I have been arguing that if we want to understand the book of Revelation, we need to situate it in its own historical context in the Roman Empire of the first century rather than assume it is talking about our own world in the twenty-first. Very few people read it that way, of course (or are interested in reading it that way). It’s far more intriguing to think the author was predicting what would happen in our own future. It’s ALL COMING TRUE! God has REVEALED IT TO US! We can NOW SEE THE SIGNS OF THE END!
But, alas, like every other book of the Bible, Revelation was written to address an ancient audience in a different context, and its bizarre symbols need to be read with their own context front and center in mind. Here is how I sometimes try to illustrate the problem. (Parts of this are taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings; Oxford University Press; 7th ed.)
******************************
One of the most popular ways to interpret the book of Revelation today is to read its symbolic visions as literal descriptions of what is going to transpire in our own day and age. But there are problems with this kind of approach. On the one hand, we should be suspicious of interpretations that make everything about our own world or our own lives; this way of understanding the book maintains that the entire course of human history has now culminated with us! An even larger problem, however, is that this approach inevitably has to ignore certain features of the text in order to make its interpretations fit.
Consider, as just one example, an interpretation sometimes given of the “locusts” that emerge from the smoke of the bottomless pit in order to wreak havoc on earth in chapter 9. The seer describes the appearance of these dread creatures as follows:
On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people. . . . (Rev 9:7–10)
One of the most popular interpretations today of this passage comes to us from
Want to see why this kind of interpretation simply doesn’t work? It’s easy to join the blog, and you get five posts a week on this kind of thing. And every dime of the small fee you pay goes to charity! Click here for membership options “prophecy writer” non-pareille, Hal Lindsay. Lindsay is one of the best selling authors of modern times that (ironically) most people apart from evangelical Christians have never heard of. His most famous book is the incredibly well-selling Late Great Planet Earth. Have you heard of it? It was apparently THE best selling work of non-fiction (speaking loosely) in the entire decade of the 1970s.
The book explained how the end of history as we know it was going to happen soon, by the end of the 1980s, when Jesus returned in judgment on the earth. But that would come only after all hell breaks out down here (as if it’s not already…). And Revelation predicts it. Often in detail. For example, in this passage I’ve just quoted. For Lindsay this is not a description of locusts coming up out of the bottomless pit but a vision of modern attack helicopters flying forth through the smoke of battle.
The seer, living many centuries before the advent of modern warfare, had no way of knowing what these machines really were, and so he described them as best he could. They fly like locusts but are shaped like huge scorpions. The rotors on top appear like crowns; they seem to have human faces as their pilots peer through their windshields; they are draped with camouflage that from a distance looks like hair; they have fierce teeth painted on their fronts; they are made of steel and so appear to have iron breastplates; the beating of their rotors sounds like chariots rushing to battle; and they have machine guns attached to their tails, like scorpions’ stingers.
What could be more plausible? The prophet has glimpsed into the future and seen what he could not understand. We, however, living in the age in which his predictions will come to pass, understand them full well.
As captivating as the idea might be, one of the major problem is that the interpretation simply doesn’t work when you actually look carefully at the most important details of the passage. Consider, for example, what these locusts are actually said to do. The text is quite emphatic: they are not allowed to harm any grass or trees, but only people; moreover, and most significantly, they are given the power to torture people for five months, but not to kill them (9:4–5). Those who are attacked by the locusts will long to die but will not be able to do so (9:6). These locusts can’t be modern instruments of war designed for mass destruction because they are explicitly said to be unable to destroy anything.
The same problems occur with virtually every interpretation of the book that takes its visions as literal descriptions of events that will transpire in our own imminent future. These approaches simply cannot account for the details of the text, which is to say that they don’t take the text itself seriously enough. It is more reasonable to interpret the text within its own historical context, not as a literal description of the future of the earth, but as a metaphorical statement of the ultimate sovereignty of God over a world that is plagued by evil.
Too bad! It would indeed be nice if we had a blueprint for our future. But alas, it does not come to us in the book of Revelation.
Locusts, on the other hand, would be feared by anyone in the Classical Era.
This reminds me of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, where locusts also figure. Are there conscious parallels between the Ten Plagues and the desolation in apocalyptic literature? Do the apocalypticists (is that a word?) refer to the Ten Plagues?
