Transcript Babylon crucifies Jesus

BABYLON
CRUCIFIES JESUS
Legal and religious ties between
Babylon and Jerusalem that lead
up, in part, to Jesus’ death
Scripture Reading
Reader: After this I saw another angel coming down from
heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made
bright with his splendor. He called out with a mighty voice,
ALL: Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! It has become a
dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul and hateful
bird, a haunt of every foul and hateful beast. For all the
nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her
fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed
fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have
grown rich from the power of her luxury.
>>>>>>
Reader: Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
ALL: Come out of her my people, so that you do not take
part in her sins, and so that you do not share in her
plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God
has remembered her iniquities. Render to her as she
herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed. As she
glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so give her a like
measure of torment and grief. Since in her heart she says,
Reader: “I rule as a queen; I am no widow, and I will never
see grief,’
ALL: Therefore, her plagues will come in a single day—
pestilence and morning and famine—and she will be
burned with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
The End
BABYLON
CRUCIFIES JESUS
Legal and religious ties between
Babylon and Jerusalem that lead
up, in part, to Jesus’ death
Our Babylonian Origins
• It is my thesis, one that I have published somewhere (and
shared years ago with this class), that Babylonia, together
with ancient Sumer, form the cradle of ancient and
modern civilization through the two political nations they
influenced—Greece and Rome.
• Mesopotamia (a term that can be used to cover both
Sumer and Babylonia) spawned myths related to, but
earlier than, the Hebrew Bible. It’s people composed the
earliest written legal sources of the ancient world and
developed the city whose assembly helped to administer
affairs.
The Three Great Institutions
• Economics
• Self-interest, dependency, indebtedness
• Competition, substitution, inflation
• Slavery, stratification of society, objectification of persons
• Kingship
• One person has the god-ordained right to rule all others
• Whoever has the most power is most important
• Rights to punish and control subjects through fear (angry kings
must be appeased)
• Judicial Systems
• Way to control items of self-interest: early laws were economic
• Externally imposed penalties support the system of order
• Early law was not about commands but about settlements.
Debating Ancient Near Eastern Law
• Scholars who suggest that laws are not really laws.
• Ancient Near Eastern laws were simply exercises copied by
students in the scribal schools.
• The Laws of Hammurabi (LH) were simply royal propaganda,
intended to impress the gods that Hammurabi was truly a just king.
• These and other laws share points of commonality, the most
famous of which is the law of the goring ox, found in varying ways
in LH, the Laws of Eshnunna, and the Covenantal Code.
• There is no term for “law” in either Sumerian or Akkadian.
• Scholars who suggest that laws represent “a significant
stream of juridical scholarship” (Westbrook 18).
• Because of the similarities between LE and LH, composed in
roughly the same time period, it seems that they were not
anomalous within the general legal milieu of Babylonia.
• Keep in mind that the scribal schools produced future legal experts,
royal officers involved in legal affairs of the king, and so forth.
Mesopotamian Law Not Like Modern Law
• Our modern concept of law is built upon legal
developments in Greece and Rome, where written laws
became reference points for citation (“according to the
law…”) and where specific wording was debated.
• Ancient Near Eastern Law is not like Greco-Roman Law:
• Instead of citing laws, legal scribes would create objective cases,
extending them to include possible scenarios using analogy.
• Edicts, commandments, and decrees probably played a minor role
in the courts (Westbrook 21).
• Some believe that the Bible was the first to use law in the
more modern sense, citing the Covenantal Code
(Finkelstein 39-46). Westbrook suggests that this first
occurs during the prophets and dates the legal narrative
later than most mainstream Biblical scholars do, likening it
to Greek narrative and law.
Biblical Law
• Both Finkelstein and Westbrook ignore one facet of Hebrew
law that explains one of its important genres: the covenant.
• All of the laws of Torah are covenantal law and thus serve as
stipulations of Yahweh’s treaty with Israel.
• This is a valid, legal form of ancient Near Eastern royal “law”
that requires the vassal to keep the terms of the suzerain.
