Revelation as a History

Residential Bob

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I suppose this thread belongs in the Christian Scriptures forum. It’s about certain passages of the Scriptures.

As I was questioning the inconsistencies of futurism and recognizing the truth of fulfilled prophecy, I heard some advice to consider the larger implications of the Olivet Discourse and the Revelation, and then the details will fall into place (Don K. Preston, I believe, said it).

But let’s start elsewhere (for after all, eschatology is ninety percent of the Gospels and the New Testament canon). Jesus says that the Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist (Lk 16:16). John the Baptist says that the Messiah has come with his axe to topple the temple hierarchy, a fruitless junta (Lk 3:9), and to baptize in fire (3:16). Jesus, of course, does this in AD 70 when a fire consumes the temple and consequently the cult of temple and the Mosaic traditions. After this, nothing else needs to be said. The Jewish Age – the age of the prophets and the law – ends.

Malachi may have foretold these events from a distant past, but John announced their imminence. The Law and the Prophets were until John.

Could John the Revelator, then, have foretold anything else? Absolutely not; the Prophetic Age had ended. Yet this John claims to be writing a prophecy (Rv 1:3). What? How can that be?

Easy. Read what St. Paul says in various missives about prophecy at the close of the age. About how it ranks among other gifts of the Spirit, about its usefulness for encouragement and edification for the church. John the Revelator is encouraging the fledgling church through the tribulation it had just endured in Jerusalem and Judea.

But but but, what about all the fantastic events that John the Revelator writes about in Revelation? How do you explain those? Easy. The larger implications first, then the details fall into place.

We know from history, for example, that as armies surrounded Jerusalem, the church in that city fled and took up residence in Decapolis, largely the village of Pella. Three and a half years later, after the First Jewish War, these Christians began to return. This church, the bride of Christ, was in exile for three and a half years. Reference Revelation 12:6.

We also know from history that during this 3 ½-year conflict, wrought with famine and pestilence, the last five months were especially trying. The Romans had breached Jerusalem’s defensive wall and beat the Zealots back, and in five months, the temple burned down. Now reference Revelation 9:5.

Futurists may be completely lost by this OP, but as to Preterists, do you really think that John the Revelator was foretelling the future?

Okay, let the assault begin . . .
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Who cares what preterists think? It is forbidden on some forums I've been on, if not all "Christian" forums. (Just curious what purpose there was in mentioning them in your post).....

As for what Yahweh revealed through His Angel to John, we will see....
 
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com7fy8

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As I feed more on Revelation, more and more I discover so much which helps us to know how to live for Jesus . . . not only what people consider to be historical.

Yes, there is historical prophecy, but it is meant to get us to get ready for Jesus . . . not to only constantly go on and on about when things will happen. We need to get into how to be ready, not just to say to be.

And there is history in Revelation which is not only about when things will happen, but we can learn why and how things happen.

Notice, for example, how each letter to a church has something pretty much for a whole church. Ones were unified in each church, either in a good way or not so good, so that John could write pretty much the same thing to all the members of a given church.

So, this is a lesson on history, I see, and a lesson on how we need to live > humans in a group can tend to all become the same way with each other, in a right unity or a wrong one . . . like I see happened with each church.

So, we need to test every thing, make sure with God, not only go along with what others are doing . . . including not assuming we need to debate and discuss things just because it is getting the attention of others. Where does our attention belong, really? > always with God personally guiding our attention :)

And Jesus says to be "ready" > Matthew 24:44. So, how much do we give our attention to what Jesus means by being "ready"?

Jesus says we will see when things happen. But, also, Jesus says what to do > "look up and lift up your heads" (in Luke 21:28), "be ready" (Matthew 24:44).

To look up, I believe, means to look to God and how He guides us and our hearts and our attention. So, I see we do not need to spend all or most of our study and discussion time only on when things will happen, but see them but look up and be ready.
 
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Erik Nelson

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Who cares what preterists think? It is forbidden on some forums I've been on, if not all "Christian" forums. (Just curious what purpose there was in mentioning them in your post).....

As for what Yahweh revealed through His Angel to John, we will see....
Well, we will continue to see the rest of Revelation 20:7-9+, yes

everything else we already saw.
 
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Residential Bob

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Once we recognize the New Testament for what it is and understand its time statements and who its audience is, we see its central theme, that it is all eschatology (except for Philemon). One useful tool in helping us understand the subject of the New Testament is familiarization with the Roman-Jewish Wars, particularly the Great Revolt.

