had sort of,
like,
hostages,
like,
political hostages
in medieval Europe
were often,
you know,
sons or daughters
of people
and you wanted
to keep them in check.
So there probably
is something similar
going on there
with Daniel
and his friends
and,
you know,
even again,
like,
we can include,
like,
Ezekiel,
not so,
Ezekiel isn't in the
court,
but he is sort of a,
he's a priest.
He's a higher person
in culture
who is sort of
taken out
partly so that
his influence
is removed
from the culture itself
and also maybe
with the idea
that he'll learn,
you know,
the way we do things
and then,
you know,
if we send him back
or if he has the chance
to advise people,
you know,
things like that.
So with that,
the priests,
what was the idea
of bringing a priest
into Babylon?
Was it to retrain them
in how to be a priest
but for,
like,
Marduk
or one of these
other cults?
Not necessarily.
It's more that,
so,
we have to think
about priests
in this culture
as not just,
not just,
like,
pastors,
for example,
right,
but as sort of
probably some of
the most educated people
so that the people
who,
like,
who know how to
write really well,
who know all of
the different sort of,
they know all the laws,
right,
but if you go to a priest,
you know,
if you needed to consult
on issues of legal matter,
like,
they would either know
it themselves
or be able to point you
in the right direction,
right,
like,
they had a much wider
role in society.
There's,
again,
even to use the Babylonian
example again,
right,
so we had,
I mentioned these Babylonian
temples are like these
giant estates,
right,
so you have people
who are priests
or we consider them
priests,
but their job is,
like,
administer,
administrating,
administering the,
the temple's farmland,
right,
and sort of making sure
that,
like,
you know,
all the tenant farmers,
you know,
stay in check
and pay the right amount
of stuff to the temple
and,
but they're priests,
you know.
They were,
like,
businessmen and lawyers also.
Yeah.
Or you can think again of,
in the medieval world,
like,
the way,
the way that the,
the Catholic Church worked,
in some senses,
where you had,
you know,
certain bishops or things,
people like that,
who had,
like,
large,
you know,
amounts of land and,
you know,
or,
or had positions in what we
would consider the secular
world and had a lot of
control,
power and control in the
secular world.
Yeah.
A question about,
I don't know if this is
called the Rusev,
but,
does Egil and Daniel
refer,
as they write,
I,
like,
pronoun wise?
Is it safe to assume
that they would have used
the clay,
kind of,
in what form would they
be writing,
like,
that big chunks of text?
Yeah,
that's a good question.
So,
we do know that
the,
the cuneiform writing
on,
on clay is,
is happening mostly
in this area,
at that time.
In earlier periods,
back before the Assyrians,
in the first week when we
talked about the late
Bronze Age,
everybody here was using
cuneiform.
One of the things that
happens,
that starts happening
actually in,
in the,
the Assyrian period,
possibly earlier,
is that a lot of these
areas in,
actually definitely earlier
than that,
a lot of these areas in here
start using
an alphabetic script
to write some of their
own languages.
That script develops
into what
is then used for Hebrew
and Phoenician
and a couple other
languages,
right?
So,
they start using
precursors of that script.
By the time we get
to
Ezekiel and Daniel
and,
and some,
and
his friends and so forth,
there's a pretty long
tradition of at least
a good couple hundred
years of people writing
this Hebrew alphabetic
script in this area
here.
And this is probably
why we don't have as
many records from them
because most of those
records would have been
on papyrus or parchment
and they decay and we
don't have them.
We do know this was
happening because we do
have some stone
inscriptions that were
made and we have,
they would take little
shards of pottery
and then they would
write on those as sort
of like post-it notes,
right?
Because the little bits
of pottery are
everywhere,
you know,
so you just pick one
up off the ground
and you write yourself
a note,
you know,
and we have some of
those because those
survive.
So,
we know that they
were writing on that
and during this time
in the late Assyrian
period and into the
Neo-Babylonian period,
a lot of people in
some of these different
areas here are beginning
to write more in this
alphabetic script.
A number of different
reasons have been
suggested for that.
Some people suggest
that they simply may
have preferred learning
a script with 22
characters rather than
a script that had
several hundred.
Maybe,
maybe not,
I don't know.
But,
I would have to,
so I would think
that,
to answer your
question,
I would have to
think that Daniel
probably would have
been trained in how
to write in
cuneiform.
But,
if he's writing
things that go into
the book of Daniel,
those he's probably
writing in,
in using the
alphabetic script.
And Ezekiel,
I don't know if
Ezekiel would have
ever learned cuneiform.
Maybe,
maybe not.
But,
he probably would have
been able to write
in Hebrew.
