Loading...I have started to give some background on the book of Revelation, to help set the stage for my new understanding of it as it has developed over the past year. Much of what I think now is what I’ve thought for 45 years. But the deeper I’ve dug, the more I’ve seen and the more I’ve come to realize that my older perspective (a widely held one among scholars) has some serious flaws (as others too have seen).
But none of these new insights affects my basic view, that to understand this mysterious book we have to do what almost NO ONE in the modern world does (except scholars): understanding it in its own historical context in light of what we know of its historical and, especially, literary context. If you change the context, you change the meaning. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the book of Revelation.
In the last post I summarized the narrative (urging you to read it for yourself) (if you prefer to listen to it, make sure you get a production with sound effects!). Now I can start to explain how we need to contextualize it to understand it. This again is drawn from my textbook on the New Testament (Oxford University Press; 7th ed. 2020).
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To most modern readers the Apocalypse of John seems mystical and bizarre, quite unlike anything else that we have read. In part, this explains our continual fascination with the book—it is so strange, so unearthly, that its descriptions cannot simply have been dreamt up. Its supernatural feel seems to vindicate its supernatural character.
The historian who approaches the book, however, sees it in a somewhat different light, for this was not the only book of its kind to be written in the ancient world, even if it is the only one that most of us have ever read. Indeed, a number of other apocalypses were produced by ancient Jews and Christians. These works also offer unworldly accounts of happenings in heaven; bizarre descriptions of supranatural events and transcendent realities that impinge on the history of our world; and deeply symbolic visions of the end of time that are given by God through his angels to a human prophet, who writes them down in cryptic and mysterious narratives filled with emphatic claims that they are true and soon to take place.
Some of these other apocalypses still survive, and together they make up a distinct genre of literature. Thus, far from being unique in its own day, the Apocalypse of John followed a number of literary conventions that were well known among Jews and Christians of the ancient world. A historian who wants to understand this one ancient text, then, will situate it in the context of this related literature and explain its important features in light of the literary conventions of the genre.
Apocalypses were written to
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From what I see, many of f the large ancent religions have references to different methodes of getting in touch with or gaining a view of the transcendental world. This is for me at least, very obvious in different «Hinduism(s)» and Buddism(s) that have partly aspects of vision-based teachings / doctrines. This also seems to be found in the kind of mindful meditations, along with «dreams»/visions referred to in the Hebrew bible, or other ways of getting «in the spirit». Among the Gnostic Christians, they seemed to use some kind of baptist rituals (5 seals) that at least seems like a kind of practise of some kind to get in touch with a devine realm or to go on a «visionary journey(s)».
Carl Gustav Jung who probably used a kind of mindful meditations (a long process) to get in touch and go onto his transcendental journeys as he wrote his «The Red Book He was also convinced that Gnosticism was psychological or vice versa. His professional views seemed to be parallel to these views, at least to a large extent about (levels of) consciousness..
Many of these views reflects around inner state, inner conciousness, evolving conciousness and not as an attemt to predict future material events.
Do you think there may be a chance that these visions were received more in line with what I mentioned above, and spoke of a more spiritually profound level, rather than a strange type of “artistic”? and camouflaged predictions about the future?
It has often been thought that the author actually had visions that he is recording. In my view there would be no way to know if that was true or not.
Yes, which is very fundamental.
Well ,,,,,,, I presume John had his vision(s) as written in the text (assuming the “bad Greek” version represents the original Aramaic / Hebrew text). For my own “amusement” I’ve used Dr. Carl G. Jung’s (founder of analytical deapth psychology) conceptual framework, or at least as far as I understand it. This is a reputable scholar who considered part of Valentinian Gnosticisim as a mirror of his own view of fundamental psychology who also studyed and wrote extensively of these topics relating to symbols, myths, concioiusnesses in relation to psychology and religion(s). He was also deep into eatern religions and their symbols and wrote extensively about for example Hindu concepts (in particular the Vandetic concepts), including the concepts of the spirutual/conciousness seats within ourself, the Charkras. Applying this concept on the Revelation, the story will change dramatically and become inward, compared with a lot of dramatic interpretations which are around.