One detail in Revelation is the bombardment of 100-pound hailstones (16:21). We know from history that the Great Revolt ended in 73 (or perhaps 74) at Masada, where caches of ballista shot were excavated in the 1960s. These caches consisted of spherical boulders each weighing approximately 100 pounds.

Another detail is the inability of some to buy and sell (13:17), resulting in rampant starvation among rank-and-file Jews. The Zealots commandeered food stockpiles, and the Romans, of course, had access to food outside the city. Moderates had entered the city to celebrate Passover and wound up trapped inside after the Romans breached the wall and the Zealots blocked egresses. These Jews lacked connections with Zealot leaders, and few were able to escape the city to find refuge among the Romans; so many starved to death.
 
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Residential Bob

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As I feed more on Revelation, more and more I discover so much which helps us to know how to live for Jesus . . . not only what people consider to be historical.

Yes, there is historical prophecy, but it is meant to get us to get ready for Jesus . . . not to only constantly go on and on about when things will happen. We need to get into how to be ready, not just to say to be.

And there is history in Revelation which is not only about when things will happen, but we can learn why and how things happen.

Notice, for example, how each letter to a church has something pretty much for a whole church. Ones were unified in each church, either in a good way or not so good, so that John could write pretty much the same thing to all the members of a given church.

So, this is a lesson on history, I see, and a lesson on how we need to live > humans in a group can tend to all become the same way with each other, in a right unity or a wrong one . . . like I see happened with each church.

So, we need to test every thing, make sure with God, not only go along with what others are doing . . . including not assuming we need to debate and discuss things just because it is getting the attention of others. Where does our attention belong, really? > always with God personally guiding our attention :)

And Jesus says to be "ready" > Matthew 24:44. So, how much do we give our attention to what Jesus means by being "ready"?

Jesus says we will see when things happen. But, also, Jesus says what to do > "look up and lift up your heads" (in Luke 21:28), "be ready" (Matthew 24:44).

To look up, I believe, means to look to God and how He guides us and our hearts and our attention. So, I see we do not need to spend all or most of our study and discussion time only on when things will happen, but see them but look up and be ready.
Speaking of testing everything, how many futurist theories are tested? How many can be tested?

. . . or maybe we can learn why and how things have happened. Get ready for Jesus? You mean for his arrival? Are you wallowing in his absence now?

Relax and praise him for what he has done for us. He brought us the kingdom, the church. Now, just as in the Garden of Eden, God fellowships with man on the earth again, and is also glorified thereon again.
 
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Joy

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MOD HAT ON

262241_97344f3feba7d2020816cbb9e9ef87d8.jpeg

This Thread
From Christian Scriptures

To Cotroversial Christian Theology
This is the Appropriate Forum
for this subject

MOD HAT OFF
 
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Residential Bob

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Thank you, Mollie.

What about the two witnesses in historical context?

In its historical context, the book of Revelation is readily decipherable save for three paragraphs in Chapter 11 that, no matter how deeply probed, inevitably invite conjecture. I advise against conjecture and theory that lack contextual foundation, so please do not take this as factual. Yet these ideas seem to fit as well as any into the biblical and historical context.

Astute commentators have tendered interpretations both literal and allegorical. Wallace suggests that these witnesses represent not individuals but populations. They were the prophets of old and apostles of the first century.*

Russell posits the intriguing idea that in the last days of the Jewish polity, these two figures were St. James and St. Peter. The Apostle James’ faithful witness of Christ in Jerusalem and affiliation with the church there are certain, as is the fact of his martyrdom there. And though legend declares Peter a martyr in Rome, that is unfounded, as canon relates his connections in Jerusalem up to the eve of the dissolution of the Jewish state.[ii]

A third possibility is that one witness represented Israel and one represented foreigners. Planted in Israel by Jesus and in Judea by his disciples, Christianity began as a Jewish movement, but by AD 70, many foreigners had embraced it. Both Jewish believers and Gentile believers had borne witness to the Gospel, and as John the Divine penned his vision, both were rising from the rubble of the tribulation to bear witness to it again.

* Foy E. Wallace, Jr., The Book of Revelation: Consisting of a Commentary on the Apocalypse of the New Testament (Fort Smith, AR: Richard E. Black, PDF version of ninth printing) 217.

