I reject the Day=Year theory this was dependent on. But it's amusing given how many feel about 2016 now that someone Predicted it to be Apocalyptic Centuries ago.2016 vs 2060
However, between the time he wrote his 2060 prediction (about 1704) until his death in 1727 Newton conversed, both first hand and by correspondence, with other famous theologians of his time. Those contemporaries who knew him during the remaining 23 years of his life appear to be in agreement that Newton, and the "best interpreters" including Jonathan Edwards, Robert Fleming, Moses Lowman, Phillip Doddridge, and Bishop Thomas Newton, were eventually "pretty well agreed" that the 1,260-year timeline should be calculated from the year 756 AD.[48]
F.A. Cox also confirmed that this was the view of Newton and others, including himself:
“The author adopts the hypothesis of Fleming, Sir Isaac Newton, and Lowman, that the 1260 years commenced in A.d. 756; and consequently that the millennium will not begin till the year 2016.”[49]Thomas Williams stated that this timeline had become the predominant view among the leading Protestant theologians of his time:
“Mr. Lowman, though an earlier commentator, is (we believe) far more generally followed ; and he commences the 1260 days from about 756, when, by aid of Pepin, King of France, the Pope obtained considerable temporalities. This carries on the reign of Popery to 2016, or sixteen years into the commencement of the Millennium, as it is generally reckoned.”[50]In April of 756 AD, Pepin, King of France, accompanied by Pope Stephen II entered northern Italy, forcing the Lombard King Aistulf to lift his siege of Rome, and return to Pavia. Following Aistulf's capitulation, Pepin gave the newly conquered territories to the Papacy by means of the Donation of Pepin, thereby elevating the Pope from being a subject of the Byzantine Empire to head of state, with temporal power over the newly constituted Papal States.
The end of the timeline is based on Daniel 8:25 which reads "...but he shall be broken without hand" and is understood to mean that the end of the Papacy with not be caused by any human action.[51] Volcanic activity is described as the means by which Rome will be overthrown.[52]
"Antichrist will retain some part of his dominion over the nations till about the year 2016." "And when the 1260 years are expired, Rome itself, with all its magnificence, will be absorbed in a lake of fire, sink into the sea, and rise no more at all for ever*."[53]In 1870 the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Popes of any temporal rule for the next 59 years. Unaware that Papal rule would be restored, (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the Vatican City state, the historicist view that the Papacy is the Antichrist, and the associated timelines delineating his rule rapidly declined in popularity as one of the defining characteristics of the Antichrist (i.e. that he would also be a political temporal power at the time of the return of Jesus) were no longer met.
Eventually, the prediction was largely forgotten and no major Protestant denomination currently subscribes to this timeline.
Despite the dramatic nature of a prediction of the end of the world, Newton may not have been referring to the 2060 date as a destructive act resulting in the annihilation of the earth and its inhabitants, but rather one in which he believed the world was to be replaced with a new one based upon a transition to an era of divinely inspired peace. In Christian theology, this concept is often referred to as The Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Paradise by The Kingdom of God on Earth.[43]
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Isaac Newton's Historicism connected the End TImes to 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton#2016_vs_2060
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Lilith and Edom
Obviously I do not believe Adam had a wife before Eve. But I do like to speculate on the origins of the whole Lilith mythology. My previous references to her on these blogs have been in the context of her possible connection to Izanami of Japanese mythology.
The fact that the name comes from a Hebrew word for Night leads me to consider that she might be related to other Night goddesses. Like Nyx from Greek mythology, called Nox by the Romans, from whom comes Noc as the modern German word for night. And Egyptian Mythology has three goddesses who are sometimes defined as night goddesses. Nut, Nebthet, and Kauket. Nut is the wife of Geb who could be argued to be an Adam figure of sorts since his name means earth, and with him the mother of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nebthet.
I've noticed recently how the name is technically in a plural form (the feminine singular would be Lilah), ending with a th is a feminine plural in Hebrew. Lots of feminine Hebrew names end that way without it being significant, possibly just so female names can have variety, so they don't all end with H. But for a mythological context however it may be worth noting. Likewise if you want to speculate it's a code for something.
And also, I can't believe it took so long to occur to me that it might be significant that the one verse that gives the name a Biblical precedent is in a Prophecy about Edom, Isaiah 34 (the "Screech Owl" of the KJV). Edom is in the Hebrew spelled the same as Adam, but pronounced differently. Edom is the name of a the nation, but also a name for Esau himself, like Israel is for Jacob.
Esau first married at least two Canaanite women, but then because his parents didn't like that, he married a third wife, a daughter of Ishmael. I said at least two, because either these women go by multiple names, or there could be up to 6 wives involved. Genesis 26/28 names them all differently from Genesis 36.
Is it possible the Lilith mythology might have it's origins in the Canaanite wives of Esau feeling displaced by the Ishmaelite?
There has also been a tendency to depict Lilith as having Red Hair, I'm not sure how far back that goes. And Esau has also been associated with Red Hair, since Red is is what Edom, when pronounced that way, means.
In Genesis 36 one of them seems to descend from the Horite clan, which I've speculated elsewhere could be the origin of some of the deities of Egyptian mythology. Thus allowing a possible connection to the Egyptian goddesses I mentioned above.
But it's the connection to Nox that could be interesting to the Edom/Rome connection. The Vulgate of Isaiah 34 translated Lilith as Lamia however, which can be interpreted to mean Nocturnal spirit. Lamia is sometimes in mythology the daughter of Belos/Belus of Egypt, who might be connected to the Hyksos, who might have included Amalekites. Lemures could also be a variation of Lamia.
Coming full circle, the traditional burial place of Izanami of Japanese mythology is in Izumo which is sometimes archaically pronounced Idumo. If the Japanese were partly descended from the lost tribes (and maybe some Edomites came with them) then this could have come from a tradition about Lilith being buried in Edom.
The fact that the name comes from a Hebrew word for Night leads me to consider that she might be related to other Night goddesses. Like Nyx from Greek mythology, called Nox by the Romans, from whom comes Noc as the modern German word for night. And Egyptian Mythology has three goddesses who are sometimes defined as night goddesses. Nut, Nebthet, and Kauket. Nut is the wife of Geb who could be argued to be an Adam figure of sorts since his name means earth, and with him the mother of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nebthet.
I've noticed recently how the name is technically in a plural form (the feminine singular would be Lilah), ending with a th is a feminine plural in Hebrew. Lots of feminine Hebrew names end that way without it being significant, possibly just so female names can have variety, so they don't all end with H. But for a mythological context however it may be worth noting. Likewise if you want to speculate it's a code for something.
And also, I can't believe it took so long to occur to me that it might be significant that the one verse that gives the name a Biblical precedent is in a Prophecy about Edom, Isaiah 34 (the "Screech Owl" of the KJV). Edom is in the Hebrew spelled the same as Adam, but pronounced differently. Edom is the name of a the nation, but also a name for Esau himself, like Israel is for Jacob.
Esau first married at least two Canaanite women, but then because his parents didn't like that, he married a third wife, a daughter of Ishmael. I said at least two, because either these women go by multiple names, or there could be up to 6 wives involved. Genesis 26/28 names them all differently from Genesis 36.
Is it possible the Lilith mythology might have it's origins in the Canaanite wives of Esau feeling displaced by the Ishmaelite?
There has also been a tendency to depict Lilith as having Red Hair, I'm not sure how far back that goes. And Esau has also been associated with Red Hair, since Red is is what Edom, when pronounced that way, means.
In Genesis 36 one of them seems to descend from the Horite clan, which I've speculated elsewhere could be the origin of some of the deities of Egyptian mythology. Thus allowing a possible connection to the Egyptian goddesses I mentioned above.
But it's the connection to Nox that could be interesting to the Edom/Rome connection. The Vulgate of Isaiah 34 translated Lilith as Lamia however, which can be interpreted to mean Nocturnal spirit. Lamia is sometimes in mythology the daughter of Belos/Belus of Egypt, who might be connected to the Hyksos, who might have included Amalekites. Lemures could also be a variation of Lamia.
Coming full circle, the traditional burial place of Izanami of Japanese mythology is in Izumo which is sometimes archaically pronounced Idumo. If the Japanese were partly descended from the lost tribes (and maybe some Edomites came with them) then this could have come from a tradition about Lilith being buried in Edom.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
England and Egypt
In all this speculation about The Lost Tribes, we sometimes forget that Israel isn't the only Biblical nation The Bible foretells to be carried away captive or scattered from their original homeland. And in Ezekiel 29-30 one of those nations is Egypt.
The extent to which the population of modern Egypt descends from the original Ancient Egyptians is a frequent subject of controversy.
I believe ethnic or so called "racial" features are determined largely by where a people live, so people living in Egypt I think would possibly in time come to look like Ancient Egyptians did regardless of how much they descend from them. And likewise when suggesting a certain currently "White" populations may descend partly from ancient Egyptians does not mean I think Ancient Egyptians were White, I think when they lived in Egypt they were Brown or Light-Skinned Black like modern Egyptians are.
Historically the modern Population of Egypt seems to descend largely from Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans and others who settled there in classical antiquity, and then Arabs who migrated there after the Islamic conquest.
It is popular to claim that Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt as Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold. This is because Egypt is the pillar of how we research Ancient History, and so rarely do we know Egyptian history from anything other then Egyptian propaganda. Even among the Classical historians, Herodotus just based his whole history of Egypt on what Egyptian Priests told him, and then Manetho was an Egyptian Priest, though one who had his own criticisms of Herodotus.
On another blog I've argued that Amasis was Nebuchadnezzar's governor of Egypt. And I think Amasis conquering of Cyprus around 570 BC was really Egypt being exiled there. After 40 years some of them returned, but perhaps not all just as not all of Judah returned after their 70 years were over.
So perhaps one of the nations it's popular to identify with the Lost Tribes is actually Mizraim? While modern Egypt is still a head of Javan's Leopard?
I did a post on ways America could be viewed as Egypt. Thing is much of that could overlap with England aka Great Britain aka The United Kingdom, and arguably fit them better. Including the relationship with modern Israel to some extent. Britam and British Israelists love to obsess over their perception that Anglo-Saxons are the most pro-semtic people.
England also had a division between north and south, York and London/Somerset. And the interpretation of Isaiah 19 I alluded to there is one I've criticized elsewhere, so I kinda felt like cheating mentioning that.
And then there is the role of Freemasonry. While America and Modern France are nations who's history has been shaped by Freemasonry, Britain is where Freemasonry comes from, and London is still the supreme grand lodge of all Masonry. It was in Brittan that Cagliostro founded his Egyptian Freemasonry in 1776. Nicolas Bonnevile was involved in Masonry in Britain before becoming a leader of the French Revolution. Karl of Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick, leaders of German Freemasonry who also joined the Illuminati, where grandchildren of King George II. And Albert of Saxe-Gotha who harbored Weishaupt is the ancestor of the current British Royal Family. Mazzini was also harbored in Britain. And Albert Pike's Freemasonry is what ruled the Confederacy, which Britain secretly supported but couldn't openly.
And it is Britain not America or Modern France that has Ancient Egypt's form of Government, Monarchy. Theirs is the one Monarchy the Revolutions never sought to overthrow. And their Monarchy is firmly tied to their state religion, Anglicanism. And it was among Anglicans of the 19th century that the desire to co-opt the Pyramid as a Christian symbol saying Enoch built it started.
England was originally seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that were eventually united. In Genesis 10 Misraim had seven sons. And with that correlation we could view York as Upper Egypt and London/Somerset as Lower Egypt, now switched geographically because in Egypt up and down were viewed differently then most places because of how The Nile works.
Many looking for Biblical significance to Modern Britain will site them being represented as a Lion, and also heraldry that shows a Lion and a Dragon. Ezekiel 32:2 says.
Perhaps those whom Britam identifies with Joseph are really Misraim. While the true identity of Joseph is as Native Americans and perhaps other Israelites wound up in America via the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, enslaved by Egypt once again. Hosea 9:3 does say "Ephraim shall return to Egypt".
I mentioned France a couple times because there is a school of thought out there that identifies France with Egypt, spiritually at least. This mostly comes from a desire to see France as the source of modern Atheism thanks to people like Voltaire, and the Reason worshipers of the Revolution. And then saying that Ancient Egypt was the most Atheistic nation of antiquity. The former accusation I could nitpick, but the latter is what is truly absurd. Egypt was anything but Atheistic, in fact at times Ptah came close to resembling a Monotheistic concept of God. But their main contribution to modern religious trends is Gnosticism.
During World War I, Britain's military operations in the Near East were carried out from Egypt. You can see this demonstrated in the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Herodotus Histories Book 2:159 records that after Pharaoh Necho's victory at Megiddo, he sent his cloths to Branchidae of Miletus in Ionia for some reason. Bill Cooper in After The Flood dates 509 BC as when the Milesians came to Ireland from Miletus. The leaders of that colonization were already Grandparents when they reached Ireland and their mother was a daughter of Pharaoh. Necho as Rameses II (who is confirmed to have had red hair) had plenty of daughters to spare, over 40. And the Egyptian royal-line unlike Judah's was traditionally passed through the daughter of Pharaoh. So perhaps the same royal line British Israelism claims to be heirs to the Throne of David, are actually heirs to the throne of Egypt?
Jeremiah 46:24 says the daughter of Egypt will be delivered to the people of the north, through their father Scota's children were traced back to Magog, The Bible associates Magog with the North. Or it could be alluding to scattered offspring of the Northern Kingdom.
Also in After The Flood, Bill Cooper documents how all seven Anglo-Saxon royal houses traced their ancestry back to Odin. Similar sources have lead many others to speculate a real King named Odin may have lived about 100 BC-300 AD.
I may feel the need to place Odin a little earlier then that, his worship was entrenched among Germanic peoples from Rome's very earliest contact with them during the last century BC. Though strictly speaking the Greco-Roman sources just say they worshiped Mercury/Hermes. Maybe they identified this deified King with that planet later.
The genealogies further traces Odin back to a Geat and then Geat back to Sceaf, only needing around 17 generations. Bill Cooper is convinced Sceaf is Japheth, I'm not so much. He sites one source that rendered Sceaf as Seth, and then tries to argue that Seth could be a corruption of Japheth, an argument that in the Hebrew is only them ending with the same letter.
But maybe he was Seth/Set of Egyptian Mythology? The Egyptians did consider red hair a sign of descent from Seth. Or perhaps this reflects the name Seti/Sethos, a Set theophoric name.
As a supporter of revised Chronology I place Seti I in 664-609 BC, and Seti II in the 570s BC. But Seti II had a son called Seti-Merneptah who's fate is unknown. This is the same time period as Egypt's foretold scattering. Seti II's grandfather was Rameses II. And the time the historical Odin is speculated to have lived could be defined as 17 generations later. Matthew recounts 14 generations from the Captivity to Jesus, but he'd already demonstrated a willingness to skip generations. Luke has more then that in the same time frame.
Now the Pross Edda traced Sceaf back to Memnon of Greek mythology. That is generally viewed as something made up by the medieval writer. But I did recently argue for the Ethiopia of Memnon and Cepheus being around Seir, where the Horites lived. And have also argued for the gods of Egypt coming from the Horites. And also it is known that the Ancient Greeks identified a large statue of Amenhotep III in Thebes with Memnon.
But still. Mainly my hunch now is Sceaf/Seth identifies a Seti of the 19th Dynasty as the progenitor of Anglo-Saxon royalty. A Seti was also one of the lesser known sons of Rameses II. And Ramses firstborn by Nefertari (who I discussed on the revised chronology blog, linking him to Ezekiel 30) had a son named Seti. A Seti had also been Viceroy of Kush, who may have been of the royal family since he's called a hereditary Prince. Perhaps he's the same as one of the before mentioned Setis.
For this scenario the descent from Egypt overlaps with who I've argued elsewhere to descend from Dan. It's interesting typologically that Leviticus 24 talks about a Blasphemous Israelite who's mother was Danite and Father was an Egyptian. Meanwhile Scota's descendants I think intermarried with remnants of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun & Issachar. Manasseh's mother was also an Egyptian.
Of course it's not just English Royalty and Nobility that claims descent from Scota, it's the same with Irish and Scottish Royal and Noble houses. And descent from Odin can also be claimed by continental Royal Families of Denmark and Norway and some in Germany, there were Saxons who remained in Germany (Queen Victoria and her Husband both descended from Royalty of Saxony). But it was in King James I that the English Crown become the one to unite these two Royal lines together.
All the ways in which British Royalty can be traced back to the Seleucid Dynasty, also involve Ptolemaic Queens and Princesses, Cleopatra Thea, Tryphanea, and the children of Anthony and Cleopatra. The Ptolemies including the most famous Cleopatra also tended to have red hair.
The extent to which the population of modern Egypt descends from the original Ancient Egyptians is a frequent subject of controversy.
I believe ethnic or so called "racial" features are determined largely by where a people live, so people living in Egypt I think would possibly in time come to look like Ancient Egyptians did regardless of how much they descend from them. And likewise when suggesting a certain currently "White" populations may descend partly from ancient Egyptians does not mean I think Ancient Egyptians were White, I think when they lived in Egypt they were Brown or Light-Skinned Black like modern Egyptians are.
Historically the modern Population of Egypt seems to descend largely from Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans and others who settled there in classical antiquity, and then Arabs who migrated there after the Islamic conquest.
It is popular to claim that Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt as Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold. This is because Egypt is the pillar of how we research Ancient History, and so rarely do we know Egyptian history from anything other then Egyptian propaganda. Even among the Classical historians, Herodotus just based his whole history of Egypt on what Egyptian Priests told him, and then Manetho was an Egyptian Priest, though one who had his own criticisms of Herodotus.
On another blog I've argued that Amasis was Nebuchadnezzar's governor of Egypt. And I think Amasis conquering of Cyprus around 570 BC was really Egypt being exiled there. After 40 years some of them returned, but perhaps not all just as not all of Judah returned after their 70 years were over.
So perhaps one of the nations it's popular to identify with the Lost Tribes is actually Mizraim? While modern Egypt is still a head of Javan's Leopard?
I did a post on ways America could be viewed as Egypt. Thing is much of that could overlap with England aka Great Britain aka The United Kingdom, and arguably fit them better. Including the relationship with modern Israel to some extent. Britam and British Israelists love to obsess over their perception that Anglo-Saxons are the most pro-semtic people.
