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Whore of Babylon
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Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and a place of evil as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17:5 as "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth" (Greek: μυστήριον, Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, ἡ μήτηρ τῶν πορνῶν καὶ τῶν βδελυγμάτων τῆς γῆς, romanized: mystḗrion, Babylṑn hē megálē, hē mḗtēr tôn pornôn kaì tôn bdelygmátōn tês gês).
She is further identified as a representation of "the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth" in Revelation 17:18.[1]
Passages from Revelation[edit]
The "great whore" of the Book of Revelation is featured in chapter 17:
|1||And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:|
|2||With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.|
|3||So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.|
|4||And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:|
|5||And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.|
|6||And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.|
|9||And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.|
|10||And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space.|
|11||And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.|
|12||And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.|
|15||And he said unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.|
|18||And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.|
Symbolism[edit]
The Whore is associated with the Beast of Revelation by connection with an equally evil kingdom.[citation needed] The word "Whore" can also be translated metaphorically as "Idolatress".[2] The Whore's apocalyptic downfall is prophesied to take place in the hands of the image of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. There is much speculation within Christian eschatology on what the Whore and Beast symbolize as well as the possible implications for contemporary interpretations.[3][4][5][6]
Caroline Vander Stichele demonstrated that the narrative of the Whore of Babylon follows many of the same patterns of the personification of capital cities as women who commit "prostitution / whoredom" and/or "adultery" in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. These capital cities, representing the states they govern, are alleged to have committed various sins that have rendered them sexually promiscuous, and therefore they will eventually be annihilated through various well-deserved violent punishments sent by the Israelite God Yahweh.[7]
Rome[edit]
First Peter (1 Peter 5:13) implies the author is in "Babylon", which has been held to be a coded reference to Rome.[8][9][10] Many Biblical scholars[11][12] believe that "Babylon" is a metaphor for the pagan Roman Empire at the time it persecuted Christians, before the Edict of Milan in 313. According to Eusebius of Caesarea Babylon would be Rome or the Roman Empire:
And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: «The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you; and so does Marcus my son.»(1 Peter 5:13)"[13]
Some biblical scholars recognize that "Babylon" is a cipher for Rome or the Roman Empire but believe Babylon is not limited to the Roman city of the first century. Craig Koester says outright that "the whore is Rome, yet more than Rome."[14] It "is the Roman imperial world, which in turn represents the world alienated from God."[15] Some exegetes interpret the passage as a scathing critique of a servant people of Rome who do the Empire's bidding, interpreting that the author of Revelation was speaking of the Herodians—a party of Jews friendly to Rome and open to its influence, like the Hellenizers of centuries past—and later, corrupt Hasmoneans, where the ruler of Jeru…