It appears that both the Ten Plagues and the threats of the prophets (e.g. Amos, Isaiah, etc.) were all grist for the apocalypsticists’ mill
The ten plagues are symbols. Man suffers ills when living carelessly and unwisely. Living with requisite circumspection– meditating IN MORNING WATCH, Exodus 14:24, and Matt. 26:40 — overcomes desires — charioteers, sent by mind, Pharoah, in the world — Egypt, by drowning them in the Red Sea, passions overcome with help by the Spirit, or Master, Moses. The details are so precise they include the Lord in the inner Light, the pillar of fire, discomfiting the host, making their chariot wheels clog with mud, so that ‘they drove heavily’. The manna in the wilderness that melts with the dawn is similar watching, or meditating, that bears the Light of the burning bush not consumed.
Every single thing in the Old Testament stories refers to something mystical. It is very deep and entirely spiritual. There are no ancient chariots on the sea floor, nor vast hills of pottery fragments of 40,000 people in the desert. This isn’t history. It is spiritual teaching through and through. I know, because I practice it daily. It is easy enough to understand correctly. Don’t make it hard! If you need help, there is the Scienceofthesoul.org library
Hi Dr. Ehrman!
Did Jesus believe in original sin? And did he believe that those who will inherit the coming kingdom will do so on the basis of good works and keeping the Jewish law?
Thanks!!
Technically the doctrine of “original sin” is a later Christian development, formulated most thoroughly by Augustine nearly 400 years after Jesus. But yes, I believe a passage such as Matthew 25 (the Sheep and the Goats) does teach that Jesus believed salvation would come to those who manifested lives of love to those in need.
Thank you!
Wrong. He says categorically that salvation comes to those who do the will of the Father (meditation) in Matt. 7:21 and 26:41, after SEEING and ‘believing’ in him, John 6:40, the Spirit as ‘Son’ – the Master of the time, presumably him.
I’m telling you, Bart, there are Masters living today who can explain every passage. No guesswork. “If I be lifted up will draw all men unto me” is NOT Jesus being crucified! How are you going to learn this is about a very deep spiritual event experienced by serious disciples internally, in another dimension, from studying your history sources?
It isn’t surprising that you dropped out of your Faith. You are a critical reader. You just have not yet recognized what it is that you think is history. THE BIBLE ISN’T HISTORY. It is spiritual teaching. The OT is truthful teaching, the NT, unfortunately, is a pack of lies,
— church propaganda designed to play off of Jewish and Essene blood observances to hide James and other serial successor Masters. Paul KILLED James, in Pseudoclementine Recognitions 1.70. Judas is the resulting cover character. Read Eisenman, for God’s sake. Free your mind a little….
Sorry that description of locusts being attack helicopters made me laugh.
Ok so it seems reasonable to say what the locusts are NOT.
But has there been any scholarship on where such entities are suppose to actually be in their historical context? Like do many of the weird creatures in Revelation go back to earlier Jewish mythology similar to Behemoth and Leviathan etc?
I’d love to get the bottom of Revelation as it’s been fuel for apocalyptic fantasies for 2000 years.
The Book of Daniel is problematic enough within the cult my kids are growing up in. It’d be nice to think that Revelation got the same scholarly treatment as it’s earlier Hebrew Bible counterpart.
It’s hard to say if John was describing a literal event — in which case he meant they were actual insects coming out of the bottomless pit with the power to torment but not kill — or a broadly symbolic one, meaning that there will be horrible suffering at the end of time inflicted by God on the world. Either way, it would be a reference to some kind of future massive miserty.
These are all visions to prod the few followers to greater seriousness. It isn’t meant for us, or even the masses of the time. No one ever said the world would end.
Or that any of it happens ON EARTH.
For the book of Revelation to be a prediction of the future it had to be inspired by God. It is not a God breathed book. It is a book written by a Christian Jew who believed he was assisting his fellow Christians by giving them hope in a time when hope was fading fast.
It stands in opposition to what Christ taught, it cannot be harmonized with Christ’s teachings.
The treasure of Revelation is not the prediction of a future but rather the window into the past when Christianity was struggling to survive against powerful secular forces and internal divisions that were overcoming and dividing it…all the while waiting for the return of Christ which did not come.
I would like to add that the oral transmission of Christ’s teachings cannot be viewed as inspired therefore the written Gospels themselves are not inspired.
The remembrances of Christ’s teachings are true but the early disciples who relayed them were not neccessarily “inspired” they did not have to be. They REMEMBERED.
Yes, each Gospel writer hung the tapestry as he saw good or fit and availed himself of whatever records were available to him but that does not in itself mean collusion or plagerism. It is in effect “quoting” what he found to be good one from the other or the so called Q.
The same applies to Acts, and the letters, they were not inspired they are Christian historical records nothing more.
