Just came in from my weekly (or at least as close to that as I can possibly manage) visit to the local pub quiz with some friends, to find another blog on my feed refering to an article in the Perth Press and Journal. It tells of a Church of Scotland minister who has convinced Inveralmond Brewery to produce a special ale to commemorate the decision of his church, St. Matthew's in Perth to hold a carol service in a local pub. I suppose it is going back to the monastic origins of much of the brewing in North Western Europe, a tradition carried on in the breweries of Belgium, but I'm not to sure that it will catch on here in Northern Ireland! And despite the fact that a certain Methodist Minister appreciates real ale, I particularly don't think it will be Irish Methodism which enters into the first similar agreement with a local brewing company.
We were driving back from school last week, talking about books that we had been reading and my younger son, Ciaran, asked me "Where is Babylon?" I have to confess that my history is better than my geography, and I said that it no longer exists as an inhabited city, but its ruins were to the north west of the current capital of Iraq, Baghdad. When I checked however, I discovered that it is actually about 50 miles south of Baghdad and the modern town is the administrative centre of the province of Babil... But just as the modern city is but a shadow of the historic capital of 2 ancient empires, first under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and then the "Neo-Babylonian" empire (under Nebuchadnezzar etc) in the 6th century BCE, so the earthly Babylonian empire/s was/were fleeting in comparison to the enduring metaphorical idea of Babylon. The original Empire under Hammurabi was probably the ultimate origin of some of the early Biblical stories, including the ...
Comments