Vespasian as The Beast of Revelation

 I’m writing this as still primarily a Futurist but simply as a thought experiment.  I decided it would be fun to see if I could argue for a 70 AD Fulfillment of Revelation better than actual Preterists do.  But perhaps also elements of how I make this argument could prove Typologically useful to Futurists and other more niche forms of Preterism that are less focused on the 1st Century (I mostly wrote this before the Epiphany that inspired the prior on this blog, but I wanted to share my work anyway).

First of all I have come to take the language of Revelation 17:11 as saying that the 8th King is the Individual person The Beast passages are about even when still during the reigns of the first 7.  

Caesarea Maritima means Caesarea “by the sea”, and it was also a very sandy location.  It was always the Roman Provincial Capital of Judea and as such played an important role in the 66-73 AD War including as a location Vespasian used as a base of operations.  

The Seven Heads are further explained in Revelation 17 as being Seven Kings.  Roman Emperors didn’t like to admit they were Kings but we see in John 19:15 that Jews in Judea didn’t care about their semantics.  Why Kings would be represented as Heads is perhaps explained by the language of Bible Verses like 1 Corinthians 11:3, Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:18 where Christ is The Head of The Church and God The Father is the Head of Christ, but there's also Hebrew Bible precedent for Kings as Heads in 1 Samuel 15:17 and Isaiah 7:8-9.  Your Head is a person who holds authority over you, hence why the 8th King which is The Beast isn’t an 8th Head.

Vitellius from the year of the 4 Emperors was never recognized in the East, the Roman Armies of the East chose Vespasian as soon as Otho was dead.  So for example when looking at the Archaeological record of the Roman Pharaohs we see that Vespasian was the 8th and the first 7 were Augustus, Tiberius, Calgiula, Claudius, Nero, Galba and Otho who did indeed have the shortest reign.  Vespasian was born during the reign of Augustus so each of those 7 had also personally been Vespasian’s Head.

I no longer believe the 6th King being associated with the present is meant to be a clue to when Revelation was written, rather for this theory I think it has to do with Revelation 17’s point in the narrative following the 7th Bowl of Wrath.  There was a major Earthquake during the reign of Galda which Suetonius refers to having been considered an Omen of his coming demise, that could be identified with the Earthquake of the 7th Bowl.  

Back to where we left off in chapter 13.  The 10 Horns, Leopard, Bear and Lion imagery are evoking Daniel 7.  Daniel 7 was primarily fulfilled by Intertestamental History, Revelation is picking up later with a Rome that has annexed most of the Greek Empire and portions of Babylon and Persia.  The 10 Horns we also know represent lesser kings allied with the Beast, these are likely various local Client Kings and Tribal Leaders who assisted Vespasian in the Conquest of Judea like Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Commagene.

The Mortal Wound being Healed could have multiple meanings.  Vespasian did suffer a serious wound during the Siege of Yodfat that Josephus makes a big deal out of.  But it’s seemingly associated with one of the specific Seven Heads, most of them died violently but Vespasian presented himself as the Heir of Otho.

For Revelation 13:5 the YLT says “Make War” where the KJV says “Continue” and I think that is more accurate to the Greek.  This is about the Authority Vespasian was given to carry out the War against Judea.  There are two ways we could count the 42 months, we could begin them with when Vespasian was first formally placed in charge of the Campaign on September 22nd 66 AD ending it in March of 70 AD.  In April of 70 the War continued but now with Vespain fully established as sole Emperor and his son the one actively carrying out the Campaign in Judea.  Or we could say the 42 months started when Vespasian actually arrived in Judea seemingly in Spring of 67 then continued to September of 70 AD when the Siege of Jerusalem was fully completed.

Vespasian was in Alexandria when he was proclaimed Emperor, and as such was the only Roman Pharoah ever consecrated by proper Egyptian Ceremonies, much of which symbolically Deified him.

Verse 7 of chapter 13 repeats language from chapter 11 verse 7.  If you watch Historia civillis YouTube video on The Roman Triumph and then read Josephus’s description of Titus and Vespasian’s Triumph in celebration of Conquering Judea in Wars of The Jews Book 7 Chapter 5 Section 5, the possibility that Revelation 11:7-10 could be describing that Triumph with the Two Witness representing executed leaders of the Jewish Revolt will be become quite compelling.

Revelation 13:10 is about Captivity which is obviously relevant to 70 AD.