And yes, although the “Revelation” is probably not Gnostic in nature, I find many similarities on a broader scale, at least how I read and/or understand it. I would not be surprised (if John in reality had a vision) if Revelation is all about soul ascending process In addition to those concepts mentioned above, and apply some of the symbols found in the Hebrew Bibel, in particular the visions of Ezeciel when he was in the spirit, and in Daniel 7 , I read it as a Revelation of our own being.
In this conceptual framework, Revelation is not that different as consepts found in Gnosticism and from such a frameword in mind, I read the story differently.
If so,,,,talks about the 7 churces, which could easily be talking about the seven spiritual centers found elsewhere like 7 earthly garments, 7 veils, 7speres etc, or in particular the 7 Charkas (with very different properties/qualities) in the Hindi system. These centers which Jung also wrote was the seat of our concousness, our spiritual centers who needs to be spiritualized, or awakened, remembered (the seal need to be broken) and purified.
Then the new man emerges, as a child, where the book telles about the rebellious forces, which leads to the fall of “Self”(the material part) as the fall of Babylon. The remaining Self (spiritual part) will ascend to a higher conciousness, represented as Christ, through the marriage of the Lamb and to the state of New Jerusalem.
Of course, and like you say, we may have lack of eveidence, but the fun part is that the concepts (briefly mentioned above) fits for me pretty well with the concepts mentioned above.
Is there a scholarly estimate on the date that apocalyptic Judaism started approximately?
Yup, around 200 BCE (around the time of 1 Enoch) and coming more to the forefront a few decades later during the Maccabean revolt, in the 160s (when Daniel was written)
What is the short answer to why scholars believe Daniel was written in the second century BCE? I was raised with the view that it was written in Babylon shortly after the captivity in the 6th or 7th century BCE (leading to the belief that it was a prophetic book)
Two quick answers: part is written in a form of Aramaic not used in the 6th century (it was introduced into Israel after the Persians) but in the 2nd and it makes clear references to Antiochus Epiphanes. (BUt I was raised with the tradition view too! And held it till I actually read the scholarship.)
You write that the first apocalypse we know of was “Daniel”, but to me it seems that most of the tropes of apocalypses were present already in that book. So he either invented the tropes himself or he was writing in an existing tradition. Which do you think was more likely, or do you think he’s not writing as a “mature” apocalypticist?
Actually, 1 ENoch is usually now seen as the older apocalypse. ANd both of them would have been inheriting views, not making them up on the spot.
Why is Ezekiel not considered as the earliest apocalypse? Does Revelation borrow from Ezekiel, if that is the case, could Ezekiel could be considered as an important source?
Ezekiel certainly has bizarre visions, that apocalypticists were drawn to. BUt he does not have an apocalyptic view of history or the relationship of good and evil.
So if Enoch and Daniel inherited their apocalyptic views, where did they inherit them from? I assume they must have begun as an oral tradition, given that literacy was so low. So when did Jews begin developing apocalyptic views and were they influenced by non-Jewish sources?
A small, easily-answered question you can deal with in less than 200 words… :o)
We don’t know who first developed these ideas — kind of like most ideas. We know who first pronounced on them convincingly (think: democracy; capitalism; etc.), but not who originated them. BUt it appears to be an inner-Jewish development starting aroudn 200 BCE or earlier.
This question is perhaps off-topic, but it does have to do with symbolic communication. Were the parables attributed to the apocalyptic Jesus unique, or were they also told by other apocalyptics? Was there anything distinctive about those told by Jesus?
We don’t have any of the parables told in exacdtly the same ways anywhere, no. Just about all of JEsus’ parables are found only in Gospels about him. But there are similar *kinds* of parables in other writings. YOu might look at the relatively new book by A. J. Levine about the parables.
I wasn’t asking about the content of the parables; I was curious about their style as a persuasive device — simple, everyday stories with an unexpected twist. I could imagine that most available ancient sources focused on the content of the message of apocalypitic prophets, not their speaking styles. But is there any evidence that the style of Jesus’s parables was unique to him?