England also had a division between north and south, York and London/Somerset. And the interpretation of Isaiah 19 I alluded to there is one I've criticized elsewhere, so I kinda felt like cheating mentioning that.
And then there is the role of Freemasonry. While America and Modern France are nations who's history has been shaped by Freemasonry, Britain is where Freemasonry comes from, and London is still the supreme grand lodge of all Masonry. It was in Brittan that Cagliostro founded his Egyptian Freemasonry in 1776. Nicolas Bonnevile was involved in Masonry in Britain before becoming a leader of the French Revolution. Karl of Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick, leaders of German Freemasonry who also joined the Illuminati, where grandchildren of King George II. And Albert of Saxe-Gotha who harbored Weishaupt is the ancestor of the current British Royal Family. Mazzini was also harbored in Britain. And Albert Pike's Freemasonry is what ruled the Confederacy, which Britain secretly supported but couldn't openly.
And it is Britain not America or Modern France that has Ancient Egypt's form of Government, Monarchy. Theirs is the one Monarchy the Revolutions never sought to overthrow. And their Monarchy is firmly tied to their state religion, Anglicanism. And it was among Anglicans of the 19th century that the desire to co-opt the Pyramid as a Christian symbol saying Enoch built it started.
England was originally seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that were eventually united. In Genesis 10 Misraim had seven sons. And with that correlation we could view York as Upper Egypt and London/Somerset as Lower Egypt, now switched geographically because in Egypt up and down were viewed differently then most places because of how The Nile works.
Many looking for Biblical significance to Modern Britain will site them being represented as a Lion, and also heraldry that shows a Lion and a Dragon. Ezekiel 32:2 says.
Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, "Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a dragon in the seas"So that fits too.
Perhaps those whom Britam identifies with Joseph are really Misraim. While the true identity of Joseph is as Native Americans and perhaps other Israelites wound up in America via the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, enslaved by Egypt once again. Hosea 9:3 does say "Ephraim shall return to Egypt".
I mentioned France a couple times because there is a school of thought out there that identifies France with Egypt, spiritually at least. This mostly comes from a desire to see France as the source of modern Atheism thanks to people like Voltaire, and the Reason worshipers of the Revolution. And then saying that Ancient Egypt was the most Atheistic nation of antiquity. The former accusation I could nitpick, but the latter is what is truly absurd. Egypt was anything but Atheistic, in fact at times Ptah came close to resembling a Monotheistic concept of God. But their main contribution to modern religious trends is Gnosticism.
During World War I, Britain's military operations in the Near East were carried out from Egypt. You can see this demonstrated in the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Herodotus Histories Book 2:159 records that after Pharaoh Necho's victory at Megiddo, he sent his cloths to Branchidae of Miletus in Ionia for some reason. Bill Cooper in After The Flood dates 509 BC as when the Milesians came to Ireland from Miletus. The leaders of that colonization were already Grandparents when they reached Ireland and their mother was a daughter of Pharaoh. Necho as Rameses II (who is confirmed to have had red hair) had plenty of daughters to spare, over 40. And the Egyptian royal-line unlike Judah's was traditionally passed through the daughter of Pharaoh. So perhaps the same royal line British Israelism claims to be heirs to the Throne of David, are actually heirs to the throne of Egypt?
Jeremiah 46:24 says the daughter of Egypt will be delivered to the people of the north, through their father Scota's children were traced back to Magog, The Bible associates Magog with the North. Or it could be alluding to scattered offspring of the Northern Kingdom.
Also in After The Flood, Bill Cooper documents how all seven Anglo-Saxon royal houses traced their ancestry back to Odin. Similar sources have lead many others to speculate a real King named Odin may have lived about 100 BC-300 AD.
I may feel the need to place Odin a little earlier then that, his worship was entrenched among Germanic peoples from Rome's very earliest contact with them during the last century BC. Though strictly speaking the Greco-Roman sources just say they worshiped Mercury/Hermes. Maybe they identified this deified King with that planet later.
The genealogies further traces Odin back to a Geat and then Geat back to Sceaf, only needing around 17 generations. Bill Cooper is convinced Sceaf is Japheth, I'm not so much. He sites one source that rendered Sceaf as Seth, and then tries to argue that Seth could be a corruption of Japheth, an argument that in the Hebrew is only them ending with the same letter.
But maybe he was Seth/Set of Egyptian Mythology? The Egyptians did consider red hair a sign of descent from Seth. Or perhaps this reflects the name Seti/Sethos, a Set theophoric name.
As a supporter of revised Chronology I place Seti I in 664-609 BC, and Seti II in the 570s BC. But Seti II had a son called Seti-Merneptah who's fate is unknown. This is the same time period as Egypt's foretold scattering. Seti II's grandfather was Rameses II. And the time the historical Odin is speculated to have lived could be defined as 17 generations later. Matthew recounts 14 generations from the Captivity to Jesus, but he'd already demonstrated a willingness to skip generations. Luke has more then that in the same time frame.
Now the Pross Edda traced Sceaf back to Memnon of Greek mythology. That is generally viewed as something made up by the medieval writer. But I did recently argue for the Ethiopia of Memnon and Cepheus being around Seir, where the Horites lived. And have also argued for the gods of Egypt coming from the Horites. And also it is known that the Ancient Greeks identified a large statue of Amenhotep III in Thebes with Memnon.
But still. Mainly my hunch now is Sceaf/Seth identifies a Seti of the 19th Dynasty as the progenitor of Anglo-Saxon royalty. A Seti was also one of the lesser known sons of Rameses II. And Ramses firstborn by Nefertari (who I discussed on the revised chronology blog, linking him to Ezekiel 30) had a son named Seti. A Seti had also been Viceroy of Kush, who may have been of the royal family since he's called a hereditary Prince. Perhaps he's the same as one of the before mentioned Setis.
For this scenario the descent from Egypt overlaps with who I've argued elsewhere to descend from Dan. It's interesting typologically that Leviticus 24 talks about a Blasphemous Israelite who's mother was Danite and Father was an Egyptian. Meanwhile Scota's descendants I think intermarried with remnants of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun & Issachar. Manasseh's mother was also an Egyptian.
Of course it's not just English Royalty and Nobility that claims descent from Scota, it's the same with Irish and Scottish Royal and Noble houses. And descent from Odin can also be claimed by continental Royal Families of Denmark and Norway and some in Germany, there were Saxons who remained in Germany (Queen Victoria and her Husband both descended from Royalty of Saxony). But it was in King James I that the English Crown become the one to unite these two Royal lines together.
All the ways in which British Royalty can be traced back to the Seleucid Dynasty, also involve Ptolemaic Queens and Princesses, Cleopatra Thea, Tryphanea, and the children of Anthony and Cleopatra. The Ptolemies including the most famous Cleopatra also tended to have red hair.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Could The Beast of Revelation 17 possibly be a different Beast?
I've suggested one bold new theory on how Revelation 17 ties into the rest of the book already [And followed up on it in Who Is The Bride of Christ]. Now I have another one.
The parallel imagery of Seven Heads and Ten Horns leads to an assumption that the Beast of Chapter 17 is the same one we saw in Chapter 13. And references to The Beast made in chapters 14-16 are clearly the Beast out of the Sea.
But The Dragon also had Seven Heads and Ten Horns and that is indisputably a different entity. The Beast of Chapter 17 also has in common with the Beast out of The Sea over The Dragon being called a Beast. And also terminology that seems to imply one of the Seven Heads is an individual who has died and been resurrected, but how that idea is communicated is different. However it is called a Scarlet Beast, which is a variation of the Color Red, so the Revelation 17 Beast is affiliated with the same Color as The Dragon.
References to The Beast of Chapter 13 in other chapters usually mention The False Prophet, or The Mark, or the Image. But in Chapter 17 it seems to be The Woman, Mystery Babylon, who is serving The False Prophet's function, as a simultaneously religious and economic system.
However Revelation 11's Beast is described with terminology elsewhere used only in Chapter 17, the Beast that Ascends out of the Bottomless Pit/Abyss, and goes into Perdition.
I've also noted recently that it is strictly speaking the Ten Horns not the Eight King himself who hates and attacks The Harlot.
I've talked a lot on this Blog about the possibility of a Decoy Antichrist, possibly to be identified with The Terrible of The Nations of Ezekiel. And while I've connected that figure to themes of Revelation like the Kings of The East, I had lacked a clearly specific place for him. Until within the last month when I thought of this possibility.
However, it then occurred to me, what if they are the same Beast and yet different in terms of which of the Seven Heads is the main Head in mind?
I have laid out already my main view on the Seven Kings. In identifying them with modern Geopolitical entities, The Lion is Iraq and/or ISIS, the Bear is Iran and perhaps parts of Iraq currently controlled by Iran via the Mahdi Army (the Medes being The Kurds and the Persians being the Shiites). The four heads of the Leopard are Greece, Macedonia, Turkey and Egypt, and the Fourth Beast/Seventh Head (the one with the Ten Horns) is the European Union.
When we separate the Death and Resurrection imagery of 13 and 17. Only 13 requires a Mortal Wound, sometimes assumed to specifically be a head wound but that forgets that the use of the word Head is itself symbolic in these chapters. Meanwhile my argument that the Eight King must be one of the first Five applies solely to Chapter 17.
I feel the one in 13 make most sense if the Resurrection/healing of the Wound itself happens in the End Times, before the eyes of the World. While the one in 17 I think could maybe have been Resurrected in the past, perhaps in 30 AD (Matthew 27:52-53) as part of fulfilling Daniel 12, but then was sealed in the Abyss.
If The Terrible of The Nations is someone who lived in the Past resurrected in the End Times. Based on Ezekiel 29&30 the first obvious candidate is Nebuchadrezzar, as I alluded to in my last post.
There are people arguing Nebuchadrezzar is the Antichrist, including a Google Group. Much of the argument for that is the Terrible of the Nations passages, because they overlook the last part of Ezekiel 30 which identifies the Terrible of The Nations with the one who gives not who receives the Mortal Wound. And the Prophecy against the Prince (not King) of Tyre in chapter 28 could also back that up.
However, the fact that Daniel 4 depicts Nebuchadrezzar as being Saved I view as a problem with the whole "Goeth into Perdition" detail. Though perhaps that is less definitive since I'm now pretty much a Universalist, and Nebuchadrezzar wasn't a Church Age believer. But it still seems odd to me, and I've yet to see a Nebuchadrezzar is the Antichrist argument address Daniel 4.
Nebuchadrezzar was the first of the Seven Kings in my view. The remaining four of the first five would be Cyrus, Alexander The Great (or maybe a Ptolemy), Antigonus or Demetrius, and a Seleucid King.
Of those I feel inclined to rule out the Ptolemies and maybe also Alexander on the grounds that if a Beast of Revelation is a Pharaoh of Egypt, that is definitely the Revelation 13 Beast. Also both Cyrus and Alexander I view as like Nebuchadrezzar confirmed to most likely be among the saved, so if that rules him out it maybe rules them out too.
There is not much to Biblically make Antigonos or Demetrius significant. But if you think The Antichrist is also the Little Horn of Daniel 8, then that makes the Seleucids, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, a pretty strong candidate. And if the Beast out of the Sea is a Ptolemy, then one of his adversaries being a Seleucid would fit well.
The parallel imagery of Seven Heads and Ten Horns leads to an assumption that the Beast of Chapter 17 is the same one we saw in Chapter 13. And references to The Beast made in chapters 14-16 are clearly the Beast out of the Sea.
But The Dragon also had Seven Heads and Ten Horns and that is indisputably a different entity. The Beast of Chapter 17 also has in common with the Beast out of The Sea over The Dragon being called a Beast. And also terminology that seems to imply one of the Seven Heads is an individual who has died and been resurrected, but how that idea is communicated is different. However it is called a Scarlet Beast, which is a variation of the Color Red, so the Revelation 17 Beast is affiliated with the same Color as The Dragon.
References to The Beast of Chapter 13 in other chapters usually mention The False Prophet, or The Mark, or the Image. But in Chapter 17 it seems to be The Woman, Mystery Babylon, who is serving The False Prophet's function, as a simultaneously religious and economic system.
However Revelation 11's Beast is described with terminology elsewhere used only in Chapter 17, the Beast that Ascends out of the Bottomless Pit/Abyss, and goes into Perdition.
I've also noted recently that it is strictly speaking the Ten Horns not the Eight King himself who hates and attacks The Harlot.
I've talked a lot on this Blog about the possibility of a Decoy Antichrist, possibly to be identified with The Terrible of The Nations of Ezekiel. And while I've connected that figure to themes of Revelation like the Kings of The East, I had lacked a clearly specific place for him. Until within the last month when I thought of this possibility.
However, it then occurred to me, what if they are the same Beast and yet different in terms of which of the Seven Heads is the main Head in mind?
I have laid out already my main view on the Seven Kings. In identifying them with modern Geopolitical entities, The Lion is Iraq and/or ISIS, the Bear is Iran and perhaps parts of Iraq currently controlled by Iran via the Mahdi Army (the Medes being The Kurds and the Persians being the Shiites). The four heads of the Leopard are Greece, Macedonia, Turkey and Egypt, and the Fourth Beast/Seventh Head (the one with the Ten Horns) is the European Union.
When we separate the Death and Resurrection imagery of 13 and 17. Only 13 requires a Mortal Wound, sometimes assumed to specifically be a head wound but that forgets that the use of the word Head is itself symbolic in these chapters. Meanwhile my argument that the Eight King must be one of the first Five applies solely to Chapter 17.
I feel the one in 13 make most sense if the Resurrection/healing of the Wound itself happens in the End Times, before the eyes of the World. While the one in 17 I think could maybe have been Resurrected in the past, perhaps in 30 AD (Matthew 27:52-53) as part of fulfilling Daniel 12, but then was sealed in the Abyss.
If The Terrible of The Nations is someone who lived in the Past resurrected in the End Times. Based on Ezekiel 29&30 the first obvious candidate is Nebuchadrezzar, as I alluded to in my last post.
There are people arguing Nebuchadrezzar is the Antichrist, including a Google Group. Much of the argument for that is the Terrible of the Nations passages, because they overlook the last part of Ezekiel 30 which identifies the Terrible of The Nations with the one who gives not who receives the Mortal Wound. And the Prophecy against the Prince (not King) of Tyre in chapter 28 could also back that up.
However, the fact that Daniel 4 depicts Nebuchadrezzar as being Saved I view as a problem with the whole "Goeth into Perdition" detail. Though perhaps that is less definitive since I'm now pretty much a Universalist, and Nebuchadrezzar wasn't a Church Age believer. But it still seems odd to me, and I've yet to see a Nebuchadrezzar is the Antichrist argument address Daniel 4.
Nebuchadrezzar was the first of the Seven Kings in my view. The remaining four of the first five would be Cyrus, Alexander The Great (or maybe a Ptolemy), Antigonus or Demetrius, and a Seleucid King.
Of those I feel inclined to rule out the Ptolemies and maybe also Alexander on the grounds that if a Beast of Revelation is a Pharaoh of Egypt, that is definitely the Revelation 13 Beast. Also both Cyrus and Alexander I view as like Nebuchadrezzar confirmed to most likely be among the saved, so if that rules him out it maybe rules them out too.
There is not much to Biblically make Antigonos or Demetrius significant. But if you think The Antichrist is also the Little Horn of Daniel 8, then that makes the Seleucids, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, a pretty strong candidate. And if the Beast out of the Sea is a Ptolemy, then one of his adversaries being a Seleucid would fit well.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Some more Mystery Babylon issues
First I want to talk a little about 1 Peter 5:13. I've argued before against Peter going to Rome, and explained why in general placing Babylon anywhere other then Babylon comes from that Catholic Dogma.
There is a third theory about what Peter meant, and that is that he was referring to Babylon in Egypt, because this passage also refers to Mark who tradition links to Alexandria. There is a fortress in Egypt that was called Babylon for some reason. It is part of the embryo of what became Cairo, the Islamic/Modern Capital of Egypt. And it was in On/Heliopolis, which did have a Jewish Population, and I mention potential Old Testament Prophetic relevance to On in an Isaiah 19 study. One ancient explanation for this fortress being called that implies it could have been called that as far back as Isaiah's time.
Generally no one arguing for that theory attempts to then suggest that that is the Babylon of Revelation. However if you made that suggestion it could add a whole new angle to my developing Egyptian Antichrist theories. However since there is no Biblical confirmation of Mark's association with Egypt, more evidence would need to be uncovered for me to consider such a theory.
I decided however that before I state definitively that what Peter meant by Babylon must be the Babylon of Revelation. I should look at the Greek texts because I know many New Testament names often appear in different forms. And indeed when I checked I saw that Peter distinct from any other reference to Babylon spelled it with an Iota at the end. Babyloni.
Ending with an Iota like that is I think in Greek usually a diminutive, meaning it could be translated "Little Babylon". That could fit the Babylon in Egypt which was a small settlement at the time. But I could also see it being used by Jews of Seleucia, a city who's Jewish population of the period had moved there from Babylon a few decades earlier. But it certainly would not fit how one would use Babylon as a code for Rome.
[Correction on the above paragraph, I've now researched it and it makes the Daitive Singular form. In which case there is no solid reason to think it refers to a different place then any other references to Babylon]
On to the second part.
Chuck Missler likes to define End Times Babylon on three pairs of Chapters, Isaiah 13&15, Jeremiah 50&51, and Revelation 17&18. Isaiah and Revelation I've talked about extensively but not the Jeremiah one, it is the longest, I have read it, but I feel I need to read it more to discern what specific clues it has.
One detail about it I do want to address now however is that many will insist Jeremiah mentioning Nebuchadrezzar by name must be proof only a Preterist interpretation is valid.
First of all, when Babylon fell to Cyrus Nebuchadrezzar was dead by then too, unless you believe the fringe theory that Nabonidus was the same person. I am intrigued by some aspects of that argument, but it has major holes in my view.
Second, Revelation 17 seems to define the Eight King as a King who ruled before John's time resurrected. So you can't entirely rule out Nebuchadrezzar personally being there in the Futurist interpretation. But that's a Rabbit hole for another study or two.
Third and last of all. The two verses in this two chapter Prophecy that mention the name of Nebuchadrezzar, are not like similar verses mentioning him by name elsewhere in Jeremiah or in Ezekiel. The language used in context does not necessarily make Nebuchadrezzar himself contemporary with the Judgment in question. They are 50:17 and 51:34.
