Not mainly my observations, since I read a lot on the subject while taking a grad-level course. My memories of what I learned, filtered through my own consciousness.
Getting back to your topic, and your failure to make an argument–how would somebody from that time period seeing a mental image of a bar code, without knowing anything about it, draw the conclusion that three dividers mean 666? That really is forcing it–you’re forcing him to be able to interpret a code that wouldn’t exist for two thousand years!
Honestly, I’m not fond of Revelation, I think it’s done a lot more harm than good, but it is, if nothing else, brilliant evocative poetic imagery. That could hardly be inspired by one of the most banal images of modern times. You are flat-out wrong.
I’ve been hinting to my fundamentalist family members (most of them) that Donald Trump might be the Anti-Christ. I point out Matthew 24:24.
“For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”
His popularity is one of the signs. And “the elect” seem gullible as ever.
Robert said
There are two simplistic answers to first question, both of which contain elements of truth mixed with much greater complexity. First, when the end of the age and the reign of God did not come as expected, the apocalyptic imagery required more nuanced interpretations. Jesus was wrong. Paul was wrong, and all of the other early Christian thinkers were wrong but something valuable remained from the movement that seemed to require perpetuation and thus institutionalization, which in the West became the Roman Catholic Church. Insofar as apocalypticism yearns for revolution against the evil empire, the institutionalized Roman Catholic Church served an opposing sociological function. When the church in large part did not respond to Luther’s calls for Reform, he began to see the institution and the papacy as actually embodying Satan’s evil power opposing the gospel, thus itself also deserving to be overthrown. Again, this is something of a simplistic caricature, but I think there are elements of truth contained therein. You can see something like this happening already in earlier Judaism. The Book of Daniel is an early example of Jewish apocalyptic literature, but once the Maccabean kingdom became established, we see the less apocalyptic Maccabean literature developing alongside the continuation of the apocalyptic literature of Qumran, which in large part represented the Zadokite priesthood that had been displaced by the Maccabees.
Neurotheologian said
… All of this dosen’t of course detract from the possibility that apocalyticist prophecies may contain some supernatural truth: human civilization by be heading for a denoument, global natural diasters, wars with columns of fire and smoke (no explanation required), food shortages, sea pollution and cosmic phenomena, may be about to happen on a big scale as envisaged in these prophecies. An evil totalitarian final world empire might arise and Jesus of Nazareth might return to planet earth in a much more un-veiled and obviously supernatural form. I beleive this to be the case, as you undoubtedly realize.I think the overwhelming weight of past misinterpretative experience over the centuries should indeed detract from continual attempts to engage naive literalist prophetic interpretations of contemporary events as fulfilling some of these ancient texts.
Hi Robert, interesting ideas, particularly the idea of the Essenes being a Zadokite remanent. As for Luther, The Rev Ian Paisley also comes to mind, having had exactly those beliefs about the papacy being the anti-Christ. However, you haven’t explained why Roman Catholics seem less prone to such apocayptic interpretations.
As discussed in other threads, I think it possible Jesus’s apocalyptic teaching about the destruction of Jerusalem and the ‘end of the age’ may have been understandably conflated by his hearers and possibly by Paul – that interpretation at least allows Jesus to have been ‘right’. I do feel, as you eloquently put it, ‘the overwhelming weight of past misinterpretative experience over the centuries’ which does give me cause to wonder whether I am indeed indulging in ‘naive literalist prophetic interpretations of contemporary events’ and of course, I agree that conflation of John of Patmos’s vision to fit ‘present’ events has happened throughout the ages. I therefore agree that I may well be falling into the same trap, unless of course, the present time is the end of the age (!), which seems to be the view of a lot of secular experts who know nothing about the Bible! Do you not think we are at a fairly crucial time in history?
godspell said
Not mainly my observations, since I read a lot on the subject while taking a grad-level course. My memories of what I learned, filtered through my own consciousness.Getting back to your topic, and your failure to make an argument–how would somebody from that time period seeing a mental image of a bar code, without knowing anything about it, draw the conclusion that three dividers mean 666? That really is forcing it–you’re forcing him to be able to interpret a code that wouldn’t exist for two thousand years!
Honestly, I’m not fond of Revelation, I think it’s done a lot more harm than good, but it is, if nothing else, brilliant evocative poetic imagery. That could hardly be inspired by one of the most banal images of modern times. You are flat-out wrong.
You misunderstand about the dividers – the dividers are sixes in bar code notation – check it out and see! 666 is literally on every bar code.
Stephen said
I’ve been hinting to my fundamentalist family members (most of them) that Donald Trump might be the Anti-Christ. I point out Matthew 24:24.“For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”
His popularity is one of the signs. And “the elect” seem gullible as ever.
