“The Great Tribulation“

[EarlyActs]

Because angels have been called stars in the bible. That's one reason.

If you think that's bad enough...prior to that 1/4 of the population dies as a result of the pale green horseman.

There are those who think John was writing about what he saw in the future and trying to put it into the words of his day.
‘Wishing the mountains would fall on them’ could be.....didn't say it is, but could be people hiding out in bunkers built inside of mountains...which we have many of today...


I don't disagree...the flood is a better answer.

If angels are called that then the Rev is certainly in code.

I think you will find instead that the stars are called messengers bc ancient astronomy was ordained by God to declare the coming of Messiah. See Larsons doc the The Star Of Bethlehem.

 

[EarlyActs]

Because angels have been called stars in the bible. That's one reason.

If you think that's bad enough...prior to that 1/4 of the population dies as a result of the pale green horseman.

There are those who think John was writing about what he saw in the future and trying to put it into the words of his day.
‘Wishing the mountains would fall on them’ could be.....didn't say it is, but could be people hiding out in bunkers built inside of mountains...which we have many of today...


I don't disagree...the flood is a better answer.

One idea per post please.

Re the fractions of destruction, when I last inventoried to the 10 th judgement event , I was at -275%. I stopped.

 

[EarlyActs]

Because angels have been called stars in the bible. That's one reason.

If you think that's bad enough...prior to that 1/4 of the population dies as a result of the pale green horseman.

There are those who think John was writing about what he saw in the future and trying to put it into the words of his day.
‘Wishing the mountains would fall on them’ could be.....didn't say it is, but could be people hiding out in bunkers built inside of mountains...which we have many of today...


I don't disagree...the flood is a better answer.

Re the wish to die under mountains
This is clearly declared in Lk 23:28 as happening in that generation. John is interpreting current events that were soon. So I think he wrote in the 60s and then believed the kingdom was going to be long and persecuted.

 

[CrowCross]

If angels are called that then the Rev is certainly in code.

Is Job 38:7 a code????... When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

I think you will find instead that the stars are called messengers bc ancient astronomy was ordained by God to declare the coming of Messiah. See Larsons doc the The Star Of Bethlehem.

I believe the Star of Bethlehem was an angel.

 

[CrowCross]

Re the wish to die under mountains
This is clearly declared in Lk 23:28 as happening in that generation. John is interpreting current events that were soon. So I think he wrote in the 60s and then believed the kingdom was going to be long and persecuted.

Well we know Rev isn't about what was going to happen in the first century....because what is mentioned in Rev hasn't happened yet.

That's my main reason for rejection the Preterist interpretation.

 

[EarlyActs]

Is Job 38:7 a code????... When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

I believe the Star of Bethlehem was an angel.

Ancient astronomy had 12 nation-houses, and ascending/declining stars. You could dial forward and see a King star rise in Israel and it was also a way (ladder) for man to come to God. It was what Jesus meant by Abraham seeing His day. In Gen 15 , “read” the stars is meant. Daniel explained some of this to the Maji when explaining Shiloh’s and Balaams star…

Further on astronomy decayed into fortune telling and denial of Gods hand. The heavens actually did declare Gods glory , without words. .

 

[EarlyActs]

Well we know Rev isn't about what was going to happen in the first century....because what is mentioned in Rev hasn't happened yet.

That's my main reason for rejection the Preterist interpretation.

Sorry but a huge amount of it was. See Barnett for a complete historical statement, this view matches the rest of the NT expectation of the end day but then also the delay of 2 P 3. Barnett ends: Many of these things were seen in zJohns current events but then he realized the kingdom would be long and persecuted.

It is absolutely grounded in reality.

 

[EarlyActs]

Well we know Rev isn't about what was going to happen in the first century....because what is mentioned in Rev hasn't happened yet.

That's my main reason for rejection the Preterist interpretation.

If trite literalism is not part of the Rev , then the fractions and the star images can be taken quite different, closer to what Judaism meant. And things like that did happen. Josephus grudgingly reported many bizarre signs at the time.

 

[CrowCross]

Ancient astronomy had 12 nation-houses, and ascending/declining stars. You could dial forward and see a King star rise in Israel and it was also a way (ladder) for man to come to God. It was what Jesus meant by Abraham seeing His day. In Gen 15 , “read” the stars is meant. Daniel explained some of this to the Maji when explaining Shiloh’s and Balaams star…

Further on astronomy decayed into fortune telling and denial of Gods hand. The heavens actually did declare Gods glory , without words. .

OK ???

 

[CrowCross]

If trite literalism is not part of the Rev , then the fractions and the star images can be taken quite different, closer to what Judaism meant. And things like that did happen. Josephus grudgingly reported many bizarre signs at the time.

As I said...there are things in Revelation that haven't happened yet. Sorry. You'll have to grudgingly accept that.

 

[EarlyActs]

OK ???

The stars were messengers; they declared truth; but I don’t see where angels were stars—celestial objects.

I’m on a trip and cannot paste a selection of Barnett, a historical view of the Rev in which he concludes that the kingdom is long and pressured.

 

[EarlyActs]

As I said...there are things in Revelation that haven't happened yet. Sorry. You'll have to grudgingly accept that.

There is no NHNE yet but the harlot Jerusalem was pounded in 70; the term used is for a Levitical priests wife.

 

[EarlyActs]

Well we know Rev isn't about what was going to happen in the first century....because what is mentioned in Rev hasn't happened yet.

That's my main reason for rejection the Preterist interpretation.

