Cradle Of Humanity

The evangelical Protestants of the 19th century, considered the inventors of the term "Cradle of Humanity," made claims that the term originated in Mesopotamia in the 2nd century, and that it was used by early non-Christian Arabs, to refer to a geographic area that falls within a 1,000 mile radius of the spot they believed to be the birthplace of humankind. No documentation of such a historical use has been forthcoming. Nevertheless, the term has been used not only in religious, but also in secular contexts, and may therefore refer to different locations, depending on the views of the user.

Creationist View

Jewish, Christian and Muslim creationists believe that man was created by God in a place called Eden and then placed in a garden located east of Eden. In the Christian Bible, Genesis 2:10-14 indicates the Garden of Eden was supplied by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Some early Christians (A.D second century) used the term to refer to a geographic area falling within a 1,000 mile radius of that location as the birthplace of mankind.

Based on the second century 1,000-mile "limit", the fifteen nations/territories that today comprise the "Cradle of Humanity" are, in alphabetical order: Bahrain, The Gaza Strip, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian territories, and Yemen.

The radius of 1,000 miles from Eden as the limit of the Cradle of Humanity may have been "fixed" by the Christian authors of Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt in the pre-Islamic era.

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Basilica

The Latin word basilica (derived from Greek, Basiliké Stoà, Royal Stoa), was originally used to describe a Roman public building (as in Greece, mainly a tribunal), usually located at the center of a Roman town (forum). In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC.

After the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the term came by extension to refer to a large and important church that has been given special ceremonial rites by the Pope. Thus the word retains two senses today, one architectural and the other ecclesiastical.

In architecture, the Roman basilica was a large roofed hall erected for transacting business and disposing of legal matters. Such buildings usually contained interior colonnades that divided the space, giving aisles or arcaded spaces at one or both sides, with an apse at one end (or less often at each end), where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, so that light could penetrate through the clerestory windows.

The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was censor. Other early examples include the one at Pompeii (late 2nd century BC).

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Tel Aviv-Yafo

Tel Aviv-Yafo (Hebrew: תל-אביב Arabic: تل أبيب‎, Tal ʾAbīb) (usually Tel Aviv) is the second-largest city in Israel, with an estimated population of 384,400. Tel Aviv is situated on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, covering 51.8 square kilometres (20.0 sq mi). It is the largest and most populous city in Israel's largest metropolitan area known as Gush Dan, home to 3.15 million people as of 2007. The city is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, headed by Ron Huldai.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ‎, Yafo). The growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa, which was largely Arab at the time. Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of Modernist-style buildings.

Tel Aviv is Israel's economic hub, home of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and many corporate offices and research and development centers. Its beaches, cafés, upscale shopping and secular lifestyle have made it a popular tourist destination. It is the country's cultural capital and a major performing arts center. In the 2008 Mercer cost of living survey, Tel Aviv was ranked as the most expensive city in the Middle East and the 14th most expensive in the world.

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Koine Greek

Koine Greek refers to the forms of the Greek language used in post-classical antiquity (c.300 BC – AD 300). Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek. Koine Greek is important not only to the history of the Greeks for being their first common dialect and main ancestor of Demotic Greek, but it is also significant for its impact on Western Civilization as a lingua franca (a common language used by speakers of different languages; "Koine is a dialect of ancient Greek that was the lingua franca of the empire of Alexander the Great and was widely spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean area in Roman times") for the Mediterranean.

Koine Greek: "In [The]Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This one was in [The]Beginning with God all things through Him came to be, and without Him came to be not one thing. That which came into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light" [in the darkness shines and the darkness did not grasp it.]

English: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
-John 1:1-5 ESV

Koine also was the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible as well as the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire.

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Vulgate

The Vulgate is an early 5th century version of the Bible in Latin which is largely the result of the labors of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations. Its Old Testament is the first Latin version translated directly from the Hebrew Tanakh rather than from the Greek Septuagint. It became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church and ultimately took the name versio vulgata, which means simply "the published translation". There are 76 books in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate Bible: 46 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, and 3 in the Apocrypha.

The Vulgate is a composite work, only some parts of which are due to Jerome.

