biblical

• Biblical

From Medieval Latin biblicus +‎ -al, equivalent to bible +‎ -ical.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɪblɪkəl/

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biblical (comparative more biblical, superlative most biblical)

1. Of or relating to the Bible.

   Tithing is both a quranic and biblical virtue.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.

   • 2025 July 19, Jonathan Liew, “Ann-Katrin Berger follows up biblical miracle with penalty heroics for Germany”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     She claws it away with her fingers. Falls heavily on her shoulders. Accepts the congratulations of her teammates, who look like they have just seen a biblical miracle.

2. In accordance with the teachings of the Bible (according to some interpretation of it).

   biblical morality

   The biblical teaching is that…

   • 2023 February 16, Chris McGreal, quoting Mike Pompeo, “Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.

3. (figurative) Very great; especially, exceeding previous records in scale.

   of biblical proportions

   with biblical fury

   • 1982, Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, →ISBN:

     To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall—that was a fate of biblical proportions.

   • 1984, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters:

     Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
     Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
     Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.

   • 1992, George H. W. Bush, State of the Union Address:

     We gather tonight at a dramatic and deeply promising time in our history, and in the history of man on earth. For in the past 12 months, the world has known changes of almost biblical proportions. And even now, months after the failed coup that doomed a failed system, I am not sure we have absorbed the full impact, the full import of what happened.

   • 1998 February 22, Walter Kirn, “The Wages of Righteousness”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Russell Banks's “Cloudsplitter,” a novel of near-biblical proportions about the abolitionist freedom fighter John Brown, is shaped like an explosive with an exceedingly long and winding fuse.

   • 2002 July 1, Tim Larimer, “Cult Shock”, in Time‎^[4], archived from the original on 25 February 2012:

     During a thundershower of biblical proportions, hundreds of people dash from a train station in the Tokyo suburb of Kawaguchi, across a bricked plaza and into a modern civic center.

   • 2003 July 20, Roxanne Roberts, “The Mysteries of Mary Magdalene”, in Washington Post, page D01:

     The Da Vinci Code resurrects a debate of biblical proportions.

   • 2003, Arthur M. Lesk, “From electrons to proteins and back again”, in International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, volume 95, number 6, page 679:

     He also drilled into us that all the secrets of the structure of matter were implicit in Charlotte Moore's tables, which assumed an authority and role of biblical proportions.

   • 2005 September 6, Ted Kennedy, quotee, “Bush Nominates Robert as Chief Justice”, in CNN‎^[5], archived from the original on 28 June 2018:

     In the midst of a national disaster of biblical proportions, it is difficult for the American people to participate fully in the selection of the next chief justice.

   • 2023 February 14, Damian Carrington, quoting António Guterres, “Rising seas threaten ‘mass exodus on a biblical scale’, UN chief warns”, in The Guardian‎^[6], →ISSN:

     An increase in the pace at which sea levels are rising threatens “a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale”, the UN secretary general has warned.

• biblic (archaic)

• nonbiblical
• unbiblical

• scriptural

• evangelic, pentateuchal, psalmic, Torahic
• New Testament, Old Testament (attributive, rarely New Testamental, Old Testamental)

• (by sources of faith) apostolic, conciliar, ex cathedra, Mishnaic, Rabbinic, Talmudic, traditional
• (by religions) Avestan, Qur'anic, Vedic

• biblicism
• biblicist