The former is about how this connects to it being him who conquered Jerusalem. The latter simply about Babylon being his legacy. Saddam Hussien's reconstruction projects in Babylon and many other cities (including Basra) were driven by his personal obsession with Nebuchadrezzar, he depicted himself as Nebuchadrezzar on his coins. So yes even modern Iraq is directly the legacy of Nebuchadrezzar.
There is a third theory about what Peter meant, and that is that he was referring to Babylon in Egypt, because this passage also refers to Mark who tradition links to Alexandria. There is a fortress in Egypt that was called Babylon for some reason. It is part of the embryo of what became Cairo, the Islamic/Modern Capital of Egypt. And it was in On/Heliopolis, which did have a Jewish Population, and I mention potential Old Testament Prophetic relevance to On in an Isaiah 19 study. One ancient explanation for this fortress being called that implies it could have been called that as far back as Isaiah's time.
Generally no one arguing for that theory attempts to then suggest that that is the Babylon of Revelation. However if you made that suggestion it could add a whole new angle to my developing Egyptian Antichrist theories. However since there is no Biblical confirmation of Mark's association with Egypt, more evidence would need to be uncovered for me to consider such a theory.
I decided however that before I state definitively that what Peter meant by Babylon must be the Babylon of Revelation. I should look at the Greek texts because I know many New Testament names often appear in different forms. And indeed when I checked I saw that Peter distinct from any other reference to Babylon spelled it with an Iota at the end. Babyloni.
Ending with an Iota like that is I think in Greek usually a diminutive, meaning it could be translated "Little Babylon". That could fit the Babylon in Egypt which was a small settlement at the time. But I could also see it being used by Jews of Seleucia, a city who's Jewish population of the period had moved there from Babylon a few decades earlier. But it certainly would not fit how one would use Babylon as a code for Rome.
[Correction on the above paragraph, I've now researched it and it makes the Daitive Singular form. In which case there is no solid reason to think it refers to a different place then any other references to Babylon]
On to the second part.
Chuck Missler likes to define End Times Babylon on three pairs of Chapters, Isaiah 13&15, Jeremiah 50&51, and Revelation 17&18. Isaiah and Revelation I've talked about extensively but not the Jeremiah one, it is the longest, I have read it, but I feel I need to read it more to discern what specific clues it has.
One detail about it I do want to address now however is that many will insist Jeremiah mentioning Nebuchadrezzar by name must be proof only a Preterist interpretation is valid.
First of all, when Babylon fell to Cyrus Nebuchadrezzar was dead by then too, unless you believe the fringe theory that Nabonidus was the same person. I am intrigued by some aspects of that argument, but it has major holes in my view.
Second, Revelation 17 seems to define the Eight King as a King who ruled before John's time resurrected. So you can't entirely rule out Nebuchadrezzar personally being there in the Futurist interpretation. But that's a Rabbit hole for another study or two.
Third and last of all. The two verses in this two chapter Prophecy that mention the name of Nebuchadrezzar, are not like similar verses mentioning him by name elsewhere in Jeremiah or in Ezekiel. The language used in context does not necessarily make Nebuchadrezzar himself contemporary with the Judgment in question. They are 50:17 and 51:34.
The former is about how this connects to it being him who conquered Jerusalem. The latter simply about Babylon being his legacy. Saddam Hussien's reconstruction projects in Babylon and many other cities (including Basra) were driven by his personal obsession with Nebuchadrezzar, he depicted himself as Nebuchadrezzar on his coins. So yes even modern Iraq is directly the legacy of Nebuchadrezzar.
Friday, October 14, 2016
The Manna Miracle and the origins of The Sabbath, Exodus 16
The precedent for The Sabbath was absolutely set by the Creation week recorded in Genesis 1&2.
But there is a debate about if it was kept by believers as a custom before the Exodus. We have evidence of what animals are clean and unclean being known in Genesis. But nothing from Genesis 3 on through the first Passover that in any way alludes to Patriarchs or Hebrews keeping The Sabbath.
Now Exodus 16 which is the account of The Manna miracle is constantly cited as proof it was known before the giving of The Law. Indeed the Decalogue in Exodus 19 refers to it as something they already knew.
The thing is, if you study Exodus 16 carefully, it seems to be presenting this story as the origin of The Sabbath. Nothing in here suggests it was already being practiced.
On the 15th day of the Second Month, the Israelites complain. Then Moses tells them what is about to happen. This was BTW the month following the very first Passover.
At evening, when the 16th started, Yahuah's Glory appeared onto them and they eat Quail (and no vice president had to shoot anyone in the face). Then in the morning of that day they found the first Manna.
On the 6th day that the Manna fell they were instructed to gather twice what they usually did so they'd have Manna the following day which they were told not to collect Manna on. And thus that seventh day was named The Sabbath.
Now to many this would be an argument against Christians needing to keep it. I however see no correlation between what we have to keep and what came in with Moses, to me those issues are addressed elsewhere.
I'm writing this here because I feel understanding this could help us understand the Eschatological importance of The Sabbath. Because the Manna is often seen as another miracle repeated in Revelation in chapter 12.
If The Sabbath was a rule already. That would have to make this 15th of Iyar a Sabbath, but they don't seem to be keeping a Sabbath at the moment and no comment is made on it. Yahuah waits till it's Sunday to speak to the people.
If you counted hypothetical Sabbaths backwards from this. The 8th and 1st of that Iyar would have been Sabbaths.
And if the Nisan of the first Passover had 30 days, then it's Sabbaths would have been the 24th, 17th, 10th and 3rd. But if it had 29 days then they would have been the 23rd, 16th, 9th and 2nd.
The latter would happen to fit my model for the Nisan of the Crucifixion as a Thursday supporter. The former would happen to fit what is usually argued for by Wednesday supporters. But you can't get a Friday model from it. That doesn't prove anything but it's amusing. And either of those would put the hypothetical anniversary in advance of The Ascension on the 27th of Iyar, which might be interesting.
Maybe God arranged this so it would happen to fit where The Sabbath would haven been if it'd been being kept since Adam. But either way, I'm convinced now that the origin of The Sabbath as a custom kept by humans is in Exodus 16.
Nehemiah 9:12-15 also states that it was at this time that Yahuah made The Holy Sabbath known to them.
But there is a debate about if it was kept by believers as a custom before the Exodus. We have evidence of what animals are clean and unclean being known in Genesis. But nothing from Genesis 3 on through the first Passover that in any way alludes to Patriarchs or Hebrews keeping The Sabbath.
Now Exodus 16 which is the account of The Manna miracle is constantly cited as proof it was known before the giving of The Law. Indeed the Decalogue in Exodus 19 refers to it as something they already knew.
The thing is, if you study Exodus 16 carefully, it seems to be presenting this story as the origin of The Sabbath. Nothing in here suggests it was already being practiced.
On the 15th day of the Second Month, the Israelites complain. Then Moses tells them what is about to happen. This was BTW the month following the very first Passover.
At evening, when the 16th started, Yahuah's Glory appeared onto them and they eat Quail (and no vice president had to shoot anyone in the face). Then in the morning of that day they found the first Manna.
On the 6th day that the Manna fell they were instructed to gather twice what they usually did so they'd have Manna the following day which they were told not to collect Manna on. And thus that seventh day was named The Sabbath.
Now to many this would be an argument against Christians needing to keep it. I however see no correlation between what we have to keep and what came in with Moses, to me those issues are addressed elsewhere.
I'm writing this here because I feel understanding this could help us understand the Eschatological importance of The Sabbath. Because the Manna is often seen as another miracle repeated in Revelation in chapter 12.
If The Sabbath was a rule already. That would have to make this 15th of Iyar a Sabbath, but they don't seem to be keeping a Sabbath at the moment and no comment is made on it. Yahuah waits till it's Sunday to speak to the people.
If you counted hypothetical Sabbaths backwards from this. The 8th and 1st of that Iyar would have been Sabbaths.
And if the Nisan of the first Passover had 30 days, then it's Sabbaths would have been the 24th, 17th, 10th and 3rd. But if it had 29 days then they would have been the 23rd, 16th, 9th and 2nd.
The latter would happen to fit my model for the Nisan of the Crucifixion as a Thursday supporter. The former would happen to fit what is usually argued for by Wednesday supporters. But you can't get a Friday model from it. That doesn't prove anything but it's amusing. And either of those would put the hypothetical anniversary in advance of The Ascension on the 27th of Iyar, which might be interesting.
Maybe God arranged this so it would happen to fit where The Sabbath would haven been if it'd been being kept since Adam. But either way, I'm convinced now that the origin of The Sabbath as a custom kept by humans is in Exodus 16.
Nehemiah 9:12-15 also states that it was at this time that Yahuah made The Holy Sabbath known to them.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Jesus wasn't Buried the same day He was Crucified.
Matthew 27:57-58 after Jesus had died says.
All the ongoing debates on what day to place the Crucifixion seem to not be aware of this detail. Typologically it can also fit Numbers 33:4 which says the 15th of Nisan was the day the Egyptians buried their First Born. Jesus is the Firstborn of Creation.
John 19 (verse 14) calls when Jesus was on The Cross the Preparation Day of the Passover, which was the 14th of Nisan, unambiguously. Later in John 19 (31 and 42), and in the Synoptic accounts, Jesus burial is described as being on the Preparation Day of the Sabbath. It seems people have assumed they must be the same Preparation, but they are not, if the Sabbath fell on the 16th of Nisan, then the first day of Unleavened Bread would also be the Preparation day for the weekly Sabbath.
The strongest argument the Friday Crucifixion people have is their insistence we're torturing the text in insisting the 15th of Nisan would be called a Sabbath regardless of the day it fell on. While Leviticus 23 does say not to do servile work that day, those restrictions have been interpreted as not as strict as the weekly Sabbath. The Tishri Holy Days use the word Sabbath to describe these days, but it's not used of the first day of Unleavened Bread, though you could argue it is of the seventh day of Unleavened Bread in that the word Seventh is essentially the same word.
The basis for defining Friday as preparation for the Sabbath goes back to the Manna account in Exodus 16.
The Friday Crucifixion people are also right that you don't need a full 72 hours to get to the Third Day. The desire of Wednesday proponents like Chuck Missler to mock that is unwittingly also mocking how the day for Circumcision and the Eight day of Tabernacles are counted. I personally see every reference to Jesus Rising on the Third Day as the Third Day of Unleavened Bread, the 17th of Nisan. The 17th of Nisan is also important in Esther and possibly in The Flood account.
However Friday proponents can't get three days AND three nights. They can only get two nights (Friday/Saturday and Saturday/Sunday). And it's similar with this new argument that every "First day of The Week" in the New Testament is really the Sabbath, I don't see how that model can get three nights either, because the third night has always been in Hebrew reckoning Sunday night.
Debating what day Jesus was Crucified I've seen rarely looks at the arguments typologically in Genesis 1.
Wednesday model supporters are also often people paranoid about doing anything on Sunday being Sun worship. Well in the Biblical Week the Sun and Moon were created on Woden's day.
I place the Crucifixion on Thursday, now with a different argument then I used to. That's the day God first Created Life, because Biblically plants aren't Life.
I now place Jesus burial on the Sixth day. The same day the First Adam was formed out of The Earth is the day the Last Adam was placed in it.
Then Jesus Rested on The Sabbath, and rose again on the Eight Day, a New Beginning. But also the Third Day of Unleavened Bread. It's also First Fruits and the day God made Light. It was also on a Sunday that the Manna first fell from Heaven.
"When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered."That is in the Hebrew reckoning the beginning of the next day, when the Evening had come. Mark's account of the same event in 15:42-44 also says this. It's lacking from Luke and John's accounts but isn't contradicted, maybe because they were writing for more gentile audiences.
All the ongoing debates on what day to place the Crucifixion seem to not be aware of this detail. Typologically it can also fit Numbers 33:4 which says the 15th of Nisan was the day the Egyptians buried their First Born. Jesus is the Firstborn of Creation.
John 19 (verse 14) calls when Jesus was on The Cross the Preparation Day of the Passover, which was the 14th of Nisan, unambiguously. Later in John 19 (31 and 42), and in the Synoptic accounts, Jesus burial is described as being on the Preparation Day of the Sabbath. It seems people have assumed they must be the same Preparation, but they are not, if the Sabbath fell on the 16th of Nisan, then the first day of Unleavened Bread would also be the Preparation day for the weekly Sabbath.
The strongest argument the Friday Crucifixion people have is their insistence we're torturing the text in insisting the 15th of Nisan would be called a Sabbath regardless of the day it fell on. While Leviticus 23 does say not to do servile work that day, those restrictions have been interpreted as not as strict as the weekly Sabbath. The Tishri Holy Days use the word Sabbath to describe these days, but it's not used of the first day of Unleavened Bread, though you could argue it is of the seventh day of Unleavened Bread in that the word Seventh is essentially the same word.
The basis for defining Friday as preparation for the Sabbath goes back to the Manna account in Exodus 16.
The Friday Crucifixion people are also right that you don't need a full 72 hours to get to the Third Day. The desire of Wednesday proponents like Chuck Missler to mock that is unwittingly also mocking how the day for Circumcision and the Eight day of Tabernacles are counted. I personally see every reference to Jesus Rising on the Third Day as the Third Day of Unleavened Bread, the 17th of Nisan. The 17th of Nisan is also important in Esther and possibly in The Flood account.
However Friday proponents can't get three days AND three nights. They can only get two nights (Friday/Saturday and Saturday/Sunday). And it's similar with this new argument that every "First day of The Week" in the New Testament is really the Sabbath, I don't see how that model can get three nights either, because the third night has always been in Hebrew reckoning Sunday night.
Debating what day Jesus was Crucified I've seen rarely looks at the arguments typologically in Genesis 1.
Wednesday model supporters are also often people paranoid about doing anything on Sunday being Sun worship. Well in the Biblical Week the Sun and Moon were created on Woden's day.
I place the Crucifixion on Thursday, now with a different argument then I used to. That's the day God first Created Life, because Biblically plants aren't Life.
I now place Jesus burial on the Sixth day. The same day the First Adam was formed out of The Earth is the day the Last Adam was placed in it.
Then Jesus Rested on The Sabbath, and rose again on the Eight Day, a New Beginning. But also the Third Day of Unleavened Bread. It's also First Fruits and the day God made Light. It was also on a Sunday that the Manna first fell from Heaven.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
The Lunar Sabbath issue
Earlier today (October 11th 2016) I watched this video. And this was the first time I heard of the Lunar Sabbath issue.
First assumption I had was this involved the Sabbath being kept on the multiple of 7 days of each month. As I looked it up elsewhere (the Hope For Israel site which I have many issues with starting with it's Racism) I saw that it actually involves not counting the New Moon as a work day (a detail Rob clearly missed) and making the Sabbaths the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th of each month.
As I contemplated this I was reminded of how I'm always puzzled by all these often conflicting Rabbinic customs about what to do if the Sabbath falls on the 14th of Nisan or 10th of Tishri or some other inconvenient day, and would ask myself "why didn't God deal with that in The Torah?"
But then as I contemplated it more I remembered that Jesus said "God made The Sabbath for Man not Man for The Sabbath". Which means you really shouldn't stress about it.
Both key arguments Rob made against it are flawed. One I alluded to already, you never work more then 6 days because of the New Moon. The other about God creating the Moon on the 4th day is that I feel God created the Moon in it's 4th day (or 18th day in a Tabernacles Creation Week theory) position, I don't think the first New Moon was a Wednesday.
The biggest flaw to me is that this theory can't explain how Pentecost works, how can the Fiftieth day also be the day after a Sabbath?
In fact First Fruits and Pentecost as a whole weaken the argument. If those days were always supposed to be the same day of a Month then God would have just said that like he did with the other Holy Days. Instead he said the morning after the Sabbath. This is my same argument against the Rabbis starting the Omer on the 16th of Nisan.
A minor observation is everything I read so far seemingly ignores that sometimes a Hebrew month has 30 days, meaning a single work day between the 29th Sabbath and the New Moon in this model. I have long theorized that in God's original perfect creation all years were 360 days, 12 months of 30 days each. I do NOT however then interpret that to mean Daniel 9 should be counted as 360 day years.
This model also overlaps with the absurd Friday Crucifixion model. The Thursday model which I favor and even more the Wednesday model need the weekly Sabbath to NOT be the 15th special Sabbath in that particular Nisan. And as Greek students know the text itself refers to there being plural Sabbaths passing between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.
Jesus was Crucified on the 14th, Liberated Sheol on the 15th, rested on the Weekly Sabbath on the 16th, and Rose again on the 3rd day of Unleavened Bread which was the 17th of Nisan, the day Mordecai was honored and Haman hanged in Esther, and probably the day Noah's Ark landed on Ararat.
I did once did calculations and concluded that IF the original first month was Tishri as many assume, and IF my originally months were 30 days theory is true. Then the 10th and 17th of of the first Nisan would have also fallen on Sundays and the 16th would have been a weekly Sabbath. That's an interesting observation but I wouldn't read anything profound into it.
Update October 28th 2016: Lunar Sabbath supports have often sought to say the synchronized week goes back to Babylonian Paganism. But it was actually Mesopotamians who used a Lunar cycle to determine their days of Rest. As discussed (with an Anti-Judeo Christian bias) on the Wikipedia pages for Week and Sabbath. We however don't need a Sumerian origin for the word Sabbath, it comes from Sheba, the Hebrew word for Seven.
First assumption I had was this involved the Sabbath being kept on the multiple of 7 days of each month. As I looked it up elsewhere (the Hope For Israel site which I have many issues with starting with it's Racism) I saw that it actually involves not counting the New Moon as a work day (a detail Rob clearly missed) and making the Sabbaths the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th of each month.
As I contemplated this I was reminded of how I'm always puzzled by all these often conflicting Rabbinic customs about what to do if the Sabbath falls on the 14th of Nisan or 10th of Tishri or some other inconvenient day, and would ask myself "why didn't God deal with that in The Torah?"
But then as I contemplated it more I remembered that Jesus said "God made The Sabbath for Man not Man for The Sabbath". Which means you really shouldn't stress about it.
