Eschatology Note # 3
One of the impediments in understanding biblical eschatology are the meanings of some of the words. If taken literally, they make no sense; they must be metaphorical, at least in our understanding of the translated English. In Revelation, the words "throne" and "cloud" appear in connection with the return or reign of Jesus. These words can be understood by first examining carefully the word "cloud" in Exodus - the cloud that led the Israelites through the Sinai desert. As we well know, clouds do not behave in any purposive way; they are merely part of the weather and behave as we normally view them. However, the cloud in the Exodus behaved quite purposefully and intelligently in guiding and interacting with the Israelites. It could not have been a weather cloud.
We need only go back a few centuries and observe the sky to notice the complete lack of aircraft, hot-air or helium balloons, dirigibles, drones, rockets or any of the more recent aerial technology. There was only one large thing in the sky: weather clouds and only one word for a large thing in the sky: the Hebrew word anan. When something new is observed, we often will adapt a word that most closely describes what it is. The Israelites quite naturally called Yahweh's vehicle a "cloud". If we saw it, we would probably call it a "UFO" or "UAP" or more simply, a "spacecraft" or "aerial craft". Such expressions would accurately fit the biblical description of what the Israelites observed. The Exodus text uses an adjective to describe this "cloud" as "dense" which in Hebrew is the same word that could be translated as "solid" - a "solid cloud". That would be fitting language to describe an aerial craft. In Revelation, the Lamb's (Jesus's) craft is surrounded by the "elders", like a flotilla of navy ships in a battle group. In Revelation, the Lamb and the 24 elders appear "in the clouds", each having a spacecraft accompanying the main ship of the Lamb.
Occasionally anan in scripture means weather cloud, such as in the drought of Elijah. In these cases, it is easy to distinguish from "clouds" that behave in their descriptions as aerial craft. Indeed, throughout the Bible, when "aerial vehicle" or "spacecraft" is substituted for "cloud", the meaning becomes less mysterious and more fitting of the text.
The word "throne" is similar. A throne is the king's chair from which he carries out his commanding function in his jurisdiction. The commander of a vehicle has a commander's chair, such as the one Captain Kirk sits in on the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek. Apply this sense to the word in Revelation and it focuses attention on the center of command, the Lamb in the commander's chair of his approaching spacecraft.
The final related word in Hebrew is shamayim and is ouranos in Greek - the heavens, or heaven in the singular. In both ancient languages, the word simply means "the skies" - what you can observe looking upward. The first layer is the troposphere, where weather occurs, birds fly, and tree leaves fall. The second is where the stars are, in outer space. The word for "star" in scripture means any bright point of light in the sky and can include planets, comets, and asteroids. And the third heaven is beyond that, though scripture does not tell us how far beyond. (However, theologians are paid to embellish scripture and by adding some Greek philosophy, have equated it with "eternity" or beyond space and time, though the human mind cannot (except in a very abstract sense) envision this.)
The return of the Lamb in "clouds" from "heaven" decrypts to "incoming spacecraft". Jesus is, after all, human, though of the next, more advanced instantiation, yet is subject to the same laws of the Creator in upholding the creation. So he would need life-support systems onboard his "cloud". (This is not to suggest that advanced engineering would not allow him to function in a way that we cannot - a way that would not long ago have been regarded as magic or "breaking" physical laws, though God does not need to act in conflict with himself in how he sustains the physical world to accomplish his purposes.)
A final, seemingly obvious scriptural observation, is that Jesus is coming back to earth with his people who had died, where he will establish his rule of his own one-world order. Yet there are Christians who believe that as Jesus returns they will be "going to heaven". If so, will they be going when Jesus is coming and will miss him? According to legend, the Devil came from a star called Alpha Draconis, in the Dragon constellation. It is only somewhat of a wild conjecture, but where is Jesus coming from? How about Taygeta in the Pleiades? Like Greek philosophy posing as theology, I also do not know. (The Pleiades are closer to the galactic center and radiation levels there are higher.)
The Vatican owns an astronomical observatory in Arizona. It is a rather covert (spooky) place according to one reporter attempting to visit it. Why would the Vatican have an observatory? What are they looking for? In Revelation 6:12-17, everyone from patricians to equites and plebes will observe that something important is happening in the sky (6:12-14), resulting in many going underground and sealing the tunnels (not "falling" - pipto in Greek also means to "alight"), "to hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." (6:15-17) They are not committing suicide by having rocks fall on them but are trying to save themselves by being shielded by them. Little known to most Americans is the extant network of underground tunneling.
According to the Rev. 6 text, the return of Jesus will not only be visible to all in the sky, whether to the aided or unaided eye, but that his intent against the tunnelers is hostile and his military power substantial. To refer to his "throne" instead of to his "cloud" directs attention to his lordship - that he is the one who is in command of the spacecraft battle group. How do the political and military leaders on earth know his intent is opposed to them? Revelation 6 does not tell us. Yet in Rev. 12:7-17 the Devil is at war "in heaven" with his opposition and is subsequently "thrown down to earth" - grounded on this planet, where scripture says he becomes "ruler of this age". As an ET who has been ruling during the age of Pisces - the age that is now passing away - would he not know who is "coming in the clouds"? And would he not direct his human level of middle management to interpret his appearance in that way?