Somewhat agree with you Linda, perhaps some of the Gospel material is based upon remembrances. But I question your referring to Jesus as “Christ”. To call him that seems to imply acceptance of his being the Jewish Messiah. But maybe you do?
Teamonger,
Yes.
Act 1:6 So, when they had come together, they began asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
Zacheriah, the Baptist’s father:
Luk 1:69-75 “And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of His servant David— Just as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient times—Salvation from our enemies, And from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy to our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to our father Abraham, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Would serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”
***And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to our father Abraham, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,***
***“Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”***
Jesus has fulfilled his Father’s word, Israel has returned. Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus was a Jew, not a gentile.
His motherland was the Jewish nation, religion, and God.
As his followers, his disciples, we must remember that.
We must remember that not as Jews but as Christians, his followers.
Thanks for clarifying, Linda.
** Jesus has fulfilled his Father’s word, Israel has returned. Jesus is the Messiah. **
Seems rather a self-fulfillment. Israel has returned due to the efforts of Zionism, partly fueled by Jewish aspirations to fulfill prophecies of divine redemption. These efforts were assisted by Christians who also believed in the prophecies, whose influences largely lead to the Balfour Declaration.
If a prophet teaches that someday cows will be purple, would it be a sign of supernatural fulfillment if his followers headed for the paint store?
I read The Late Great Planet Earth when I was about 11, and it scared the crap out of me. It was like reading Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot…if you really believe in vampires. Fear is a big seller in all genres.
wooooow I finally googled “helicopter with teeth” and saw a picture of one of John’s locusts !
The description matches exactly!
“The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle..They had breastplates like breastplates of iron” the helicopter resembles an armored horse to a first century seer !
“Their hair was like women’s hair” the rotor blades !
And “the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle” PERFECT!
John sees the shooting from the helicopters, men fall and “ the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man” but there is no “harm to the grass of the earth or any plant or tree” , he can’t see the bullets , only men’s agony.
I never heard about the “incredibly well-selling” Hal Lindsay’s book but today it would be a Pro in History Channel along with Ancient Aliens.
Why to waste so many years studying ancient languages, textual criticism, socio political economic contexts, etc, etc…
The only thing you need to fully understand a first century text is a bit of imagination !!!
A .50 cal machine gun raining fire and brimstone down below, originating from the inside of an army chopper, the net effect will absolutely devastate trees, grass, any large plant or animal in the line of fire. I had to fire one on tripods in the Army as part of training, you don’t want to be anywhere near the line of fire, the barrel goes from red to white hot when it’s spitting out the gigantic bullets nonstop on full auto. Amazingly, we were also shooting at a little tweety bird that came flying by and could never hit it!
If John was remote viewing or otherwise seeing a future movie within receiving end of that kind of firepower, and that also includes missiles and bombs from same chopper, I’m thinking it would be a totally different description than what I’m reading in Revelations. I’m sure Mr/Ms. Tweety Bird would have agreed if he/she didn’t immediately die from fright after that horrific experience.
Mr. Ehrman, I would like to ask you something not related (possibly because your point here is so reasonable nothing inspires me to question it!).
I would like to ask you something about 1 Corinthians 8:6 (”yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live”).
Paul tells us that all things came *from* God the Father (I understand this “all” as the entirety of existence), but all things came *through* Jesus Christ, through whom we live (he is referring to us specifically, so I take this second “all” as a somewhat less total, as not meaning the entirety of existence). Wouldn’t this take undercut the Trinity doctrine, in that it implies -in my read- that Jesus came from God the Father (since Paul is emphasizing a distinction between them through the prepositions he uses and, also, he refers to “God” the Father in contrast to “Lord” Jesus Christ)?
I certainly agree with that — the passage (along with many others) presupposes that the Son is subordinate to the Father. Later theologians argued over that, and a subordinationist view lost out. But Paul certainly did not hold to the view of the Trinity that developed centuries later, that said Father, Son, and Spirit were equal all the way..
It might not be so nice to have a blueprint of our future. That mostly depends on what that future is. Do you want to know when and how you are going to die? Only if it is in bed, after a short illness and at a nicely advanced age, surrounded by loved ones. (Then there is the Dr. Who-type question of if we knew the future, could be change it?)
This is NOT a deterministic (completely locked) futuristic vision at all!
Perhaps at best it may have different layers, making room for some “preterist” views such as the Roman Empire from the 1st century (a view I shared/struggled the same view a decade of so as the main interpretation).
