Loading...I continue here with my discussion of the violence in the book of Revelation as taken from a recent lecture I gave. As is clear, I find it incredible that so many well-meaning scholars want to insist that its not *actually* violent. OK, then.
As I’ve indicated, chs. 6-16 are a three-part series of disasters, 7 seals, trumpets, and bowls of wrath each, bringing war, death, economic collapse, starvation, torment, natural disaster, and cosmic disruption (with other things). I pick up there in what follows:
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And as awful as they are, the seals, trumpets, and bowls are not the most violent parts of the book. Three other passages compete for that dubious honor.
The first comes as an interlude between the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of God’s wrath (14:14-20). Here we have another vision of “one like the Son of Man” (Christ) who is seated on a cloud, wearing a golden crown and carrying a sharp sickle (14:14). It is not an auspicious image. An angel emerges from the heavenly temple and calls to this (grim) reaper to “Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because of the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” In other words, it is time for judgment to begin. Christ wields his sickle, “and the earth was reaped” (14:16).
Had the author stopped there, the reader would assume that those opposed to God had been suddenly killed. But then the account becomes painfully graphic. Another angel emerges from the temple, also bearing a sickle; and yet another issues yet another fearful command: “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” Now we understand this is a grape harvest, of sorts. The vines are cut down, their grapes removed, and the grapes thrown into “the wine press of the wrath of God,” (14:19) where they are trodden. But it is not red wine that flows. It is human blood. And it is a vintage crop: “the blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of about two hundred miles” (14:20).
This is what happens to people who do not worship God properly. With an effective mixed image, the angel explains their fate: it is not that they will be trodden into human wine, but that they will “drink the wine of God’s wrath” (14:9-10).
The second passage involves not just drinking but also eating. Before the final battle, an angel tells the seer John: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (19:9). Christ, the Lamb, is to be united with his bride, the church of his followers, and there will be a celebration. That sounds festive. But who are the banqueters? And what is on the menu?
Those who eat the Marriage Supper of the Lamb are the scavenger birds; their meal is the flesh of Christ’s enemies. After Christ puts forth his “sharp sword” in order to “strike down the nations” in the final battle (19:15), an angel calls out to “all the birds that fly in midheaven,” inviting them to enjoy “the great supper of God” (19:17). They come to the feast to devour the cadavers of Christ’s enemies slain in battle. The battle is over in a flash. “The Beast and the kings of the earth” (so not just Rome, but also all the nations ) have gathered their armies and as soon as they appear, they are overwhelmed. The Beast and his false prophet are cast into the lake of burning sulfur, where they will suffer but never die, while all their troops are slaughtered by Christ himself, “by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth” (19:21). And so the bloodied lamb gets his vengeance.
The third passage shows that Christ directs his violence not only against pagans and Jews but also against his own followers, even active leaders and teachers in his church. The tenuous standing of Jesus’ followers is a leading theme of his letters to the seven churches of in chapters 2 and 3. Christ regularly threatens to remove his favor and protection from these churches and their members. It is easy to infer their fate from the rest of the book.
Itis beyond me that Xtians can believe this type of violence is okay coming from an all loving Christ.
I just read the post from Febuary 14, 2013 ( I am reading the blog since its inception) and Phillipians 2: 6-11 is mentioned.
The cross is written as the instrument of Yeshua’s death. I assume that sautros is the greek translation. I googled and found this written :
‘Stauros (σταυρός) is a Greek word for a stake or an implement of capital punishment. The Greek New Testament uses the word stauros for the instrument of Jesus’ crucifixion, and it is generally translated cross in Christian contexts.’
Are there incidences that are known that the Romans used crosses for crucifixion? I frequent a online social board frequented by Jehovah Witnesses who pride them selves as the only ones with the correct Greek translation in their bible and insist Yeshua was crucified on a stake not a cross. Can you give me a definiative answer?
THe earliest Christians who *describe* the “stake” that Jesus was killed on describe it as in the shape of a “T” (but a lower case t with the top extending above teh crossbar). From at least Justin (who describes it to be in the shape of a mast) to the emperor Constantine (who crucified people) and his labarum. These are all people very familiar with crucifixion from first-hand experience.