Both key arguments Rob made against it are flawed. One I alluded to already, you never work more then 6 days because of the New Moon. The other about God creating the Moon on the 4th day is that I feel God created the Moon in it's 4th day (or 18th day in a Tabernacles Creation Week theory) position, I don't think the first New Moon was a Wednesday.
The biggest flaw to me is that this theory can't explain how Pentecost works, how can the Fiftieth day also be the day after a Sabbath?
In fact First Fruits and Pentecost as a whole weaken the argument. If those days were always supposed to be the same day of a Month then God would have just said that like he did with the other Holy Days. Instead he said the morning after the Sabbath. This is my same argument against the Rabbis starting the Omer on the 16th of Nisan.
A minor observation is everything I read so far seemingly ignores that sometimes a Hebrew month has 30 days, meaning a single work day between the 29th Sabbath and the New Moon in this model. I have long theorized that in God's original perfect creation all years were 360 days, 12 months of 30 days each. I do NOT however then interpret that to mean Daniel 9 should be counted as 360 day years.
This model also overlaps with the absurd Friday Crucifixion model. The Thursday model which I favor and even more the Wednesday model need the weekly Sabbath to NOT be the 15th special Sabbath in that particular Nisan. And as Greek students know the text itself refers to there being plural Sabbaths passing between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.
Jesus was Crucified on the 14th, Liberated Sheol on the 15th, rested on the Weekly Sabbath on the 16th, and Rose again on the 3rd day of Unleavened Bread which was the 17th of Nisan, the day Mordecai was honored and Haman hanged in Esther, and probably the day Noah's Ark landed on Ararat.
I did once did calculations and concluded that IF the original first month was Tishri as many assume, and IF my originally months were 30 days theory is true. Then the 10th and 17th of of the first Nisan would have also fallen on Sundays and the 16th would have been a weekly Sabbath. That's an interesting observation but I wouldn't read anything profound into it.
Update October 28th 2016: Lunar Sabbath supports have often sought to say the synchronized week goes back to Babylonian Paganism. But it was actually Mesopotamians who used a Lunar cycle to determine their days of Rest. As discussed (with an Anti-Judeo Christian bias) on the Wikipedia pages for Week and Sabbath. We however don't need a Sumerian origin for the word Sabbath, it comes from Sheba, the Hebrew word for Seven.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Are the Woman of Revelation 12 and the Woman of Revelation 17 possibly the same Woman?
I know that's a controversial suggestion, if true it probably invalidates one or the other of two theories on Bible Prophecy I've advocated on this Blog (the Wilderness of Revelation 12 being Mt Sinai, or the Babylon of 17 being East of the Euphrates), maybe both given other factors.
If true it would prove Mystery Babylon is Israel in a Rebellious state before her ultimate salvation, as I'm unshakable on The Woman of 12 being Israel and The Church being The Man-Child. But it would NOT prove Jerusalem, rather it contradicts it, this is Israel after fleeing. (So either way this Babylon is still probably East of the Jordan.)
We often see the Wildness refuge of Revelation 12 as a repeat of the Exodus-Deuteronomy wandering, Israel fell into Idolatry then too. And in DeMille's movie The Ten Commandments, he draws on Revelation 17 imagery in depicting the Golden Calf incident.
Now, here is the first clue that lead me to consider this possibility.
The word "Wilderness" is used in the Book of Revelation three times, in the Greek it's also the same word all three times, even the same form of the word (Eremon rather then Eremos). In Revelation 12 verses 6 and 14 it refers to the place where The Woman is taken to be protected. But then in Chapter 17 verse 3, John is taken to The Wilderness to see a Woman sitting on a Beast. And all three seem to use the definite article, The Wilderness, not a wilderness.
That I noticed months ago really, it kept sticking in my head but I felt it's conflict with my other theories and how they fit together meant I shouldn't read too much into it.
Then today I was for a completely different theory I've been working on, studying various usages of Hebrew words for Spear/Lance/Javelin. And I happened to notice something profound in Jeremiah, aspects of this have probably been used by Babylon is Jerusalem theorists before, but I doubt they noticed the Revelation 12 relevance.
Jeremiah 6:23 and 50:42 are saying almost the exact same thing. In Hebrew it's more similar then in the KJV as there Lance and Spear are the same word. The only difference is thar one says the Daughter of Zion and the other says the Daughter of Babylon.
And in both cases the verses right before and after are also profoundly similar. Jeremiah 6:24 is part of the reason we know the Woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, but we overlook Jeremiah 50:43 using the same term. And in 6:22/50:41, could the Kings of this "northern" nation be the 10 Kings of Revelation 17? And the King of Babylon either The Antichrist or a Decoy Antichrist, claiming to be Messiah Ben-Joseph and/or the Imam Mahdi?
Now the problem with using this to prove Babylon is Jerusalem is that Jeremiah 6 read from the beginning makes clear the Children of Zion have already fled The Land. While Jeremiah 50 and 51 is repeatedly tied to the Land of the Chaledeans and of Babylon. And God calls his faithful people to leave.
Could the "Mountains" Jesus told the people to flee to after the Abomination of Desolation in Matthew 24 be the Seven Mountains?
Chuck Missler likes to talk about the Woman of Revelation 17 boasting that she is not "widowed and divorced" as a contrast to Israel, described by The Prophets as widowed and divorced. But others have interpreted that "boast" as being a denial.
And then there is Zachariah 5. We've long speculated that Woman is the Revelation 17 Woman. But she's transported with parallel wing imagery to Revelation 12 which we overlook. And in Daniel 7 the Lion representing Babylon has Eagle's Wings which are plucked.
Micah 4:9-10 seem to refer to the Daughter of Zion going to Babylon after travailing in Childbirth.
Returning to what I've argued before that the Woman of Revelation 12 is in a sense Rachel. In Genesis 31, after Joseph is born and Jacob leaves Laban's household which I view as a possible type of the birth of the Man-Child and The Rapture in Revelation 12. Rachel stole Laban's Teraphim idols, and in verses 34 and 35 she sits on them, and claims to Laban she is menstruating to avoid being searched. What color does that imagery evoke? Red, the color of Scarlet. And this incident took place in Gilead interestingly.
And if you still insist on linking the Woman of Revelation 12 to the constellation Virgo (called Bethulah by Semites) in some fashion. Isaiah 37:22 refers to a "Virgin Daughter of Zion" (along with 2 Kings 19:21 and Lamentations 2:13) while Isaiah 47:1 refers to a "Virgin Daughter of Babylon". The word for Virgin being Bethulah in each of those.
Now if this is true, which previous theory should I consider abandoning? I don't know, but let's consider some things.
If in any way Israelites fleeing the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD is a type picture of the End Times flight (Jesus uses similar language of both in Luke 21 and Matthew 24) then that doesn't narrow it down. Because some went to Arabia, like the ancestors of many Arabian Jewish communities and the Lemba. But also many went to Mesopotamia where there were already Jewish communities in Seleucia, Nisibis, Osroene and a Jewish Kingdom in Adiabene, and in time wrote the Babylonian Talmud.
If you are a fan of The Book of Enoch (which I'm not, but I've studied it), that book does refer to a Seven Mountain formation, but where this range is supposed to be isn't made clear. Some theories say Mount Hermon (relevant to other parts of the book) is one of these mountains. Which is interesting in that... A: the form of Wilderness used in Revelation, Eremon, could also work as a Greek transliteration of Hermon, Eremon is also used of a "Desert Place" near Bethsadia which is near Hermon. And B: 1 Chronicles 5:23-25 says Seven Families dwelt there, who transgressed the law and went a whoring after foreign gods.
But another theory proposed is that the Seven Mountains of Enoch are to the South not North, and possibly one of the Seven is Sinai. Sinai did have other mountains near it, like Mount Hor where Aaron was buried, and there is some dispute on if Horeb is the same Mountain or near it. And Mount Seir is often refereed to as if it's close by. And there is a Mount Paran. And Mt Sin also.
Independent of all this many aren't convinced by my argument that the references to the Euphrates in Revelation proves Babylon must be East of it and with the Kings of The East. Maybe they're right and I'm jumping to conclusions.
And another detail of Revelation 17 I've overlooked in expressing my past theories is that strictly speaking it is only the 10 Horns described as hating the woman and seeking to destroy her, not the 8th King himself directly. So again all of those could be more complicated then we're prepared for.
On the other hand. Jeremiah 6 begins by talking about Benjamin specifically, the Prophecy began sooner, but still, it's interesting given my Argument that in a sense the Woman of Revelation 12 is Rachel. And I have an argument for linking Modern Israel to Saul typologically. Esther talking about Jews who didn't return to Judea but stayed in the east, is centrally a Benjamite family, descended from the Kinsman of Saul whom David spared. Hilel The Elder was also a prominent Benjamite born in Mesopotamia. The families who sinned in Hermon I mentioned before were of Eastern Manasseh who were deported by Assyria. Could it be the Shiites are descended from Joseph (and many Jews of the region from Benjamin), while the Kurds are a product of a mingling of the Medes and Naphtali?
People like to use Micah 2:12 as evidence Israel's wilderness dwelling will be in Bozrah of Edom. I criticized that in my Sinai post by pointing out the lack of any other Edom references here, and other places are called Bozrah like in Moab, and that it means "sheep fold" and the context here reflects that.
But in light of this theory it is interesting to note that a name suspiciously similar to Bozrah is Basra, which I've discussed before as possibly being the Babylon of Revelation 17&18.
Or maybe it won't all be in one place, maybe they'll start at Sinai and then wander. I already said I think the scale of the Numbers wandering was larger then most think it was. I remain confused on the exact geography of Basra, including which side of the Euphrates it is on. Maybe they'll wander all of the land I view as allotted to Ishmael.
So the assumption in Mystery Babylon debates has been that she can't be both Israel in rebellion and geographically in Mesopotamia. But that Assumption I now feel is wrong.
If true it would prove Mystery Babylon is Israel in a Rebellious state before her ultimate salvation, as I'm unshakable on The Woman of 12 being Israel and The Church being The Man-Child. But it would NOT prove Jerusalem, rather it contradicts it, this is Israel after fleeing. (So either way this Babylon is still probably East of the Jordan.)
We often see the Wildness refuge of Revelation 12 as a repeat of the Exodus-Deuteronomy wandering, Israel fell into Idolatry then too. And in DeMille's movie The Ten Commandments, he draws on Revelation 17 imagery in depicting the Golden Calf incident.
Now, here is the first clue that lead me to consider this possibility.
The word "Wilderness" is used in the Book of Revelation three times, in the Greek it's also the same word all three times, even the same form of the word (Eremon rather then Eremos). In Revelation 12 verses 6 and 14 it refers to the place where The Woman is taken to be protected. But then in Chapter 17 verse 3, John is taken to The Wilderness to see a Woman sitting on a Beast. And all three seem to use the definite article, The Wilderness, not a wilderness.
That I noticed months ago really, it kept sticking in my head but I felt it's conflict with my other theories and how they fit together meant I shouldn't read too much into it.
Then today I was for a completely different theory I've been working on, studying various usages of Hebrew words for Spear/Lance/Javelin. And I happened to notice something profound in Jeremiah, aspects of this have probably been used by Babylon is Jerusalem theorists before, but I doubt they noticed the Revelation 12 relevance.
Jeremiah 6:23 and 50:42 are saying almost the exact same thing. In Hebrew it's more similar then in the KJV as there Lance and Spear are the same word. The only difference is thar one says the Daughter of Zion and the other says the Daughter of Babylon.
And in both cases the verses right before and after are also profoundly similar. Jeremiah 6:24 is part of the reason we know the Woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, but we overlook Jeremiah 50:43 using the same term. And in 6:22/50:41, could the Kings of this "northern" nation be the 10 Kings of Revelation 17? And the King of Babylon either The Antichrist or a Decoy Antichrist, claiming to be Messiah Ben-Joseph and/or the Imam Mahdi?
Now the problem with using this to prove Babylon is Jerusalem is that Jeremiah 6 read from the beginning makes clear the Children of Zion have already fled The Land. While Jeremiah 50 and 51 is repeatedly tied to the Land of the Chaledeans and of Babylon. And God calls his faithful people to leave.
Could the "Mountains" Jesus told the people to flee to after the Abomination of Desolation in Matthew 24 be the Seven Mountains?
Chuck Missler likes to talk about the Woman of Revelation 17 boasting that she is not "widowed and divorced" as a contrast to Israel, described by The Prophets as widowed and divorced. But others have interpreted that "boast" as being a denial.
And then there is Zachariah 5. We've long speculated that Woman is the Revelation 17 Woman. But she's transported with parallel wing imagery to Revelation 12 which we overlook. And in Daniel 7 the Lion representing Babylon has Eagle's Wings which are plucked.
Micah 4:9-10 seem to refer to the Daughter of Zion going to Babylon after travailing in Childbirth.
Returning to what I've argued before that the Woman of Revelation 12 is in a sense Rachel. In Genesis 31, after Joseph is born and Jacob leaves Laban's household which I view as a possible type of the birth of the Man-Child and The Rapture in Revelation 12. Rachel stole Laban's Teraphim idols, and in verses 34 and 35 she sits on them, and claims to Laban she is menstruating to avoid being searched. What color does that imagery evoke? Red, the color of Scarlet. And this incident took place in Gilead interestingly.
And if you still insist on linking the Woman of Revelation 12 to the constellation Virgo (called Bethulah by Semites) in some fashion. Isaiah 37:22 refers to a "Virgin Daughter of Zion" (along with 2 Kings 19:21 and Lamentations 2:13) while Isaiah 47:1 refers to a "Virgin Daughter of Babylon". The word for Virgin being Bethulah in each of those.
Now if this is true, which previous theory should I consider abandoning? I don't know, but let's consider some things.
If in any way Israelites fleeing the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD is a type picture of the End Times flight (Jesus uses similar language of both in Luke 21 and Matthew 24) then that doesn't narrow it down. Because some went to Arabia, like the ancestors of many Arabian Jewish communities and the Lemba. But also many went to Mesopotamia where there were already Jewish communities in Seleucia, Nisibis, Osroene and a Jewish Kingdom in Adiabene, and in time wrote the Babylonian Talmud.
If you are a fan of The Book of Enoch (which I'm not, but I've studied it), that book does refer to a Seven Mountain formation, but where this range is supposed to be isn't made clear. Some theories say Mount Hermon (relevant to other parts of the book) is one of these mountains. Which is interesting in that... A: the form of Wilderness used in Revelation, Eremon, could also work as a Greek transliteration of Hermon, Eremon is also used of a "Desert Place" near Bethsadia which is near Hermon. And B: 1 Chronicles 5:23-25 says Seven Families dwelt there, who transgressed the law and went a whoring after foreign gods.
But another theory proposed is that the Seven Mountains of Enoch are to the South not North, and possibly one of the Seven is Sinai. Sinai did have other mountains near it, like Mount Hor where Aaron was buried, and there is some dispute on if Horeb is the same Mountain or near it. And Mount Seir is often refereed to as if it's close by. And there is a Mount Paran. And Mt Sin also.
Independent of all this many aren't convinced by my argument that the references to the Euphrates in Revelation proves Babylon must be East of it and with the Kings of The East. Maybe they're right and I'm jumping to conclusions.
And another detail of Revelation 17 I've overlooked in expressing my past theories is that strictly speaking it is only the 10 Horns described as hating the woman and seeking to destroy her, not the 8th King himself directly. So again all of those could be more complicated then we're prepared for.
On the other hand. Jeremiah 6 begins by talking about Benjamin specifically, the Prophecy began sooner, but still, it's interesting given my Argument that in a sense the Woman of Revelation 12 is Rachel. And I have an argument for linking Modern Israel to Saul typologically. Esther talking about Jews who didn't return to Judea but stayed in the east, is centrally a Benjamite family, descended from the Kinsman of Saul whom David spared. Hilel The Elder was also a prominent Benjamite born in Mesopotamia. The families who sinned in Hermon I mentioned before were of Eastern Manasseh who were deported by Assyria. Could it be the Shiites are descended from Joseph (and many Jews of the region from Benjamin), while the Kurds are a product of a mingling of the Medes and Naphtali?
People like to use Micah 2:12 as evidence Israel's wilderness dwelling will be in Bozrah of Edom. I criticized that in my Sinai post by pointing out the lack of any other Edom references here, and other places are called Bozrah like in Moab, and that it means "sheep fold" and the context here reflects that.
But in light of this theory it is interesting to note that a name suspiciously similar to Bozrah is Basra, which I've discussed before as possibly being the Babylon of Revelation 17&18.
Or maybe it won't all be in one place, maybe they'll start at Sinai and then wander. I already said I think the scale of the Numbers wandering was larger then most think it was. I remain confused on the exact geography of Basra, including which side of the Euphrates it is on. Maybe they'll wander all of the land I view as allotted to Ishmael.
So the assumption in Mystery Babylon debates has been that she can't be both Israel in rebellion and geographically in Mesopotamia. But that Assumption I now feel is wrong.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Yom Teruah is coming up
Nehemia Gordon did a study just recently called "How Yom Teruah became Rosh Hoshanna". Which is informative.
He also talks about how the sounding of the Jubliee on Yom Kippur was not during the Jubilee year but to announce it was coming in the middle of the 49th Year, a fact I'd already heard, but not from a source as reliable as him. I find that intriguing on a number of levels.
Overlap that with aspects of my Time of Jacob's Trouble post, and maybe I should leave my Mid-Trib variant view and consider founding a Mid Seventh Year Rapture view. That would affiliate the Seventh Trumpet and Last Trump of The Rapture with the Jubliee Trumpet, making the end of Revelation 11, all of 12 and start of 13 about Yom Kippur, the rest of 13 and all of 14 and 15 between Yom Kippur and Tabernacles, and the Seven Bowls of God's Wrath poured out on the seven days of Tabernacles, with Haggai 2 supported the 7th Bowls being the 21st of Tishrei. This would adjust my Fall Feasts hypothesis.
The Seventh Trumpet account mentions God's Temple in Heaven being opened and The Ark of His Covenant being seen. That kinda fits Yom Kippur.
Then I would really have to change this blog's URL.
There are other factors I still have to consider. There is already a Pre-Seventh year view, but they're under the false impression that Nehemia is refuting, that Tishrei can begin a year.
