John of Patmos
Velazquez
The Book of Revelation
Origins of the Apocalypse
"An important difference between the New Testament conception and that of the War Scroll, the Pesher Isaiah, the Pesher on Psalms, and other scrolls, is that in the New Testament the people of God have no part in the final battle. Rather, the vengeance of God is left to Him and His angels. This may indeed be one of the most striking differences between ideas in the New Testament and those found intermittently among the scrolls:"
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 378
"At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered."
- Daniel 12:1
The Book of Revelation is really an interpretation of earlier apocalyptic prophesies, specifically the Book of Daniel. It was most likely written within a few years after the death of Nero in 68 C.E. (see below). The author therefore is not believed to be the author of the Book of John, written three decades later. John speaks of a loving God which is in stark contrast to the vengeful God of Revelation. The author of Revelation was not fluent in Greek and is believed to have been an Aramaic speaking resident of Palestine, possibly a wandering prophet.
- from A&E's "Ancient Mysteries" on the Book of Revelation
"As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was ancient of days took his seat; his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. I looked then because of the sound of the great words which the horn was speaking."
- Daniel 7:10-11"Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters; in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength."
- Revelation 1:12-16
In the Book of Revelation "Christian martyrs are seen in triumph, dressed in white, beside the throne of God, while the letters to the Seven Churches concern Christians' compromises with pagan worship and their falling away from strict Christian loyalties."
"We know from the histories a of pagan senator (Bruttius, as quoted by the Christian Eusebius) that many Christians were persecuted in the year 95...[by]] the reigning Emperor Domitian."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"The Apocalypse, in its original form, was written in barbaric Koine Greek by a man whose native language was Aramaic. Its composition can be precisely dated to the time of the siege of Jerusalem. The author was aware of the death of Nero, which occurred in 68 C.E. (Revelation 13:3-5)...
"Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked,'Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?' The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months."
- Revelation 13:4-5
"...but unaware of the burning of the Temple, which he confidently prophesied could never happen (Revelation 11:1-2), but which in fact occurred in 70 C.E.
"I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, 'Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.'"
- Revelation 11:1-2
"The author can be identified as an Essene by his reference to the war in the sky in which the planet Mars (
micahl) and his angels expelled the planet Venus
satanaVand his angels (Revelation 12:7-9). That Zoroastrian myth, found in Enoch, was never part of orthodox Jewish mythology."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.'"
- 1 Enoch 10:4b-6"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
- Revelation 12:7-9
"The origins of this reflex of the myth are extremely ancient. An Ugaritic text (CTA 5.1.1-5) alludes to a battle in which the god Baal defeated LTN, clearly the same creature as the monster Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible and later literature. In the restoration period or later, the apocalyptic section of the book of Isaiah (chs. 24-27) refers to the same myth--in almost the same words, but the battle is projected into the eschatological Endzeit and has Yahweh as the protagonist (Isa 27:1). This eschatological form of the tradition is developed further in Revelation, first by the replacement of Yahweh by Michael, and second by the use of the more generic term 'dragon' (
drakwn) instead of the name Leviathan. As Richard Bauckham has noted, the picture of the dragon is significantly developed by its identification (perhaps by way of Isa 27:1) with the serpent of Genesis 3 and then, by extension, with the devil or Satan."
- James Davila, "Melchizedek as a Divine Mediator"
The Prophesies
"'Apocalypse' was essentially an invective against Rome, built around a never-fulfilled prophecy that the imperial capital would be totally annihilated for daring to besiege Jerusalem (17:3 to 18:21; esp. 17:9; 18:8)."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits."
- Revelation 17:9
(The reference, of course, was to the seven hills of Rome.)"Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her."
- Revelation 18:8
"Further invective was directed against the two Emperors responsible for the siege. The apocalyptist called them beasts, and declared that one had been fatally killed, but its fatal wound had healed (13:3), while the second, whom he significantly described in the present tense, bore the number 666 (13:18)."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"And the dragon [some late manuscripts 'And I'] stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast."
- Revelation 13:1-3
"The first beast can easily be identified as Nero [ruled from 54-68 CE], in whose reign the war started and who first sent Vespasian to Jerusalem to wage war against the Essenes and to defeat them (13:7). Nero committed suicide, but was nonetheless rumored for many years to have cheated death and to be planning a comeback."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
"Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. "
"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
- Revelation 13:7, 11-12, 18
"The beast whose number is 666 and who is exercising all the authority of the first beast (13:12), sometimes identified as Domitian [son of Vespasian, ruled from 81-96 CE] in the belief that the author was a Christian and that his target must have been a persecutor of Christians, was in fact Vespasian. Vespasian was responsible for the assault upon Jerusalem, and was the reigning Emperor at the time of writing."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
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"Evidently the Great Beast's name or title will add to 666 if its letters are turned into numbers. The obvious candidate for the honor is Nero but Revelation was written in Greek and his name in Greek, Neron, adds to 1,005. However, if his Greek title Neron Kaisar is turned into Hebrew letters, the total is 666 (nun - 50, resh - 200, waw - 6, nun - 50, qoph - 100, samech -60, resh -200). Nero also has the advantage of explaining the western tradition that the number was really 616, for if the Latin Nero Caesar is turned into Hebrew letters, it adds to 616."
- Maryse Choisy, "Great Beast", Man, Myth & Magic, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural
The variant number 616 is "actually found in some manuscripts of the Greek text of Revelation [such as the Oxyranchus papyrus fragment]."