The Beast out of The Earth called elsewhere The False Prophet I think could have been Tiberius Julius Alexander.  Many have argued “out of the Earth” in contrast to “out of the Sea” implies a Jewish background for the second Beast as opposed to the Gentile Background of the First, and Alexander fits that even though he was considered an Apostate.  He had formerly been a Governor of Judea but was Prefect of Egypt when the War started and was vital to Vespasian becoming Emperor due to the control that position gave him over the Empire’s Food Supply.  And he was involved in that Ceremonial Deification of Vespasian as Pharaoh as well which did include performing false Miracles.

When the Image of The Beast is introduced in verse 14 many translations wrongly say the Image was “made”, but the Greek doesn’t use a word for Create here, it should read that they Set Up the Image, meaning the Image could be something that already existed.

In Genesis 5:3 Seth is called the Image and Likeness of Adam as his son.  Multiple New Testament passages further connect Jesus as the Image of God to Him being The Son of God, like Romans 8:29 and Colossians 1:15.  So there is Biblical Precedent for a person’s Image being their Son.

The Image of The Beast in this model would be Titus the Son of Vespasian who had the same full name and was also elevated by Tiberius Julius Alexander who joined him in the Conquest of Judea where he was proclaimed Imperator after destroying Jerusalem.

The name identified by the number 666 can’t be Nero because that’s based on Aramaic/Hebrew Gematria and Revelation is in Greek with this number clearly echoing 888 as the Isopsephy value of Iesous.  Nero in Greek has an Omega in it so Nero can never work, the same goes for trying to make Nero fit the 616 variant.  It is also verified by Chapter 39 of Suetonius Life of Nero that the Isopsephy associated with the name of Nero was 1005.

If the 616 Variant is correct (which I consider unlikely) that probably points to Theos Caesar and/or Dios Caesar which were used for the Deified Roman Emperors in the Eastern Provinces, but in that context it doesn’t apply to only one.  Revelation 13:1 and 17:3 do seem to imply the Blasphemous Name associated with this Beast is on each of the heads and not merely an individual name.

I don’t know how to make 666 fit Vespasian, but I also have come to doubt it literally refers to the actual name.  I still think Iapetos is the best name for 666, ways to make that poetically fit Vespasian are possible.  

Some even question the practice of using Isopsephy/Gematria entirely and suggest like other symbols in Revelation the key is its Hebrew Bible precedent.  666 as a number has two notable appearances, being associated with Solomon in 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13 but also with Nebuchadnezzar's Image in Daniel 3.  The Builder of The Temple and its destroyers, and one could also call Solomon spiritually a destroyer based on his moral failures the next chapter records.  Daniel seems more directly the source material of Revelation then Kings or Chronicles.  Nero was Emperor when the Rebellion started but wasn’t personally involved.  Nebuchadnezzar was personally involved in all his Sieges of Jerusalem and the first one was while still serving under a prior King.

That leads us to the matter of Jerusalem as Babylon.  The arguments for it are well known but in the past my issue with holding that view at the same time as The Beast being Rome was that I misunderstood Revelation 17 as implying Babylon held power over The Beast, but I now know the text doesn’t describe her as Riding the Beast.  Berenice in her affair with Titus seems frankly like a good personification of the Harlot.  The word “kill” isn’t actually used in Revelation 17 or 18 (and with Jezebel in chapter 2 only her children are killed), the City is destroyed by the people represented by The Harlot still live on to, in my view, eventually become the Bride of chapter 19 and Lamb’s Wife of Chapter 21.

Revelation 17 also strictly speaking says the Ten Horns hate Babylon and destroy her with fire not the Beast himself.  This could be relevant to how Vespasian was in Rome when the final Siege happened but also Titus himself did not want to Destroy the Temple, his troops and allies got out of control.  I also have considered that because of how the word “Wilderness” is used in Revelation this final destruction of Babylon refers to the fall of Masada.

Patmos was actually Pithom in Egypt

 The Isle we currently identify with Patmos was mentioned rarely in Antiquity, and it's known that it was originally named Letois after Leto because of myths about Artemis raising it out of the Sea at the request of Selene.  It's not till the Fourth Century any Church commemorating John writing Revelation was founded there.  There are lists from sources like Tacitus of islands being used as penal colonies by Rome in the 1st Century and Patmos/Letois is never among them.