I watched awhile ago a Prophecy Club video called The Chronological Order of the Prophecies in The Jubilees. There is much of this person's views that are clearly wrong, from his supporting the Britam view of the Lost Tribes, to trying to make the 120 years of Genesis 6 point to 6000 years. But his evidence for a reckoning of the Jubilees that would have the next jubilee year starting in Spring of 2045 AD (with the Jubilee Trumpet then in fall of 2044) is compelling. Here is a still I took regarding the Sabbatical Years.
The view of the 70 Weeks I've been favoring had the Decree of Artaxerxes in Nissan 454 BC putting the 70th week in 30-37 AD. But many have, using much of the same evidence, argued for the Decree being Nissan of 455 BC, and a 70th Week that is 29-36 AD. I need to look into that more, but if so that would make both the beginning and ending of the 70 weeks the start of Jubilee years in the above Jubilee model, which makes sense.
I've seen people argue for both 29 and 36 AD Crucifixion models. For the latter that includes Nikos Kokkinos who's theories I may talk about more in a future post. My personal bias remains 30 AD for the moment however. But The Resurrection and Acts 2 Pentecost being Jubilee years has a certain symmetry to it.
This makes the latest Jubilee year to happen Spring 1996-Spring 1997. And before that 1947-1948 which many see as Biblically significant. Before that 1898-1899, and before that 1849-1850.
This model could place the beginning of the 21 year Time of Jacob's Trouble in Spring of 2024 AD.
Or maybe if someone could argue the above proposed Jubilee cycle is off by a year, to make my original 70s Weeks views match up to Jubilees, things would fit better. Then it would be during a Jubilee year modern Israel was founded.
If I switched to a Mid 7th Year or mid 49th Year Rapture view. How do I match up the time-frames? The ministry of the Witnesses and consecration of the Rebuilt Temple would be around the Nissan that would start year 4 of the relevant Sabbatical cycle. The 42 Months The Beast is allowed to continue would begin about 6 months later. And the 1260 days The Woman is in the Wilderness would continue 3 years into The Millennium. Why would that happen? Who knows, perhaps I'll think of a reason later.
But I will still never accept a Non Chronological view of Revelation.
He also talks about how the sounding of the Jubliee on Yom Kippur was not during the Jubilee year but to announce it was coming in the middle of the 49th Year, a fact I'd already heard, but not from a source as reliable as him. I find that intriguing on a number of levels.
Overlap that with aspects of my Time of Jacob's Trouble post, and maybe I should leave my Mid-Trib variant view and consider founding a Mid Seventh Year Rapture view. That would affiliate the Seventh Trumpet and Last Trump of The Rapture with the Jubliee Trumpet, making the end of Revelation 11, all of 12 and start of 13 about Yom Kippur, the rest of 13 and all of 14 and 15 between Yom Kippur and Tabernacles, and the Seven Bowls of God's Wrath poured out on the seven days of Tabernacles, with Haggai 2 supported the 7th Bowls being the 21st of Tishrei. This would adjust my Fall Feasts hypothesis.
The Seventh Trumpet account mentions God's Temple in Heaven being opened and The Ark of His Covenant being seen. That kinda fits Yom Kippur.
Then I would really have to change this blog's URL.
There are other factors I still have to consider. There is already a Pre-Seventh year view, but they're under the false impression that Nehemia is refuting, that Tishrei can begin a year.
I watched awhile ago a Prophecy Club video called The Chronological Order of the Prophecies in The Jubilees. There is much of this person's views that are clearly wrong, from his supporting the Britam view of the Lost Tribes, to trying to make the 120 years of Genesis 6 point to 6000 years. But his evidence for a reckoning of the Jubilees that would have the next jubilee year starting in Spring of 2045 AD (with the Jubilee Trumpet then in fall of 2044) is compelling. Here is a still I took regarding the Sabbatical Years.
The view of the 70 Weeks I've been favoring had the Decree of Artaxerxes in Nissan 454 BC putting the 70th week in 30-37 AD. But many have, using much of the same evidence, argued for the Decree being Nissan of 455 BC, and a 70th Week that is 29-36 AD. I need to look into that more, but if so that would make both the beginning and ending of the 70 weeks the start of Jubilee years in the above Jubilee model, which makes sense.
I've seen people argue for both 29 and 36 AD Crucifixion models. For the latter that includes Nikos Kokkinos who's theories I may talk about more in a future post. My personal bias remains 30 AD for the moment however. But The Resurrection and Acts 2 Pentecost being Jubilee years has a certain symmetry to it.
This makes the latest Jubilee year to happen Spring 1996-Spring 1997. And before that 1947-1948 which many see as Biblically significant. Before that 1898-1899, and before that 1849-1850.
This model could place the beginning of the 21 year Time of Jacob's Trouble in Spring of 2024 AD.
Or maybe if someone could argue the above proposed Jubilee cycle is off by a year, to make my original 70s Weeks views match up to Jubilees, things would fit better. Then it would be during a Jubilee year modern Israel was founded.
If I switched to a Mid 7th Year or mid 49th Year Rapture view. How do I match up the time-frames? The ministry of the Witnesses and consecration of the Rebuilt Temple would be around the Nissan that would start year 4 of the relevant Sabbatical cycle. The 42 Months The Beast is allowed to continue would begin about 6 months later. And the 1260 days The Woman is in the Wilderness would continue 3 years into The Millennium. Why would that happen? Who knows, perhaps I'll think of a reason later.
But I will still never accept a Non Chronological view of Revelation.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Solomon's Temple was NOT in the City of David.
If you think it was, I suggest you read 1 Kings 8:1, the account of The Ark being placed in The Temple.
The land that Solomon built The Temple on, David purchased after the whole Census and Plague episode recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, (and referenced again in 2 Chronicles 3:1). So it can't possibly be the same spot near the Gihon Spring where David placed The Ark when he began his reign in Jerusalem.
In 2 Samuel 24:23, though English translations sometimes obscure this, Araunah (Ornan in Chronicles) is called a King. He was the King of a separate Kingdom, so the land he owned was clearly not within The City of David.
There are also many reasons why you wouldn't put a threshing floor anywhere near a spring.
Now I don't know if the Second Temple was on the same spot as the first. But I believe the evidence places the Second Temple's Holy of Holies about where the Al-Kas Fountain currently is, and that the Antonia Fortress was where the Dome of The Rock is.
Prophetic verses get used to back up saying there is a spring or river under The Temple. Ezekiel 40-48's Temple will be no where near the same spot as Solomon's, it's miles north of Jerusalem, I've argued about where Beth-El was. And by then events like the 7th Bowl of Wrath will have totally changed the geography of the region.
In both Poetic and Prophetic books Zion gets used poetically, it doesn't always mean it's strict Geographical definition it has in the two verses that started this post.
"Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahuah out of the city of David, which is Zion."And also 2 Chronicles 5:2
"Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahuah out of the city of David, which is Zion."David's Tabernacle was not on the same land as Solomon's Temple, that's where these "The Temple wasn't on The Temple Mount" people are confused.
The land that Solomon built The Temple on, David purchased after the whole Census and Plague episode recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, (and referenced again in 2 Chronicles 3:1). So it can't possibly be the same spot near the Gihon Spring where David placed The Ark when he began his reign in Jerusalem.
In 2 Samuel 24:23, though English translations sometimes obscure this, Araunah (Ornan in Chronicles) is called a King. He was the King of a separate Kingdom, so the land he owned was clearly not within The City of David.
There are also many reasons why you wouldn't put a threshing floor anywhere near a spring.
Now I don't know if the Second Temple was on the same spot as the first. But I believe the evidence places the Second Temple's Holy of Holies about where the Al-Kas Fountain currently is, and that the Antonia Fortress was where the Dome of The Rock is.
Prophetic verses get used to back up saying there is a spring or river under The Temple. Ezekiel 40-48's Temple will be no where near the same spot as Solomon's, it's miles north of Jerusalem, I've argued about where Beth-El was. And by then events like the 7th Bowl of Wrath will have totally changed the geography of the region.
In both Poetic and Prophetic books Zion gets used poetically, it doesn't always mean it's strict Geographical definition it has in the two verses that started this post.
Friday, September 23, 2016
The Mormon Doctrine of Jesus and Lucifer being brothers
First this is about LDS Mormonism specifically, groups like Temple Lot that reject the Cosmic Pluralism of Smith and Young's later teachings view Satan about the same as Protestants and Evangelicals who are KJV only do.
Here is a Mormon Website defending Mormonism against this accusation.
Yes it is true that this Mormon doctrine makes all Angels and Humans brothers of Jesus and Lucifer also. And indeed The Bible also calls all Angels including Satan "Sons of God" in Job and Genesis 6. And The New Testament calls Adam and all Believers "Sons of God". And I thank this webpage for reminding me of Hebrews 12:9 and how that could be relevant to the Nephilim view vs Sethite view debate. But also just like in The Bible, Satan has a certain seniority over the others besides Jesus who is the First Born.
My objection to the Mormon view of how Jesus and Satan are related is not so much that it elevates Satan (my view of Satan may well be a more powerful entity then the LDS view, he's the Archon of the Kosmos), it's that it subtly demotes Jesus.
On that very page, in it's answer to "Q. What about the Jesus and Satan being brothers claim?" They say "However, Jesus chose to honor and glorify his Father while Satan chose to rebel against and dishonor Him. Jesus and Satan are polar opposites–literally as different as any two individuals can possibly be." Meaning they're arguing the difference between Jesus and Satan begins with the choices they made, they were equal in creation. I believe Jesus is the ONLY Begotten Son of God, John 3:16, not just the First Born, though First Born of Creation is also one of his titles. He is The Word made Flesh.
The LDS view of Jesus and Lucifer is not unlike Manwe and Melkor in Tolkien's cosmology. All the Anuir were created from the thoughts of Eru Iluvatar, but Manwe and Melkor were twins essentially as the First Born of his thought, but it was the choices they made that made them opposites.
I doubt Tolkien was copying Mormonism specifically, he was drawing on mythological motifs that are common and Ancient. From Thor and Loki as rival sons of Odin to Vishnu and Shiva of Hinudism. And the Zurvanism form of Zoroastrianism has Zurvan in the Elohim role, and Ahura-Mazda and Angra Manyu as the good and evil rivals he created.
But the beginning of this motif is perhaps Enlil and Enki as the chief sons of Anu in Sumerian Mythology. Just do a Google search with Enlil, Enki and either Satan or Lucifer as the main keywords and you'll find many websites and articles saying Enlil is like Yahuah/Yahweh (LDS Mormons believe Jesus is Jehovah while Elohim is God The Father) and Enki is The Serpent of Genesis 3. Sometimes from Christians saying this is Satan's earliest corruption of the Biblical world view. Meaning they're not saying it's okay to worship Enlil, but that Enlil was devised in some ways to reflect how Satan wants people to view Yahuah. Rob Skiba has also talked about this subject.
There is definitely a subtext to the Sumerian myths that present Enlil as bad compared to Enki. Also the earliest Temple of Eridu (the original Babel) was devoted to Enki. Enki is presented as the one who gave Mankind knowledge and civilization. Enlil is presented as sending the Flood while Enki warned the Noah figure. In Akkadian and some other Semitic Mesopotamian texts Enki is called Ea.
I wonder if Tolkien's account of how Luthien puts Morgoth to sleep to take one of his Silmarils could be his puerile re-imagining of the myth of how Inanna obtained Enki's me.
In the Baal Cycle and other texts of Ugarit, the Enlil role seems to be played by Baal (sometimes also called Hadad/Hadar/Adad/Adar) and the Enki role by Yam and maybe also Lotan, scholars disagree on if Lotan is Yam or an instrument of Yam. And the role of Anu is played by El.
Baal worship is probably the most frequently condemned false Worship in the Hebrew Bible. But remember God dislikes being identified with a Pagan god just as much as being rejected altogether, we see that in the Golden Calf incident where they called the Calf Yahuah.
Hosea 2:16 refers to Baal as a name or title Yahuah has been called, but as one he doesn't like. Of course the main context there is how Ish and Baal are both words for Husband (marriage is the major theme of Hosea) but Baal also means Lord while Ish is a word for man as in male gender that is introduced in Genesis 2. So I see this as mainly being about how the marriage of Genesis 3 will be done away with in favor of the marriage of Genesis 2.
The devout Baal worshipers Ahab and Jezebel named at least three of their children YHWH theophoric names, Athaliah, Ahaziah and Jehoram.
Zachariah 12, I have already mentioned before as possibly using Hadad-Rimmon as a title or idiom of Christ Crucified.
The Tel Dan Stele was made either by Hazael of Aram-Damascus or by Jehu, both were anointed Kings by Elisha on instructions originally given to Elijah by Yahuah. Both should have known full well that Yahuah made them King, but the author of the Stele says Hadad made him King. Jehu did continue the Sins of Jeroboam.
In Hebrew Lotan could come from putting a Lamed as a prefix before Tan, the basic root word for Dragon, which would mean "To the Dragon". Some have connected the Ugarit Lotan to the Biblical Leviathan. The name Lotan does occur in Genesis 36 in the Horite genealogy.
Isaiah 27:1 has a phrase translated "the dragon that is in the sea". But in the Hebrew this is only three words. "Tanyin asher Yam", Yam being the Hebrew word for the Sea. It could be this whole phrase is a name or title of Satan and that we have a Biblical basis for using Yam as a name for Satan. I notice this could parallel Ehyeh asher Ehyeh "I Am that I Am", maybe it could be "The Dragon that is Yam"?
Psalm 74:13 could also be interesting in this context, and also Ezekiel 29:3. Or Ezekiel 32:2 where the word for Dragon is translated "Whale" in the KJV.
Some Canaanite texts call Yam Judge-Nahar (Nahar being interpreted to mean river) Nahar is a name that could easily be related to Nahash, the word for Serpent in Genesis 3 and 49 and other places. Rivers are Serpent like in a sense.
There is some evidence that Chemosh and Moloch were just the Moabite and Ammonite forms of the same deity. Since Chemosh seems to have been depicted as a Fish god I'd say they're more likely a Yam/Enki figure. And that the Philistine Dagon is the same as them also, Dagon comes from the Hebrew word for fish.
In Egyptian mythology the rival brothers are Osiris and Set.
While we're used to thinking of Set as the Satan figure particularly thanks to Aquino's Temple of Set. In the context of the mythical motifs I'm discussing here, it should be noted that Set slew the Egyptian Lotan figure, the coiling Serpent Apep. And that the Hycsos who came from the Levant seemed to favor Set because he was the easiest to identify with Baal being a storm god, albeit of sand storms. Perhaps the Genesis 36 name Shobal is a shortening of Seth-Baal?
Maybe originally Osiris and Apep were the same or linked, but in time the enemy of the heroic Set and the enemy of the villainous Set were separated. Osiris is often depicted as having Green skin, scholars usually explain this as being because he was a Vegetation god. But I know of no direct connection with vegetation besides that modern comparative mythology logic seems to see every "dying and rising god" as either a vegetation god if now a solar one.
The fact that Osiris and Horus are so firmly linked to the person of the Pharaoh himself, makes the possibly of Osiris as a Serpent god interesting in light of Ezekiel 29 and 32. And Egypt is also mentioned in Isaiah 27. And also how Rahab (who is unfortunately sometimes transliterated the same as Rachab) is often interpreted as both a Lotan figure and as a name for Egypt or whoever rules it.
Orisis also has overlooked aspects of being a Goat god, from his connection to The Goat of Mendes, to his name being connected to the Hebrew Seir/Sayir. How does that fit with my having just argued he's a Sea Serpent god? Well the constellation Capricorn is depicted as Half Goat and Half Fish, and it's been depicted that way for over 3000 years. The History and Mythology section of it's Wikipedia page says the Babylonians viewed Capricorn as a depiction of Ea aka Enki.
That can be interesting in light of my argument that every use of "Lamb" in Revelation is perhaps really Goat. We'd have the Second Beast having Goat like Horns but speaking with a Dragon's voice.
Horus could then be equated to Marduk, the son of Enki who in the Enuma Elis takes on the position previously held by Enlil in earlier myths.
However Egyptian mythology can be confusing, partly because it changed over time, and much of it was different tradition of the Upper and Lower kingdoms being fused together. As such another Enki/Yam figure could be Sobek, who was depicted as a Crocodile, and also viewed an an embodiment of The Nile (paralleling Yam as Nahar). And came to be linked to the Pharonic power similarly to Horus and Osiris. And another Enlil/Baal figure could be Amon, who in Carthage was identified with Baal as Baal Hamon, (and with Zeus by the Greeks as Zeus-Amon). And another Anu figure could be Atum.
And then there is that one Masonic ritual where the secret word is JaBalOm which is a merging together of the names of Jehovah, Baal and Amon into a single name.
Geb/Seb/Keb is also sometimes depicted as a Crocodile or Snake. And he is also described as the Father of Snakes, like Nehebkau. He was the father of Osiris and Isis and Set and Nebthet. Geb is also considered a god of the Earth, and Enki means "Lord of The Earth".
Perhaps Geb and Sobek were originally the same. Of the sons of Enki, Marduk who went on to take aspects of Enlil could be equated to Set. Dumuzid/Tammuz father is never directly stated, but his sister Ngeshtin-ana is called a daughter of Enki and Ninhurshag. Hislop derived mythology makes Tammuz sound like Horus, but he was actually more like Osiris.
In the Sumerian poem Inana and Bilulu, one figure Inana gets revenge on for being involved in the killing of Dumuzi/Dumuzid is Jirjire, the son of Bilulu. Jirjire is turned into a Desert god of bad weather, making him a lot like Set, a god associated with the Desert and Sand Storms and other bad whether, which is why the Greeks sometimes identified him with Typhon. Marduk seems like a god we only know by the name the Semitic Mesopotamians called him, as if he doesn't go all the way back to Summer. Perhaps Jirjire became Marduk?
Set has somewhat of a minor solar deity association via his riding in Ra's Chariot to battle Apep. Marduk too however is while not the main sun god a name that meant "Solar Bull".
Inanna's position in the Anunnaki genealogy is often confused. And I think this comes from the attempts to give aspects of Enlil to Marduk. She is both the direct daughter of Anu, fitting Ashteroth/Astarte of the Canaanite panethon. And a daughter of Ningal and Nanna, perhaps explaining the Greek Asteria who has a name related to Astarte and is a daughter of lunar deities. And her being a twin Sister of Utu may relate her to the Eye of Ra or other feminine solar deities. And she's sometimes a daughter of Enki, making her a sibling possibly of Ngeshtin-ana and possibly Dumuzi, making her fit Isis relationship to Osiris. But I think Isis isn't the only Egyptian goddess who's a reflection of Innana, I think so is Iusaaset and possibly Hathor.