Exegesis of Revelation works much better when done from a standpoint of disbelief. While I sympathize with the believers to tone down the violence, this bias creates a blindness to what is actually there. My compliments on your incredulous exposition.
From a literal point of view, chapters 14 and 19 are terrible chapters that is impossible to give good sence , for me at least.
Since I read Revelation as a Christian symbolic book on human self-transcendence. It’s a lot about the return of “the prodigal son”. From this I read chapter 14 as playing at the unconscious level or even at the collective unconscious level to use Carl Jung’s conceptual framework and reflecting an inner process towards a new consciousness, a new song and the angles in such a context in chapter 14 are influences on a higher level of consciousness. The high activities depicted in this chapter have a lot to do with the life forces given our concepts and create our identity
Chapter 19 succeeds the fall, but not destruction (purification) of the Self outlined in Chapter 18. These are also influences of the Self against this new consciousness, this new heaven. From my perspective, this marriage is different from a literal union of with the church to his followers, but rather linked to a human self-transcendent level, basically a “new being” but all in ourselves.
I dare to suggest that these references to the Revelation are not about violence toward physical human beings but rather spiritual processes and influences.
>”for a distance of about two hundred miles” (14:20)” Originally σταδίων χιλίων ἑξακοσίων, a thousand six hundred stadia.
Not particularly violent, but Revelation uses forms of χίλιοι, “thousand”, nine out of the eleven times it occurs in the NT (the other two are in 2 Peter). Do you make anything of that, or was it just an idiosyncrasy of the author?
https://biblehub.com/greek/5507.htm
P.S.: Revelation also has the only two NT occurrences of ἑξακόσιοι, six hundred, the other being the famous 666. So maybe gematria was at work???
https://biblehub.com/greek/1812.htm
It’s certainly at work for 666 — but 600 and 1000? I don’t know — it’s a great question. The author obviously had a serious thing for numbers — 3, 7, 12…
Is this an accurate answer? :
The σταυρός (stauros) was simply an upright pale or stake to which Romans nailed those who were thus said to be crucified, σταυρόω, merely means to drive stakes. It never means two pieces of wood joining at any angle. Even the Latin word crux means a mere stake. The initial letter Χ, (chi) of Χριστός, (Christ) was anciently used for His name, until it was displaced by the T, the initial letter of the pagan god Tammuz, about the end of cent. iv.
— A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to The English and Greek New Testament, 1877
So later the letter (pagan for Tammuz) T was used for crucifixtion or a greek word was substituted for Stauros. Or where did the story that yeshua died on a cross come from?
I think I answered that. Romans appear to have used Tee shaped crosses and that’s what the word also means. You might want to look it up in any of the standard ancient Greek lexicons (a new one just appeared from Cambridge; the old standard is Liddell-Scott)
Dr. Ehrman. The notion of a wedding between Christ and his Church is often seen as a telological and spiritual interpretation of The Song of Songs.
In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus healed a blind man. The point of this story was that the man was blind in his heart, and then he became enlightened.
Solomon was said to have been the wisest of all men. Three books in the OT are said to have descended from him; the Proverbs, the Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs.
The proverbs deals with human ethics.
The Ecclesiastes deals with the physical world.
The Song of Songs deals with the spiritual nature between God and man.
When Jesus spat on the earth, he spat out moral rules that were to be followed by virtues – out of his mouth came the rules of living we find in the Proverbs.
Jesus spat on the physical earth, which is vanity of vanities. With too much of the wisdom of the Ecclesiastes there comes much grief.
The mixture of the Proverbs and the Ecclesiastes was smeared on Solomon’s eyes, but he was still blind. Even blinder than before.
He was then ordered to wash his eyes in the fountain that cleanses away all filth – the spiritual source where his soul was united with God. He had to be “kissed with the kiss of His mouth”. He had to be embraced by the Bridegroom who was Sent by God, and who could be sought after in the Song of Solomon.
A major theological question at the time seems to be: Were these books really written by King Solomon? Maybe they were written by someone who only looked like him? Maybe a spiritual Solomon? After all, King Solomon became a sinner and was rejected by the Lord? How credible and spiritually exalted could something written by a sinner really be?
– We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. John 9:31
Just as the spiritual Sabbath was to do no sin, so was the voice in these books from a spiritual Solomon without sin.
