The Legends of History

Paintings. They can enrapture, they can mystify, and sometimes… they can startle. Take a look at any painting and you can guarantee that it means something different to someone else. Paintings can have such a power that they can elevate us to a state of joy, they can take us back to our childhood, or they can lift our spirits and fill us with warmth. On the other hand, paintings can take us to the...

In today’s episode, we’ll be exploring what exactly happened to the Nephilim across multiple stories including the Book of Enoch, the Book of Giants (which is a fragmented Jewish follow up to the Book of Enoch that details the Nephilim’s fate), and the bible - which interestingly, does show us in several subsequent chapters that the giants remained on the earth in the days after Noah, which means...

Having beaten their brother, thrown him down a well and then sold him into slavery to the Ishmaelites, the brothers of Joseph go about their lives as if nothing had happened. The next chapter of Genesis takes place in the life of Judah and you might remember that it was Judah who had convinced his brothers not to kill Joseph, but to instead sell him to the Ishmaelites in the first place.

There are many symbols in the world and throughout history that can invoke a myriad of emotions. Symbols can inspire us, they can provide comfort, they can instill in us hope, joy, love and perhaps even a sense of belonging. But then, there are also symbols that can do quite the opposite, eliciting panic, dread and fear. One such symbol that comes under such scrutiny is indeed the pentagram - some...

The Mesopotamian concept of the underworld, or simply ‘life after death’, differed depending on the time period or the region one might’ve found themselves in. Indeed, there was no all encompassing book that detailed the rules or the features of what lurked on ‘the other side’ and there was no fundamental belief that determined whether a person might burn in the netherworld or live forever in the...

According notes in the German translation of the Quran by Catholic and Islamic theologian Adel Theodore Khoury, there was a belief that certain angels including the likes of Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat (otherwise known as goddesses in some Arabian regions), were considered to be the daughters of God in pre-Islamic Arabia. However, by the time of the 7th century when Islam had become widely accepted...

When we think of Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John from the New Testament are likely the four that are most spoken of. They are, after all, included in the bible and are deemed by believers to be the closest words we have to what a historical Jesus might’ve said. These four gospels were the books that the church agreed were authentic representations of Christ himself, and indeed whilst other G...

The journey of the sun intrigued the ancient Egyptians like you wouldn’t believe. They were fascinated by where it had come from, how it moved and where it went when the night descended. One concept that has remained consistent through Ancient Egyptian lore was that after the sun passed below the western horizon, it ventured into the pocket of another realm - a dangerous realm full of demons, mons...

Described as a ‘Great President’ of Hell, the demon Marbas is the first demon in Ars Goetia that does not conform to the royal European standard of hierarchy. He is also a demon that seemingly manages to elude the demonic classification by Collin de Plancy in his Dictionnaire Infernal, making him unique to Ars Goetia. However, if we look at Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, we do see Marbas...

Chapter 37 opens up with us being explained that Jacob (sometimes now known as Israel after being renamed by his God) set up his home in the land of Canaan and it was there he had raised his large family, courtesy of his two wives and there many handmaidens. The story at last steers away from Jacob, who’d had a mainstay presence in Genesis and is inherited by Jacob, a young man of seventeen who te...

In spite of rules set down by the church, it has not stopped people from seeing signs of the archangels or in some cases seeing them in dreams or even being spirited away to some other worldly plain. In short, people do really believe in archangels (despite the church’s warnings) and people do appear to experience the same kind of phenomena such as seeing certain colours, numbers or even hearing v...

A strong belief in supernatural beings such as angels, demons or even various forms of beasts and monsters have always existed throughout history. By now, many are accustomed to the more medieval creatures from Europe such as werewolves, vampires and fairies - the sort we might expect to see in typical Hollywood movies. But a series of creatures that often fly under the radar, so to speak, at leas...

Archaeologically speaking, there are few discoveries that might’ve brought the world to a standstill when they were unearthed, simply due to the magnitude of their importance. The Rosetta Stone, The site of Pompeii and even the Tomb of Tutankhamun all stand out as some fine examples of incredible archaeological discovery that were not only fascinating to comprehend, but essential in opening and lo...

