The Book of Daniel is a biblical apocalypse authored during the 2nd century BC, and set during the 6th century BC. The work describes "the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon"; in doing so, it interpolates a portrayal of a historical prophecy being fulfilled with a prediction of future cosmic and political upheaval. This eschatology ultimately affirms that the God of Israel's previous deliverance of Daniel from his enemies prefigures his future deliverance of the people of Israel from their present oppression.
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek.
The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
The Vulgate, sometimes referred to as the Latin Vulgate, is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
Nebuchadnezzar II, also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Historically known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great, he is typically regarded as the empire's greatest king. Nebuchadnezzar remains famous for his military campaigns in the Levant, for his construction projects in his capital, Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and for the role he plays in Jewish history. Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Babylonian dynasty. By the time of his death, he was among the most powerful rulers in the world.
Ahasuerus is a name applied in the Hebrew Bible to three rulers of Ancient Persia and to a Babylonian official first appearing in the Tanach in the Book of Esther and later in the Christian Book of Tobit. It is a transliteration of either Xerxes I or Artaxerxes I; both are names of multiple Achaemenid dynasty Persian kings.
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic Enûma Elish, which translates as "When on High." She is referred to as a woman, and has, at various points in the epic, both anthropomorphic and theriomorphic features including breasts and a tail.
2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It concludes with the defeat of the Seleucid Empire general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the leader of the Maccabees.
Enūma Eliš, meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmology. It was recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. A form of the myth was first published by English Assyriologist George Smith in 1876; active research and further excavations led to near completion of the texts and improved translation.
Susanna, also called Susanna and the Elders, is a narrative included in the Book of Daniel by the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, placed in the Apocrypha by Protestants, with Anabaptists, Lutherans, Anglicans and Methodists regarding it as non-canonical but useful for purposes of edification. The text is not included in the Jewish Tanakh and is not mentioned in early Jewish literature, although it does appear to have been part of the original Septuagint from the 2nd century BC, and was revised by Theodotion, a Hellenistic Jewish redactor of the Septuagint text.
Astyages was the last king of the Median kingdom, reigning from 585 to 550 BCE. The son of Cyaxares, he was dethroned by the Persian king Cyrus the Great. He was a follower of the Vedic religion as per Iranian customs.
The additions of Daniel are three chapters not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel. The text of these chapters is found in the Koine Greek Septuagint, the earliest Old Greek translation.
The biblical apocrypha denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written some time between 200 BCE and 100 CE.
Daniel is the main character of the Book of Daniel. According to the Hebrew Bible, Daniel was a noble Jewish youth of Jerusalem taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, serving the king and his successors with loyalty and ability until the time of the Persian conqueror Cyrus, all the while remaining true to the God of Israel. While some conservative scholars hold that Daniel existed and his book was written in the 6th century BCE, most scholars agree that Daniel is not a historical figure and that much of the book is a cryptic allusion to the reign of the 2nd century BCE Hellenistic king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Papyrus 967 is a 3rd-century CE biblical manuscript, discovered in 1931. It is notable for containing fragments of the original Septuagint text of the Book of Daniel, which was completely superseded by a revised text by the end of the 4th century and elsewhere survives only in Syriac translation and in Codex Chisianus 88. The manuscript is also important for early variants, both in the text of the Book of Ezekiel and of the Book of Daniel.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Bible:
Ezekiel 10 is the tenth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet/priest Ezekiel, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. In this chapter, Ezekiel sees "God's Glory depart from the Temple".
Ezekiel 23 is the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet/priest Ezekiel, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This chapter forms part of a series of "predictions regarding the fall of Jerusalem", and is written in the form of a message delivered by God to Ezekiel. It presents an extended metaphor in which Samaria and Jerusalem are compared to sisters named Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Jerusalem), who are the wives of God and accused of "playing the whore" in Egypt then cuckolding her husband while he watched.
The Roman Septuagint, also known as the Sixtine Septuagint or the Roman Sixtine Septuagint, is an edition of the Septuagint published in 1587, and commissioned by Pope Sixtus V.
The Statue of Marduk, also known as the Statue of Bêl, was the physical representation of the god Marduk, the patron deity of the ancient city of Babylon, traditionally housed in the city's main temple, the Esagila. There were seven statues of Marduk in Babylon, but 'the' Statue of Marduk generally refers to the god's main statue, placed prominently in the Esagila and used in the city's rituals. This statue was nicknamed the Asullḫi and was made of a type of wood called mēsu and covered with gold and silver.