I've expressed on my other blog that The Beloved Disciple was Mary Magdalene not any of the 12, and that she wrote the Gospel and Epistles commonly attributed to John, or at least 1 John. I think Letois was identified with Patmos derivative of the erroneous John in Ephesus tradition.

The New Testament talks about Ephesus more then any other location that's not in Israel, never is anyone named John ever there.  Remember Ephesus is also where Timothy was when Paul wrote two Pastoral Epistles to him.  Revelation includes a message for Ephesus and other Churches in Asia which people often think implies John knew them.  But I feel it would have proven the Supernatural quality of this message better if it was able to address their issues so well even though this John had never been anywhere near them.

The John of Revelation however does not actually claim to be one of the 12 or a Son of Zebedee.

Revelation 1:9 is the only verse in all of Scripture the name "Patmos" appears in, the spelling is actually for grammatical reasons PatmO in the Textus Receptus.  It's called an Isle, and John says he's there for the Testimony of Jesus and alludes to tribulation, but there is still no direct reference to it being an exile as tradition has assumed it to be.  

There are times in Scripture where the name of a City on an Island is treated as the name of that Island, like Melita/Melite in Acts 28:1.

Last time I flirted with this idea of an alternate location for Patmos I wound up going down the Cyprus/Paphos route for a somewhat arbitrary reason, but now I have a better theory.

I recently visited Pithom's Wikipedia page and the Greek transliteration of the name listed is Πατούμος Patoúmos, a spelling that is literally Patmos with an ού added in the middle.  This spelling apparently comes from Herodotus Histories II.158 where my version (Translated by G.C.Macaulay and Revised by Donald Lateiner, published by Barnes & Noble Classics) transliterates it Patumos.

Now at face value calling Pithom a island may seem weird, but it's in the Nile Delta, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that someone in Pithom in the first or early second century would have thought of it as being an island.  A lot of these kinds of terms were not defined as strictly as how we define them today, the Peloponnese was sometimes called an island for example. There is also debate about the location of Pithom, the reference in Herodotus with this spelling places it by the Royal Canal. 

Pithom is a Biblical location from Exodus 1:11, a lot in Revelation is thematically presenting itself as a repeat of the history of The Exodus.  And there apparently are some Hebrew texts where there is no letter for O between the letters for Th and M which could explain this Patmos spelling's one difference from Herodotus.

The oldest surviving texts we have of Revelation are from Egypt, some examples being Papyrus 47, 98 and 115, but that's true of a lot of Ancient Texts, the Nile Valley is for Climate reasons a place where more ancient texts survived then in other regions.

The Cyprus theory I looked into before involved identifying the John of Revelation with John Mark, and based on Tradition this Egypt identification potentially does the same.  And so again I'll point out that the function Mark is serving in Acts 13-14 is essentially the same one John is performing in Revelation.  2 Timothy 4:11 does also tell us Mark had been with Timothy at Ephesus for a time.

Naturally a lot of this is circumstantially supported by my Babylon in Egypt thesis.  

Revelation 12:9 is about identifying various Supernatural Biblical Antagonists with each other, Isaiah 14 isn't explicitly quoted but the context is clearly implying it, a King (The Dragon has 7 Crowns) being cast out of Heaven for rebelling against God.  The Old Serpent is the Serpent of Genesis 3, Satan and The Devil are well known, but who is the "Great Dragon"?  Well the only other Bible Passage to use that two word phrase is Ezekiel 29:3 which calls Pharoah King of Egypt the Great Dragon.

In the prior chapter of Ezekiel the Nagyim(Prince) of Tyre was the moral ruler who sought to deify himself but the Melek(King) of Tyre is clearly Satan being in a sense identified with Melqart the Patron pagan god of Tyre.

Ezekiel 29-32 is likewise all about Egypt and Pharoah but still presented as a bunch of separate Prophecies even given on different dates.  It's possible that sometimes the focus is on the Human ruler and sometimes on Satan as identified with an Egyptian Deity. 

Pharaoh King of Egypt being a title of an Egyptian god first is likely to make one think of Osiris or Horus, but for this Dragon reference I actually think Sobek is who Ezekiel had in mind.  Sobek was depicted as a Crocodile so an animal that Hebrew words for Dragon and Serpent could describe.  He was associated with the Pharoah's power but also with The Nile.