The Revelation is completely/thourough symbolic and speaks of ourselves, and our own being. These kind of visions are not unknown by world-renowned scholars at all, and much deep scholarships have been made on this, in condition of that the message was from this deep visions as suggested.
Revelation speaks of ourselves using symbology that can be found from various tratidions, both Judaism, even Hellenism and Hinduism and then of course Christianity.
It speaks of ourselves in a physical state (“body”), as the temple of God which has our spiritual connections (7 places ,,, found in many traditions ,,,, and the opening of their seal to remember ourselves and expand when the conditions are right). The greatest religions in the world at the time the book was written have reference to several of those symbol.
The Revelation in chapter 1-10 talks about spiritualization of the body (the tempel of God) and where all the “memories” lies. (ok, I know what I suggests).
The next 10 chapters of the book are basically a spiritualization of the mind and the application of wisdom. The last chapters are about our new relationships and our new “body”/ being and an evolved conciousness.
The book is a book with an apocatastatic talk of a divine restoration.
I have heard you say that in the ancient world only the educated people spoke Greek, because an education was required. But, as someone with an amateur interest in linguistics, below are my thoughts about that (as a general matter, not specifically about Jesus or Peter). I’d be interested to know where you think I am right vs. where you disagree:
An education is required to learn to read and write. However, the best speakers of any language are people who have learned it natively by being immersed in it as a child, with education being irrelevant. Children are quite capable of learning multiple languages without any education whatsoever. So, it does not matter that non-elites weren’t educated. For example, what would be spoken in the marketplace among non-elite traders? I guess you are saying that would not be Greek. Even in that case, any people who did the “translating” between speakers (usually referred to as “interpreting”) wouldn’t need to be able to write or read at all and wouldn’t need to have any education whatsoever. They would just need to grow up in the presence of both Greek speakers and Aramaic speakers.
That’s not quite what I said. Naturally there were lots of uneducated people who spoke Greek — those who lived in Greek speaking lands, ! That would include many parts of the empire. But not, e.g., Galilee, where people generally spoke Aramaic.
I accept what you are saying Dr Ehrman but the locust/attack helicopter analogy is interesting and does seem plausible at first glance. Lindsay might be thinking also of Ezekiel’s vision, considered by some to be an ancient OT UFO sighting, and the warfare descriptions in ancient Hindu writings which sound remarkably like modern nuclear warfare.
Some people think Ezekiel was describing UFOs and aliens. Was his writing considered an apocalypse, or was it just imaginative and highly symbolic?
It does not have an apocalyptic view of history as controlled by forces of good and evil to be resolved in a final conflict in which God destroyed the forces of evil in the world. Ezekiel is all about the nation of Judea and its destruction and exile by the Babylonians.
John says he saw all these things and was told to write them down. The descriptions are vivid and although resembling other apocalyptic literature, contain many novel components. I have no problem with discussion of the historical context and who his audience was, but he says he was just doing what he was told. Whoever he was and however he interpreted the mystical visions and however his contemporaneous audience intepreted them, is to me actually a distraction from the fact that he saw stuff. I bleieve him. Did he see stuff far off into the future? Why not? Unless you discount anthying not explicable by a phycalist world view. That’s a very limited mind set to be contrained by.
I would say that most authors write for the audience they are addressing, not for an audience of unknown people living 2000 years later. He certainly may have had visions, but if they meant something to him they almost certainly would have meant something that was meaningful in his context, not ours. Plus it’s important that there is an entire genre of this kind of writing: it’s not a one-off that has to be treated as sui generis. For me it’s kind of like stories (a genre) of someone seeing their deceased grandmother in their bedroom three weeks after her funeral. How is that vision *interpreted*? In light of how people think today…
* Did he see stuff far off into the future? Why not? *
For one thing, we know that John thought his visions would come to pass rather soon. The very first verse refers to “what must soon take place”, and the last chapter reiterates “the time is near”. If he was mistaken about the time frame, can you really trust him about his visions? Yet this “soon” appears very much in line with the expectations of Jesus himself for an imminent apocalypse.
I suspect you are indeed correct that most authors write for the audience they are addressing. You do with phenomenal success and productivity and I will be grateful to produce one book which achieves such success with its intended audience. However, unless you’ve been keeping a big secret, as far as I am aware, neither of us has experienced mystical visions about which we have no understanding, and end up humbly begging an angel for explanations and beleive we have been told to write it all down.
I’m not sure the visions did initially amean anything to John in his context. I think he was genuinly baffled, as he says he was. The visions in Revelation may in fact have the potenital to mean more to us now than at any time in history! The entire genre of this kind of writing, as I understand it, is not that big, and symbolism is a must if you are being shown something for another time and context – that may be the neccessary reason for the apocalyptic style you refer to.