[ii] J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (Public Domain, originally published in 1887 in London by T. Fisher Unwin) Kindle eBook.
 
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com7fy8

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Get ready for Jesus? You mean for his arrival? Are you wallowing in his absence now?
Jesus says to be ready because we do not know when He will come. I understand He means when He comes back to resurrect the Bride Church, in the Rapture. And being ready includes how we need to become in our character, how God alone is able to correct and prepare us > Hebrews 12:4-11, 1 John 4:17.

So, Jesus has left this earth and is now seated at the right hand or our Heavenly Father; but also Jesus is growing in each of us who are God's children > Galatians 4:19. So, He is present in us, growing and developing as our own new inner Person, but not in His own body still on this earth.
 
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mark kennedy

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I suppose this thread belongs in the Christian Scriptures forum. It’s about certain passages of the Scriptures.

As I was questioning the inconsistencies of futurism and recognizing the truth of fulfilled prophecy, I heard some advice to consider the larger implications of the Olivet Discourse and the Revelation, and then the details will fall into place (Don K. Preston, I believe, said it).

But let’s start elsewhere (for after all, eschatology is ninety percent of the Gospels and the New Testament canon). Jesus says that the Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist (Lk 16:16). John the Baptist says that the Messiah has come with his axe to topple the temple hierarchy, a fruitless junta (Lk 3:9), and to baptize in fire (3:16). Jesus, of course, does this in AD 70 when a fire consumes the temple and consequently the cult of temple and the Mosaic traditions. After this, nothing else needs to be said. The Jewish Age – the age of the prophets and the law – ends.

Malachi may have foretold these events from a distant past, but John announced their imminence. The Law and the Prophets were until John.

Could John the Revelator, then, have foretold anything else? Absolutely not; the Prophetic Age had ended. Yet this John claims to be writing a prophecy (Rv 1:3). What? How can that be?

Easy. Read what St. Paul says in various missives about prophecy at the close of the age. About how it ranks among other gifts of the Spirit, about its usefulness for encouragement and edification for the church. John the Revelator is encouraging the fledgling church through the tribulation it had just endured in Jerusalem and Judea.

But but but, what about all the fantastic events that John the Revelator writes about in Revelation? How do you explain those? Easy. The larger implications first, then the details fall into place.

We know from history, for example, that as armies surrounded Jerusalem, the church in that city fled and took up residence in Decapolis, largely the village of Pella. Three and a half years later, after the First Jewish War, these Christians began to return. This church, the bride of Christ, was in exile for three and a half years. Reference Revelation 12:6.

We also know from history that during this 3 ½-year conflict, wrought with famine and pestilence, the last five months were especially trying. The Romans had breached Jerusalem’s defensive wall and beat the Zealots back, and in five months, the temple burned down. Now reference Revelation 9:5.

Futurists may be completely lost by this OP, but as to Preterists, do you really think that John the Revelator was foretelling the future?

Okay, let the assault begin . . .
In short it is predictive prophecy of a future series of events. The destruction of Jerusalemnwss prophecied, the trivulation period is global in it's scope, culminating in the return of Xhrist and the resurrection of the church .I'm pretty sure that hasn't hapoened yet.
 
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Residential Bob

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Jesus says to be ready because we do not know when He will come. I understand He means when He comes back to resurrect the Bride Church, in the Rapture. And being ready includes how we need to become in our character, how God alone is able to correct and prepare us > Hebrews 12:4-11, 1 John 4:17.

So, Jesus has left this earth and is now seated at the right hand or our Heavenly Father; but also Jesus is growing in each of us who are God's children > Galatians 4:19. So, He is present in us, growing and developing as our own new inner Person, but not in His own body still on this earth.
Jesus is both here and not here. Does that idea have biblical support?
 
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mark kennedy

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Your not going to reconcile the events described as local.
Says who?
It doesn't take a lot to come to that conclusion:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. (Rev. 6:8)

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains (Rev. 6:15)

And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. (Rev. 16:3-4)​
 
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Residential Bob

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Earth is a term whose biblical meaning has donned a more literal cloak, and consequently lends to a more dispensationalist eschatology. When Hebrew writers wrote of the earth, did they really mean the planet earth? When the earth is empty and made desolate and its inhabitants scattered, as Isaiah says in 24:1, where do the inhabitants scatter to if the earth is the entire planet? Wherever they go, they’re still on this empty and desolate earth.