Back in Exodus the Pharoah of the Exodus is described as being drowned in the Sea, so that's a Biblical reason a Pharoah of Egypt could be described as rising out of The Sea.  Ezekiel 30:24 described Pharoah as having a "deadly wound" meaning this is the Hebrew Bible precedent for the Mortal Wound, and it's specifically from a Sword.  Ezekiel 32 calls Pharoah a Dragon again but the KJV translates it "whale" then returns to the sword that will come upon Pharaoh but also in verse 7 says something quoted by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse.  The Olivet Discourse also arguably alludes to Isaiah 19 with the Kingdom agaisnt Kingdom and Riding on a Cloud imagery.

Now there is a book published already about a theory of an Egyptian origin for the Book of Revelation, but that's about interpreting the whole of Revelation as actually based on Egyptian Paganism and probably ties into general fringe theories about Christianity being based on Egyptian Religion.  I may still buy the book someday to see where our ideas overlap, but I already know for example that in their theory The Dragon is Apep/Apophis while my ideas see The Dragon in an Egyptian Mythology context as Sobek, with The Beast then as Osiris who's deadly wounds are healed by Sobek.

When discussing the Image of The Beast the word "make" in some translations is a mistake, "set up" is a better translation, the Image in question doesn't necessarily come into existence then.  In Genesis 5 Seth is called the Image and Likeness of Adam like how Adam is the Image and Likeness of God. Luke 3 calls Adam the Son of God, likewise both Jesus and all of humanity are called both Son of God and Image of God. Romans 8:29 and Hebrews 1:2-3 further show how the Image of God and Son of God are linked concepts.   So if The Beast is on some level Osiris in Revelation 13 then the Image of The Beast could well be Horus.

It's also possible then that the imagery of the Beast from the Earth has something to do with Banebdjedet.

None of that Mythology is the primary purpose of any of those symbols, there are Biblical reasons for all of it, but it can make an interesting parallel.  But their relevance to interpreting Revelation may be in how the Pharoahs were worshiped as incarnations of both Osiris and Horus, and that the Roman Emperors were also worshiped as Pharaohs in Egypt.

This has also lead me to a new candidate for the name 666 identifies, Σέραπιός Serapios a variant form of Serapis.  But it also wouldn't be difficult to construct a Comparative Mythology theory in which my 666=Iapetos theory compliments this Osiris connection.

I now believe the Image of The Beast is going to be an NFT project of some sort.

And the Mark of The Beast and Number of the Beast will also be connected somehow.  

I am NOT identifying it with anything specific that already exists, it probably doesn't already exist, so don't just throw Chris White's little flowchart at me, I disagreement with aspects of that anyway but regardless that's only applicable when someone is pointing at something specific that's already in operation.

Why have I come to believe this?  It builds naturally off theories I've always leaned towards about the Mark being a Microchip and the Image being at least in part an A.I. on the Internet.  As well as my Whore of Babylon is Capitalism position

Folding Ideas has a great video on NFTs and how dystopic it would be if they succeeded call Line Goes Up, he's a Secularist, but that video has informed what I no suspect about the role NFTs will play in the Destiny of Capitalism.

I'll genuinely be surprised if I no Bible Prophecy internet scholars have already considered this possibility.  I have no predictions on details or anything.  I just now feel this is a possibly we need to start considering.

The Name of the Beast could be a Yah Theophoric Name

This theory I'm proposing is compatible with my prior Iapetos theory, since in that post I'd suggested how the name Iapetos could be re-interpreted as a Yah Theophoric name by a Jewish Messiah claimant using it.  But it could be compatible with other theories too.  In fact it could be just a form of the name YHWH manipulated to have a Greek Numerical value of 666, but I have not yet discovered a form that would work for that.

Revelation 13 at the end mentions the Name of the Beast that has a Numerical value of 666.  But earlier the chapter also mentioned the "Name of Blasphemy" that is on each head of the Beast.  I have a hunch that could be the same name.

Throughout The Bible however, the primary name that is associated with Blasphemy is The Holy Name, which I prefer to pronounce Yahuah, like in Leviticus 24.  It's also one of The Ten Commandments to not use that Name in vain.  Blasphemy does include the name being claimed by one to whom it doesn't belong.

There are aspects of the Image of the Beast narrative in Revelation 13 that could lead one to see it as a sort of repeat of the Golden Calf incident.  Well remember they sort of called that Calf by the name of YHWH in Exodus 32 verses 4 through 6.

This potentially goes along with what I've suggested before that The Beast may in fact be enforcing a Torah based system.