Lk 23:28 is a fixed biological time stamp.

Yes there are things that have not happened, but fewer than you think if you will get familiar with the times. Wait for the Barnet passage. From BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE NT. IVP late 90s.

 

[CrowCross]

The stars were messengers; they declared truth; but I don’t see where angels were stars—celestial objects.

Angels are not literal stars like our sun. Stars are a name they have been called by. I gave you an example from the book of Job.

I’m on a trip and cannot paste a selection of Barnett, a historical view of the Rev in which he concludes that the kingdom is long and pressured.

Enjoy your trip.

 

[EarlyActs]

Angels are not literal stars like our sun. Stars are a name they have been called by. I gave you an example from the book of Job.

Enjoy your trip.

So do we just pick random alternate meanings as we feel like it?

 

[CrowCross]

So do we just pick random alternate meanings as we feel like it?

What's random about the book of Job calling angels "stars"? (actually morning stars)

 

[EarlyActs]

What's random about the book of Job calling angels "stars"? (actually morning stars)

As lexical science goes, you are as far from the Rev as you can get. What really matters in the Rev is word usage by 1st cent temple Judaism

 

[CrowCross]

As lexical science goes, you are as far from the Rev as you can get. What really matters in the Rev is word usage by 1st cent temple Judaism

Then I suppose the stars falling from heaven can be whatever you need them to be.

 

[EarlyActs]

Then I suppose the stars falling from heaven can be whatever you need them to be.

My point is that if there is such a gaping departure from "pop American prophecy expert literalism" by saying the stars are evil angels sent down to do time, then all of the Rev is far from a 'precise description of end times' especially when the opening page says twice that these things are at hand.

This is what is so satisfactory about Barnett: the current times were thoroughly explored, but the final statement is that the kingdom of God lasts a long time and is harassed to the last day, when the NHNE quickly takes its place (no 7 years of drawn out judgements as usually known).




Barnett, BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE NT: “Patmos”
IVP, 1990s

Using coded language John writes of the menace of Rome to Christians. Rome is portrayed as the instrument of “a great red dragon…” (ch 12).
This dragon gave authority to two beasts, a sea beast and an earth beast, to “make war on the saints…” (ch 13). The sea beast (from his location) is John’s code for the Roman emperor (who had just required all people to refer to him as “Lord and God”), while the earth beast represents the high priest of Asia, who officiates at the major cultic activities within in the province… The earth beast engages in magical arts to hoodwink the populace into worshipping the image of the “sea beast” (ch 13).
Although the dragon appears to be rampant on earth he is in fact, bound, limited, circumscribed through the period between Christ’s resurrection and his return—symbolically a thousand years (ch 20). Those who have lost their lives for Jesus’ sake, …reign with him throughout the millenium, sharing his victory over the dragon.
John’s book, therefore, was written above all to strengthen and encourage Christians facing harassment and persecution from Roman officials in the city s of the Province of Asia. John was deeply conscious of the political events in the wider world. He made many references, in particular, to the critical events of the sixties, but in tantalizing and elusive ways.
The massing of the dreaded Parthian cavalry near the Euphrates in AD 62 and the barely averted conflict with Rome’s eastern legions appears to be in mind on a number occasions (chs 6, 9). John develops horrific images of fiendish galloping cavalry based, apparently, on his knowledge of the Parthians and Euphrates region.
The great fire which devasted the world capital in AD 64 seems to have supplied John with imagery for the coming judgment of the “harlot city.” Despite her gaudy opulence and immorality and her immense wealth and power (inspired by memories of Claudius wife, the notorious Messalina?), God will bring upon her overwhelming destruction in a single day. (ch 18)
Once again John has apparently taken an event in recent history and converted it into powerfully vivid apocalyptic language.
Nero’s bloody onslaught on Christians which followed and was a direct result of the fire of Rome also provided much of John’s descriptive language. He wrote about the woman, the harlot Rome in ch 17 and 13.
The writer’s enigmatic description of the two witnesses/two prophets who were killed and who bodies lay in the streets of the great city (ch 11) is probably but not certainly) a reference to the martyr-deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul which occurred in Rome during Nero’s persecutions. (ch 11).
Nero’s own career ended in disaster. He was condemned by the Senate…and took his own life. There were widespread beliefs in Nero redivivus that may lay behind Johns’ description of one of the heads of the sea beast which revived. (ch 13)
Nero dominated the sixties. To that point in history he had been the greatest enemy of the Christians, satanic in his dimension of evil…
The eighth king is, in all probability, Domitian. …John was using the events of the recent past to depict the future…
In contrast to Domitian’s requirement to worship him, the true Lord of Lords and King of Kings declares a gospel from heaven in which we are to worship God. It is only in this century that scholars have begun to have an appreciation of John’s profound awareness of and audacious attack upon the theological pretentiousness of Roman civilization.
It is, in my opinion, of great significance that John used the dramatic historical events within his book. In earlier decades, Christians had expected Jesus to return at any moment (2 Th 2, 3). If one had experienced the firey destruction of the ‘eternal city’ in AD 64 and the bloodbath that followed, removing as it did the great apostles Peter and Paul, or the sacking of Mount Zion and desecration of the Holy Place in AD 70, it would easily have seemed that the end would come at any moment.
But…in fact John saw the return of Jesus as not occurring for some considerable time.

--pages 237—241.

 

[EarlyActs]

Luke 23:28 is a fixed, completed, biological timestamp that is the official quote of Hos 10.