• Furthermore, ascribing law to a heroic figure is not merely
Hellenistic, as Westbrook suggests; Neo-Babylonia scribes
copied the Laws of Hammurabi, and Nebuchadnezzar appears
to have attempted to emulate this famous Amorite king of
Babylon (Wiseman 88, 101). Could not Moses serve as
another Hammurabi? Indeed D. Wright has shown that the
Book of the Covenant actually follows the subjects of LH in
content.
Unique Features of Biblical Law
• Nowhere else in the ancient Near East (except possibly in
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theocratic Egypt where the Pharaoh is deified) does deity
promulgate law.
Nowhere else in the entire ancient Near East does deity
formulate a suzerain-vassal treaty with a nation.
Most of the divinely given stipulations (laws) are apodictic: they
are simple prohibitions or prescriptions without a case history
and without a penalty.
Until the time of the monarchy, most laws were handled by the
priests, though town elders decided court cases at the city
gate. While this is not so unique, what is unique is the fact that
Israel during this period had no king.
The most significant difference is that Yahweh required Israel to
keep his laws. It seems that most ancient laws to be kept were
orally transmitted, not written.
How Did Law Function in Israel?
• Most of the terms for law in Hebrew derived from the
judicial setting—the court judges.
• Though ascribed to Yahweh, most of the casuistic laws in
the Hebrew Bible came out of this same context.
• In many ways, law functioned as teaching (torah):
• In Deut. 4:5, Moses states that he “taught” Israel the laws.
• They were to be “your wisdom and understanding” (v. 6, RSV), two
things intimately tied in Israel to learning.
• The people were to pass them on to their children (v. 9).
• Many of the laws contain motive clauses that unlike their
counterparts in cuneiform law, motivate their adherents “by
reference to an historic event, a promise of well-being or. . . a
divine will” (Sonsino 174).
Second Temple Legal Developments
• A shift takes place from law as legal instruction with
covenantal obedience required (see Deuteronomy, LXX)
to law as legal requirements with more formal obedience
required. Though the covenant and teaching was not lost
sight of, they originally served as a closer bond of trust
between God and his people. After the Exile the emphasis
changed to that of formal, strict obedience with less
emphasis on a trusting relationship with God.
• Originally, cases were tried at the city gate by the elders
who acted as judges. Harder cases were referred to
specific judges such as Deborah and Gideon or to the
priests. This continued after the monarchy allowed the
king to be chief judge of difficult cases. In post-exilic
period, judgment seems to have shifted from the elders at
the city gate to the priests at the temple.
• From law as part of narrative, which gave its situational
context and explanation, law became structured as codes
with the rise of the Halakoth (later, Mishnah).
• In later Talmudic law, the kinds of motive clauses found in
Torah gave way to explanations for expansionism.
• Unlike Mesopotamia, Israel’s laws combined ritual and
civil laws to some extent. However, the separation of
Leviticus, comprised chiefly of ritual law, reflects
Babylonian practice (Falk 19-20).
• In pre-exilic times God delivered Israel and gave his laws
through Moses; in the Second Temple period, the law
(most specifically Deuteronomy?) was given by Moses,
perhaps viewed similarly to Hammurabi. Recall the
disputes of the scribes (=Pharisees; Rivkin 137-142) with
Jesus over what “Moses wrote in the law” and Jesus’
contention that they didn’t really believe Moses.
• The Babylonian Talmud began as oral tradition during the exilic
or post-exilic periods. The first half of the Talmud consisted of
the Mishnah (oral laws). These laws are developed by
expansionism after the manner of law from ancient Babylonia.
Consider this example from the Talmud:
• VI. Regulations for Women’s Apparel on Sabbath
• Mishna I: In what (ornamental) apparel may a woman go out, and in
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what may she not go out.
Not in woolen or linen bands or with straps on her head (lest
she take off the bands to show her friends, thereby becoming guilty of
carrying movable property for a distance of four ells or more).
Nor to bathe herself with bands unless loosened.