Yes, yes, yes Stephen, a very good point and one that has occured to me, but we are getting off the subject of Revelation chapter 13 – I tried to keep it narrow because there is plenty to discuss in that one chapter, let alone the rest of NT apaocalyptic prophecy! For what it is worth, I see Trump as a kind of ‘curve ball’ or what we English would use the cricketing term googlie (an off-spin ball that looks from the delivery from the bowlers hand as if it is a leg-spin ball).
– in a slighlty different way. Perhaps I should change my avatar from Neurotheologian to Curve-ball-ogianRobert said
There are two simplistic answers to first question, both of which contain elements of truth mixed with much greater complexity. First, when the end of the age and the reign of God did not come as expected, the apocalyptic imagery required more nuanced interpretations. Jesus was wrong. Paul was wrong, and all of the other early Christian thinkers were wrong but something valuable remained from the movement that seemed to require perpetuation and thus institutionalization, which in the West became the Roman Catholic Church………….
Sorry, I was being a bit slow, I now get what you are saying about the reason why Roman Cathlolics are less prone to apocalypticism – the early church was ‘burned’ by the realization that their ‘immanent’ expectation that ‘all these things’ would essentially be fullfilled before their ‘generation passed away’ (or before some of Jesus’s contemporaries ‘tasted death’) and so the Church ‘dumped’ a literal intepreation of apocalyptic prophecies, and instead spiritualized their meaning and became amillenial and this theme carries theough to the present day. This abdication left it ripe for the protestants to re-take up the banner of apocalyptic literalism and, hey presto, Luther and others took it up not just with avengence, but with re-vengence. All very interesting.
There have been many apocalyptic events in history–that turned out not to be the end of history. Some were more localized, others more global, but you could, if you wanted, use Revelation as a ‘prophecy’ for each of them (even the ones that happened before Revelation was written).
Human civilizations have a cyclical aspect to them. We are now in what is effectively a world civilization, which ups the stakes rather crucially, but Revelation isn’t talking about anything but the world its author knew, namely the Roman world. Rome has to fall, because it is opposed to God. Rome did fall–but not until some time after it became the City of God, as Augustine termed it. For the largely Christian citizens of the Post-Constantine Empire, its decline was largely seen as a catastrophe, the triumph of satanic forces. But a few centuries earlier, they’d have seen it as a triumph, a sign of Jesus’ impending return and the coming of the Kingdom.
People are like this, and there’s nothing much we can do about it.
We could do something about global warming, but the obstacle there isn’t religion. It’s consumerism. And I think we know what Jesus and the early Christians thought about the 1st century equivalent of that. So fair play to them there, eh?
Robert said: Yes, that is indeed part of what I was saying. In addition to that is also the sociological function of apocalypticism as fundamentally opposed to the reigning structures of the world, perceived as mostly or entirely evil. As the Church became the principal enduring institutional structure of the Western world, it needed to consolidate power to preserve itself. Over the centuries, it would became unconsciously opposed to any revolutionary or apocalyptic movements that would implicitly or explicitly attack the legitimacy of the power of the church.
Neuro replies: Very interesting analysis, Robert. I would add that even evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic churches, in the most, shy away from apocalyptic dispensationism, as in the Hal Lindsey / Tim LaHaye / Chuck Missler / John Hagee variety, which owes a lot to the Dallas Theological Seminary and further back, to John Nelson Darby’s influence. In England, this type of dispensational apocalypticism is even more eschewed than in the US. I think that there are at least 2 reasons for this: 1. Similar to what happened in the early Roman Church (and ? Orthodox Church), the multiple failed apocalyptic predictions have someone dampened enthusiam! It’s like history repeating itself, so that the modern apocalyptic dispensationists essentailly see themselves the reformers and acuse the established protestant churches who have moved more towards a spiritual ammilenil intepretation, of being guilty of ‘preterism’ or ‘replacement theology’ – replacement of Israel by the church in their eschatology. This leads me on to 2. Dispensationalism has Christian zionist implications – more acceptable in the US, but much less so in the UK. The mailine protenstant denominations wish to distance themselves from this.
Robert said: I have no scientific expertise of my own, but it does seem like global warming may indeed be a crucial time for our species, perhaps mostly of our own doing, initially unconscious and now in active denial by many in power who profit from the forces that may destroy us. In some ways, apocalyptic mythology can certainly speak to this situation, but that does not mean that the book of Revelation was actually predicting these and other modern circumstances more so than any other evil, destructive (and necessary) power structures that we have created throughout our history.