People do indeed continue to this day to see deceased relatives around the time of their own death and those with them may share in the hallucinaction if that’s what it is, but not all neuroscientists are closed to alternative other-worldly interpretations of these phenomena. I would point you to Prof Peter Fenwick’s writings and research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiEYQyUjAQA
No, but I”m desperately hoping that will happen with this next book.
Jesus sighed deeply in His spirit and said, “Why does this generation demand a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation (except the sign of Jonah and Isaiah 53) Mark 8:12
You have the resurrection, Bart and it’s effects of the dejected disciples who, at that point, like you, had come to the conclusion that Jesus was a failed apocalypticist – they esteemed him stricken.
Perhaps one can express it as Carl Gustav Jung:
“Through his inner vision the prophet discerns from the needs of his time the helpful image in the collective unconscious and expresses it in the symbol: because it speaks out of the collective unconscious it speaks for everyone-le vrai mot de la situation! “
Excited for the upcoming book. When will it be published? And are you already thinking about what book you might write next? Lol
NOt sure. I haven’t started writing it yet! I”m hoping it will appear before Xmas 2022, but we’ll see. The next one? Nope, for now I haven’t decided yet!
So, I’m wondering – what is the history of the interpretation of Revelation? At what point(s) in time and why and where did the Christian community begin to interpret Revelation as predictive of its own future events rather than as a writing with its meaning embedded in the book’s own historical context? Was/Were there (a) particular time(s) in history when (mis-) interpreting Revelation served an adaptive purpose in a Christian community feeling beleaguered by the circumstances of its own time and needing to be buoyed by the hope that “in the end God will prevail for us”? During the plagues of medieval times? Or is there a millenialist angst undergirding the drive to misinterpretation? Or…..?
As you can imagine there is a very long history of interpretation of Revelation. Before the end of the 19th century by far the dominant interpretatoin was that most of the book was describing things that were to happen in the author’s future but in the interpreter’s *past*, with only some bits left to be fulfilled. That changed with the rise of CHristian fundamentalism in England and the U.S., starting in the 1830s (John Henry Darby) but not kicking off big time till a half century later.
As someone in the 21st century Anglosphere (Australia) I know my impression of Christianity is that it’s apocalyptic to the core due to how long fundamentalism has been around.
It’s *really* hard to imagine it was NOT like that for so many centuries 😦
Are these not continued expansions of the original texts? Say it in the style of the King James Bible and it has belief? Shakespearian actors like Burton and Harris were know to ad lib when on the piss, taking all but the experts, for a jolly ride. There have since the dawn of time been great orators and later writers who could influence people. That, is a much greater topic.
It appears that the text itself was written by an author at a particular time, even if he was influenced by other authors and conversation partner and if his thoughts developed over a long period — so it’s not a written text that has been expanded over the eyars.
Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the book of Revelation describes a time in which folks will not be able to buy or sell without the “mark”, compared to what we are now seeing in this world today with people losing their jobs (unable to buy or sell?) because they choose not to get injected with something that had no long term studies?
It looks like more and more places are going to be making it nearly impossible to “buy or sell” without the injection. And all over something in which 99% of folks recover without problem. Just seems like a helluva coincidence.
I am not suggesting that the injection IS the “mark”, but could it be related to a “mark” which identifies whether one was injected or not?
For the record, I do NOT believe the book of Revelation was written to or for us today, as I am a preterist. But it sure seems like a crazy coincidence of events unfolding.
I would love to hear your thoughts, as I have much respect for you.
No, I don’t think there’s any connection. Unvaccinated people can certainly go the grocery store (to “buy and sell”). The problem is that if they do so they are subjecting themselves to the possibility of becoming infected. As you know, 99% of those dying in America today of the virus are those who have not been vaccinated. So this is not a persecution by an Antichrist figure. It’s a decision that everyone can make for themselves, for their own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of others. THere are, of course, all sorts of things that may look like divinely inspired events but that are just coincidences, but most, like this, are not crazily like what the Bible says. Getting a vaccination shot in the shoulder to avoid a disease is not eerily like getting a brand or other mark on the hand or forehead to allow one to buy or sell something.
Getting to the supposition that the Covid vaccination is the Mark of the Beast because “more and more places are going to be making it nearly impossible to “buy or sell” without the injection” is a very big reach.