Nor is she to go out with either Totaphoth or Sarbitin on, unless
they are fastened.
Nor with a hood in public ground, nor with gold ornaments, nor
with nose-rings, nor with finger-rings that have no seal, nor with pins.
(But if she does do this, she is not to bring a sin-offering because they
are ornaments and not burdens.)
• Here is another example:
• Mishna IV: The ass is not to go out with a rug, unless fastened, with
cords tied to them, neither with a bell that has been muffled, nor with
a collar on his neck, nor with ankle-boots. The hens are not to go out
with cords tied to them, or with straps on their feet. Rams are not to
go out with carts tied to their tails; nor sheep with sneezing-wood; the
calf with the reed yoke, nor the cow with the skin of a hedgehog (tied
to the udder), nor with a strap (between her horns). The cow of R.
Elazar b. Azarya went out with a strap between the horns against the
approval of the rabbis.
• Mishna V: A woman may go out with plaits of hair, be they made of
her own hair or of another woman or of an animal; with Totaphoth or
Sarbitin if fastened.1 With a hood or with a wig in her yard (private
ground); with cotton wadding in her ear or in her shoe; or with cotton
wadding prepared for her menstruation; wit a grain of pepper or of
salt, or with whatever else she may be accustomed to keep in her
mouth, provided she does not put it in her mouth on the Sabbath to
commence with; if it fell out of her mouth she must not replace it. As
for a metal or golden tooth, Rabbi permits a woman to go out with it,
but the sages prohibit it.
More Legal Developments
During the Old Babylonian period, the chief purpose of holding a
trial or dealing with a court case was to create reconciliation
between two estranged parties. During the Neo-Babylonian
period, though settlement could take place in the pre-trial phase,
the purpose of the actual trial was to establish a verdict and
administer whatever penalty was chosen by the judges (see
Magdalene 55-94). One can see the OB kind of trial at work in
Israel’s pre-monarchical period (see Tamar and Judah, Ruth,
etc.) and even in the early post-exilic period (see Ezra and
Nehemiah). However, Nehemiah exhibits a tendency to arrive at
a verdict and administer swift punishment. By the time of firstcentury C.E. Judaism, the Sanhedrin reflected more the style
developed in the NB period. Keep in mind that the influence of
Jews still living in Babylonia was quite strong on Jerusalem’s
legal matters at that time.
The Sanhedrin
In Babylonia, several court systems (though a term for
“court” did not exist) held trials. The chief of these, the royal
court, dealt with most of the civil cases. However, local
assemblies (puḫru) also existed for the purpose of holding
court. Finally, temple judges presided over cases pertaining
to the temple. For emerging Judaism during the exile,
deprived of self-governorship via a king and forced to seek
identity chiefly in Torah and religion, having such an
assembly to deal with legal disputes among themselves
must have seemed a necessity. Of course, the Sanhedrin
of the NT reflects the Roman Period where we know the
most about it; yet such an assembly under varying names
with differing functions must go far back into the exilic
period (ABD 5:977).
Pharisees and Sadducees
• The Pharisees called themselves “scribes,” but the Sadducees
called them perushim (Pharisees). The NT use of “scribes and
Pharisees” should be understood as “scribes, also Pharisees”
in the sense of “scribes (that is,) Pharisees” (Rivkin 135-142).
• In the Neo-Babylonian period, the role of the scribe, who
served the courts, changed from that of a writer to a writer who
also was involved in judicial affairs, even operating at times as
a judge (Holtz 81-85).
• The Sadducees disapproved of how the Pharisees held to oral
laws that came to be known as the Mishnah and ultimately,
together with the Gemara, formed the Talmud. The Sadducees
held only to Torah and rejected the Pharisees’ views on the
judgment and afterlife.
• In Matthew 23, Jesus singles out the Pharisees for castigation;
but nowhere does he focus on the Sadducees except when
correcting them regarding the resurrection.
• The Pharisees could be viewed as the “theologians”
(though “legal experts” is probably more appropriate),
whereas, predominately, the priests were Sadducees.