The Vikings believed that the physical death was not the end. For those who had proved themselves worthy in life and battle, the great halls of Valhalla awaited in the glorious kingdom of the gods known as Asgard. There, the dead - now glorious, eternal beings, dined with the gods and goddesses themselves and lived on forever knowing no pain and having no want. But in some ancient beliefs, the aft...

In today’s video, we’ll be playing devil’s advocate when we ask what would have happened to the world as we know it, if Guy Fawkes had succeeded in lighting the spark.

Dragons. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them. Or maybe that’s women?.... Well, in the Japanese folklore story of Kiyohime, the daughter of a manor official, they are essentially one in the same. The folk tale sees us follow our protagonist Anchin - a humble buddhist monk on a pilgrimage to the Kumano shrine in the southern side of the Kii Province. But what appears to be a simple journey...

There’s an idea that exists that at some point in history, the church suppressed several texts and shielded our eyes from some of the more dubious and salacious antics of biblical characters. Supposedly, the figures who have been a mainstay influence for countless generations possess a darker, more insidious side to them and those who have since been perceived as perfect and pious are actually fla...

s we’ve seen in many mythologies, the sun and the moon were believed to have been physical representations of actual deities. In other accounts, the gods would ferry the sun and the moon across the sky as a means to explain why and how the sun and the moon appeared in different places in the sky, depending on the time of day. To the ancient Egyptians, this was the sun god Ra, who in his barge woul...

Has Our Attitude Towards Love Changed? Today, on the Sunday Special, we take a look at the oldest love poems ever discovered from the Mesopotamian Love Song for Shu Sin and the Biblical Song of Songs. In an effort to understand love today, it may be fruitful to explore how love was regarded back in ancient times and so, we'll be spending this episode analysing the two poems and drawing both co...

Not for the first time have I seen The Old Testament God described as a God with a ‘dark side’. He is after all responsible for floods, plagues, famines and sometimes just outright genocide. However, according to traditional believers, it’s not so much the case that the Old Testament God is ‘trigger happy’ but that this more violent side is just another part of God, who like us, is multifaceted. S...

Many of you will likely know of Horus as the falcon headed God who not only avenged his murdered father by defeating his evil tyrannical uncle Set, but also ascending the throne of Egypt as the King of the Gods. Horus, whose name meant ‘he who is above’ possessed a body that symbolised the heavens themselves, whilst his eyes were also believed to be the sun and the moon respectively, in some belie...

Dinah may have been assaulted in the opening of this chapter of Genesis, but does she get the last laugh? After having been kidnapped by Shechem, it is her brothers Simeon and Levi who take matters into their own hands. But do they go to far?    ➧ Buy our book: https://amzn.to/2Bl3Htx​​​   ➧ Support me on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2VmSvZG​​​   ➧ Twitter - https://twitter.com/Lege...

Angels have a reputation of being glorious and beautiful, but is that really the case? In today's episode, we'll be analysing several of the angels from the bible, biblical apocrypha and the classification of angels made popular by Christian mythos. When we look at the angels such as the Cherubim, Seraphim and the Ophanim, we start to realise how terrifying these creatures really are and how like...

“Mother of the Sun, Theia of many names, for your sake men honor gold as more powerful than anything else; and through the value you bestow on them, o queen, ships contending on the sea and  yoked teams of horses in swift-whirling contests become marvels.” - Pindar, Fifth Isthmian   ➧ Buy our book: https://amzn.to/2Bl3Htx​​​   ➧ Support me on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2VmSvZG​​​ &nbsp...

In the final section before Enoch's Parables, we take a look at the portals of heaven that Enoch sees and discuss what they might've been. In some ideas, where Enoch sees 'stars', it might be said that he was seeing 'angels' (stars being something of a metaphor for angels). With this, some have theorised that the angels used these portals as means of transport, hence why Enoch speaks of them. &nbs...