Exploring the Book of Revelation.
Gramps49
Shipmate
in Kerygmania
Would anyone be interested in exploring Revelation with me based on a free online course through Luther Seminary in Minneapolis Minnesota?
I can post the link to each lesson so people can study it, and react to it.
The first link is here.
To get the ball rolling: could we call this Revelations because it seems to have a number of revelations in its body, or was it just one Revelation is many stories in it?
I can post the link to each lesson so people can study it, and react to it.
The first link is here.
To get the ball rolling: could we call this Revelations because it seems to have a number of revelations in its body, or was it just one Revelation is many stories in it?
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I've always wondered if there were particularly "interesting" mushrooms on Patmos.
Or maybe the author was just an imaginative guy who liked to use vivid symbolism?
Part of the problem for modern readers is that Revelation was written in a literary genre (apocalyptic literature) that is extinct among modern authors. As such Revelation seems weird and unlike anything else we've read because it is unlike anything else we've read.
Point to remember, get rid of the sensationalism.
That is indeed true. And f**k everyone from W.B. Yeats to Iron Maiden who encouraged that trend.
Though I will hereby trumpet that I personally started at the beginning, because I was in Catholic elementary school with a teacher whose religion lectures consisted partly of regurgitating pop-psychology and pop-theology(*), and he told us that the BoR predicts the end-times. So I went home and read it one night, having no idea what to expect. I remember thinking the measurement-of-the-temple was pretty lame, and wondering why 666 would be more evil than any other number.
(*) Not neccessarily having much connection to Catholicism. Among other things, he told us that the statue of the angel Moroni atop the Temple in SLC had miraculously survived various meteorological catastrophes over the years.
! And at a Catholic school!
And, actually, in junior-high, a teacher made overhead images of a bible-comic outlining the basic Hal Lindsey theory on the BoR, and spent one class teaching it. But he at least prefaced his lecture by saying that he was just presenting it for interest, not neccesarily saying it was true.
This makes it sound as if John Of Patmos was consciously trying to critique state tyranny in general. Whereas I think a case can be made that he was really just intending to talk about one particular government and its treatment of his co-religionists.
Sure, we can extrapolate from Rome to other assh**e governments, but for the most part, that's just a matter of re-applying the names and symbols, eg. "Moderate and sensible Britons await their archangel to slay the dragon of Brexit."
Very helpful. I was particularly struck by the idea that Revelation has inspired music.
Yes, it seems Revelation follows the outline of a liturgy. Much of our current liturgy refers back to Revelation.
I tend more toward the theory that it is the direct numerological representation of somebody's name, since that's what the text itself says, ie. "...it is the number of a man". (Probably the politician who kicked around the Christians for a bit to distract attention from his own incompetent fire-prevention services.)
Plus, why would 6.66 in particular be used to represent "less than 7"? Why not 6.65 or 6.67?
Books are primarily written for a contemporary audience, not some imagined future audience. This is especially true for early Christian writings, given the widespread belief that the world would end very soon and there would be no future audiences.
Just because a book was written primarily for a contemporary audience does not mean it has no interest for anyone else, which is why the Iliad (for example) is still published and read. The broader themes are still relevant.
It does represent the number of a man. People have long said it goes back to Nero since his name is the same as the Greek letters for 666, but Domitian was likely the current emperor when Revelation was written. Basically, John is saying people will continue to rise up claiming to be the leader of the world, but will end up lacking when all is said and done.
I think it's actually "the number of man," that is, of humankind. (someone versed in the ins and outs of Greek usage of articles, which differs from ours, can correct)
Which (if I'm right) is simply incompleteness. Humanity is incomplete (without God, that is). And the power in question, whoever/whatever it may be, is definitely attempting to get along without God--which is exactly when human endeavors turn toxic. With God to complete us, it's not a problem.
(Consider a similar formulation, "X is the number of toddler"--wouldn't that cause you to shudder and pull back, though with a strong side of humor to it?)
Sure. But there are degrees of cross-temporal relevance. Brave New World's Our Ford is now a pretty dated reference, because assembly-lines etc are no longer the wave of the future. But someone reading the book today can still translate the figure of Henry Ford into Steve Jobs, in terms of being a widely-idolized and widely-quoted business tycoon whose technological innovations are having a baleful impact on social relations.
But stuff like a beast specified as having seven heads and ten horns, the number 666(*), the False Prophet giving life to a statue in the Temple, are pretty obviously talking about specific people and events of the past(or at least the near-future from the POV of the writer), and can't really be applied to figures in most other eras, unless, as I say, it's on the rudimentary level of "What a goddam jerk that Mayor McWidget is, someone needs to check his forehead for 666."
[Granted, Babylon Mother Of Harlots can probably be applied to any political or religious institution that is inordinately wealthy, kills alot of people, and allies with scuzzy businessmen. But I would hope that, in the feminist era, using female sexuality to symbolize violence and corruption has been barred from respectable discourse.]
(*) I am for now sticking to the theory that number represents the name of a Roman emperor, partly because I think that's the only way that the detail about people needing to have the mark in order to buy and sell makes sense.
The Greek ἀνθρώπου without the definite article can mean ‘a person’ or ‘humanity’/‘humankind’. (It is not specifically male. That would be ἀνδρός.)
It does seem to be presented as one event with many 'scenes' in it. They chop and change but don't stop and start like Daniel.
The "start from the beginning" perspective given makes sense to me. At least for understanding revelation as a work. If I was looking for band or art inspiration I'd skip to the monsters (though the earlier part has also inspired works)
The more I hear about it the more Nero works, as a number of a person explanation (it would put it as being pre 72 inspired though). Some parts of revelation are unsubtle.
I quite like the fact its a lazy-complex Roman number DCLXVI, shame it was written in Greek.
Ummm, and was decimal-thinking a "thing" in the first century?
I honestly don't know. Never heard of it in relation to Roman numerals, but I think the writer woulda been using a different system, anyway.
There was also a widespread belief (conspiracy theory, really) in the latter part of the first century that Nero would return. The convenient parallelism to a Jesus who would return seems too good for an author to overlook a contemporary belief in a tyrant who would return.
Nero seems like the most plausible candidate to me.
With all due respect to the worthy shipmates arguing the case, I'm not really buying that 666 just refers just to the general imperfection of "man". That doesn't really fit with the other metaphors used in that part of the text, which seem pretty clearly about specific political situations and persons. Even The Mother Of Harlots, who I mentioned earlier as a somewhat more generic figure, is obviously linked with a certain powerful city.
Stuff like Michael Vs. The Dragon and The Wedding Feast Of The Lamb are more easily universalized, I will acknowledge.
Just to get away from the 666 tangent a bit, one of the arguments is about the timing of the writing. Did John write in AD66 during the Neronic era or around AD95 when Domitian was emperor as Iraneus suggests in “About Heresies” written circa AD120 (correct me)?
Yes, I have noticed that. Whenever the 24 elders are mentioned there is extreme and powerful worship.