Monday, October 15, 2018 | 4 pm | U of A Hillel 1245 E. 2nd St. | Free & Open to the Public

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The Sally & Ralph Duchin Campus Lecture Series

After lying buried in the ground for over 2,000 years, the remains of Babylon were dug up by archaeologists over one hundred years ago. Yet the city remains enveloped in a web of myth, which occupies a unique place in our culture in spite of its origin in the ancient past.

Known in its time for its impressive walls and luxurious gardens, its learn-ing and temples, this ancient metropolis was buried and forgotten shortly after its last flowering. Instead, Babylon’s reputation as a city of excesses and evil took over, shaped largely by the stories of the Bible and concepts such as the Tower of Babel, the “confusion of tongues,” and the “Babylonian captivity.” Through hundreds of years of Western culture, Babylon lived on as image, myth and symbol, spinning a story of its own.

What happened, when the ancient city was excavated and the for-gotten remains encountered the living myth of Babylon? Why does Babylon continue to fascinate us, expressing itself even in contempo-rary culture? And why is Babylon such a useful metaphor in describing opponents and enemies, their evil and decay?

Prof. Rannfrid Thelle teaches biblical studies at Wichita State Univer-sity in Kansas, and has taught at Luther College, Iowa, and at the University of Oslo in the past. She works with the Hebrew Bible in par-ticular, and has traveled extensively in the Middle East, including Iraq.

Prof. Rannfrid Thelle

Wichita State University

Photo-illustration components: Tower of Babel - Athanasius Kircher, Bablyon Ruins - U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Arlo K. Abrahamson - Public Domain; Turris Babel (Amsterdam, 1679); Hanging Gardends - Wikicommons/PBS. Used in compliance with 17 U.S.C. § 106.

The Sally & Ralph Duchin Campus Lecture Series is made possible by the generous support of Sally and Ralph Duchin.