I agree absolutely that just because we are in a rather sticky situation, it does not neccessarily mean the book of Revelation was specifically directed to our time, though as you hint, throughout history, inspirational themes from the book may add comfort or hope (or sometimes, sheer terror! 
).
However, there are one or two concerns that the book of Revelation might be specifically directed to our time for other reasons. We live at a time in history where a lot of secular thinkers and experts in various fields are becoming alarmed, not just global warming, but by muliple existential threats (polulation overload, food shortages, sea pollution, nuclear proliferation etc). Add to this the prosepct of a global one world govermement, a cahsless society, increasing surveillance and personal privacy threats, as the tech giants and the intelligence agencies collect data on us all. Add to this the ‘AI singularity’ issue. Further add to this, the talk about using RFIDs instead of debit and credit cards, the strange coincidence that all bar codes contain 666 as dividers and the interesting parallels between the idea of the ‘image of the beast’ and the prospect of computers joining up to share our data and run the show with the ultimate aim of AI to mimic human consciousness and it seems to me that this time, a near literal interpretation Revelation 13 might be in with a shot. Yes we’ve ‘cried woolf’ far too many times, but I wouldn’t want to miss the real deal. ‘Will the son of man find faith on earth when he comes?’ I am now moving out of Revelation 13, but I am reminded of the verse in Matthew 24:33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door (of course that’s the verse before this generation shall not pass away until…..etc which we have previously discussed)
godspell said: Revelation isn’t talking about anything but the world its author knew, namely the Roman world…..
Neuro replies: That is a matter of your opnion (and to be fair, of many biblical scholars). However, it is certainly not stated by the author who seems to me to be describing some very strange out-of-body experience, in which he seems to be transported far into the future and sees futuristic visions of things which he can’t fully understand and which seem to happen at a time where the history of the human race is coming to an end with a final global world empire, as described in the book itself.
godspell said: People are like this, and there’s nothing much we can do about it. We could do something about global warming, but the obstacle there isn’t religion. It’s consumerism. And I think we know what Jesus and the early Christians thought about the 1st century equivalent of that. So fair play to them there, eh?
Neuro replies: I agree that the obstacle to global warming isn’t religion, but consumerism. Interestingly, Isaiah describes a time when ‘the earth will wear out like a garment that hands can’t mend’. Isa 51:6: Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
Just stop responding. He’ll try something else. Don’t respond to that either. I won’t even click on any of his threads in future.
Don’t worry that he’s infecting people with this nonsense. It’s not like this is Reddit. Hardly anybody reads these forums. He’s now going to say “Look at all the views this is getting!” Ignore that as well. (Though it could be considered proof of my psychic abilities.) 😉
Robert said
Yes, I do, but unfortunately he may actually be smarter than he seems, in a feral sort of way
Hey!!… are you serious?…….respectable, critical theologians really debating who the ‘anti-Christ’ is?? Surely this is all tongue-in-cheek? Maybe godspell is right and I have ‘infected’ you all with my ‘nonsense’ 
Actually, I never even used the term ‘anti-Christ’ and neither does Rev 13 use that term. Instead, Rev 13 focuses on the empire of the final world globalist governement and it’s system of control, as well is this very curious ‘image’ of that empire which does the controlling. So it seems to me that it is the system and the philosophy of this predicted gloabal empire that’s more emphasized in the vision, rather than a specific person. The philosophy or religion of that emprie is stated as ‘human’ (or ‘of man’ to render it in it’s less politically correct translation) and is signified by the number 6 repeated 3 times (?for emphasis or ?for some other reason).
My thoughts about this (accepting, as I do, that the vision of John of Patmos is indeed pertaining to ‘the time of the end’) is that the vision is indicating that the philosophy or relgion of this final world government will be based human solutions to the various existential threats that I have previously discussed; and also that it will elevate human acheivements (scientific and humanitarian), human ‘goodness’ and human idelealism above all religious views of a creator-God. In short, I beleive the vision is predicting an atheistic-humanist system. Also, if we accept other scriptural apocalyptic texts, then the lure of ‘world peace’ promised by the institution of such a humanist world government, in the face of existentially threatening nuclear war, might seem to be the obvious solution to these problems, by the majority of politicians and peoples. Accepting this interpretation, Donald Trump is indeed a Googlie or a curveball, because he is probably holding back globalization, despite being outwardly a bit of a nightmare for you guys!
This is why I feel a bit spooked by a number of things going on in the world. For example, I also wonder whether the elevation of human rights above any religious concepts of morality (eg the 10 commandments), could be part of this human-6 business. I worry about the existential threats, I worry about the AI singularity and RFIDs and I am seriously spooked by Anthony Levandowski’s so-called ‘Church of AI’. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
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