J. Stuart Russell clears up some confusion with a brief etymological overview of the verbiage:

Much confusion has arisen from the indiscriminate use of the word ‘world’ as the translation of the different Greek words αἰών, κόσμος, οἰκουμένη, and γῆ. The unlearned reader who meets with the phrase ‘the end of the world,’ inevitably thinks of the destruction of the material globe, whereas if he read the ‘conclusion of the age, or ӕon,’ he would as naturally think of the close of a certain period of time – which is its proper meaning. We have already had occasion to observe that αἰών is properly a designation of time, an age; and it is doubtful whether it ever has any other signification in the New Testament. Its equivalent in Latin is ӕvum, which is really the Greek αἰών in a Latin dress. The proper word for the earth, or world, is κόσμος, which is used to designate both the material and the moral world. Oἰκουμένη is properly the inhabited world, ‘the habitable,’ and in the New Testament refers often to the Roman Empire, sometimes to so small a portion of it as Palestine. γῆ, though it sometimes signifies the earth generally, in the gospels more frequently refers to the land of Israel. Much light is thrown upon many passages by a proper understanding of these words.​


Earth
is regional. The cosmology of the ancients did not extend to the Americas or Australia or the Falkland Islands. They indicate not one whit that they knew of any of these places.

Consider a Babylonian’s dream that he could not decipher. Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar its implications, that a smaller kingdom will usurp Babylon’s authority to reign over the kingdom of Israel, and then other kingdoms after that. History tells us what these kingdoms were. The smaller kingdom was the Medo-Persian Empire. And after Media and Persia, Greece would rule Israel. And after that, following a brief period of independence, Rome. Daniel says that these kingdoms would rule the whole earth (Dn 2:39). Did that literally happen? Did the Babylonians rule the Americas? Did the Medes and Persians rule the Orient or sub-Saharan Africa? Did the Romans rule Australia? Of course not. No earthly kingdom has ever ruled the entire planet. But yet, according to scripture if taken literally, they ruled the entire earth.

The earth is the known world, and also Israel, depending on context. Sometimes the Israelites called their nation the land. In the days of empire that Daniel refers to, kingdoms would rule the whole earth. What that actually means is that they would rule the region, including Israel, and not the planet. The judgment we read of in Isaiah 24 did not fall on the planet. That judgment fell on Israel. In Isaiah’s time, God did not exact judgment on the whole world literally; He did so only on His disobedient people. Judgment always landed on certain people groups in certain regions of Palestine; never on the entire world.


J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (Public Domain, originally published in 1887 in London by T. Fisher Unwin) Kindle eBook.
 
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Residential Bob

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Your not going to reconcile the events described as local.

It doesn't take a lot to come to that conclusion:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. (Rev. 6:8)

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains (Rev. 6:15)

And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. (Rev. 16:3-4)​
I grant you, it might take a lot to reach the proper conclusion, especially in view of the direction that the last 200 years has steered the church.
 
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mark kennedy

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I grant you, it might take a lot to reach the proper conclusion, especially in view of the direction that the last 200 years has steered the church.
I don't know what your talking about, the direction of the church the last 200 years has been increasingly secular and naturalistic. I base my understanding of the text on a straight forward exposition.
 
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Residential Bob

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I don't know what your talking about, the direction of the church the last 200 years has been increasingly secular and naturalistic.
Coincidentally in that time, it has also become more dispensationalist.
I base my understanding of the text on a straight forward exposition.
That's great. I base my understanding of the text on a straight forward exposition. And also context.
 
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mark kennedy

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Coincidentally in that time, it has also become more dispensationalist.

I've never bothered with dispensationalism, or covenant theology for that matter. It confuses rather then clarifying a sound exposition.

That's great. I base my understanding of the text on a straight forward exposition. And also context.

I will have to take your word for that one, the times I've seen an actual exposition of Revelations on here I can count on one hand. Mostly close encounters of pedantic one liners interrupted with walls of text.
 
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Residential Bob

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I've never bothered with dispensationalism, or covenant theology for that matter. It confuses rather then clarifying a sound exposition.



I will have to take your word for that one, the times I've seen an actual exposition of Revelations on here I can count on one hand. Mostly close encounters of pedantic one liners interrupted with walls of text.
I'm of the opinion that we "know" much more about eschatology from tradition than we do from scripture.
 
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