OH yes, those are found in Jewish circles as well, it was not a style unique to Jesus. See, e.g., https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/reviews/parables-of-the-sages/
“The idea implicit in this kind of apocalypse is that life on earth directly reflects life in heaven…” This kind of suggest an occult formulation often used in that literature: “as above, so below”. And vice versa. What makes the Jewish and Christian apocalypse unlike non-Christian end of the age or end of the world scenarios (Norse, for instance, or Hindu) seems to be the dualism, an evil world destroyed and replaced by a good world. In other cultures it’s more like things simply complete a cycle and the cycle renews. And that process goes on forever. Not so in the Christian and Jewish belief systems.
How much was early literature influenced by Persian and Zoroastrian theology, including cosmic dualism and a concept of history that postulated a beginning, a series of time periods and a climactic ending of time? It would seem the fundamental theological problem is theodicy. Their response postulated a cosmic dualism with a polarity of good and evil for the divine order was in itself bipolar. Were the powers of evil and good personified as they are in Zorastrianism by Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, or as they were to become in Jewish thought in God and Satan (or some other), or were they left unpersonified? I am just wondering if the dualism of apocalypticism and the stress upon individual salvation distinction can be pushed too far. Didn’t the The apocalypticists make it possible for men to maintain belief in the righteousness of God when all historical evidence appeared to point to the opposite? Because the ethics of apocalypticism were not only concerned with what men did here and now but with what men would do in the coming kingdom, didn’t there tend to develop ethical concerns that had universalistic implications? Certainly the Maccabean revolt demonstrated not all were on board.
THere is a ibg debate about the affect of Persian religion on apocalypticism. For years I taught that there was indeed important influence, but when I dug into the mattr in my research for my book Heaven and Hell, I changed my mind. I”m dubious of influence now, mainly because the Persian texts cannot be reliably dated to a time prior to the development of apocalyptic thinking in Judaism.
Completely off topic: what resource (online) or text do you recommend for studying the Greek Christian scriptures to be able to compare it with an accurate English translation? Is there a good parallel text? Cheers.
Yes, there are excellent facing-page bilingual editions, with the Greek on one page and an English translation (NIV, NRSV, or NEB e.g.) on teh facing page. BUt to be able to guage the translation, of course, you would need to be able to read Greek. Just look on Amazon for “Greek-English New Testament”
How do you categorize Zechariah’s apocalypse?
Did the apocalypses provide any reason for why god lost control of the situation in the first place so that the Devil was now in charge of the present age? Good to know that god brought everything back to utopia but isn’t god supposed to be all powerful and all knowing?
In that tradition the two most common explanations are that humans blew it, leading to the introduction of evil in the world, or that angels in heaven rebelled. THe latter is more common.
Sorry, a couple more thoughts/questions. Because Revelation comes through visions or dream-visions, the various apocalyptic writings so closely resemble one another that it is apparent that there was both borrowing of imagery and adherence to an accepted literary pattern. Are the visions, therefore, more literary than experienced? Because some motifs are akin to those of prophecy, wouldn’t it be essential to distinguish?
For instance, the prophets tended to be voices of doom in times of prosperity. Apocalyptic writing foretold deliverance in time of critical danger. The prophets dealt with the sins of prosperity; while the apocalypticist was concerned with the evils and perplexity of adversity.
Or, The prophets structured their message within an historical context – belief that God’s salvation would be realized within history. The apocalypticist held that the whole universe was the battle ground and that the final victory lay outside of human history and would involve the destruction and re-creation of the universe.
Or, The prophets were known persons who wrote in their own names, and who identified themselves with persons and events in their own times. The apocalypticists were pseudonymous, writing under pseudonymns and identifying themselves with historical settings outside of their own times.
My view is that the visions are literary, but of course there is no way to know how much involved the author’s experience. I would say that John is extremely interested in issues of wealth, though, and there is not a lot of evidence that his main concern was persecution (see teh letters of chs. 2-3). Also some prophets were anonymous (2 and 3 Isaiah, e.g.) and Revelation is not pseudonymous. So hard lines are very hard to draw with this kind of material.
I think Apocolyptists are Atheists.
Professor Ehrman, can you explain what the purpose of writing an apocalypse was? I work in communication. When I write something I want it to have a predictable effect on the thoughts and behaviour of the people reading it. An apocalypse seems to me to have an unpredictable effect on people given the range of interpretations that could be taken. I wonder if we are missing a ‘second part’ of the apocalypse – an oral exposition of the meaning by the writer or the writer’s followers.