With that,
when,
when would
widespread literacy
come to the
Hebrew people as
a whole?
Because,
by the time we
get to Ezra,
one of the big
issues with
intermarrying,
seems like,
is that they're
not teaching their
kids how to read
our,
our religious
works.
And that's,
that's a big
problem.
And so,
about,
because like,
I think a lot of
us have this,
maybe,
misconception that
like,
oh,
ancient peoples,
they didn't know
anything because
they couldn't read.
are we
mistaken in that?
And like,
when would they
have really
focused on the
literacy,
especially for
that religious
aspect?
So,
if I remember
right,
and I could be
wrong about this,
but if I remember
correctly,
in Ezra and Nehemiah,
the issue with the
language is not so
much that the kids
are learning how to
write it or read it,
but that they're not
learning how to
speak it.
Ah,
okay.
Right?
So,
because they're,
if they're intermarried
with these other
people groups who
speak different
languages,
the thought is that,
you know,
the other parent is
teaching them a
different language.
And so,
they're either not
learning Hebrew or
they're learning Hebrew
with an accent.
Right?
Yeah.
Literacy is a tricky
issue in the ancient
world.
Again,
because we have the
text,
we don't necessarily
have the people who
read the texts.
There seems to
probably have been
different levels of
literacy.
So,
some people,
like,
for example,
scribes probably
were like,
scribes and priests
very,
very good at
reading and
writing.
Right?
Those are the
people who could
write you one of
these.
Yeah.
But then there
probably were people
who could read
and write their
own name,
could read and
write small,
short letters.
Some of the
economic documents
that we have from
certain periods,
there's one period
in particular
in Assyria,
but from a much
older period,
where we have a
lot of documents
that are letters
written between
merchants.
And some people
have suggested
that these
merchants,
because of the
really intimate
details they're
talking about
with each other,
and sometimes
between merchants
and their wives,
if the merchants
are away from
home and they're
writing back to
their wives,
that both these
merchants and
their wives
might not be
working through
an intermediary
scribe,
but might be
writing,
actually taking
a chunk of
clay and writing
a letter
themselves to
each other,
just because
of some of
the intimate
details that
they're sharing
with each
other.
And so in
those cases,
it seems like
those people
who were sort
of like maybe
upper middle
class or
something like
that,
at least were
able to
function with
these more
rudimentary
documents,
but not
necessarily,
I mean,
they would not
have been able
to write that,
might be able
to read part
of it.
So there's
different levels
to literacy
as well.
I want to
just go back
to the
cultural aspects.
Were the
Babylonians
interested in
cultural acquisition
or were they
looking to
cross-pollinate
ideas and if
that was the
case,
then do we
have any
evidence in
any of the
artworks of
any of the
cross-pollination?
Or were they
looking to
stamp out
whatever the
other culture
was?
Yeah,
so they,
this is a
trickier one,
I think.
The Babylonians
in particular,
I think,
were a little
bit,
they were not
as interested
in taking
stuff from
other cultures
and using
it.
But I
don't know
how sort
of like
hegemonic
they were
about it.
I don't,
so for
example,
when they
conquer
Jerusalem,
they don't
rebuild a
temple to
Marduk.
there.
They're not
forcing the
Judeans to
convert
religiously.
Even the
ones who
move to
this town,
who are,
not move,
they're taken,
right,
and put in
this town
in Babylon,
they don't
seem to
force them
to
worship
Babylonian
deities,
things like
that.
A lot of
the records
there that
are kept
in cuneiform,
so they're
kept in a
Babylonian
style,
not in
Hebrew,
like the
Judeans would
have been
used to,
but that's
probably
simply because
again,
these are
administrative and
economic records,
they have to be
kept in the
sort of,
the way that
they do
things locally,
right?
And so,
I don't,
I don't think
they were quite
as sort of
forcible
with,
with their
sort of
cultural
export.
import.
The Assyrians
also weren't,
as much,
we talked
about this
a little
bit last
week,
but the,
they did
not force
everybody
to worship
Ashur,
they would
force you
to pay
tribute.
And next
week when we
get to the
Persians,
they also
were not
forcible
exporters,
but they
were a
lot more
sort of
cultural
importers.
And we
will see
that with
the Persians,
that the
Persians will
kind of like
conquer people
and then be
like,
you guys have
a really
great way of
doing this,
you mind if
we steal that?
you know.
That's kind
of what I
was looking
for in
terms of
any of
the skill
sets that
the Judeans
might have
brought to
the tables
of the
city.
