The Babylonian captivity (or Babylonian exile) was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE.^{[citation needed]}

According to the Hebrew Bible, there were three deportations of Jews to Babylon: the exile of King Jeconiah, his court and many others in Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year; Jeconiah's successor Zedekiah and the rest of the people in Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year; and a later deportation in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year. These are attributed to 597 BCE, 587 BCE, and 582 BCE, respectively. The forced exile ended in 538 BCE after the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who gave the Jews permission to return to Yehud province and to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The captivity and subsequent return to the Land of Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem are considered significant events in Jewish history and culture, which had a far-reaching impact on the development of Judaism.

George Weigel (Baltimore, 1951 - ) is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation. He is the author of the best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope and Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace.

Weigel grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended St. Mary's Seminary and University, and he later received his masters degree from St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. Weigel has received nine honorary doctorate degrees, as well as the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal from the Polish Ministry of Culture.

Weigel lived in Seattle, serving as Assistant Professor of Theology and Assistant Dean of Studies at the St. Thomas the Apostle Seminary School of Theology in Kenmore, and Scholar-in-Residence at the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle, before returning to Washington, D.C. as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

 Martin Luther (help·info) (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.

Edward Nelson (born May 4, 1932, in Decatur, Georgia) is a professor in the Mathematics Department at Princeton University. He is known for his work on mathematical physics and mathematical logic. In mathematical logic, he is noted especially for his internal set theory, and his controversial views on ultrafinitism and the consistency of arithmetic.

Nelson received his Ph.D. in 1955 from the University of Chicago, where he worked with Irving Segal. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956–1959. He has held a position at Princeton University from 1959 to the present, attaining the rank of professor there in 1964.

Nelson has made contributions to the theory of infinite dimensional group representations, the mathematical treatment of quantum field theory, the use of stochastic processes in quantum mechanics, and the reformulation of probability theory in terms of non-standard analysis.

For many years he worked on mathematical physics and probability theory, and still has a residual interest in these fields, particularly in possible extensions of stochastic mechanics to field theory.