But why not ask his parents? His parents knew that Solomon was old enough to speak for himself, even though he was only twelve years old when he became king.
No, these books were written later by people claiming to be Solomon.
Chapters 9 and 10 of the Gospel of John seem to be a theological interpretation of the books written by Solomon.
Jesus is the Bridegroom standing outside the wall and knocking on the door.
Song of Songs 2:9 “Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows”
Song of Songs 5:2-4 “My beloved is knocking:” Open to me, my sister, my darling (…) My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. ”
Jesus is the Bridegroom who, like a shepherd, leads the flock to rich pasture.
Song of Songs 1:7 “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon”
Song of Songs 2:16 “My beloved is mine, and I am his. He feeds his flock among the lilies.”
Song of Songs 6:2-3 “My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock”
Jesus is even the door.
Song of Songs 8:9-10 “If she is a wall, we will build a tower of silver upon her. If she is a door, we will enclose her”
The sad news was that it was still winter when Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
The hope that lay in the Song of Songs was in the future.
Song of Songs 2:11-12 “Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone. The flowers have appeared in the countryside; the season of singing has come”
Winter was not over at all, and the people were still evil. They thought they understood but were blind. Ambrosiaster highlighted one Proverb in his Q&A on Proverbs.
Proverbs 18:17 (lxx) A righteous man accuses himself at the beginning of his speech (…)
ie. He who thought he knew was not righteous
John 9:41 “If you were blind, you would not be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.”
I will be honest. I personally have not read Revelation word for word. Specifically because I am abhorred by the violence in the book. The book does not portray the God I know in my heart, thus I could never understand how such a book got into the canon. The best explanation I’ve heard is that it was believed it could have been written by John the Apostle thus all Apostle writting were to be included. Realistically I believe that people are drawn to bloody car wrecks, and book was popular because of such, and it was included for the “Draw factor” in the canon. Rome was taking over the religion and Rome was ruled by violence. Therfore, if you had a violent Jesus, then the violence of the Empire would be righteous in establishing the Empire as Jesus’s earthly kingdom. The book is not prophesy, but just a recount of the Roman Jewish wars between 70-135 ce and the age of the New Covenant aftwards (New Heaven and New Earth). Its not an inconsequential book, but never should have been included in Canon. Just added to support the Roman Empire.
Bart, unrelated question
Is there any evidence Paul or other Christians think God is *not* the kind of ultimately powerful deity that believers claim today?
As you say he thinks of sin and death as evil forces to be overcome-is it possible he thinks God is genuinely challenged and needs to exert some serious planning and effort to overcome (like we as humans do?)
Paul thought Christ started out as some kind of divine being but was exalted to the level of God himself at the resurrection (thus Phil. 2:6-10).
Clearly the author of Revelation had a very vivid and sick imagination!
I thought since all of St John’s closest friends were dead; then the torture, being alone he saw “Visions”
The sword in J’s mouth is pretty obviously his word, his speech. This at least is not physically violent.
The author is clearly not praying for nor forgiving his enemies, though.
Check out what he does with the Sword from his mouth in chapter 19!
A family member recently attended a week long psychic event involving meetings, counseling and the use of Ayahuasca in response to an alcoholic abuse problem. It sounded like the worst trip of a lifetime. As he recounted his experience I thought “Revelations!” I suspect such things found in Revelations likely had their orgin in the use of hallucinogenic drugs or are the result of isolation for long periods without proper diet and water. Is there biblical evidence of this? My word searches have so far provided little feedback. Do you have a comment or a suggestion of how I might search this subject in the bible? Thank you. Your scholarship is so refreshing. A breath of fresh air.
Nope, no evidence for that kind of thing! But a view that started being broached in the 60s!
Ok, I’m going to stop trying to explain away this violent vision, which is so appealing to our most base instincts.
It’s clearly Anti-roman imperialist, though, which makes it strange that lovers of US empire are it’s biggest fans. They love BOTH empire AND violence.
Hey Bart,
I have realized that the English translations don’t fully provide what the author is actually saying, mostly in the Pauline letters. Are there Bibles with accurate notes for these areas?
I recomment the HarperCollins Study Bible.