• Old Latin, wholly unrevised: Prayer of Manasses, 3 and 4 Esdras, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Machabees.
• Old Latin, more or less revised by a person or persons unknown, perhaps by Jerome: Acts, Epistles, and the Apocalypse.
• Free translation by Jerome from a secondary Aramaic version: Tobias and Judith.
• Translation from the Septuagint by Jerome: the Psalter, the Rest of Esther.
• Translation from the Greek of Theodotion by Jerome: Song of the Three Children, Story of Susanna, and The Idol Bel and the Dragon
• Revision by Jerome of the Old Latin, corrected with reference to the oldest Greek manuscripts available: the Gospels.
• Jerome's independent translation from the Hebrew: the protocanonical books of the Old Testament, with the exception of the Psalter. This was completed in 405.

In Jerome's day, the word Vulgata was applied to the Greek Septuagint. The Latin Bible used before the Vulgate is usually referred to as the Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin Bible", or occasionally the "Old Latin Vulgate". (It is, however, written in Classical Latin, not Old Latin.)

The Old Latin was not translated by a single person or institution, nor uniformly edited. The individual books varied in quality of translation and style. Its Old Testament books were translated from the Greek Septuagint, not from the Hebrew.

The Old Latin version remained in use in some circles even after Jerome's Vulgate became the accepted standard throughout the Western Church. Some in Gaul continued to prefer the Old Latin version for centuries.

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John 3:16

John 3:16 (chapter 3, verse 16 of the Gospel of John) is one of the most widely quoted verses from the Christian Bible. It has been called the "Bible in a nutshell" because it is considered a summary of some of the most central doctrines of traditional Christianity:

¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 (ESV)

God "...didn't give Him into the hands of a trustworthy caregiver. He didn't give Him up for adoption by loving parents. He didn't even give Him up for a season only to have Him returned to Him unharmed. When God gave His only begotten Son, He gave Him up to be killed. That's how much God loved the world." -Jeff Miller , Th.M.

Context

The verse occurs in a narrative in the third chapter of John taking place in Jerusalem. Nicodemus, a member of the ruling council, comes to talk with Jesus, whom he calls Rabbi. Jesus' "miraculous signs" have convinced Nicodemus that Jesus is "from God." In reply,

⁵ Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

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Isaiah

Isaiah (יְשַׁעְיָהוּ"Salvation of/is the Lord" or "Yahweh Saves") was the son of Amoz, and commonly considered the author of the Book of Isaiah.

The Book of Isaiah is a book of the Hebrew Bible as well as the Christian Old Testament, containing prophecies attributed to Isaiah. This book is often seen by scholars as being divided into at least two sections. The first section, consisting of chapters 1-39, is generally accepted as being written by the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem, or by his followers who took down his words.

Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of four kings -- Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Legend has it that he was martyred during the reign of Manasseh, who came to the throne in 687 BCE. That he is described as having ready access to the kings would suggest an aristocratic origin.

This was the time of the divided kingdom, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. There was prosperity for both kingdoms during Isaiah’s youth with little foreign interference. Jeroboam II ruled in the north and Uzziah in the south. The small kingdoms of Palestine, as well as Syria, were under the influence of Egypt. However, in 745 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne of Assyria.

Isaiah was interested in Assyrian expansionism, especially to the west. Tiglath-pileser took Samaria and a lot of Galilee in 732. Shalmenezer V (727-722) and then, Sargon II (722-705) attacked Samaria. Samaria fell in 722, this marking the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel forever, as its population was taken into exile and dispersed amongst Assyrian provinces. It is as a result of this exile that reference is made to Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Egypt recovered to a degree around the end of the century and Babylon exerted some independence as well. Because of this, Judah and other states rebelled against Assyria, only to have Sennacherib (705-681) invade and capture 46 Judean towns. Isaiah reports that Jerusalem was spared when God miraculously struck down the Assyrian army besieging it.

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Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious study that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions. Religion can be defined as "Human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine" (see also spiritual formation, divinity).

In the field of comparative religion, the main world religions are generally classified as either Abrahamic, Indian or Taoic. Areas of study also include creation myths and Humanism.

Abrahamic religions

In the study of comparative religion, the category of Abrahamic religions consists of the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which claim Abraham (Hebrew Avraham אַבְרָהָם; Arabic Ibrahim ابراهيم ) as a part of their sacred history. Other religions (such as the Bahá’í Faith) that fit this description are sometimes included but also often omitted.