Because Greek mythology (which the Romans copied) did a lot of splitting up mythological roles. The Sea-god (Pontus, Oceanos, Nereus, Poseiden, Triton, Neptune) and the Dragon/Monster to be slain (Typhon, Ophion, Ladon, Hydra, Cetus) figures become firmly separated. So that in Tolkien, Ulmo and Osse are separate from Morgoth, Glaurung and Ancalagon. Meanwhile Enki's status as a god of Wisdom and Prophecy gets taken by Apollo/Asclepius and Hermes/Mercury. Mercury seems to have also been the Planet that Enki was associated with in Sumerian astrology. And Apollo has a surprising number of Serpent associations, like Python, the "Spirit of Divination" in Acts 16.
Zeus seems to be both the Anu/El role and Enlil/Baal role depending on the context of the myth, same with Cronos, and Ouranos is the one who's name has the same meaning as Anu, the Heavens. The original from of Zeus/s name was Dios, which like El also becomes a word for god in various forms in various languages, including Theos and Deus. This caries over to the Roman mythology, where Zeus is identified with Jove and Jupiter. I've argued before that the name Jove may be a corruption of Yahuah/Jehovah. Dionysus/Bacchus/Bromis descends from Hadad's vegetation and fertility god aspects.
Gnosticism takes this basic mythological pattern and further complicated it with Platonic Philosophical concepts. Often by identifying Yahuah/Yahweh with the Demiurge/Ialdobath, and the Serpent of Genesis 3 with Jesus.
In Vedic mythology Enlil/Baal is Indra, Enki/Yam is Vaurna, Anu/El is Dyaus, and the Lotan figure is Vritra.
I've talked before about how in Shinto mythology Susanoo can be viewed as Baal. In that context Orochi is Lotan, but I also think Yam can be equated to Ryujin, the Sea-Dragon god ruling from his undersea palace Ryugu-jo. The theory about the Ningi-Jimmu genealogy that suggests it's based on Jacob and Joseph puts Ryujin in the position of the Egyptian Priest of On, father of Asenath. Which could be interesting in light of Egypt's relevance so far.
Other Far Eastern mythologies have Dragon King gods as well. From the Arabian Knights, the tale of "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman" also involves an undersea civilization. Job 26:5 says "Raphaim are formed under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof". Which can be interesting to compare to Psalm 74:13.
Rob Skiba talks about understanding The Bible from a mythological POV. Much of where he goes with that I disagree with, but perhaps we should consider that the Beast "rising out of the sea" might be more literal then we at first assume?
The Greek word translated Sea in Revelation 13:1 is Thalassa, which in mythology is the name of the wife of Pontus, the most primordial sea god. Thalassa was identified with Tiamat by Berossus, in which context Pontus is equated to Abzu of the Enuma Elis, in which Tiamat is slain by Marduk son of Enki. But originally Abzu was just the name for the Abyss, the Enki Temple in Eridu was called the E-Abzu. Thorkild Jacobsen has hypothesized that Abzu was an early form of Enki.
Pontus happens to also be very phonetically similar to the name of a Kingdom in northern Turkey who's royal family in the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman period was mingled with the Seleucid Dynasty.
Most assume the "Seat of Satan" in Pergamon/Pergamos was the Altar of Zeus, but I've argued on this Blog it was the Temple to Serapis. Serapis was a Hellenistic cult that combined the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis. But Samuel Noah Kramer argued that Serapis was Enki.
While this kind of comparative mythology research is fun, it's important never to forget that The Bible is strictly monotheistic. God The Father and God The Son are the same Person along with The Holy Spirit. But Satan is merely a created being, the most powerful created being perhaps, but still merely created.
Update June 12th 2017: I'm aware that counterarguments can exist for identifying YHWH with Enki/Yam rather then Enlil/Baal. I want to address those.
Saying Enlil and Baal are Satan I am fine with in the sense that all false worship serves the interest of Satan, and Satan can appear as any god if that's the best god to appear as in a given situation.
My problem with arguing for Enki/Yam as being the Pagan names for YHWH is how I fear that could serve the interests of a deception predicated on claiming Jesus is Baal and the New Testament Satan is YHWH and the Old Testament Satan wasn't evil. There are ways to misuse viewing Ezekiel 38 and Revelation 20 as describing the same invasion to back that up.
There could be two sides to that hypothetical deception. One is a Gnostic like cosmology being Pro-Jesus with it. But it could also be a False Jewish Messiah Claimant seeking to vilify Jesus and The New Testament.
The argument might start with the Son of Rehoboam who succeeded him as King of Judah being named both Abijah ad Abijam, a Yah theophoric name and a Yam theophoric name. Being used to support them being names of the same being. Abijah I think was born while Solomon was king, maybe even in the first half of his reign before he started going off course, since Rehoboam was a year old already when Solomon started his 40 year reign. So I think he was named Abijah at birth. But he was an idolator during his reign as King and so may have changed his theophoric to Yam to reflect his Polytheism.
One Ugrarit text says Yaw in place of Yam, which seems to be a scribal error, yet people try to use this to support saying Yam was YHWH anyway. And it's been argued the Akadian name of Enki, Ea, could be how Yah would be appear in the Akkadian alphabet. But that's about as valid as the theory of connecting Yah to the Egyptian name for the Moon.
The Bible does call Yahuah the "Lord of The Earth" which can equate to the meaning of Enki, En meaning Lord and Ki meaning Earth. (Baal of course also means Lord, Adonai and Baal could be used as synonyms). But that is because The Bible is Monothestic and not Polytheistic. Yahuah is the ultimate Lord of everything, but the New Testament does depict Satan as the current Archon of the Kosmos, who offered the Kingdoms of the World to Jesus and will in Revelation 13 give them to The Beast. Yahuah being depicted as riding on Clouds fits Canaanite Baal imagery and the meaning of Enlil, Lord of the Sky.
Ahab and Jezebel broke with most Northern Kingdom rulers by worshiping Baal under that name and Astarte. But at the same time they also continued the Sins of Jeroboam, they didn't view that is in conflict with the Baal religion.
When Enki and Yam are depicted as Animals rather then Human, it's usually as Aquatic, Amphibious Serpentine or Reptilian creatures, rarely as any Mammals. The only Biblical basis for YHWH being seen that way is Jesus using the Brazen Serpent as a symbol of himself in John 3.
Usually when Israelites worshiped the Name of YHWH in an Idolatrous and Polytheistic fashion, it was as a Calf or Bull. The Golden Calf in Exodus, and then the Calf Jeroboam set up at Dan and Bethel. I've come to agree with Jeroboam's Dan being Baalbek. Showing that Idol had the name of Baal applied to it. This Calf imagery also appears in the Baal cycle of Ugarit when Baal fakes his death using the body of a Calf.
I repeat, I am NOT!!! arguing for it being okay to worship Baal. We worship YHWH only under that name or the YHW Theophoric name of Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus, "Yahuah is Salvation".
The point is the mythology of Baal is tied to Satan's desire to vilify God. Even the Baal cycle of Ugarit ostensibly written by people who worshiped Baal as their Patron Deity, depicts him as a usurper, El meant for Yam to rule. Plenty have talked about how Enlil looks bad in the Sumerian stories. And Japanese mythology mostly vilifies Susanoo, at least compared to their Matron Megami Amaterasu.
The primary basis for identifying Satan with Enlil is Ephesian 2:2 saying "Prince of the Power of the Air". Thing is, there is no proof that is about Satan, it takes more then just being apparently about an evil spiritual entity. Revelation 12 verifies that Satan, The Devil, the Old Serpent, The Great Dragon, and the leader cast out of Heaven in Isaiah 14 are all the same. I think that Belzebub for example is probably distinct, Belzebub is the chief of the Demon, entities without physical forms of their own which Satan doesn't qualify as.
Here is a Mormon Website defending Mormonism against this accusation.
Yes it is true that this Mormon doctrine makes all Angels and Humans brothers of Jesus and Lucifer also. And indeed The Bible also calls all Angels including Satan "Sons of God" in Job and Genesis 6. And The New Testament calls Adam and all Believers "Sons of God". And I thank this webpage for reminding me of Hebrews 12:9 and how that could be relevant to the Nephilim view vs Sethite view debate. But also just like in The Bible, Satan has a certain seniority over the others besides Jesus who is the First Born.
My objection to the Mormon view of how Jesus and Satan are related is not so much that it elevates Satan (my view of Satan may well be a more powerful entity then the LDS view, he's the Archon of the Kosmos), it's that it subtly demotes Jesus.
On that very page, in it's answer to "Q. What about the Jesus and Satan being brothers claim?" They say "However, Jesus chose to honor and glorify his Father while Satan chose to rebel against and dishonor Him. Jesus and Satan are polar opposites–literally as different as any two individuals can possibly be." Meaning they're arguing the difference between Jesus and Satan begins with the choices they made, they were equal in creation. I believe Jesus is the ONLY Begotten Son of God, John 3:16, not just the First Born, though First Born of Creation is also one of his titles. He is The Word made Flesh.
The LDS view of Jesus and Lucifer is not unlike Manwe and Melkor in Tolkien's cosmology. All the Anuir were created from the thoughts of Eru Iluvatar, but Manwe and Melkor were twins essentially as the First Born of his thought, but it was the choices they made that made them opposites.
I doubt Tolkien was copying Mormonism specifically, he was drawing on mythological motifs that are common and Ancient. From Thor and Loki as rival sons of Odin to Vishnu and Shiva of Hinudism. And the Zurvanism form of Zoroastrianism has Zurvan in the Elohim role, and Ahura-Mazda and Angra Manyu as the good and evil rivals he created.
But the beginning of this motif is perhaps Enlil and Enki as the chief sons of Anu in Sumerian Mythology. Just do a Google search with Enlil, Enki and either Satan or Lucifer as the main keywords and you'll find many websites and articles saying Enlil is like Yahuah/Yahweh (LDS Mormons believe Jesus is Jehovah while Elohim is God The Father) and Enki is The Serpent of Genesis 3. Sometimes from Christians saying this is Satan's earliest corruption of the Biblical world view. Meaning they're not saying it's okay to worship Enlil, but that Enlil was devised in some ways to reflect how Satan wants people to view Yahuah. Rob Skiba has also talked about this subject.
There is definitely a subtext to the Sumerian myths that present Enlil as bad compared to Enki. Also the earliest Temple of Eridu (the original Babel) was devoted to Enki. Enki is presented as the one who gave Mankind knowledge and civilization. Enlil is presented as sending the Flood while Enki warned the Noah figure. In Akkadian and some other Semitic Mesopotamian texts Enki is called Ea.
I wonder if Tolkien's account of how Luthien puts Morgoth to sleep to take one of his Silmarils could be his puerile re-imagining of the myth of how Inanna obtained Enki's me.
In the Baal Cycle and other texts of Ugarit, the Enlil role seems to be played by Baal (sometimes also called Hadad/Hadar/Adad/Adar) and the Enki role by Yam and maybe also Lotan, scholars disagree on if Lotan is Yam or an instrument of Yam. And the role of Anu is played by El.
Baal worship is probably the most frequently condemned false Worship in the Hebrew Bible. But remember God dislikes being identified with a Pagan god just as much as being rejected altogether, we see that in the Golden Calf incident where they called the Calf Yahuah.
Hosea 2:16 refers to Baal as a name or title Yahuah has been called, but as one he doesn't like. Of course the main context there is how Ish and Baal are both words for Husband (marriage is the major theme of Hosea) but Baal also means Lord while Ish is a word for man as in male gender that is introduced in Genesis 2. So I see this as mainly being about how the marriage of Genesis 3 will be done away with in favor of the marriage of Genesis 2.
The devout Baal worshipers Ahab and Jezebel named at least three of their children YHWH theophoric names, Athaliah, Ahaziah and Jehoram.
Zachariah 12, I have already mentioned before as possibly using Hadad-Rimmon as a title or idiom of Christ Crucified.
The Tel Dan Stele was made either by Hazael of Aram-Damascus or by Jehu, both were anointed Kings by Elisha on instructions originally given to Elijah by Yahuah. Both should have known full well that Yahuah made them King, but the author of the Stele says Hadad made him King. Jehu did continue the Sins of Jeroboam.
In Hebrew Lotan could come from putting a Lamed as a prefix before Tan, the basic root word for Dragon, which would mean "To the Dragon". Some have connected the Ugarit Lotan to the Biblical Leviathan. The name Lotan does occur in Genesis 36 in the Horite genealogy.
Isaiah 27:1 has a phrase translated "the dragon that is in the sea". But in the Hebrew this is only three words. "Tanyin asher Yam", Yam being the Hebrew word for the Sea. It could be this whole phrase is a name or title of Satan and that we have a Biblical basis for using Yam as a name for Satan. I notice this could parallel Ehyeh asher Ehyeh "I Am that I Am", maybe it could be "The Dragon that is Yam"?
Psalm 74:13 could also be interesting in this context, and also Ezekiel 29:3. Or Ezekiel 32:2 where the word for Dragon is translated "Whale" in the KJV.
Some Canaanite texts call Yam Judge-Nahar (Nahar being interpreted to mean river) Nahar is a name that could easily be related to Nahash, the word for Serpent in Genesis 3 and 49 and other places. Rivers are Serpent like in a sense.
There is some evidence that Chemosh and Moloch were just the Moabite and Ammonite forms of the same deity. Since Chemosh seems to have been depicted as a Fish god I'd say they're more likely a Yam/Enki figure. And that the Philistine Dagon is the same as them also, Dagon comes from the Hebrew word for fish.
In Egyptian mythology the rival brothers are Osiris and Set.
While we're used to thinking of Set as the Satan figure particularly thanks to Aquino's Temple of Set. In the context of the mythical motifs I'm discussing here, it should be noted that Set slew the Egyptian Lotan figure, the coiling Serpent Apep. And that the Hycsos who came from the Levant seemed to favor Set because he was the easiest to identify with Baal being a storm god, albeit of sand storms. Perhaps the Genesis 36 name Shobal is a shortening of Seth-Baal?
Maybe originally Osiris and Apep were the same or linked, but in time the enemy of the heroic Set and the enemy of the villainous Set were separated. Osiris is often depicted as having Green skin, scholars usually explain this as being because he was a Vegetation god. But I know of no direct connection with vegetation besides that modern comparative mythology logic seems to see every "dying and rising god" as either a vegetation god if now a solar one.
The fact that Osiris and Horus are so firmly linked to the person of the Pharaoh himself, makes the possibly of Osiris as a Serpent god interesting in light of Ezekiel 29 and 32. And Egypt is also mentioned in Isaiah 27. And also how Rahab (who is unfortunately sometimes transliterated the same as Rachab) is often interpreted as both a Lotan figure and as a name for Egypt or whoever rules it.
Orisis also has overlooked aspects of being a Goat god, from his connection to The Goat of Mendes, to his name being connected to the Hebrew Seir/Sayir. How does that fit with my having just argued he's a Sea Serpent god? Well the constellation Capricorn is depicted as Half Goat and Half Fish, and it's been depicted that way for over 3000 years. The History and Mythology section of it's Wikipedia page says the Babylonians viewed Capricorn as a depiction of Ea aka Enki.
That can be interesting in light of my argument that every use of "Lamb" in Revelation is perhaps really Goat. We'd have the Second Beast having Goat like Horns but speaking with a Dragon's voice.
Horus could then be equated to Marduk, the son of Enki who in the Enuma Elis takes on the position previously held by Enlil in earlier myths.
However Egyptian mythology can be confusing, partly because it changed over time, and much of it was different tradition of the Upper and Lower kingdoms being fused together. As such another Enki/Yam figure could be Sobek, who was depicted as a Crocodile, and also viewed an an embodiment of The Nile (paralleling Yam as Nahar). And came to be linked to the Pharonic power similarly to Horus and Osiris. And another Enlil/Baal figure could be Amon, who in Carthage was identified with Baal as Baal Hamon, (and with Zeus by the Greeks as Zeus-Amon). And another Anu figure could be Atum.
And then there is that one Masonic ritual where the secret word is JaBalOm which is a merging together of the names of Jehovah, Baal and Amon into a single name.
Geb/Seb/Keb is also sometimes depicted as a Crocodile or Snake. And he is also described as the Father of Snakes, like Nehebkau. He was the father of Osiris and Isis and Set and Nebthet. Geb is also considered a god of the Earth, and Enki means "Lord of The Earth".
Perhaps Geb and Sobek were originally the same. Of the sons of Enki, Marduk who went on to take aspects of Enlil could be equated to Set. Dumuzid/Tammuz father is never directly stated, but his sister Ngeshtin-ana is called a daughter of Enki and Ninhurshag. Hislop derived mythology makes Tammuz sound like Horus, but he was actually more like Osiris.
In the Sumerian poem Inana and Bilulu, one figure Inana gets revenge on for being involved in the killing of Dumuzi/Dumuzid is Jirjire, the son of Bilulu. Jirjire is turned into a Desert god of bad weather, making him a lot like Set, a god associated with the Desert and Sand Storms and other bad whether, which is why the Greeks sometimes identified him with Typhon. Marduk seems like a god we only know by the name the Semitic Mesopotamians called him, as if he doesn't go all the way back to Summer. Perhaps Jirjire became Marduk?
Set has somewhat of a minor solar deity association via his riding in Ra's Chariot to battle Apep. Marduk too however is while not the main sun god a name that meant "Solar Bull".
Inanna's position in the Anunnaki genealogy is often confused. And I think this comes from the attempts to give aspects of Enlil to Marduk. She is both the direct daughter of Anu, fitting Ashteroth/Astarte of the Canaanite panethon. And a daughter of Ningal and Nanna, perhaps explaining the Greek Asteria who has a name related to Astarte and is a daughter of lunar deities. And her being a twin Sister of Utu may relate her to the Eye of Ra or other feminine solar deities. And she's sometimes a daughter of Enki, making her a sibling possibly of Ngeshtin-ana and possibly Dumuzi, making her fit Isis relationship to Osiris. But I think Isis isn't the only Egyptian goddess who's a reflection of Innana, I think so is Iusaaset and possibly Hathor.