A far better candidate for the economic sine qua non for which people have sold, if not their souls, at least, their privacy and autonomy, is the Social Security Number. Try to buy or sell anything non-trivial without one.
Of course, Christians don’t want to hear that because even the most rabidly fundamentalist among them has already accepted this mark. Not to mention the fact that they are loathe to even consider the possibility that the US government might be the Antichrist. (Though pretty much everyone will admit that you will find the “Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth” living on the banks of the Potomac River. 🙂)
Even if your 99% recovery rate is correct (I think it is too high), you are saying that you are okay with 3 million people dying in the U.S. alone.
You are also ignoring the tremendous medical expenses for treating people in hospitals, the mental and physical strain on medical personnel, and people who have long-term medical problems after recovering from COVID-19.
Get vaccinated and save lives, maybe even your own.
This reminds me of that other notorious – and very successful – visionary prophet of the 1970s, Erich von Däniken, who had the power to see alien spaceships and astronauts in ancient artifacts where the poor benighted but reputable archeologists saw only the long history of human cultural development. His infamous tome, Chariots of the Gods, has sold over 60 million copies. -sigh-
Wish I could have visions like that….
I just listened to the discussion you and Kyle Butt on suffering. You talk there about how people are not moral* enough, how they don’t care enough and how they only think of themselves.
I disagree. I don’t think there’s a contradiction between morality and self-interest. I agree with Socrates – it is not in my own interest to treat people poorly, because then they become worse people and I would rather live with good people than with bad.
And there are a lot of people I wish thought less about morality and more about themselves. The people who blow up abortion clinics and shoot abortion doctors do not do it because they are egotistical. They do it because they think abortion is a immoral. Same with the people who flew planes into the Twin Towers – they were motivated precisely by morality.
But we don’t need to go as far as mass murder. People who spit at Pride parades or condemn women for wearing “revealing clothing” do it for moral reasons. “Stop begging and get a job” comes from a moral code.
* When I say “moral statement” I mean “about morality”, not “morality I agree with”.
Why not use chapters 2-3 in order to understand the rest of Revelation ?
John addressing the churches makes use of so many symbols but is clear that to understand “its bizarre symbols need to be read with their own context”.
Those messages were about the present situation in his churches in his own time so why would the rest of Revelation be intended for people in different places/times?
Question to Bart:
What do you think represents Rev 6:1, the opening of the seal:
1) An event that would take place after John’s vision so nothing he “sees” has already happened. It’s all about the future (considering John’s time as the present)
2) Something happened after Jesus’ resurrection but many of the events in his visions already happened by John’s times and the rest were events for the near future (Rev 1:3 “ the time is near”) As if he was living right through the end of times.
Yes, I agree that chs. 2-3 are directly about the situation in the churches at the time. But I disagree (with other scholars) who think that the current situation of the churches is the main focus of the rest of the chapters. It simply isn’t true: the problem is principally pagans who are mislead and do not accept Jesus, whose world is soon to be destroyed when Jesus returns. CHs. 2-3 show that even some members of the churches will be among them. ANd yes, starting with the opening of the seals the prophet is describint what is to happen “soon” (as he repeatedly says).
But sometimes John uses the past as in Rev 11:11 ´God entered(εἰσῆλθεν) them´.
Perhaps all the ¨two witnesses¨ chapter it’s about two christians witnesses(martyrs) already killed and although the people ¨ refuse them burial¨ god raised them (entered them, and they stood on their feet )and finally ¨they went up to heaven in a cloud¨. Only Peter and Paul would deserve such an honor.
I was born again in 1986 at age 18 and Hal Lindsey was still going strong. I remember his TV commercials striking fear in my heart as a child utilizing film clips and photos of war and conflict and global cataclysm. He made regular appearances on TBN and had his own show where he set the template for prophesy peddlers for the next 50 years. He utilized the headlines and found all kinds of possible fulfillments of scriptures in them. Prophecy in the News! He shaped a generation of Christians to believe the end was at hand. Gorbachev was the antiChrist because of that big old birth mark. He construed it as the wound on the head of the antichrist.
Church people ate that stuff up like a Sunday potluck. Yet here we are in 2021 and everything he predicted with such coy, tentative insinuation has failed and is debunked.
That stuff played a huge part in enabling the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people. The US policy was hamstrung by millions of fundamentalists voters who believed Israel could do no wrong thanks to the likes of Hal and Co. As such US policy makers bowed to the prophesy narratives.
Dr Ehrman,
1. The concept of Rapture does not appears in Revelation, but only in earlier dated 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Why this fascinating concept of mid air aerial meeting did not make it in to Revelation?