The original belief in the One God of Abraham eventually became present-day Judaism. Christians believe that Christianity is the fulfillment and continuation of the Jewish Old Testament, recognizing Jesus as the Son of God. Islam believes the present Christian and Jewish scriptures have been modified over time and are no longer the original divine revelations as given to Moses and other prophets. For Muslims (see Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims) the Qur'an is the final revelation from God, with Muhammad as his messenger for its transmission.

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The Nile

The Nile (Arabic: النيل an-nīl), in Africa, is one of the two longest rivers on Earth.

The word "Nile" comes from the word Neilos (Νειλος), a Greek name for the Nile. Another Greek name for the Nile was Aigyptos (Αιγυπτος), which itself is the source of the name "Egypt."

¹ Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.

⁷ Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"

⁸ "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. ⁹ Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water." -Exodus 2:1-10

There are two great branches of the Nile: the White Nile, from equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile, from Ethiopia. Both branches formed on the western flanks of the East African Rift, which is the southern African part of the Great Rift Valley.

Lake Victoria, which lies between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, is considered to be the source of the Nile, although the lake itself has feeder rivers of considerable size from the other Great Lakes of Africa. In particular, the farthest headstream of the Nile is the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, which is an upper branch of the Kagera River. The Kagera flows for 690 km (429 miles) before reaching Lake Victoria.

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Corinth

Corinth, or Korinth (Greek: Κόρινθος, Kórinthos; was a Greek city-state, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of Corinth, to the east lies the Saronic Gulf. Corinth is about 48 miles (78 km) southwest of Athens. The isthmus, which was in ancient times traversed by hauling ships over the rocky ridge on sledges, is now cut by a canal.

Corinth is now the capital of the prefecture of Corinthia. The city is (clockwise) surrounded by the coastal townlets of Lechaio, Isthmia, Kechries, and the inland townlets of Examilia and the archaeological site.

Corinth was a very important trade city for ancient Greece (Acts 18:1; 19:1; 1 Cor. 1:2, 2 Cor. 1:1, 23; 2 Tim. 4:20). Corinth, as a trade city, connected Rome with the East. It was at Corinth that the Apostle Paul established a thriving church composed of people who had gathered there in troves to have a hand in the gambling, legalized temple prostitution and other worldly activities so ordinary to a naval town in Paul's time

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West Bank

The West Bank (Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, Hagadah Hamaaravit, Arabic: الضفة الغربية‎, aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä), also referred to in Israel and by Jews as "Judea and Samaria", is a landlocked territory on the west bank of the Jordan River in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south the West Bank shares borders with the mainland Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the country of Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coast line along the western bank of the Dead Sea. Since 1967 most of the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation.

Prior to the First World War, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the province of Syria. In the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War saw the establishment of Israel in parts of the former Mandate, while the West Bank was captured and annexed by Jordan, who destroyed any existing Jewish villages. The 1949 Armistice Agreements defined its interim boundary. From 1948 until 1967, the area was under Jordanian rule, and Jordan did not officially relinquish its claim to the area until 1988. Jordan's claim was never recognized by the international community. The West Bank was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem, the West Bank was not annexed by Israel. Most of the residents are Arabs, although a large number of Israeli settlements have been built in the region since 1967.

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Syria

Syria (Arabic: سوريا ‎or سورية ), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ), is a country in the Middle East, bordering Lebanon to the west, Palestine to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east (see also: Iraq Maps), and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria attained independence from the French mandate of Syria in 1946, but can trace its historical roots to the fourth millennium BC; its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.

Syria has a population of 19 million, of whom the majority are Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims, as well as 16% other Muslim groups, including the Alawi, Shiite, and Druze, and 10% Christian.

Since 1963 the country has been governed by the Baath Party; the head of state since 1970 has been a member of the Assad family.

Syria's current President is Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.

Historically, Syria has often been taken to include the territories of Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and parts of Jordan, but excluding the Jazira region in the north-east of the modern Syrian state. In this historic sense, the region is also known as Greater Syria or by the Arabic name Bilad al-Sham (بلاد الشام ). Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel administers the disputed Golan Heights to the southwest of the country; a dispute with Turkey over the Hatay Province has subsided.

The name Syria comes from the ancient Greek name for the former colonial territories of Assyria such as Canaan and Aram.