"The sea beast represented the Roman Empire, and the second beast represented the emperor and the emperor worship that was common throughout the empire. Christians from Ephesus might especially have recognized this 'beast'. Their city had built a huge temple for the emperor Domitian housing a colossal statue of this emperor who styled himself 'Lord and God.' The first beast made war on the saints and the second required everyone, on pain of death, to worship an image on the first beast. In Domitian, John evidently; saw the rebirth of the evil embodied in the late emperor Nero, who is represented by the number of the beast, 666 (13:1-18)."
- ABC's of the Bible, Reader's Digest , (1991) pp. 362, 370
(2) The Seven Seals
"In the fourth and fifth chapters [of Revelation] St. John describes the throne of God upon which sat the Holy One 'which was and is, and is to come'. About the throne were twenty-four lesser seats upon which sat twenty-four elders arrayed in white garments and wearing crowns of gold. 'And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.' He who sat upon the throne held in His right hand a book sealed with seven seals which no man in heaven or earth had been found worthy to open. Then appeared a Lamb (Aries, the first and chief of the zodiacal signs) which had been slain, having seven horns (rays) and seven eyes (lights). The Lamb took the book from the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne and the four beasts and all the elders fell down and worshipped god and the Lamb. During the early centuries of the Christian Church the lamb was universally recognized as the symbol of Christ, and not until after the fifth synod of Constantinople (the 'Quinisext Synod', 692 C.E.) was the figure of the crucified man substituted for that of Agnus Dei. As shrewdly noted by one writer on the subject, the use of a lamb is indicative of the Persian origin of Christianity, for the Persians were the only people to symbolize the first sign of the zodiac by a lamb."
- Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
| Click here for an illustrated description of the throne of God in Revelation. |
Actually, the allegory of the Lamb originated from the lamb sacrificed during Passover, a Hebrew tradition that predated Zoroaster, the Persian savior, by many centuries.
"During the night I had a vision--and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses. I asked, 'What are these, my lord?'
The angel who was talking with me answered, 'I will show you what they are.' Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, 'They are the ones the LORD has sent to go throughout the earth.'"
- Zechariah 1:8-10
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Note that an apparation of "golden-clad horsemen charging through the air" over Jerusalem was seen an an important omen during the Maccabee rebellion.
"In chapter 6 John sees his famous vision of the Four Horsemen (based on Zechariah's imagery before him): the first two horsemen cause conquest and war, but the third, on a black horse, carries a balance and proclaims a food crisis ('a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barely for a penny')."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, 'A quart [Greek 'a coinix' (probably about a liter)] of wheat for a day's wages [Greek 'a denarius'], and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!'"
- Revelation 6:5-6
"In 92/3 [C.E.] we have an inscribed copy of an edict from the Roman governor of Asia Minor in which he sets a maximum price for wheat at a time of acute shortage round Pisiduan Antioch (where Paul had preached in Acts 13): the horseman's price is eight times higher than the governor's, although his ratio of barley prices to wheat prices is rather more generous. Food crises were frequent between regions, and the horseman's cry of famine is only one of partial famine ('see thou hurt not the oil and wine' he continues), but it would fit very well with the crises attested inland in Asia during Domitian's reign."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come!' I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth."
- Revelation 6:7-8
"'Behold a pale horse...': the next horsemen then brings pestilence, a hazard which can also be diagnosed in Asia during the early 90s. According to the Roman historian Dio, in the year 90 (and perhaps for a while afterwards) there were people who 'made it their business to smear needles with poison and prick anyone they wished...many people died unnoticed. This did not only happen at Rome but also in practically the whole world'."
"The sequence of the seals thus fits powerfully with a date of 95 for the entire vision: at that time John's Christian audience would have included people in Asia who had first endured a food crises, then a plague and then the trauma of martyrdom."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place."
"After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 'Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.' Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel."
- Revelation 6:12-14; 7:1-4
"When the sixth seal was broken there was a great earthquake, the sun being darkened and the moon becoming like blood. The angels of the winds came forth and also another angel, who sealed upon their foreheads 144,000 of the children of Israel that they should be preserved against the awful day of tribulation. By adding the digits together according to the Pythagorean system of numerical philosophy, the number 144,000 is reduced to 9, the mystic symbol of man and also the number of initiation, for he who passes through the nine degrees of the Mysteries receives the sign of the cross as emblematic of his regeneration and liberation form the bondage of is own infernal, or inferior, nature. The addition of the three ciphers to the original sacred umber 144 indicates the elevation of the mystery to the third sphere."
- Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
"A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days."
- Revelation 12:1-6
"The twelfth chapter treats of a great wonder appearing in the heavens: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. This woman represents the constellation of Virgo and also the Egyptian Isis, who, about to be delivered of her son Horus, is attacked by Typhon, the latter attempting to destroy the child predestined by the gods to slay the Spirit of Evil. The war in heaven relates to the destruction of the planet Ragnarok and to the fall of the angels. The virgin can be interpreted to signify the secret doctrine itself and her son the initiate born out of the 'womb of the Mysteries'. "
- Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."
- Revelation 13:16-17
"When he emphasizes the mark of the Beast on its worshippers' foreheads, he is echoing the practice of tattooing the hands and foreheads of pagan worshippers of particular gods; on present knowledge, it is not attested for participants in the cult of any Roman emperor. According to John, only those with the mark of the beast will be allowed to buy and sell. Exemptions from taxes did often benefit the crowds who attended a major pagan festival in a province: perhaps this detail has inspired John's imagery, combined with the tattooing which was practiced on troupes of gladiators (gladiatorial fights were privileged shows, given by priests of the Imperial cult in a province: they occurred with the cult of Domitian at Ephesus)."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version