A Torah basis for the Mark of the Beast system possibly exists in the same verses that are the basis of the Tefillin tradition.  Exodus 13:9 and 16, Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18.  But I could add to that the Crown of the High Priest which Exodus 28:36 and 39:30 says will have "Holiness to Yahuah" engraved on it.  And that verse also uses the word "Signet".

There are a few Biblical Figures viewed as Types of The Antichrist who also have Yah Theophoric names.

Adonijah who attempted to usurp the throne from Solomon.

Solomon himself has been viewed as a Type of the Antichrist when he backslid into Idolatry.  In which case it's useful to remember that the name Nathan gave Solomon was Jedediah in 2 Samuel 12:25, which means Beloved of Yah.

All three named children of Ahab and Jezebel had Yah Theophoric names, Ahaziah, Jehoram and Athaliah.

But perhaps most interestingly is Jehu who I've spoken about on this Blog a lot already.  Jehu is the closest any Human in the Bible comes to simply being named YHWH, his name is also four letters in the Hebrew, the only difference is the second Heh is instead an Aleph making it YHWA, YHWO or YHWU.  And it means "Yahu is He", which could be manipulated to mean "He is Yahu".

The Septuagint spelling of Jehu is Iota-Omicron-Upsilion, which is Iou, which often gets transliterated into English as just Ju.  And in Latin it's usually Iehu.  Iou has a numerical value of 480, so it's just a matter of somehow adding 186 to it.  But it's also a spelling you can get from dropping half the letters out of Iesous/Jesus.

Iapetos could be The Name of The Beast

Iapetos was the name of a Titan from Greek Mythology, often called today Iapetus or Japetus because of Latinization, but Ἰαπετός Iapetos was the original proper Greek spelling.

Disclaimer up front, I'm not arguing Greek Mythology is true and The Antichrist will be a Titan from it.  Or even how many Christians usually tie the Titan Mythology into Genesis 6.  Nor would it require him being anyone who lived in the past returning.  By the end it will make sense why a (completely biologically Homo-Sapien) Jewish Messiah claimant, or maybe even someone claiming to be Jesus, would use this name. Just bear with me.

The spelling has a Greek Gemetria value of Six Hundred and Sixty Six.
Iota=10, Alpha=1, Pi=80, Epsilon=5, Tau=300, Omicron=70, Sigma=200.
10+1+80+5+300+70+200=666.

[Update May 2023: Since my overall Eschatological views have become more flexible since I first wrote this I want to clarify that I view this interpretation of 666 as also potentially  Compatible with Preterist Post-Millennial and Historicist views on Revelation even though everything below was primarily argued for in the context of Pre-Mil Futurism.]

This spelling is also 7 letters with no repeats, 7 different Greek letters.  Why do I find that significant?  At the start of Chapter 13 John says the Name of Blasphemy was written on the seven heads of the Beast.  I've long had a hunch this is the same name being dealt with at the end, just not sure what to make of it.  Here I think it possible that each Head had one letter.  Perhaps I could go deeper with that, but not today.

A few Greek names are known to have had this value.  Irenaeus and Hippolytos and other Early Church Fathers speculated on some but didn't notice this one.  Though Tietan, a bizarre I don't think attested anywhere else spelling of Titan, is included, and a Titan is what Iapetos was in Greek Mythology.  I'm not quite the first to notice this however, a google search for Iapetos 666 will mainly turn up stuff about a Metal band (I haven't listened to them).  But no Bible Study seriously looking into it.  At first I myself while excited to have stumbled on this didn't think too much of it.

But then I read how the name is usually interpreted to mean The Piercer.  It's thought to come from the word iapto which means wound or pierce, and usually refers to a spear.  Most scholars think this meaning is meant to apply the idea of mortality to him.

All that is stuff right from Wikipedia.  I myself think it could also be possible to interpret it's derivation from that word as meaning Pierced or Wounded.  Which can make us think of Revelation 13 even if we didn't already have the Gemetria connection.  But maybe The Beast would want both the Piercer and Pierced meanings to apply to him, he was Pierced, but after being healed intends to Peirce his enemies.

I will return to Etymology later.

Homer mentions Iapetos in the Iliad (8.478–81) as being in Tartaros with Kronos. He is a brother of Kronos, who ruled the world during the Golden Age.  2 Peter 2:4 uses Tartaros as a name for The Abyss, The Beast ascends out of The Abyss.  The beginning of Hesiod's theogony also associates Tartaros with the Deep.