I’ll be getting to that. It is usually said that they are written to encourage the oppressed of better things to come, and that is partially right. But there’s much more to it than that, as I will be arguing in my book.
I am in the process of a move and I was rooting through a box of old books and I found my original copy of LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH. I was a kid in the 70s raised in a fundamentalist church in the rural South and I remember how that whole thing spread through the churches. The excitement of living in the Last Days was palpable especially since there was nary a dissenting view ever expressed. Who was the anti-Christ? When would he appear? How soon was the Rapture? And now having lived long enough for all that to have spread into popular American culture! What a world!
YEs indeed!
How many social and moral panics were based on an interpretation of a scripture in Revelation? I was a pre-teen when I was told that Satanist were kidnaping kids in Southern California preschools, my favorite cartoon was full of Satanic symbolism and I could hear the voice of Satan if I played my Prince backwards. Good times.
It’s say “those were the days.” But they still are the days!
I’ve been thinking about why apocalypticism was so popular at the time, and I have a theory. Imagine you’re a non-apocalyptic 1st-centry Jew, perhaps a Sadducee. You don’t believe in the afterlife or that God has opponents, and you expect an earthly messiah to someday restore David’s throne. What would tempt you toward apocalypticism, of any stripe?
God hadn’t just promised restoration; he’d promised that an heir of David would always be on the throne. You might ask, what is it about the current age that renders God’s promise temporarily inoperative? And why are you so unlucky as to live it that “forgotten” period? Though your ancestors lived in an independent Israel under a Davidic king and enjoyed God’s fulfilled promise, and though your heirs might see that after the messiah comes, what about you? Are you to live and die fulfilling your half of the Covenant, while God lets his part go unfulfilled, with no explanation?
I don’t think the Sadducees would have satisfying answers for you. But the apocalypticists would. Maybe that partly explains the idea’s popularity. Am I on the right track?
YEs, there was a clear attractiveness to the view. ANd some unattractive sides too, which is why it died out within Judaism and was on the margins for most of the history of Christianity. (Esp. the problem that predictions that God was *soon* to intervene never were fulfilled…)
Bart;
I would propose that amongst the most ‘unattractive sides’ of Christian readings of Revelation, is the ant-Semitic interpretation of Revelation 2:9: ” I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”?
Will you be exploring these readings in your book?
In particular; one understanding of the delayed fulfilment of God’s intervention; was to interpret this as the actions of Satan under the mask of Rabbinic Judaism.
So; on this reading, the world has been delivered *temporarily* into the power of Satan, while all the time the fulfilment of God’s judgment is to come. But future fulfilment requires that God’s faithful people – the Jews – first carry the ‘mark of the living God, (Revelation 7: 1-8).
But, Satan, in his wicked cunning has created a false travesty-Judaism; which has jammed a spanner in the works of history – and indefinitely prolonged the age of Satanic power.
Hence, the reason why we are continuing to suffer tribulation is a direct consequence of the wickedness of false (Rabbinic) Judaism. Only once that is destroyed, can the progress of apocalyptic deliverance get back on track.
Yes, I would say that reading is still strongly anti-Jewish, since every form of Judaism we have today (and that came down from late antiquity to the middle ages to modern times) descended from Rabbinic Judaism, and so this reading would lead to interpreting Jews’ understanding and practice of their own religion as Satanic. In any event, Rabbinic Judaism did not exist in John’s time yet.
Similar question to dankoh’s – How would you characterize Ezechiel’s apocalypse? Also, what was its historical context? Wouldn’t Ezechiel be the older example of the apocalypse genre in the Hebrew Bible?
He certainly has some strange visionary thing going on. ANd this kind of thing could *lead* to an apocalyptic view. BUt he has a very prophetic view of history (Judah has sinned and GOd will punish them for it so they better repent) not an apocalyptic view.
I’ve read that in the second temple period Jewish apocalypticist believed that Jerusalem will be the center place when cataclysmic events of eschaton occurs. So in this situation Jesus’s 12 disciples settled in Jerusalem normally . ( For Parousia and resurrection )
But why Paul saw only few of them in his Jerusalem visitations ? James, John and Peter)Where are the other 9-10 disciples?