Because Greek mythology (which the Romans copied) did a lot of splitting up mythological roles. The Sea-god (Pontus, Oceanos, Nereus, Poseiden, Triton, Neptune) and the Dragon/Monster to be slain (Typhon, Ophion, Ladon, Hydra, Cetus) figures become firmly separated. So that in Tolkien, Ulmo and Osse are separate from Morgoth, Glaurung and Ancalagon. Meanwhile Enki's status as a god of Wisdom and Prophecy gets taken by Apollo/Asclepius and Hermes/Mercury. Mercury seems to have also been the Planet that Enki was associated with in Sumerian astrology. And Apollo has a surprising number of Serpent associations, like Python, the "Spirit of Divination" in Acts 16.
Zeus seems to be both the Anu/El role and Enlil/Baal role depending on the context of the myth, same with Cronos, and Ouranos is the one who's name has the same meaning as Anu, the Heavens. The original from of Zeus/s name was Dios, which like El also becomes a word for god in various forms in various languages, including Theos and Deus. This caries over to the Roman mythology, where Zeus is identified with Jove and Jupiter. I've argued before that the name Jove may be a corruption of Yahuah/Jehovah. Dionysus/Bacchus/Bromis descends from Hadad's vegetation and fertility god aspects.
Gnosticism takes this basic mythological pattern and further complicated it with Platonic Philosophical concepts. Often by identifying Yahuah/Yahweh with the Demiurge/Ialdobath, and the Serpent of Genesis 3 with Jesus.
In Vedic mythology Enlil/Baal is Indra, Enki/Yam is Vaurna, Anu/El is Dyaus, and the Lotan figure is Vritra.
I've talked before about how in Shinto mythology Susanoo can be viewed as Baal. In that context Orochi is Lotan, but I also think Yam can be equated to Ryujin, the Sea-Dragon god ruling from his undersea palace Ryugu-jo. The theory about the Ningi-Jimmu genealogy that suggests it's based on Jacob and Joseph puts Ryujin in the position of the Egyptian Priest of On, father of Asenath. Which could be interesting in light of Egypt's relevance so far.
Other Far Eastern mythologies have Dragon King gods as well. From the Arabian Knights, the tale of "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman" also involves an undersea civilization. Job 26:5 says "Raphaim are formed under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof". Which can be interesting to compare to Psalm 74:13.
Rob Skiba talks about understanding The Bible from a mythological POV. Much of where he goes with that I disagree with, but perhaps we should consider that the Beast "rising out of the sea" might be more literal then we at first assume?
The Greek word translated Sea in Revelation 13:1 is Thalassa, which in mythology is the name of the wife of Pontus, the most primordial sea god. Thalassa was identified with Tiamat by Berossus, in which context Pontus is equated to Abzu of the Enuma Elis, in which Tiamat is slain by Marduk son of Enki. But originally Abzu was just the name for the Abyss, the Enki Temple in Eridu was called the E-Abzu. Thorkild Jacobsen has hypothesized that Abzu was an early form of Enki.
Pontus happens to also be very phonetically similar to the name of a Kingdom in northern Turkey who's royal family in the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman period was mingled with the Seleucid Dynasty.
Most assume the "Seat of Satan" in Pergamon/Pergamos was the Altar of Zeus, but I've argued on this Blog it was the Temple to Serapis. Serapis was a Hellenistic cult that combined the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis. But Samuel Noah Kramer argued that Serapis was Enki.
While this kind of comparative mythology research is fun, it's important never to forget that The Bible is strictly monotheistic. God The Father and God The Son are the same Person along with The Holy Spirit. But Satan is merely a created being, the most powerful created being perhaps, but still merely created.
Update June 12th 2017: I'm aware that counterarguments can exist for identifying YHWH with Enki/Yam rather then Enlil/Baal. I want to address those.
Saying Enlil and Baal are Satan I am fine with in the sense that all false worship serves the interest of Satan, and Satan can appear as any god if that's the best god to appear as in a given situation.
My problem with arguing for Enki/Yam as being the Pagan names for YHWH is how I fear that could serve the interests of a deception predicated on claiming Jesus is Baal and the New Testament Satan is YHWH and the Old Testament Satan wasn't evil. There are ways to misuse viewing Ezekiel 38 and Revelation 20 as describing the same invasion to back that up.
There could be two sides to that hypothetical deception. One is a Gnostic like cosmology being Pro-Jesus with it. But it could also be a False Jewish Messiah Claimant seeking to vilify Jesus and The New Testament.
The argument might start with the Son of Rehoboam who succeeded him as King of Judah being named both Abijah ad Abijam, a Yah theophoric name and a Yam theophoric name. Being used to support them being names of the same being. Abijah I think was born while Solomon was king, maybe even in the first half of his reign before he started going off course, since Rehoboam was a year old already when Solomon started his 40 year reign. So I think he was named Abijah at birth. But he was an idolator during his reign as King and so may have changed his theophoric to Yam to reflect his Polytheism.
One Ugrarit text says Yaw in place of Yam, which seems to be a scribal error, yet people try to use this to support saying Yam was YHWH anyway. And it's been argued the Akadian name of Enki, Ea, could be how Yah would be appear in the Akkadian alphabet. But that's about as valid as the theory of connecting Yah to the Egyptian name for the Moon.
The Bible does call Yahuah the "Lord of The Earth" which can equate to the meaning of Enki, En meaning Lord and Ki meaning Earth. (Baal of course also means Lord, Adonai and Baal could be used as synonyms). But that is because The Bible is Monothestic and not Polytheistic. Yahuah is the ultimate Lord of everything, but the New Testament does depict Satan as the current Archon of the Kosmos, who offered the Kingdoms of the World to Jesus and will in Revelation 13 give them to The Beast. Yahuah being depicted as riding on Clouds fits Canaanite Baal imagery and the meaning of Enlil, Lord of the Sky.
Ahab and Jezebel broke with most Northern Kingdom rulers by worshiping Baal under that name and Astarte. But at the same time they also continued the Sins of Jeroboam, they didn't view that is in conflict with the Baal religion.
When Enki and Yam are depicted as Animals rather then Human, it's usually as Aquatic, Amphibious Serpentine or Reptilian creatures, rarely as any Mammals. The only Biblical basis for YHWH being seen that way is Jesus using the Brazen Serpent as a symbol of himself in John 3.
Usually when Israelites worshiped the Name of YHWH in an Idolatrous and Polytheistic fashion, it was as a Calf or Bull. The Golden Calf in Exodus, and then the Calf Jeroboam set up at Dan and Bethel. I've come to agree with Jeroboam's Dan being Baalbek. Showing that Idol had the name of Baal applied to it. This Calf imagery also appears in the Baal cycle of Ugarit when Baal fakes his death using the body of a Calf.
I repeat, I am NOT!!! arguing for it being okay to worship Baal. We worship YHWH only under that name or the YHW Theophoric name of Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus, "Yahuah is Salvation".
The point is the mythology of Baal is tied to Satan's desire to vilify God. Even the Baal cycle of Ugarit ostensibly written by people who worshiped Baal as their Patron Deity, depicts him as a usurper, El meant for Yam to rule. Plenty have talked about how Enlil looks bad in the Sumerian stories. And Japanese mythology mostly vilifies Susanoo, at least compared to their Matron Megami Amaterasu.
The primary basis for identifying Satan with Enlil is Ephesian 2:2 saying "Prince of the Power of the Air". Thing is, there is no proof that is about Satan, it takes more then just being apparently about an evil spiritual entity. Revelation 12 verifies that Satan, The Devil, the Old Serpent, The Great Dragon, and the leader cast out of Heaven in Isaiah 14 are all the same. I think that Belzebub for example is probably distinct, Belzebub is the chief of the Demon, entities without physical forms of their own which Satan doesn't qualify as.
Friday, September 9, 2016
The Little Horn of Daniel 7
I've explained my basic view of how Daniel 7 relates to Revelation 13&17, and later elaborated on that. Now I want to talk about the issue of The Little Horn, and how I've become unsure it's as directly relevant to The Antichrist issue as we assume.
I've explained that I view the Ten Horns as Ten Nations that emerged from the Western Roman Empire. I've given two theories on how to identify those Ten. The WEU theory, and the Danite theory.
This post also has some tangential relevance to my last Daniel 11 post.
Basically I have been considering that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is an 11th Nation or Government to arise after those, rather then being necessarily the same as the Eight King of Revelation 17 or any other individual. I have three basic theories to suggest on which nation that could be.
First is the United States of America. Since the Little Horn isn't directly described as a King like the Ten are, perhaps that fits America being a Republic, that isn't in Europe but founded on European/Roman cultural pillars.
And perhaps the fact that since the U.S. was created, revolutions in Europe somewhat inspired by the American Revolution have removed some but not all European Monarchies. Could have something to do with the Three Horns being uprooted.
This could overlap with my American Antichrist theories. And perhaps also my America and Egypt observations as well dependent on how much you think the Little Horn of Daniel 8 is connected to the Little Horn of Daniel 7.
Second could be the European Union (or whatever it becomes) itself as a transnational Government. Which could fit better with the WEU theory on the Ten Horns. And perhaps #Brexit is the beginning of Three Horns being uprooted.
Third candidate could be Modern Greece. Officially it gets counted as the 10th Nation to join the EU when it joined in the 80s, which Bible Prophecy enthusiasts made a big deal of. But since the UK can be considered two nations in one (England and Scotland), you could also argue Greece was really the 11th.
That theory works best for making The Little Horn of Daniel 8 still the same Little Horn. And I've discussed Modern Greece's possible relevance to Bible Prophecy before, in the Last Roman Emperor post, and my main Historicism post.
I've explained that I view the Ten Horns as Ten Nations that emerged from the Western Roman Empire. I've given two theories on how to identify those Ten. The WEU theory, and the Danite theory.
This post also has some tangential relevance to my last Daniel 11 post.
Basically I have been considering that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is an 11th Nation or Government to arise after those, rather then being necessarily the same as the Eight King of Revelation 17 or any other individual. I have three basic theories to suggest on which nation that could be.
First is the United States of America. Since the Little Horn isn't directly described as a King like the Ten are, perhaps that fits America being a Republic, that isn't in Europe but founded on European/Roman cultural pillars.
And perhaps the fact that since the U.S. was created, revolutions in Europe somewhat inspired by the American Revolution have removed some but not all European Monarchies. Could have something to do with the Three Horns being uprooted.
This could overlap with my American Antichrist theories. And perhaps also my America and Egypt observations as well dependent on how much you think the Little Horn of Daniel 8 is connected to the Little Horn of Daniel 7.
Second could be the European Union (or whatever it becomes) itself as a transnational Government. Which could fit better with the WEU theory on the Ten Horns. And perhaps #Brexit is the beginning of Three Horns being uprooted.
Third candidate could be Modern Greece. Officially it gets counted as the 10th Nation to join the EU when it joined in the 80s, which Bible Prophecy enthusiasts made a big deal of. But since the UK can be considered two nations in one (England and Scotland), you could also argue Greece was really the 11th.
That theory works best for making The Little Horn of Daniel 8 still the same Little Horn. And I've discussed Modern Greece's possible relevance to Bible Prophecy before, in the Last Roman Emperor post, and my main Historicism post.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Maybe Daniel 11 isn’t about Antiochus Epiphanes at all
[Update March 2022: I've mostly abandoned this theory for now, but I'm still open to returning to it.]
Saturday, August 6, 2016
America and Egypt
I posted recently about reasons to potentially associate The Beast with Egypt. But I've also discussed the possibility of an American Antichrist, (and tied that into Lost Tribes speculation and Mormon eschatology). In this post I want to explain why those ideas need not be mutually exclusive.
My Egypt post was largely geographical, and was clear that the West/EU would be the source of his military strength. Which means we could be dealing with a U.S. backed Egyptian leader, or a U.S. military presence in Egypt. But one could also go the other way, and since America is ethnically diverse suspect it'll be a U.S. President of Egyptian ancestry. Or maybe a combination of those factors.
But let's talk about why it could make sense thematically.
The thing I find really funny about all these right wing Christians saying "America needs to support Israel to be right with God", is that in The Hebrew Bible God constantly condemned Israel for turning to Gentile Nations instead of Him, defining it as a lack of faith in Him. That nation was most commonly Egypt, especially for the Southern Kingdom/Judah, though the Hasmoneans turned to Rome in First Maccabees Chapter 8. Interestingly after Augustus conquered Egypt the Roman Caesars took over the Pharonic Worship in Egypt.
But for modern Israel it is the United States of American they keep turning to instead of God. In that sense we are very much the modern Egypt.
As far as the desire to identify America with Manasseh (which I've considered) goes. We should remember the mother of Manasseh and Ephraim was an Egyptian, Asenath, the daughter of the High Priest of On.
It's interesting then that our Great Seal is all Egyptian imagery with Latin writing, derived from Masonic Symbolism. The Eagle was a Roman symbol, but Albert Pike wrote that in Masonic Imagery sometimes an Eagle really represents the Egyptian Bennu bird, called the Phoenix in Greco-Roman writings.
The Washington Monument is also molded after an Egyptian Obelisk. But there was also a lot of Roman architectural influences in Washington DC.
Freemasonry uses a lot of Egyptian symbolism in general. But some forms of it are particularly Egyptian. One was the Order of Memphis-Misriam founded by Cagliostro in 1776, the same year on the base of the Pyramid due to being when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
America like Ancient Egypt has been divided between North and South. And has a Capital at the border of that division but also the midst of the original 13 Colonies. And America like Ancient Egypt enslaved many Black Africans.
So the relationship between America and Egypt is something to keep an eye on.
Update September 2017: I've pretty retracted this assessment with my England and Egypt study. Though what I've talked about here can help back that up given how much American's History is tied to England's.
My Egypt post was largely geographical, and was clear that the West/EU would be the source of his military strength. Which means we could be dealing with a U.S. backed Egyptian leader, or a U.S. military presence in Egypt. But one could also go the other way, and since America is ethnically diverse suspect it'll be a U.S. President of Egyptian ancestry. Or maybe a combination of those factors.
But let's talk about why it could make sense thematically.
The thing I find really funny about all these right wing Christians saying "America needs to support Israel to be right with God", is that in The Hebrew Bible God constantly condemned Israel for turning to Gentile Nations instead of Him, defining it as a lack of faith in Him. That nation was most commonly Egypt, especially for the Southern Kingdom/Judah, though the Hasmoneans turned to Rome in First Maccabees Chapter 8. Interestingly after Augustus conquered Egypt the Roman Caesars took over the Pharonic Worship in Egypt.
But for modern Israel it is the United States of American they keep turning to instead of God. In that sense we are very much the modern Egypt.
As far as the desire to identify America with Manasseh (which I've considered) goes. We should remember the mother of Manasseh and Ephraim was an Egyptian, Asenath, the daughter of the High Priest of On.
It's interesting then that our Great Seal is all Egyptian imagery with Latin writing, derived from Masonic Symbolism. The Eagle was a Roman symbol, but Albert Pike wrote that in Masonic Imagery sometimes an Eagle really represents the Egyptian Bennu bird, called the Phoenix in Greco-Roman writings.
The Washington Monument is also molded after an Egyptian Obelisk. But there was also a lot of Roman architectural influences in Washington DC.
Freemasonry uses a lot of Egyptian symbolism in general. But some forms of it are particularly Egyptian. One was the Order of Memphis-Misriam founded by Cagliostro in 1776, the same year on the base of the Pyramid due to being when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
America like Ancient Egypt has been divided between North and South. And has a Capital at the border of that division but also the midst of the original 13 Colonies. And America like Ancient Egypt enslaved many Black Africans.
So the relationship between America and Egypt is something to keep an eye on.
Update September 2017: I've pretty retracted this assessment with my England and Egypt study. Though what I've talked about here can help back that up given how much American's History is tied to England's.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Zechariah 12-14, I think may need some serious re-evaluation
First thing's first, all three of these chapters are one big Prophecy. The modern chapter divisions weren't in the original texts, chapter 12 begins with the terminology that indicates a new Prophecy is starting and that's the last time such terminology appears in Zechariah
I'm a Futurist in my overall view of Bible Prophecy because I'm Pre-Millennial, I reject the Day=Year theory, and view the Seals, Trumpets and Bowls of Revelation as affiliated with a seven year period of time the proceeds the start of the Millennium.
However there are certain prophecies I'm willing to entertain a Preterist or Post-Millennial interpretation of over the traditional Futurist ones. But Matthew 24 and the Thessalonian Epistles are not among those.
The Pastor who I do not like to name did a sermon on Zechariah 12 where even though he too is a Futurist over all, he argued that Zechariah 12 is about the time of Christ. The allusions to Jerusalem being attacked he said are only hypothetical and that the mourning is of Jesus, because The Gospels do record many people mourning him.
I do not want to link to this sermon or promote him because of the hateful rhetoric he preaches elsewhere, but over all his argument was fairly convincing. But he didn't mention how 13 and 14 are still the same prophecy, the beginning of 14 is in no way hypothetical in it's talk about Jerusalem being under siege.
He didn't mention in that Sermon what I've read about recently of how Hadad-Rimmon is thought to allude to a myth about Baal Hadad dying and being mourned, like the myth recorded in the Ugarit Baal cycle. Generally Christians reject this view, but I think it's possible that God could have been talking about the mourning for Jesus and comparing it to a pagan custom of mourning a dying god in a way that is derogatory to the pagan deity.
Or maybe one could argue the actual Hebrew meaning of Hadad or Adad and Rimmon (Pomegranate) could work as a title of Christ.
Many Jews believe it is the mourning of Josiah this future mourning is being compared to. Since Kings often had more then one name, that's possible.
Many including myself in the past have overlooked the detail of the beginning of Zechariah 14 that the Siege of Jerusalem recorded there does result in a captivity, it's not thwarted. And since Zechariah wrote this down after the Babylonian captivity, I feel the opening of Zechariah 14 makes the most sense to view as being about 70 AD.
Now critics might insist that "All Nations" gathered against Jerusalem is not literally fulfilled in 70 AD. In certain contexts what I mean when I say I take The Bible literally would not exclude hyperbolic or exaggerative language. Rome did have help from many allied and client kingdoms. Including a controversial claim that the Nubian Queen at the time sent troops to help Rome put down this revolt.