The importance of that Homer reference has to do with how the idea of all the Titans being in Tartaros comes later, at first it was just these two.  Given how little we know of Iapetos, and how Homer and Hesiod come after Greek Mythology had already changed in many ways.  It could be Iapetos and Kronos were originally the same.

Egyptian mythology also has more then one Underworld god.  Anubis like Hades is seemingly existing only to rule there.  The other is Osiris who similar to the Titans originally ruled the world of the living but then was killed.  The Pharaoh was Horus in life and Osiris in death.

It is believed there was an underworld god among the Semites named Shalman, the god of the Theophoric Assyrian name Shalmanezzer.  Possibly related to the Hebrew name Shalim meaning Dusk.  In Egyptian Mythology the land of the Dead was also called The West, Amentis, because it was where they believe the Sun traveled from West to East during the Night.  It's not difficult to connect these names to the name of Solomon, as Shalim and Shalem are very similar if not identical in spelling.  And I've argued elsewhere adding an N to the name of Shalmo to get Solomon isn't just a result of the Greek.  And they are also speculated to be related to the Greek Salmoneus, another King imprisoned in Tartaros.  In the Septuagint Solomon is spelled Salomon.

Solomon is linked to the number 666 in 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13.  He was a type of Christ early on when he was doing well, but later he fell into Idolatry.  Even the fact that he built a palace for himself that took 4 years longer to build then The Temple is perhaps a sign of this.  That will be a subject in the future.  But this connection is still only as a type.

I've also talked on this Blog about how The Beast may seek to be an Adam figure.  That one of the titles of Christ he may claim for himself is The Last Adam.  How part of the reason his name adding up to 666 means something may be a connection to the 6th day of Creation being the day Adam was made.  And understanding The Image of The Beast begins with Adam being made in The Image of God.  And that maybe his deception will draw on false teachings that say Genesis 1 and 2 are about two different Adams.

Iapetos in Greek Mythology is made an ancestor of the entire Human Race, or at least the Hellenes and those the Hellenes felt kinship with.  Two of his sons are Prometheus and Epimetheus.  Prometheus is the father of Deucalion, the Noah figure of one of Greek Mythology's Flood Legends.  And Epimetheus married Pandora (arguably an Eve figure) and had Pyrrha, the wife of Deucalion.

It may be interesting to note that being the Grandfather of the Flood Survivor gives basis to identify Iapetos with Methuselah, who's name means "His death shall bring" making an interesting connection for the mortality association.

The Flood connection is a good place to get into how many Creationists (including myself), and even some purely Secular scholars doing comparative mythology like Robert Graves see this name as being derived from Yaphet/Japheth.  Greek mythology is very garbled and so a son of the Flood survivor became an ancestor.  Not unlike Rammah son of Kush becoming Rama with a son named Kusha in Hindu mythology. 

The secular scholars however tend to do so from a desire to late date as much of Genesis as they can and say Genesis took the name from the Greeks.  While Iapetos makes sense as an archaic Greek transliteration of Japheth, if it went the other way I wouldn't expect Japheth to be spelled with only three letters.

This can be a good time to look at how Japheth fits into typological themes of The Bible.

In Genesis 9:27.

 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

The word for Tents here is Ohel and is definitely used of the Mishkan/Holy Tabernacle elsewhere, but also of the Sukkots of the Feast of Tabernacles.   This can be seen as anticipating Romans 9-11 and Galatians talk of Gentiles being grafted unto Israel.  (I've seen a KJV only pastor use Genesis 10 to say "Gentiles" Biblically refers only to descendants of Japheth)  That is good, I love the Adoption theme of The Bible.

The Problem is how many, including some in the Hebrew Roots movement tie that into British Israelism and Two House Theology.  Seeing Ephraim and the Northern Kingdom become intermingled beyond distinction with the descendants of Japheth.  Cimmerians linked to both Gomer and Omri, Scythians linked to both Magog and Israel, The Irish linked to Magog and Judah's son Zarah and later the House of David.  And all of Britam's identifications.  I do see some truth in plenty of that kind of stuff, but it also gets tied into Racist and Nationalist political agendas.

And many of these are expecting a Messiah Ben-Joseph.  Christ White has argued for The Antichrist claiming to be Messiah Ben-Joseph independent of the Lost Tribes aspect.  And I disagree with many aspects of his argument especially Jerusalem as Mystery Babylon, but have explored how that could tie into the Lost Tribes issue.