In Galatians 1 and 2 he only mention Peter , James and John .
He only refers twelves 1 Corinthians 15 but without giving location
Mainly because he was intent on converting gentiles from other locations and so was tied up with his missions to pagan lands. He had a sense of urgency and did not want to spend time doing anything not directly related to his missoin to convert the gentiles.
Professor Ehrman…
I know my questions will seem elementary but I will ask them anyway since I have found in my 70 years of living… “if you don’t know, ask!”
You know how you point out the difference in the “historical Jesus” and the “remembered Jesus”… I was wondering why is the description of this warrior Jesus in Revelation in such contrast to the rest of the portrayals of Jesus in the NT.
Is this Jesus in Revelation, shaped by the perspective of the writer, who the Jewish and early Christians of that day believed their Messiah would be?
Wouldn’t this warrior idea fall right in line with what was going on all around that area with Roman occupation, battles and temple destruction?
Context
Am I barking up the wrong tree thinking that in the context of that time wouldn’t all those churches “John” was writing to be able to easily digest and understand all the symbols he uses?
In other words what seems so mystical to me as I read various descriptions in Revelation today but back then it was just like writing about common current events happening to these communities and wrapped up in this symbolic language?
These are not elementary questions at all, but completely central to the interpretation of hte book. Your first question about the warrior JEsus in contrast to the Jesus of the Gospels will be one of my major foci in my book (it’s *amazing* hwo many commentators insist that JEsus is a pacifist in Revelation, the “suffering lamb who is slain”). As to symbolism, I think it’s definitely true that many of the bizarre images would have made almost immediate sense to John’s own readers, and that modern readers are stymied. I’d say that’s for two reasons. One is that modern readers are living in a different context (universe, really) and because XNs have passed along so many wrong interpretations over the years that the original ones have been lost. The other is that a LOT of the symbols would have seemed weird even to ancients. It’s interesting that as in the otehr apocalypses, in this one the seer has to have his visions explained to him by an angel. Even HE couldn’t figure them out sometimes!
Hi Bart,
You say that the authors of apocalypses advocate an apocalyptic agenda. Have you previously defended that assumption (stated in my previous sentence)? Or do you plan on defending that assumption in your book?
I heard some fundamentalists and Pentecostals also advocate that apocalypses neccisarily teach apocalyptic doctrine. But that never seemed to me like a sound approach to the interpretation of apocalypses.
I think usually the idea that the author of an apocalypse had an apocalyptic view is taken to be true by definition. (Much like an author of a treatise promoting capitalism is a capitalist)
Hi Bart,
Per (July 10, 2021 at 5:21 am), I do not see you comparing apples with apples.
First, any treatise genuinely promoting capitalism has indeed been written by a capitalist, but apocalypses are a genre while capitalism is a political view.
Second, apocalypses by definition are strongly symbolic.
Where do you draw the line with the symbolism versus literalism in Revelation?
Let me also ask you a comparable question, if I may. For background, we agree that P wrote a poem that describes creation in six literal days. Does that necessitate that P believed that God created the universe in six literal days? I believe that answer is no.
The analogy doesn’t stand on all fours, but, well, that’s how analogies work. 🙂 AN apocalypse is by definition a genre that embodies an apocalyptic views. Any writing that does not adopt that view is not an apocalypse. BUt lots of genres can represent apocalyptic views (letters, treatises, poems, sermons). Their genre isn’t dependent on it. THe generen”apocalypse” came to be defined as a kind of writing with specific generic characteristics, but in combination these always, necessarily, convey an apocalypstic message.
I’ve gotten the impression that some contemporary Christians believe they can “force God’s hand” by creating horrible conditions, as, for instance, starting a massive war in the mid-east. And so the prospect of war and destruction is not, for them, something to be avoided but rather something to strive for, as bringing about the end times. And that’s a really, really, dangerous form of apocalypticism. But I wonder whether that sort of thinking might have existed even in ancient times…
Often I find that within the subculture of fundamentalist Christianity they many times speak in terms that most early Christians would not have a clue about what those terms meant. Am I wrong to think Christian terms or words like “being saved” the “rapture” or “pre-millennial” would mean nothing to those early Christians. Obviously if we replace historical context with ideas that just make what we want to believe work for us it opens doors to all kinds of misinformation, exaggerations or out right false ideas.