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Crown of Thorns

In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was the woven chaplet of thorn branches worn by Jesus before his crucifixion. It is mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew (27:29), Mark (15:17), and John (19:2, 5) and is often alluded to by the early Christian Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others.

John the Evangelist describes it like this:

¹ Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. ² And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. ³ They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. (John 19:1-3 ESV)

Following Genesis 3:17-19—

¹⁷ And to Adam he said,

"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (ESV)

— thorns were seen by Christian writers as emblems of The Fall of Man.

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Craig Groeschel

Craig Groeschel (born December 2, 1967) is the founder and main pastor ofLifeChurch.tv with locations in Arizona, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and a Global Internet Campus.

Lifechurch.tv is the largest Christian church in Oklahoma, and an American multi-site church with multiple locations in six states. Groeschel is known for his casual, humorous and personable style of communication of Christian belief. He is married with six children and lives in Edmond, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, where LifeChurch.tv is based.

At the second day of the WillowCreek Association Leadership Summitt 2008, Craig said,

"In order to reach those who no one else is reaching, we'll have to do things that no one else is doing."

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The Western Wall

The Western Wall (Hebrew: הכותל המערבי, HaKotel HaMa'aravi), or simply The Kotel, is a retaining wall from the time of the Jewish Second Temple of Jerusalem (see also Temple of Herod). It is sometimes referred to as the Wailing Wall, or as the al-Buraq Wall, in a mix of English and Arabic . The Temple was the most sacred building in Judaism. Herod the Great built vast retaining walls around Mount Moriah, expanding the small, quasi-natural plateau on which the First and Second Temples stood into the wide open spaces of the Temple Mount seen today.

In recent centuries, Jews were allowed little or no access to the site, such as when Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) ruled over it for 400 years (1515-1917), followed by the British Mandate of Palestine (1917-1948) and the Jordanian rule of Jerusalem (1948-1967).

Only when the Israel Defense Forces won a victory in the 1967 Six-Day War were Jews finally able to gain free access to the site.

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Jordan River

The Jordan River (Hebrew: נהר הירדן nehar hayarden, Arabic: نهر الأردن nahr al-urdun,) is a river in Southwest Asia flowing through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea. It is 251 kilometers (156 miles) long. Its tributaries are the Hasbani (Hebrew: שניר senir, Arabic: الحاصباني hasbani), which flows from Lebanon, Banias (Hebrew: חרמון hermon, Arabic: بانياس banias), arising from a spring at Banias at the base of Mount Hermon, and Dan (Hebrew: דן dan, Arabic: اللدان leddan), whose source is also at the base of Mount Hermon. The three merge to form the Jordan in northern Israel, near Kibbutz Sede Nehemya. The Jordan drops rapidly in a 75 kilometer run to swampy Lake Hula, which is slightly below sea level in the Rift Valley. Exiting the lake, it drops much more in about 25 kilometers to the Sea of Galilee.

The last section has less gradient, and the river begins to meander before it enters the Dead Sea, which is about 400 meters below sea level and has no outlet. Two major tributaries enter from the east during this last phase, the Yarmouk River and Jabbok River.

Its section north of the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew: כינרת kinneret, Arabic: Bohayrat Tabaraya, meaning Lake of Tiberias) is within the boundaries of Israel (disputed by Syria), and forms the western boundary of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (Hebrew: רמת-הגולן).

South of the lake, it forms the border between the kingdom of Jordan (to the east) and Palestine/Israel (to the west). Further south, it forms the border between Jordan and the West Bank.

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Joseph Lister

Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, OM , FRS (5 April 1827 – 10 February 1912) was an English surgeon who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He successfully introduced carbolic acid (phenol) to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds.

Early Life and College

Joseph Lister came from a prosperous Quaker home in Upton, Essex, a son of Joseph Jackson Lister, the pioneer of the compound microscope, and Isabella Harris.

He attended the University of London, one of only a few institutions which was open to Quakers at that time. He initially studied the Arts but at the age of 25 became a Bachelor of Medicine and entered the Royal College of Surgeons.

In 1854, Lister became first assistant surgeon to James Syme, at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The two became close friends and Lister ended up marrying Syme's daughter Agnes, a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, leaving the Quakers, perhaps because his religion did not permit marriages with non-members. He once stated,

“I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.”

