Picture one very old book that a whole culture keeps pointing back at. When you call something biblical, you are aiming a finger at that book. Sometimes you are only saying where the thing came from. Sometimes you are saying it matches what the book teaches. And sometimes you are borrowing the size of the events inside it, where a flood covers the world.

可以想成一本很舊的書,被一整個文化反覆指回去。說某樣東西 biblical,就是把手指向那本書。有時候你只是在說「它出自那裡」。有時候你是在說「它照那本書教的」。有時候你借的是書裡那些事件的尺度,像一場淹掉整個世界的大水。

From the word’s history

The source records Medieval Latin biblicus plus -al, equivalent to bible plus -ical, so the word is simply of that book.

來源資料寫的是中世紀拉丁文 biblicus 加 -al,等於 bible 加 -ical。整個字的意思就是「屬於那本書的」,所以每一個用法都還牽著那本書。

Wiktionary (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:33150750) entry for biblical: From Medieval Latin biblicus + -al, equivalent to bible + -ical.

Two branches

指回聖經這本書

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from the Bible · adjective · B2

Relating to the Bible, or written in the Bible.

聖經的

借那本書裡的場面講規模

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of biblical proportions · adjective · C1

If a bad situation or event is of biblical proportions, it is extremely large or extremely serious.

規模大得驚人(多指壞事)