And I've
always looked
at the
exile into
Egypt as
400 plus
years of
being able to
look at
Egyptian culture
and figure
out how to
do what
they did,
so that
then when
God removes
them from
Egypt,
they had
some
skillset.
They could
build a
tabernacle,
there were
things that
they could
do that
they possibly
would not
have come
to Egypt
with as
nomadic
farmer type
people.
So the
question is,
were some
of those
skills then
transposed
into the
Babylonian
culture,
or did
we not
really see
any
evidence of
that?
I can't
think of
any evidence
of that.
There probably
would,
especially if
they're bringing
that one-way
deportation,
they're bringing
all these
people in.
There's probably
examples of
that.
I can't think
of any off
the top of
my head,
but I'm
sure that
that happened.
And that
probably is
why some
of the
people that
they took
when they're
taking
priests and
they're taking
people from
some of
these skilled
laborers and
skilled positions
and bringing
them to
Babylon.
It's because
they want
people who
can do
this kind
of stuff.
Most of
the examples
I'm thinking
of that are
from the
Assyrian and
Persian periods,
but I'd have
to think that
that happens
in the Babylonian
period as well.
I just can't
think of any
examples.
Okay,
wait till
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I'm interested
in this
question where
throughout the
Bible it seems
like the
Babylonians are
portrayed as
like the
peak of
wickedness,
like particularly
in the book
of Revelation,
whereas they
were obviously
not the only
people who
had other
gods,
and they were
not the only
empire that
conquered things.
Was it just
because they
were the ones
who conquered
Jerusalem,
or were there
reasons to
think that
they were
somehow more
or more
wicked or
wicked in a
different way
than the
other empires
that might
also have
deserved titles
like that?
Yeah,
so this is,
and this is
part of the
reason I'm
sort of doing
this series,
right,
is that,
you know,
in the Bible,
right,
you know,
yeah,
Babylon is sort
of like the
worst of the
worst.
Historically and
geopolitically it
may not really
have been so.
Part of the
reason that it
becomes this
sort of symbol
for the worst
of the worst
is because of
the sack of
Jerusalem,
and just how
traumatic an
event that that
was for the
Judean people,
and also for
the way then
that that,
that that is
sort of born out
in the biblical
tradition,
right,
the fact that
you have all
of these people,
sort of,
all these
different biblical
authors addressing
aspects of this
one major
event,
and the fact
that,
I mean,
this is,
it's really one
of these pivotal
moments in
the sort of
history of
early Judaism,
really,
because before
this period,
they have a
king,
they have a
temple.
Like everybody
else,
they have a
country,
right?
When that's
gone,
one of the
main traumas
they have to
work through
is how do
we go on
without a
temple that's
our own,
and that's
huge,
like,
we're very
used to the
idea today
that,
like,
oh,
well,
God is
everywhere,
right?
Like,
they didn't
have that.
They had the
idea,
like,
if you aren't
in the area
where that
God rules
and that
God doesn't
have a
temple,
that God
might as
well not
exist,
right?
So,
they're working
through how
to sort of
carry on
after they
don't have a
temple,
after they
don't have
a city,
they don't
have a
king who
is appointed
by God,
right?
So,
so much
of that,
the reason
that Babylon
is used as
that symbol
is because
of this
trauma that's
used.
And I
very much
think,
we might
get to
talk about
this in
the week
we do
Persia,
but I
very much
think that
there is
this idea
that
empires,
particularly
empires like
Babylon,
sort of
helped to
develop this
sort of
nebulous
symbol in
later biblical
literature,
especially
like apocalyptic
literature,
which is very
symbolic,
right?
Of sort of
like the
empire,
like empire
in the
abstract.
Right?
Like the
world and
the world
systems of
the way
that the
world works.
Right?
So,
and I
think very
much that's
what's
happening in
Revelation,
where you
have references
to Babylon
that might
actually be
talking about
Rome or
something yet
to come or
whatever,
you know,
but they
use Babylon
as a symbol
for that
because of
how much
of a
that is.
I was
talking to
a friend
of mine
recently
who's
Jewish,
and I
mentioned
to her
that I
was talking
about this
today.
I said,
yes,
I'm going
to talk
about
Nebuchadnezzar
and those
guys,
and she's
like,
oh,
yeah,
Nebuchadnezzar.
Still don't
like him.
And it's
been 2,500
years.
Now,
she was
kidding a little
bit,
but still,
right,
there's still
that animus
there.
I realize
that we've
gone on
for a
while now.
I can
hang out
and chat
for a
bit if
you guys
want,
but I
also don't
want to
keep you
as the
services
starting
and stuff.
Thank you,
John.
Thanks for
coming,
everybody.