One of the impediments in understanding biblical eschatology are the meanings of some of the words. If taken literally, they make no sense; they must be metaphorical, at least in our understanding of the translated English. In Revelation, the words "throne" and "cloud" appear in connection with the return or reign of Jesus. These words can be understood by first examining carefully the word "cloud" in Exodus - the cloud that led the Israelites through the Sinai desert. As we well know, clouds do not behave in any purposive way; they are merely part of the weather and behave as we normally view them. However, the cloud in the Exodus behaved quite purposefully and intelligently in guiding and interacting with the Israelites. It could not have been a weather cloud.
We need only go back a few centuries and observe the sky to notice the complete lack of aircraft, hot-air or helium balloons, dirigibles, drones, rockets or any of the more recent aerial technology. There was only one large thing in the sky: weather clouds and only one word for a large thing in the sky: the Hebrew word anan. When something new is observed, we often will adapt a word that most closely describes what it is. The Israelites quite naturally called Yahweh's vehicle a "cloud". If we saw it, we would probably call it a "UFO" or "UAP" or more simply, a "spacecraft" or "aerial craft". Such expressions would accurately fit the biblical description of what the Israelites observed. The Exodus text uses an adjective to describe this "cloud" as "dense" which in Hebrew is the same word that could be translated as "solid" - a "solid cloud". That would be fitting language to describe an aerial craft. In Revelation, the Lamb's (Jesus's) craft is surrounded by the "elders", like a flotilla of navy ships in a battle group. In Revelation, the Lamb and the 24 elders appear "in the clouds", each having a spacecraft accompanying the main ship of the Lamb.
Occasionally anan in scripture means weather cloud, such as in the drought of Elijah. In these cases, it is easy to distinguish from "clouds" that behave in their descriptions as aerial craft. Indeed, throughout the Bible, when "aerial vehicle" or "spacecraft" is substituted for "cloud", the meaning becomes less mysterious and more fitting of the text.
The word "throne" is similar. A throne is the king's chair from which he carries out his commanding function in his jurisdiction. The commander of a vehicle has a commander's chair, such as the one Captain Kirk sits in on the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek. Apply this sense to the word in Revelation and it focuses attention on the center of command, the Lamb in the commander's chair of his approaching spacecraft.
The final related word in Hebrew is shamayim and is ouranos in Greek - the heavens, or heaven in the singular. In both ancient languages, the word simply means "the skies" - what you can observe looking upward. The first layer is the troposphere, where weather occurs, birds fly, and tree leaves fall. The second is where the stars are, in outer space. The word for "star" in scripture means any bright point of light in the sky and can include planets, comets, and asteroids. And the third heaven is beyond that, though scripture does not tell us how far beyond. (However, theologians are paid to embellish scripture and by adding some Greek philosophy, have equated it with "eternity" or beyond space and time, though the human mind cannot (except in a very abstract sense) envision this.)
The return of the Lamb in "clouds" from "heaven" decrypts to "incoming spacecraft". Jesus is, after all, human, though of the next, more advanced instantiation, yet is subject to the same laws of the Creator in upholding the creation. So he would need life-support systems onboard his "cloud". (This is not to suggest that advanced engineering would not allow him to function in a way that we cannot - a way that would not long ago have been regarded as magic or "breaking" physical laws, though God does not need to act in conflict with himself in how he sustains the physical world to accomplish his purposes.)
A final, seemingly obvious scriptural observation, is that Jesus is coming back to earth with his people who had died, where he will establish his rule of his own one-world order. Yet there are Christians who believe that as Jesus returns they will be "going to heaven". If so, will they be going when Jesus is coming and will miss him? According to legend, the Devil came from a star called Alpha Draconis, in the Dragon constellation. It is only somewhat of a wild conjecture, but where is Jesus coming from? How about Taygeta in the Pleiades? Like Greek philosophy posing as theology, I also do not know. (The Pleiades are closer to the galactic center and radiation levels there are higher.)
The Vatican owns an astronomical observatory in Arizona. It is a rather covert (spooky) place according to one reporter attempting to visit it. Why would the Vatican have an observatory? What are they looking for? In Revelation 6:12-17, everyone from patricians to equites and plebes will observe that something important is happening in the sky (6:12-14), resulting in many going underground and sealing the tunnels (not "falling" - pipto in Greek also means to "alight"), "to hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." (6:15-17) They are not committing suicide by having rocks fall on them but are trying to save themselves by being shielded by them. Little known to most Americans is the extant network of underground tunneling.
According to the Rev. 6 text, the return of Jesus will not only be visible to all in the sky, whether to the aided or unaided eye, but that his intent against the tunnelers is hostile and his military power substantial. To refer to his "throne" instead of to his "cloud" directs attention to his lordship - that he is the one who is in command of the spacecraft battle group. How do the political and military leaders on earth know his intent is opposed to them? Revelation 6 does not tell us. Yet in Rev. 12:7-17 the Devil is at war "in heaven" with his opposition and is subsequently "thrown down to earth" - grounded on this planet, where scripture says he becomes "ruler of this age". As an ET who has been ruling during the age of Pisces - the age that is now passing away - would he not know who is "coming in the clouds"? And would he not direct his human level of middle management to interpret his appearance in that way?