2. The ones Raptured, would they be going straight to heaven or would stay in company of Jesus/God?
3. Why Revelation is not called Revelation from Jesus (Rev 1:1); would it not have sounded MOST authentic?
4. Are Rapture and 2nd coming two separate events?
5. Would historical Jesus have believed in Rapture and 2nd coming?
6. Is there a parallel between Sibylline Oracles and Revelation of John and/or other Revelations(putting the “s” out of sheer joy)?
Regards,
I”m afraid I can only handle one or two questions at a time. So I”ll deal with three! 1. BEcause the author of Revelation did not think CHristians would be removed from the world 2. For 1 THess 4, they go to meet Jesus in the air to escort him back down to his rule here on earth. 3. Apocalypses are always “mediated” through intermediaries, to enhance their mystical nature. Here the sequence of mediation is God – Jesus – angel – prophet John – churches. So the message comes from God.
Dr Ehrman, can I ask what you think of the suggestion that Revelation was the result of visions the author experienced as a result of ingesting a psychoactive substance?
I think it’s implausible and unnecessary. Lots of people have visions — you probably know some who have (I certainly do); and even though drugs can bring them on, most of the time they are not induced chemically. YOu may want to read Oliver Sacks book on Hallucinations; it’s a great read, for a general audience. Specifically, though, I see almost zero evidence that ealry Xns were using halluncinegenic substances. THough it they were, I suppose we’d have even better grounds for legalizing marijuana….
Hi Dr. Ehrman!
This question might be a little too personal to answer. You often speak about your original fundamentalist beliefs that you acquired after having a born again experience. What was your born again experience?
Thank you!
I talk about it at some greater length in my books, e.g., God’s Problem. BAsically as a 15 year old church going Episcopalian I became convinced by a spiritual leader of a youth group outside the church (Youth for Christ) that I had to make a “personal decision” for Christ and ask Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior to be “saved” for all eternity. I did so, and felt regenerated and in a year and a half was assiduously studying the BIble at Moody Bible INstitute.
I am 60 this year. I had my conversion experience at age 13. I became convinced I had to make a personal decision for Christ by a spititual mother who nagged me incessantly – bless her. A little like Augustine’s mother Monica. I didn’t have any mystical experience, but I felt I had surrendered my will to a loving God and adopted a state of mind of repentence for my turning away from God and gratitude to an all loving good creator. I too have struggled with the problem of evil and have not always held to that conversion state of mind. But I am now in that state and with Augustine, I say “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”
The Late Great Planet Earth was almost treated as scripture in the little Baptist church in Hartford Illinois where I grew up. Later, when I got to Judson College in Elgin Il the descriptions in that book were pretty much accepted as future fact. Probably at Wheaton as well.
Prof Ehrman,
Please, were the Ebionites Christians Jews or Greeks (Gentiles) ?
Apparently JEws, but it’s a bit hard to say. They certainly saw themselves as Jews, but whether they were *born* Jewish is another question,
Professor, if I can distract from deck chair arrangements on the SS Revelation for just a moment…
What do you make of Jesus’ own predictions about the end times — specifically Mk 13:15-17//Mt 24:17-19//Lk 21:23 — in the original versus a contemporary context?
The advice that when Armageddon arrives one should not only “flee to the mountains” but “not go down to get things out of his house” or even “turn back to get his cloak” — and especially the admonition that it will be woeful to “those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days” — are perfectly understandable from our post-nuclear perspective. But how could people living in the 1st century possibly have had ears to hear? Wouldn’t these cautions have been incomprehensible and nonsensical before there was any understanding (or even possibility) of radioactive contamination?
I think they make much better sense in a pre-nuclear context. THere’s no reason not to run back for your cloak before the bomb hits. You’re going to be annihilated either way. BUt if the troops are coming with swords, you need to get outta there fast. Hebrew prophets always talked about destruction in terms of military invasion.
Dr. Ehrman, first I should apologize for my somewhat snarky shot at Revelation. Frankly, the last book of the NT long ago got on my last nerve. I see NO connection whatsoever to ANY of the words of the Word. Yet it became the obsessive — if not exclusive — focus of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and still to this day a gaggle of “Dollars-for-Jesus” televangelists. The Book of Revelation does for proselytizers what, as Samuel Johnson once observed, patriotism does for politicians.
Worse, I distracted from my actual purpose in asking the question.