I have a growing hunch The Antichrist will be using much rhetoric taken from the Hebrew Roots movement.  That he'll talk about Nimrod the same way Rob Skiba does.  And that includes their reverence for The Book of Jasher, which paints Nimrod as Evil and says he fought a War with the Japhethites.  There may be other sources for this Japheth vs Nimrod mythology, I'm unsure.

I've said before I think there may be Decoy Antichrists, including the Terrible of The Nations who will rule Babylonia.  And that The Terrible of The Nations will be an enemy of The Antichrist, and probably who wounds him.

Of all the people who are types of Christ in The Hebrew Bible, it's interesting how it was Joshua of all of them who shares his actual name.  The Shia Muslim reverence of Ali draws a lot on seeing Ali as the Joshua to Muhammad's Moses (even though logically Umar fits that role better).  Well in this un-Biblical Jasher mythology, Japheth becomes arguably the Joshua to Noah's Moses.

Now some Creationists talking about Iapetos as Japheth have claimed Iapetos makes no sense in Greek etymology at all.  And in fairness there are real Greek scholars who have questioned the etymology I discussed above.  But what I want to talk about is how that commonly accepted Etymolgoy for Iapetos can be more consistent with Japheth's Hebrew etymology then you might think.

Going back to Genesis 9:27, the use of Enlarge there is a known pun, as Japheth's name is derived from that Hebrew word, phathah.  But this verse is the only time the KJV translates it Enlarge.  It's also sometimes words like Entice or Beguile, where sometimes a sexual connotation is implied in the context.  And the Strongs definition suggests it could mean "to open".  So the idea of Piercing could come from it, especially as things get clouded through a change in language.

A Yot added at the beginning of a name is often a sign of being Yah theophoric but then contracted, like Jehoram becoming Joram. Yeshua itself is an example of a Yah theophoric being contracted to the point where the letter Yot is all that represents the Holy Name.  Now I don't think Japheth was a Yah theophoric name originally, but I think a future false Messiah deifying himself while going by that name could seek to re-imagine it as one.  Actually the word play in Genesis 9:27 can be interpreted as making Japheth a Yah thephoric now that I think about it.

Those who out of ignorance of how First Century Greek worked try to claim Iesous is really a pagan name.  May add that they feel a transliteration of a Yah theophoric name should have an Alpha after the Iota.  But in Greco-Rroman times all Semitic names beginning with Yot began with Iota-Eta.  And that included Japheth in the Septuagint. But this rule wasn't a factor in more archaic times when the spelling of Iapetos was standardized.  And given the many Semtic via Phonecian influences on Greek, I wonder if Iasus might derive from a more ancient Greek form of Yeshua?

So I can easily imagine a false Messiah Ben-Joseph etymologically connecting himself to Japheth.  And interpreting the name Iapetos to mean either "Yah pierced" or "Yah Piercer".  And either of those proposed meanings could have opposite proposed interpretations depending on if he identifies himself with Yahuah or rejects the name of Yahuah.  "Pierced by Yah" or "Yah is pierced".  And "Yah the Piercer" or "the Piercer of Yah". 

And the Hebrew Gemetria value of the Hebrew spelling of Japheth being 490 he could argue a Biblical Numerical significance for, being 70 times 7.  I've suggested before that the Antichrist might claim to be the Messiah the 70 weeks points to.

And so I feel I have made my case.  What's below is just a supplemental epilogue and not part of the main thesis. 

Maometis al-Mahdi and Islamic Eschatology

This somewhat spins off from my Seventh Day Adventist post.

If you really want to twist the text of Revelation 13 to allude to a day of the week, the Sixth Day is what makes sense, 666 being a multiple of 6.  And I've observed reasons before to thematically link this part of Revelation 13 to Genesis 2 and Adam's creation.

The Antichrist would presumably be taking titles of Christ for himself.  One of those is The Last Adam.  Gnosticism and Kabbalah have given the Last Adam concept their own special meanings.

Islam interestingly does call for weekly observance on Friday to commemorate the creation of Adam.  Because Islam has actually canonized the Apocryphal legend that God ordered The Angels to worship Adam.

