In this first episode Brian made a note that in the Bible cities and temples are intimately linked. This is obvious but overlooked. Curiously Iain Provan makes it a podcast and then forgets about it when writing. An example of the difference of speaking to an audience and writing.
https://www.gospelconversations.com/talks/the-ancient-near-eastern-context
If you want to just start with the cities bit it begins at 26 mins. But listen to the whole talk to get into the ancient world view.
Babylon in it's time was a temple complex and centre for government administration. Indeed what was the founding myth of Babylon.
....
"in order to settle the gods in the dwelling of [their] hearts' delight,
He created mankind"(1).
In other words humans are the slave class for building a city for the dwelling of the gods.
Egypt had its own massive temples.
What are Temples, amongst other things they are the presence of the gods.
Later in the Bible, we see the link between Jerusalem and Yahweh's Temple. Finally at the very end of the Bible we again see this combination between Temple imagery and city imagery.
If we go beyond the Bible and the Ancient Near East (ANE) we still see the link between cities and temples, think about meso and south America (2).
(1) p1. Leick, G. (2001) Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City. Penguin Books.
(2) McClellan III, J. E. and Dorn, H. (2006) Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction. John Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
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