How do historical NT scholars looking at the first century understand the new religion called Christianity and other variants developing at the time of John while studying the book of Revelation compared to what Christianity would become?
In other words was early Christianity much closer to Judaism culturally?
Christianity was in its early stages and there seems to already be schisms starting as these churches are at odds with their interpretation of what they believed versus what John of Patmos believed.
He calls them names… Balaam and Jezebel.
Are these just cultural “slurs” of that day from the OT? Like calling someone a Benedict Arnold today from America’s past history?
“Saved” was used — but rapture, pre-millenial, dispensational would have all been mysteries. YEs, the entire goal of NT scholarship is to understand these texts in relation to the world out of which they arose. ANd yes, “Balaam” and “Jezebel” are very much slurs based on teh OT — taking violent opponents of Israel as emblematic of the “Christians” the auhtor disagrees with!
Prof. Erhman
Reading where John is condemning this eating of meat sacrificed to idols seems to be taking a shot at those who were following some of the ideas that Paul was teaching about food and idols… am I assuming something that isn’t accurate because of not knowing a fuller contextual history of that period?
Is this an example of what you have written about where writers in the Bible are sometimes at odds with one another’s words?
Is this John of Revelation not only a Jewish “apocalyptic” writer and also holding onto the Jewish traditions such as kosher food while still seeing Jesus as the “lamb of God” or Messiah that the traditional Jewish community would have rejected Jesus as… Messiah?
Paul’s views about eating meat offered to idols in 1 Corinhians 8 and 10 is confusing and possibly confused. In both places he says *not* to eat the meat, but for very different reasons, either because even though they aren’t acdtually gods other Xns think they are, so you shouldn’t encourage them to do something they think is wrong (ch. 8) or because they are gods and so you shouldn’t participate in their worship (ch. 10). Either way: don’t eat the meat. A number of the Corinthian Xns thought otherwise, as to John’s opponents.
Might I suggest that chapters 8 and 10 of 1 Corinthians can be reconciled in the light of Chapter 9: 20-22?
“To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. *To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak*.”
Note Paul sees himself as becoming ‘weak’ with the weak; and implicitly excludes himself from remaining ‘strong’ with the strong.
So, when at 8:9 Paul says “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak”; this is addressed to those who see themselves as ‘strong’ – while the perspective of the ‘weak’ is that of Paul himself.
For Paul, faith can only be *perfected in weakness*; treating other gods as wholly non-existent is ‘strong’; and for Paul *strong is wrong*.
Yes, I think the conclusion he reaches can be reconciled; but I do think in ch. 10 he concedes that th e”strong” are in danger of worshiping demons (i.e., actually doing so). No?
Perhaps more that, through the individual actions of the ‘strong’, the whole community of the faithful is in danger of sharing in the worship of demons?
As I read it, chapter 10 gives Paul’s own view; while in chapter 8 he puts himself in the perspective of the ‘strong’; showing that, even on their own terms, they should not eat meat offered to idols.
My reading of chapter 9, is that Paul is asserting two things;
Firstly; that he acts as a Jew to win those under the Law, and as a Gentile to win those outside the Law.
Secondly; that he has become ‘weak’ to win the weak.
For Paul, the two assertions are the same; if he had stayed ‘strong’ – availing himself fully of all the ‘freedoms’ that are due to him – then he could not act in turn both as Jew, and non-Jew without hypocrisy; without involving one or the other group in sharing food fellowship they would not do.
In practical terms – as Paul says at 8:13 – he will never now eat meat at all. Paul himself is the one ‘weak in faith’ who only ever eats vegetables; Romans 14:2.
YEs, that would be the best way to reconcile the two chapters, but I don’t think it quite works I take 1 Cor. 8:4-6 to be Paul’s affirmation that he actually agrees with the “strong” on the point, not that he is simplly conceding the point for the sake of teh argument. V. 7 seems to confirm that reading. “We” know this, but others don’t.