The thing I've come to accept that many of my fellows Futurists do not. Is that the part of Revelation about before the Millennium starts, chapters 6-19, feature no siege of Jerusalem, either a successful or a failed one. Not unless you think Babylon is Jerusalem, but I refute that in my Great City post and my initial Mystery Babylon post. The gathering at Armageddon is to march on Jesus at his return, not a City, and I don't think Jerusalem is where he will be till after Chapter 19 is over.
The only Siege of Jerusalem in Revelation is the Gog and Magog invasion after The Millennium. But that is entirely thwarted, there will be no captivity there.
Being Trodden under Foot of the Gentiles in Chapter 11 (that I feel we need Luke 21 and Romans 9-11 to full understand) could imply a siege happens before the seven years starts, but that's speculative. It can be viewed as still Trodden Under Foot from the 70 AD siege, due to the Muslim presence there.
It is possible that Zechariah jumps from 70 AD to the End Times between 14:2 and 14:3. But it sounds immediate, either way verses 3 and up is the most difficult part for a Preterist interpretation of this Prophecy.
I'm not sure entirely what to think yet. But I think many assumptions we tend to make about this Prophecy are wrong and more research needs to be done into it.
I'm a Futurist in my overall view of Bible Prophecy because I'm Pre-Millennial, I reject the Day=Year theory, and view the Seals, Trumpets and Bowls of Revelation as affiliated with a seven year period of time the proceeds the start of the Millennium.
However there are certain prophecies I'm willing to entertain a Preterist or Post-Millennial interpretation of over the traditional Futurist ones. But Matthew 24 and the Thessalonian Epistles are not among those.
The Pastor who I do not like to name did a sermon on Zechariah 12 where even though he too is a Futurist over all, he argued that Zechariah 12 is about the time of Christ. The allusions to Jerusalem being attacked he said are only hypothetical and that the mourning is of Jesus, because The Gospels do record many people mourning him.
I do not want to link to this sermon or promote him because of the hateful rhetoric he preaches elsewhere, but over all his argument was fairly convincing. But he didn't mention how 13 and 14 are still the same prophecy, the beginning of 14 is in no way hypothetical in it's talk about Jerusalem being under siege.
He didn't mention in that Sermon what I've read about recently of how Hadad-Rimmon is thought to allude to a myth about Baal Hadad dying and being mourned, like the myth recorded in the Ugarit Baal cycle. Generally Christians reject this view, but I think it's possible that God could have been talking about the mourning for Jesus and comparing it to a pagan custom of mourning a dying god in a way that is derogatory to the pagan deity.
Or maybe one could argue the actual Hebrew meaning of Hadad or Adad and Rimmon (Pomegranate) could work as a title of Christ.
Many Jews believe it is the mourning of Josiah this future mourning is being compared to. Since Kings often had more then one name, that's possible.
Many including myself in the past have overlooked the detail of the beginning of Zechariah 14 that the Siege of Jerusalem recorded there does result in a captivity, it's not thwarted. And since Zechariah wrote this down after the Babylonian captivity, I feel the opening of Zechariah 14 makes the most sense to view as being about 70 AD.
Now critics might insist that "All Nations" gathered against Jerusalem is not literally fulfilled in 70 AD. In certain contexts what I mean when I say I take The Bible literally would not exclude hyperbolic or exaggerative language. Rome did have help from many allied and client kingdoms. Including a controversial claim that the Nubian Queen at the time sent troops to help Rome put down this revolt.
The thing I've come to accept that many of my fellows Futurists do not. Is that the part of Revelation about before the Millennium starts, chapters 6-19, feature no siege of Jerusalem, either a successful or a failed one. Not unless you think Babylon is Jerusalem, but I refute that in my Great City post and my initial Mystery Babylon post. The gathering at Armageddon is to march on Jesus at his return, not a City, and I don't think Jerusalem is where he will be till after Chapter 19 is over.
The only Siege of Jerusalem in Revelation is the Gog and Magog invasion after The Millennium. But that is entirely thwarted, there will be no captivity there.
Being Trodden under Foot of the Gentiles in Chapter 11 (that I feel we need Luke 21 and Romans 9-11 to full understand) could imply a siege happens before the seven years starts, but that's speculative. It can be viewed as still Trodden Under Foot from the 70 AD siege, due to the Muslim presence there.
It is possible that Zechariah jumps from 70 AD to the End Times between 14:2 and 14:3. But it sounds immediate, either way verses 3 and up is the most difficult part for a Preterist interpretation of this Prophecy.
I'm not sure entirely what to think yet. But I think many assumptions we tend to make about this Prophecy are wrong and more research needs to be done into it.
Monday, June 6, 2016
The Lunar Eclipse preceding the Death of Herod The Great
I have in the past long favored the January 1 BC Eclipse. But I have recently come to feel the mainstream view of it being the March 4 BC Eclipse is more supportable then we thought.
This may change my view on the year Jesus was born but it won't significantly for when in the year.
Herod died when Passover was the next High Holy Day no matter what, and I still feel strongly convinced that comparing Matthew and Luke's accounts must place Herod's death before Jesus was presented in The Temple on the 40th Day. Unless some really shocking chronological argument can be made. Because I feel it doesn't make sense for the presentation to happen in Jerusalem before the Magi arrive. So Jesus was most likely born in a winter month.
Taken from this exchange.
The reference connecting the Eclipse to a Fast has been used by 1 BC and September 5 BC advocates to support making it Yom Kippur. This connects to a desire to see any unspecified Fast as Yom Kippur even though that day isn't stickily a Fast day though it's popular to Fast on it, and is not even the main fast day of it's own month. (that would be Yom Gedlaiah, the third of Tishri).
Here is the thing I've noticed that even most arguing for the March 4 BC Eclipse overlook. What Josephus says is that the Eclipse of the Moon happened the night the Fast day ended, no gap.
First in case you didn't know, Jewish days begin and end at Sunset.
Second the Biblical New Moon/Rosh Codesh is the first visible crescent, not the day the Moon is invisible. So Full Moons (the only day a Lunar Eclipse can happen) are the 14th day of each Hebrew Month, not the 15th as the Blood Moon theorists claimed.
In other words, this Fast must have been the Thirteenth day of it's Hebrew Month. So that doesn't fit Yom Kippur which is the 10th, or any of the 4 major Fast days linked to the fall of Jerusalem which are the 9th, 17th, 3rd and 10th days of their months.
The only Jewish Fast day we know of that was being kept at that time that would have been the 13th day of the Month, was the Fast of Esther, which is the 13th of Adar, the day before Purim. Meaning this Full Moon was Purim, meaning of the 4 lunar eclipses considered likely, only March 4 BC fits.
Now I should mention that since I and others have seen "Blood Moons" on Full Moons that neither Stelarium or other Astronomers recognize as such (like in August of 2015). I'm not confident the Eclipse Josephus mentioned can be identified by any modern means at all. But either way it must be a 14th day of a Month and of known Fasts only Adar has one on the 13th.
Now the argument still remains that one month between the Eclipse and Passover doesn't quite seem enough for everything Josephus says happened. It could be there was a Second Adar (Modern Rabbinic Judaism observes Purim in 2nd Adar but the Biblical reckoning favored by Kariates which may have still been the one used at this time clearly defines it as in the 12th Month which second Adar wouldn't be). Or maybe all these events caused Passover to be pushed back to Second Passover. Or maybe Joesphus who sometimes was less chronological then you'd expect wasn't putting as much in that time-frame as we think.
Some have calculated 20 or 21 days from the Death of Herod till Passover. Which could put the Death of Herod on the 25th of Adar, same day traditionally viewed as the Death of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 52:31).
Is it possible Jesus was presented in The Temple on the first of Nisan? Same day the Tabernacle was first set up according to Exodus 40? Or that his birth was Shevet 24, the day Zechariah was given the Prophecy recorded in Chapter 1 verses 7-16? Would not quite match the traditional date but be closer to it then others.
The main reason why many Christians regardless of what day of the year they favor feel the need to push Herod's death later is assumptions that I feel are mistaken about what we're told in Luke 3.
Another factor is a desire to affiliate the Census of Luke 2 with a 3 or 2 BC Oath of Obedience to Augustus, which I've argued for myself in the past. But I now just focus on that the main Imperial Censusus Augustus ordered he allowed 5 years to be carried out in the various regions, so you can go with the 8 BC Census and still have it carried out in Judea, Syria and Cyrene anywhere between then and 3 BC.
The first error of how we commonly view Luke 3 is saying it placed the Baptism of Jesus when he began to be about 30 in the 15th Year of Tiberius. But it doesn't, the reference to the 15th Year of Tiberius at the start of the Chapter is totally unconnected to the Baptism account. Paul in Acts 13 says John "Completed his course" before he Baptized Jesus. I'm not sure what that means exactly. but I think it's good evidence against assuming the Baptism was the same year John began his ministry or any other key event of Luke 3. But doesn't rule it out entirely either.
BTW, I've become convinced of an argument that what Luke meant by the Greek phrase translated "Began to be about 30" was that Jesus was "almost" 30.
Luke 3 is clearly not being purely strictly Chronological since verse 20 has John put in Prison then verse 21 describes his Baptism of Jesus.
Luke 3:1-2 tells us that the "Word of God" came unto John in the wilderness in the 15th Year of Tiberius. Then we get a basic account of who John was and what he was doing. Then it talks about him preaching against Antipas and Heordias and getting imprisoned for it.
It could be the 15th Year of Tiberius is when he preached against Herod Antipas marriage to Heordias, (perhaps because that was the year he married her) and was imprisoned for it. And that this doesn't tell us when John began his ministry at all. And so both that and Jesus Baptism could have preceded the 15th year of Tiberius.
My argument above would have Jesus turn 30 before Passover in early 27 AD.
I'm not entirely willing to throw out the chronology of Jesus Birth I argued for before. But I feel I must acknowledge that the 4 BC Death of Herod is fitting pretty well with my latest research.
I absolutely still believe Jesus ministry was less then a year. And still heavily favor 30 AD as the Crucifixion. date. What I'm now willing to consider is that there was more time then you'd expect between the Baptism and the beginning of His proper Ministry.
Luke 4 tells us his time in the Wilderness and Temptation was soon after his Baptism. Then He returned to Galilee and had a local ministry of sorts for an unspecified amount of time (Luke 4:14-15). Then Luke 4:16 begins the account of His proper main Ministry.
Returning to the Eclipse in question. The argument for the Fast being Yom Kippur is the emphasis on the High Priest having duties that day. As the Jewish Encyclopedia says. While Yom Kippur is the busiest day of the year for the High Priest, it's not the only day he has responsibilities. At any-rate if Josephus was exaggerating when he made it sound like the Eclipse was the very next day, which is what you'd have to argue for it to be Yom Kippur, then the statement mostly becomes chronologically useless. If it was Yom Kippur then it still must have been the next full moon which makes only the September 15 5 BC fit in which case the next Passover is still the same Passover.
This may change my view on the year Jesus was born but it won't significantly for when in the year.
Herod died when Passover was the next High Holy Day no matter what, and I still feel strongly convinced that comparing Matthew and Luke's accounts must place Herod's death before Jesus was presented in The Temple on the 40th Day. Unless some really shocking chronological argument can be made. Because I feel it doesn't make sense for the presentation to happen in Jerusalem before the Magi arrive. So Jesus was most likely born in a winter month.
Taken from this exchange.
While I know you can play games on how to reckon what Josephus said of the length of Herod's reign. The argument we've made that the reigns of Antipas and Archelus must have included Co-Regencies simply doesn't work. The death of Antipater is synchronized to the Death of Herod, Herod died 5 days later. So you can't move Herod's death to a later year but keep Antipater's in 4 BC as I've seen some but not all 1 BC arguments do. It was after Antipater died that Herod changed his will to the arrangement that wound up happening.There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December.Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from his conquest of Jerusalem in 37 B.C. (Antiquities 17.8.1, War1.33.8). Using so-called inclusive counting, this, too, places Herod’s death in 4 B.C.Third, we know that the reign over Samaria and Judea of Herod’s son and successor Archelaus began in 4 B.C., based on the fact that he was deposed by Caesar in A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae [in the year the city was founded]) 759, or A.D. 6, in the tenth year of his reign (Dio Cassius, Roman History 55.27.6; Josephus, Antiquities 17.13.2). Counting backward his reign began in 4 B.C. In addition, from Herod the Great’s son and successor Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee until 39 B.C., who ordered the execution of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29) and who had a supporting role in Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:7–12), we have coins that make reference to the 43rd year of his rule, placing its beginning in 4 B.C. at the latest (see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew,” BAR, September/October 2012).Thus, Schürer concluded that “Herod died at Jericho in B.C. 4, unwept by those of his own house, and hated by all the people.”Jeroen H.C. Tempelman
New York, New York
The reference connecting the Eclipse to a Fast has been used by 1 BC and September 5 BC advocates to support making it Yom Kippur. This connects to a desire to see any unspecified Fast as Yom Kippur even though that day isn't stickily a Fast day though it's popular to Fast on it, and is not even the main fast day of it's own month. (that would be Yom Gedlaiah, the third of Tishri).
Here is the thing I've noticed that even most arguing for the March 4 BC Eclipse overlook. What Josephus says is that the Eclipse of the Moon happened the night the Fast day ended, no gap.
First in case you didn't know, Jewish days begin and end at Sunset.
Second the Biblical New Moon/Rosh Codesh is the first visible crescent, not the day the Moon is invisible. So Full Moons (the only day a Lunar Eclipse can happen) are the 14th day of each Hebrew Month, not the 15th as the Blood Moon theorists claimed.
In other words, this Fast must have been the Thirteenth day of it's Hebrew Month. So that doesn't fit Yom Kippur which is the 10th, or any of the 4 major Fast days linked to the fall of Jerusalem which are the 9th, 17th, 3rd and 10th days of their months.
The only Jewish Fast day we know of that was being kept at that time that would have been the 13th day of the Month, was the Fast of Esther, which is the 13th of Adar, the day before Purim. Meaning this Full Moon was Purim, meaning of the 4 lunar eclipses considered likely, only March 4 BC fits.
Now I should mention that since I and others have seen "Blood Moons" on Full Moons that neither Stelarium or other Astronomers recognize as such (like in August of 2015). I'm not confident the Eclipse Josephus mentioned can be identified by any modern means at all. But either way it must be a 14th day of a Month and of known Fasts only Adar has one on the 13th.
Now the argument still remains that one month between the Eclipse and Passover doesn't quite seem enough for everything Josephus says happened. It could be there was a Second Adar (Modern Rabbinic Judaism observes Purim in 2nd Adar but the Biblical reckoning favored by Kariates which may have still been the one used at this time clearly defines it as in the 12th Month which second Adar wouldn't be). Or maybe all these events caused Passover to be pushed back to Second Passover. Or maybe Joesphus who sometimes was less chronological then you'd expect wasn't putting as much in that time-frame as we think.
Some have calculated 20 or 21 days from the Death of Herod till Passover. Which could put the Death of Herod on the 25th of Adar, same day traditionally viewed as the Death of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 52:31).
Is it possible Jesus was presented in The Temple on the first of Nisan? Same day the Tabernacle was first set up according to Exodus 40? Or that his birth was Shevet 24, the day Zechariah was given the Prophecy recorded in Chapter 1 verses 7-16? Would not quite match the traditional date but be closer to it then others.
The main reason why many Christians regardless of what day of the year they favor feel the need to push Herod's death later is assumptions that I feel are mistaken about what we're told in Luke 3.
Another factor is a desire to affiliate the Census of Luke 2 with a 3 or 2 BC Oath of Obedience to Augustus, which I've argued for myself in the past. But I now just focus on that the main Imperial Censusus Augustus ordered he allowed 5 years to be carried out in the various regions, so you can go with the 8 BC Census and still have it carried out in Judea, Syria and Cyrene anywhere between then and 3 BC.
The first error of how we commonly view Luke 3 is saying it placed the Baptism of Jesus when he began to be about 30 in the 15th Year of Tiberius. But it doesn't, the reference to the 15th Year of Tiberius at the start of the Chapter is totally unconnected to the Baptism account. Paul in Acts 13 says John "Completed his course" before he Baptized Jesus. I'm not sure what that means exactly. but I think it's good evidence against assuming the Baptism was the same year John began his ministry or any other key event of Luke 3. But doesn't rule it out entirely either.
BTW, I've become convinced of an argument that what Luke meant by the Greek phrase translated "Began to be about 30" was that Jesus was "almost" 30.
Luke 3 is clearly not being purely strictly Chronological since verse 20 has John put in Prison then verse 21 describes his Baptism of Jesus.
Luke 3:1-2 tells us that the "Word of God" came unto John in the wilderness in the 15th Year of Tiberius. Then we get a basic account of who John was and what he was doing. Then it talks about him preaching against Antipas and Heordias and getting imprisoned for it.
It could be the 15th Year of Tiberius is when he preached against Herod Antipas marriage to Heordias, (perhaps because that was the year he married her) and was imprisoned for it. And that this doesn't tell us when John began his ministry at all. And so both that and Jesus Baptism could have preceded the 15th year of Tiberius.
My argument above would have Jesus turn 30 before Passover in early 27 AD.
I'm not entirely willing to throw out the chronology of Jesus Birth I argued for before. But I feel I must acknowledge that the 4 BC Death of Herod is fitting pretty well with my latest research.
I absolutely still believe Jesus ministry was less then a year. And still heavily favor 30 AD as the Crucifixion. date. What I'm now willing to consider is that there was more time then you'd expect between the Baptism and the beginning of His proper Ministry.
Luke 4 tells us his time in the Wilderness and Temptation was soon after his Baptism. Then He returned to Galilee and had a local ministry of sorts for an unspecified amount of time (Luke 4:14-15). Then Luke 4:16 begins the account of His proper main Ministry.
Returning to the Eclipse in question. The argument for the Fast being Yom Kippur is the emphasis on the High Priest having duties that day. As the Jewish Encyclopedia says. While Yom Kippur is the busiest day of the year for the High Priest, it's not the only day he has responsibilities. At any-rate if Josephus was exaggerating when he made it sound like the Eclipse was the very next day, which is what you'd have to argue for it to be Yom Kippur, then the statement mostly becomes chronologically useless. If it was Yom Kippur then it still must have been the next full moon which makes only the September 15 5 BC fit in which case the next Passover is still the same Passover.
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