True, there is a natural tendency to interpret within one’s own (rather than the original) context. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by the arguably inferable anachronism in a 1st century warning appropriate to contamination by invisible and ultimately fatal radioactivity, as well as the threat to the unborn/newborn. That’s strangely coincidental — albeit undeniably speculative. Clearly, the caution must have also seemed sensible at the time or it would not have been preserved for nearly two millennia.
The larger question: Where and how do the particulars in the apocalyptic vision of the author of Revelation line up with Jesus’ own eschatological prophecies in Mk 13:3-27//Mt 24:3-27//Lk 21:7-28?
I’ll be arguing that there are clear similarities, but key differences as well. For one thing, they are obvioulsy far ore extensive, detailed, and graphic; and the grounds for who gets destroyed are different.
I look forward to it. But it seems to me that searching for symbolic subtext in such hallucinogenic fiction as the Book of Revelation is a puzzle quest about as productive as successfully completing NY Times crosswords.
Ask your colleagues in the Lit department how much shelf space that computer storage has saved on theses deconstructing the implications of the “tumult Kubla heard from far — Ancestral voices prophesying war!” Speculations about the meaning of that prognostication should be never-ending, given that Coleridge was recounting an opium dream.
Or how about all the ink spilt (now data storage consumed) on the symbolic intent of one of Coleridge’s Victorian contemporaries in, for example, the disembodied, free-floating smile Carroll left hanging in mid-air when his talking cat from Cheshire disappeared? Yet this author never even hinted that his tales of adventure down a rabbit-hole were anything more than fantastical entertainment for a ten-year-old girl named Alice.
How do we know John didn’t simply happen to be among the hapless customers of the Patmos Bakery the day they accidentally sold ergot-contaminated bread?
Revelation is not so much prophecy as Rorschach test. Apologists aren’t seeing through this looking-glass darkly. They are seeing their own reflection.
The first question to ask is whether or not these “End of Days” prophecies in Mark (Mk 13:3-27) even go back to the historical Jesus.
The Five Gospels color-codes this entire passage black — excepting only verse 21 which gets a one-notch upgrade to grey.
Matthew’s version gets the same authenticity assessment — including the grey upgrade to that one verse (Mt 24:23) — since, other than adding some rhetorical flourishes, this author essentially preserved Mark. Though Matthew did insert a Q pericope (Mt 24:27-28) that was also rated grey by Crossan & Co.
Luke, however, has recast the entire prediction (Lk 21:7-28) as describing, not the End of the World, but rather the End of Jerusalem — an obvious modification since the city and Temple had been destroyed by Rome a decade or more before he was writing, but some four decades after Jesus’ putative predictions. This version is, nevertheless, also entirely blacklisted by the Jesus Seminarians as Luke omitted the only grey-rated verse in Mark and put the Q material earlier in his narrative (Lk 17:23-24).
Isn’t it likely that Mark edited together this eschatological soliloquy by Jesus from separate, oral tradition pericopes? If so, which particulars (if any) are authentic?
Yes, the Jesus Seminar (which produced the FIve Gospels) was very much intent on showing that Jesus did not make apocalyptic predictions. My book Jesus: Apocayptic Prophet of the New Millennium was meant to argue the other side, along with the majority of critical scholars then and now.
Thanks, professor. Sagacity (and comon courtesy) advises not wasting your blogging time by asking about what you undoubtedly covered in detail in your book on this subject. So I will start there.
While I await its arrival, if I might ask about one issue that occurred in comparing the synoptic versions of Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse — Matthew’s unique and enigmatic conclusion: “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (Mt 24:28)
I note from Greek Interlinear sources that the word ἀετοί is correctly translated, not as “vultures” but as “eagles.” Among the popular translations, however, all except the KJV/NKJV says “vultures” (though, notably, it appears the editors of RSV/NRSV changed their minds on this.)
Certainly, “vultures” makes better sense. Eagles are solitary predators, and merely opportunistic scavengers. Vultures, of course, scavenge for a living, and are primarily seen in flocks, circling in the skies above and conspicuously heralding “wherever the corpse is.”
Was ἀετοί a scribal error, i.e., is there another, perhaps similar, Greek word for “vulture”?
Also, might this peculiar saying — which IS grey-rated by the Jesus Seminarians — trace back, albeit via a different, oral transmission route, to the (similarly and morbidly strange) one recorded in Thomas as saying 56?
Apparently both ARistotle and Pliny the Elder, in the classifications of the animal world, included “vultures” among the “eagle” family
Have you ever seen the movie Holocaust 2000? If (like me) you’re a sucker for 70s apocalyptic films with (ahem) creative interpretations of the book of Revelation, it’s a gem!
It’s one of the 99 million films I have not seen.