• In their high regard for Torah, the Sadducees loved the lex
talionis (“life for life,” “eye for eye”) that stemmed from
Hammurabi’s laws. They applied it so mercilessly that the
people preferred the Pharisees to the Sadducees, despite
their many laws, for their merciful treatment.
• When Jesus countered talionic law in Matthew 5:38-42,
when he refused to have the woman caught in adultery
stoned, when he allowed the woman with a hemorrhage
to touch his garment, and when he touched the lepers, he
stood in opposition to the Sadducees.
• When his disciples did not wash properly, or ate grain they
picked while walking through a grain field on Sabbath,
Jesus challenged the traditions and laws of the Pharisees.
The Sabbath
• Where Jesus clashed most vigorously with the Pharisees had
to do with Sabbath-keeping. Jesus repeatedly broke the oral
laws for keeping Shabbat and other laws too.
• None of his Sabbath healings were “emergency cases.”
• He told the paralytic to carry his mat (which required him to roll it).
• He called the woman with scoliosis into the male section of the
synagogue, laid hands on her, and healed her.
• He healed a man with a withered hand.
• He healed a man born blind by the following:
• He spit on the ground (potentially “watering” on the Sabbath)
• He formed mud with his hand (potentially making pottery)
• He anointed the man’s eyes (oral law forbade medically so treating
face).
• He sent him to the Pool of Siloam (maybe more than Sabbath journey?).
• He had him wash the mud off (law forbade washing above the neck).
• The Pool of Siloam was the Jewish baptismal font for proselytes.
The Sabbath in Judaism
• While Torah and the Prophets forbade working on
Sabbath, little is specified regarding what is work. Oral
tradition, however, had over 400 laws specifying minutely
what one could and could not do on the Sabbath.
• Examples include laws concerning:
• Transfer: e.g., a tailor could not carry his needle nor a scribe his
pen. One could not search for vermin in one’s garments.
• “Hanukkah” light: e.g., cedar hastwicks, raw flax, silk fiber, weeds
growing on the water, and ship moss forbidden on Sabbath.
• Stoves, etc.: e.g. eggs could not be put close to a boiler or wrapped
in a hot cloth or in hot sand or hot road dust.
• Labor: e.g., forbidden to writing two single letters (characters),
erasing in order to write two letters; forbidden to carry a mouthful of
milk, enough honey to cover a wound, enough water for an eye
bath. Prescribed quantities for all other liquids was one quart.
Important Days in Babylonia
• The Babylonians had many important (holy?) days.
• The “evil days” consisted of the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th of
the lunar month. These were days on which certain activities were
not propitious to do.
• There also existed the shapattu, the 15th day of the lunar month,
which was (and is) the day when the sun and the moon stand in
opposition to each other. From a religious standpoint, Shamash
(the god of daytime justice) and Sin (the god of nighttime justice)
stood in opposition to each other. This day was referred to as “the
day of the resting of the heart (i.e., the day of appeasement).
The question needs to be raised regarding whether
scribal keeping of Shabbat better reflected Torah or the
Babylonian special days?
The Priesthood
• In early Sumer, a kind of priest-king both ruled the city-state and
presided over the temple. Whether “ruler” or “priest,” he bore the title
EN, meaning “ruler” or “lord” (Steinkeller 104-105). Though later
abandoned, the concept of ruling priest is thus very ancient. Similarly,
the Jewish priests came to govern the cult, religion, and even to some
extent national affairs, though limited, of course, by the foreign
powers over them.
• By the Neo-Babylonian period, the administration of the EN-priests
and priestesses had long since given way to the power of the maleonly shangû, the administrative and cultic “high” priest. During this
period, the temple priesthood was quite hierarchical in structure, and
the priests acted harshly toward the foreign female slaves and often
sexually exploited them (Beaulieu 12). Similarly, the Jewish priests
had a hierarchical structure, above which, the “high priest” had
considerable power. They were mostly Sadducees who ruled the
people harshly. Even though it was the Pharisees who brought the
adulterous woman to Jesus for stoning, the Sadducees no doubt
supported this event.
