Bible and Saints

David’s scheme to steal another man’s wife succeeded, but he could not keep his secret from everyone.

David was King of all Israel early in the 10th century BC. Through Bathsheba, he was a forefather of Jesus, but the marriage was the result of a stratagem unworthy of a King.

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Smarting for his outraged ‘rights’, Cain lost his reason — but not God’s pity and love.

Abel and his brother Cain were the sons of Adam and Eve. Theirs is a universal tale of what long-nursed envy and a sense of outraged ‘rights’ can lead us to do; but it is also an allegory of the deteriorating relationship between Judah and the ten tribes of northern Israel in the 8th century BC.

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The King who condemned him to the den of lions felt far worse about it than Daniel did.

Nebuchadnezzar II was King of Babylon (near to modern Baghdad) in the 6th century BC. Many Jews lived there, after Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians 587 BC.

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Prince Belshazzar’s disrespectful behaviour left him facing the original ‘writing on the wall’.

Belshazzar was a prince in Babylon (near what is now Baghdad, Iraq) in the 6th century BC. While his father King Nabonidus was away, Belshazzar had the government of the Empire in his father’s stead.

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A ‘Christian’ mob kidnapped and murdered a much-loved professor of mathematics - for her politics.

Hypatia was head of the Philosophical School in Alexandria. She was a very likeable mathematician and astronomer, who numbered pagans, Jews, and several Christian clergymen among her past and present students.

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Scotland’s association with the brother of Peter is down to an early 8th century Bishop of Hexham.

St Andrew the Apostle came to be the Patron Saint of Scotland through an early 8th century Bishop of Hexham. His feast day is the 30th of November, and he is patron also of Romania and Russia.

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