YEs, that would be the best way to reconcile the two chapters, but I don’t think it quite works I take 1 Cor. 8:4-6 to be Paul’s affirmation that he actually agrees with the “strong” on the point, not that he is simplly conceding the point for the sake of teh argument. V. 7 seems to confirm that reading. “We” know this, but others don’t.
Thanks for the explanation Bart.
I am confident that the ‘we’ in verse 8:1; “We have all knowledge” is Paul’s vocalisation of the views of the ‘strong’; and at that stage in the discourse, he is not associating himself with that view – as verse 2 makes clear. Similarly, I see the statement that “we know that there is no idol in the world” at verse 4, is something the Paul reports the ‘strong’ as saying; and Paul can only associate himself with this, with the strict qualification that “there are indeed many gods, and many lords; yet to us there is One God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ.”
What I think is clear, is that Paul disassociates completely at the point when the ‘strong’ argue onwards from the principle of the civic gods being unreal as objects of worship, to the proposition that they, as ‘strong’ now can claim the liberty to eat meat offered in such worship. Paul’s term ‘this liberty of yours’ jars at this point; he is clearly not sharing in the discourse of the ‘strong’ now; and most likely, never fully was at any stage.
Thank you for your clarity on those questions.
When I was asking about the term “saved” I was thinking about how certain Christians of today will ask, “Are you saved?”
I guess I was wondering if all these terms and words we throw around are something we learn associated to the Christian/church culture but would those words have had any or a different meaning 2000 years ago?
Would the concept as used in churches today “being saved” have even existed as it is used today?
To give and example of my jumbled up question… if someone would have walked up and asked one of these early Christians, “Are you saved?” do you think that concept as used today or even the word would mean something entirely different?
If the Romans were hammering where I lived wouldn’t the idea Christians used today about being “saved” have a completely different concept or meaning to someone in the first century?
I guess I am thinking of “context” not only on the timeline of history but of culture, language and worldview of those days John was on Patmos.
So many people I know think John would be thinking and talking like them today.
Yes indeed. When Paul, e.g., talked about being “saved,” it was always in reference to a *future* event, when the DAy of Judgment would arrive and only some people would escape God’s wrath. At that point, believers in Jesus would be “saved.” OThers, not. So if someone asked Paul “Have you been saved?” he would say, “Of course not!” (Ironically!)
Hi Bart, could you explain a little more in regards to why/how Paul viewed salvation as a future event? I don’t disagree I just wonder if you could develop that a little further. Thanks!
Yeah, it’s a view not widely recognized. When Paul uses the verb “save” it is in the future tense. The followers of Jesus *will* be saved. He’s referring to the day of judgment, when everyone else will be condemned. Paul certainly thinks that hose who believe and have been baptized are already *have been* “justified” — that is “made right with God.” But “salvation” happens when the end comes and they are to be “saved” from God’s wrath that wipes out everyone else.
Hi Bert – looking at your response here “Two quick answers: part is written in a form of Aramaic not used in the 6th century (it was introduced into Israel after the Persians) but in the 2nd and it makes clear references to Antiochus Epiphanes. (BUt I was raised with the tradition view too! And held it till I actually read the scholarship.)”.
Many years ago I remember seeing a book by Arthur Gibson (evidently a prodigy of Peter Geach) called Text and Tablet. Gibson was big into modern linguistics and semantics (also wrote Biblical Semantic Logic) and I remember there seeing him do an in depth analysis of the language to show that it was early. Have you seen this? At the time (having heard about the historical issues) I figured that if he was right (and based on your comments above, he seems not to be so) then it shows a degree of poverty for such linguistic analysis (e.g. someone pretending to write in say King James English).
A quick look there are heaps of references to commentaries and books on Daniel – can you recommend one or two that presents the case in detail.
Im not familiar with his work, but the only scholars I’ve heard claim that this form of Aramaic is early are very conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who, before the analysis, were convinced that DAniel was authentically 6th c. I don’t know his own views. In any event, so far as I know, there is almost no dispute about the point among semiticists. BUt I could be wrong! I think the best commentary on DAniel is John Collins in the Hermeneia. Extremely learned.
Thank you very much Bart for the recommendation. The subject is a new one for me and very exciting. Thanks for all the posts on it and Collins ordered.