Temple Economy
• Just as the temple served as a substantial economic
institution in ancient Mesopotamia, so the Jerusalem
temple was the chief economic center of Judaism.
• Just as the Babylonians brought their offerings to the
temple so the priests could feed the gods and thus
procure divine favor, so the Jewish people brought their
offerings to achieve divine forgiveness.
• Just as the Babylonians viewed wealth and prosperity as
signs of divine favor, so Judaism perpetuated this view.
Jesus’ suggestion to the rich young ruler to sell all that he
had and give to the poor, and then follow him, was a
counterintuitive message to ancient ears.
Kingship and Messiah
• The “Anointed” was a term applied in pre-exilic Israel to
the king; in the Second Temple period, it referred to the
Messiah, who would eventually restore the throne of
David and rule in Jerusalem.
• Kingship originated from ancient Mesopotamia where it
progressed from a simple ruler or governor to a
bureaucratic king who ruled by conquest and hierarchical
power over his subjects.
• When Jesus asserted his Messiahship, he drastically
reduced his “kingship” to teaching, healing, and reforming
temple practices. He redefined covenant and law, and
asserted no dictatorial or judicial power over others
except when exercising mercy toward sinners as in the
case of the adulterous woman.
The Triumph of the Conquest
When Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, he borrowed a
motif from Greco-Roman times when a ruler or conqueror would
ride into the city after conquest (Duff 55-71). But we know from
Assyrian reliefs that a very similar entrance took place in the
Neo-Assyrian and, likely, the Neo-Babylonian periods. One
cannot be think of the comparison of Nebuchadnezzar marching
into Babylon toward the temple of Marduk (whose planet was
Jupiter) and the early Roman conquerors whose face was
painted red like Jupiter’s statue. Typically, the procession would
halt at the temple, where in Rome, a sacrifice of white oxen
would be made (cf. the burning out of a white ox’s heart during
the Akitu Festival of Babylon that ended with a procession of
Marduk back to his temple). The entourage of the conqueror
included his army, spoils, captives, and sacrificial animals.
Jesus’ Triumphal Entry
• Jesus takes this motif and turns it upside down.
• He himself, “King” and “Conqueror,” is the sacrifice about to
be made.
• His army consists of his disciples who battle evil principalities
and powers without use of force.
• His captives are those he set free from disease, death, and
the tyranny of religious bigotry.
• He comes into the temple. In Mark, he merely looks around
and leaves. In Matthew, he cleanses it from all that is
economic in nature. Then he heals the blind and the lame
while the children kept crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of
David!”
The Basis for Jesus’ Death
• Caiaphas argued that the reason for Jesus’ death was that “it is
expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and
that the whole nation should not perish” (John 11:50, RSV).
• Alexander the Great was struck by the “substitute king (šar
puḫi) ritual,” apparently done by the Babylonians in the tradition
of the Neo-Assyrian period. In this ritual, when the omens
signified that the gods were angry with the king and would
destroy him (probably meaning that the city too would be
destroyed), the king would leave the throne and a substitute
king would be installed who would rule for some days (as high
as 100). At the end of those days, a banquet would be held and
the substitute king and his wife would be taken out and
executed. Then the real king would return to his throne and
rule.
• The usual ancient Near Eastern purpose for offering a
human sacrifice was to appease divine anger.
• The concept of angry gods needing appeasement, as a
prominent belief, at least in Mesopotamia, seems to
derive from human experiences with angry kings. In The
Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), the references to angry gods
occur more numerously where the most references to
angry kings exist. In Babylonian correspondence with
Assyrian kings, the reference is made to “the wrath of god
and king.”
• A parallel exists in the Hebrew Bible, where an emphasis
on divine anger occurs mostly during times of power such
as the monarchical period.
• Jesus rarely got angry, and when he did, his anger could
be described as “grief” (Mark 3:5). Jesus never portrayed
his Father as angry.
Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion
• The focus of Jesus’ trial was to obtain a verdict of a
capital crime (Matt. 27:59), not to achieve reconciliation.
In this the Sanhedrin reflected the purpose of NeoBabylonian and later juridical practice.
• Crucifixion may have originated from the Persians, who
reportedly put to death 3000 Babylonians in this manner
(ABD 1:1207). Unreliable sources state that the Assyrians
crucified victims.
• The forerunner of crucifixion is possibly the act of
impalement (CEE), known to the Babylonians (LH 153)
and the Assyrians (MAL A 53) (ABD 5:555).
Selected Bibliography
• Bottéro, Jean. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Translated
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by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1992.
Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. “Women in Neo-Babylonian Society.” Canadian Society
for Mesopotamian Studies 26 (1993): 12.
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (CEE). Available through Academic Search
Premiere (EBSCO) at the PUC Library online under “Crucifixion” and
“Impaling.”
Duff, Paul Brooks. “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the
Greco-Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem.”
Journal of Biblical Literature 111/1 (1992): 55-71.
Falk, Ze’ev W. Hebrew Law in Biblical Times. 2nd ed. Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Press; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001.
Finkelstein J. J. The Ox That Gored. Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society 71. Philadelphia, Pa.: The American
Philosophical Society, 1981.
Freedman, David Noel. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1992.
• Fried, Lisbeth S. The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in
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the Persian Empire. Biblical and Judaic Studies 10. Winona Lake,
Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004.
Graetz, Heinrich. History of the Jews. Revised Edition. 6 vols. Hebrew
Publishing Company, 1949.
Holtz, Shalom E. “The Career of a Neo-Babylonian Court Scribe.” Journal of
Cuneiform Studies 60 (2008): 81-85.
Jeremias, Joachim. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into
Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period.
Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press/SCM Press, Ltd., 1969.
Lewy, Hildegard and Julius. “The Origin of the Week and the Oldest West
Asiatic Calendar.” Hebrew Union College Annual 17 (1942-1943): 1152.
Magdalene, F. Rachel. On the Scales of Righteousness: Neo-Babylonian Trial
Law and the Book of Job. Brown Judaic Studies 348. Providence, R.I.:
Brown University, 2007.
Oelsner, Joachim, Bruce Wells, and Cornelia Wunsch. “Mesopotamia: NeoBabylonian Period.” Pages 911-974 in vol. 2 of A History of Ancient
Near Eastern Law. Edited by Raymond Westbrook. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
• Rivkin, Ellis. “Scribes, Pharisees, Lawyers, Hypocrites: A Study in
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Synonymity.” Hebrew Union College Annual 49 (1978): 135-142.
Rodkinson, Michael L., trans. The Babylonian Talmud. Boston: Boston New
Talmud Publishing Company, 1903.
Sonsino, Rifat. Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law. SBL Dissertation Series 45.
Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1980.
Steinkeller, Piotr. “On rulers, Priests and Sacred Marriage: Tracing the
Evolution of Early Sumerian Kingship.” Pages 103-137 in Priests and
Officials in the Ancient Near East. Edited by Kazuko Watanabe.
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1999.
Westbrook, Raymond. “Introduction: The Character of Ancient Near Eastern
Law.” Pages 1-90 in vol. 1 of A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law.
Edited by Raymond Westbrook. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Wiseman, D. J. Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon. The Schweich Lectures of the
British Academy, 1983. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press/ The
British Academy, 1985.
Wright, David P. Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible
Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009.
Questions
• When John cites an angel saying, “Babylon is fallen” in
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Revelation, to what is he referring?
Babylon here is the antithesis of the New Jerusalem. What in
John’s day is the most natural antithesis of the New
Jerusalem?
Can prophecy, especially apocalyptic prophecy, have more
than one relevant application (“and the woman that you saw is
the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth”
Rev. 17:18)?
The line—”the wine of the wrath of her fornication”—goes with
the line—“and the kings of the earth have committed fornication
with her.” What is the significance of these lines?
Why would John use Babylon to refer to Rome or to Old
Jerusalem?