Discovery of Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds

After six years he got a professorship of surgery at the University of Glasgow. At the time the usual explanation for wound infection was that the exposed tissues were damaged by chemicals in the air or via a stinking "miasma" in the air. The sick wards actually smelled bad, not due to a "miasma" but due to the rotting of wounds. Hospital wards were occasionally aired out at midday, but Florence Nightingale's doctrine of fresh air was still seen as science fiction. Facilities for washing hands or the patient's wounds did not exist and it was even considered unnecessary for the surgeon to wash his hands before he saw a patient. The work of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes were not heeded.

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Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot (died April AD 29–33) was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus, and the one who is said to have betrayed him.

Biblical narrative

Mark also states that the chief priests were looking for a "sly" way to arrest Jesus. They determine not to do so during the feast because they were afraid that the people would riot. It is after the feast that they do end up arresting him.

According to the account given in the gospels, he carried the disciples' money box and betrayed Jesus for a bribe of "thirty pieces of silver" by identifying him with a kiss—the "kiss of Judas"— to arresting soldiers of the High Priest Caiphas, who then turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate's soldiers. These "pieces of silver" were most likely intended to be understood as silver Tyrian shekels.

Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, should not be confused with Jude Thomas (more commonly known as Saint Thomas the Apostle), or with Saint Jude who was also one of the twelve disciples and a brother of James the Less.

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Daniel

Daniel (Hebrew: דָּנִיֵּאל) is a figure appearing in the Hebrew Bible and the central protagonist of the Book of Daniel. The name "Daniel" means "God is my judge" or "God's judge."

Daniel was a young man of the upper crust of Jewish society who was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon and the Chaldean dynasty. Nebudchadnezzar endeavored to remove all traces of Daniel's nationality and religion. For this reason they strove to change Daniel's name to Belteshazzar:

⁷ And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. (Dan. 1:7 ESV)

At the first deportation of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar II (the kingdom of Israel had come to an end nearly a century before at the hands of the Assyrians), or immediately after his victory over the Egyptians at the second battle of Carchemish, in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim (B.C. 606), Daniel and three other noble youths named Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were among the Jewish young nobility carried off to Babylon (probably as hostages to ensure the loyalty of Judah's king and advisors), along with some of the vessels of the temple.

Daniel and his three Jewish companions were subsequently evaluated and chosen for their intellect and beauty, to be trained as Chaldeans, who constituted the ranks of the advisors to the Babylonian court.

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seraphim

Angels of the highest order.

A seraph (Hebrew שׂרף, plural שׂרפים Seraphim) is one of a class of celestial beings mentioned once in the Old Testament (Tanakh), in Isaiah.

Later Jewish imagery perceived them as having human form, and in that way they passed into the ranks of Christian angels.

In the Christian angelic hierarchy, seraphim represent the highest known rank of angels.

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Jeremiah

Jeremiah or Yirmiyáhu (יִרְמְיָהוּ) His writings are collected in the book of Jeremiah, and the Book of Lamentations. Jeremiah is considered by some modern scholars (as well as some Ancient Rabbis) to have written, or redacted much of the Old Testament, as we have it today. His language in "Jeremiah" and "Lamentations" is quite similar to that in Deuteronomy and the "Deuteronomic history" of Joshua, Judges, the Books of Samuel, and the Books of Kings. Jeremiah is also famous as "the broken-hearted prophet" (who wrote or dictated a "broken book", which has been difficult for scholars to put into chronological order), whose heart-rending life, and true prophecies of dire warning went largely-unheeded by the people of Judah. YHWH told Jeremiah, "You will go to them; but for their part, they will not listen to you".

According to the Book of Jeremiah, he was called to the prophetical office when still young; in the thirteenth year of Josiah (628 BC). He left his native place, Anatoth, (where Jeremiah was perhaps a member of the priesthood) and went to reside in Jerusalem; where he assisted Josiah in his work of reformation.

Jeremiah was a Kohen (member of the priestly family, see also: Kohen Gadol) called to the prophetical office when still young; in the thirteenth year of Josiah (628 BC). He left his native place, Anathoth, to reside in Jerusalem, where he assisted Josiah in his work of reformation. Jeremiah wrote a lamentation upon the death of this pious king (2 Chr. 35:25).

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