Main article: Jumu'ah

The Quran acknowledges a six-part Creation period (32:4, 50:38) and the Biblical Sabbath as the seventh-day (yaum as-Sabt: 2:65, 4:47, 154, 7:163, 16:124), but Allah's mounting the throne after Creation is taken in contradistinction to Elohim's concluding and resting from his labors, and so Muslims replace Sabbath rest with jumu'ah (Arabic جمعة ). Also known as "Friday prayer", jumu'ah is a congregational prayer (salat) held every Friday (the Day of Assembly), just after midday, in place of the otherwise daily dhuhr prayer; it commemorates the creation of Adam on the sixth day, as a loving gathering of Adam's sons. The Quran states: "When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday, hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business: That is best for you if ye but knew" (62:9). The next verse ("When the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land ...") leads many Muslims not to consider Friday a rest day, as in Indonesia, which regards the seventh-day Sabbath as unchanged; but many Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh, do consider Friday a nonwork day, a holiday or a weekend; and other Muslim countries, likePakistan, count it as half a rest day (after the Friday prayer is over). Jumu'ah attendance is strictly incumbent upon all free adult males who are legal residents of the locality.

I remain highly skeptical of the Islamic Antichrist theory, but this is an interesting observation.

What has become the standard way of making the Mark of the Beast point to Islam Chris White has thoroughly debunked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQkcFOPuvIg

http://bibleprophecytalk.com/bpt-thoughts-on-walid-shoebats-mark-of-the-beast-theory/

The proper interpretation of the Number of The Beast has been applied to Muhammad.  Maometis being a Greek rendering of his name that has a Gemetria value of 666.

Mu	Alpha	Omicron	Mu	Epsilon	Tau	Iota	Sigma	TOTAL
40	1	70	40	5	300	10	200	666

Critics of that theory say the proper Greek rendering of Muhammad should be Maometh or Mouchoumet.  But those were contemporary Byzantine Greek transliterations.  A NT era Greek rendering in the rules of Koine Greek would have to end with a Sigma being a male proper name of foreign origin.  This rule of Koine Greek is the reason we are used to having an S at the end of Jesus and Moses.  David Thorn should have remembered this.

The concept of The Mahdi is not in The Koran.  During his lifetime Muhammad saw himself as the last awaited Prophet besides the return of Jesus.  While much is often made of that the Koran and traditional Islamic doctrine don't call Muhammad a Messiah and give that title only to Jesus.  The fact is early on when he was trying to appeal to Jews he did play up to their Messianic Expectations which were very high following the death of Nehemiah Ben-Hushiel who they were convinced at that time was Messiah Ben-Joseph, and so next in line must be Elijah The Prophet and then Ben-David.

Muhammad was definitely an antichrist because he denied the deity of Christ and the relationship of The Father and The Son.

The Mahdi concept began developing in Islam after the Second Civil War from 680-692 AD.

In the Hadiths the only Mahdi Prophecy attributed directly to Muhammad, and thus arguably the most important, if only one detail is accurate it must be that one.  Is...

His name will be my name, and his father’s name my father’s name^[6]

Even if the entire duration of the world’s existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before Doomsday, Allah will expand that day to such length of time as to accommodate the kingdom of a person from my Ahlul-Bayt who will be called by my name. He will fill out the earth with peace and justice as it will have been full of injustice and tyranny (by then).^{[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]}

So the most important fact about the Mahdi is him having Muhammad's name.  I don't think that has to be someone's birth name for them to successfully convince people they're The Mahdi, he'd probably just change his name to make it fit him.

The Twelver doctrine of Shia Islam believes the Mahdi is Muhammad ibin Hassan who was born in 869 AD and they believe entered Occultation in 874 AD.  So that further links the name of Muhammad to the Mahdi.

Even back when I leaned heavily towards a version of the Mahdi view, I disliked many aspects of how many Christians like Perry Stone promoted it.  Especially making ad-Dajjal a good guy, (Chris White in his criticisms seems familiar only with people making Dajjal Jesus, but Stone and most I read made him Elijah/Two Witnesses)  The Bible foretells many Antichrists, and indeed plenty of people who'd be an Antichrist to Christians would be to Muslims as well, especially if he claims to be Messiah Ben-Joseph.  I also generally suspected it would be a Sunni claimant not the Shia Twelfth Imam fixation.

I even went back and forth on the Isa=False Prophet connection.  On the one hand I have argued independent of the Mahdi theory that the False Prophet will claim to be Jesus and right now think that's most likely who he'll claim to be.  But on the other hand in the Koran Duhl-Qarnayn which means "two horned" kinda fits the Second Beast's description.  Among the theories of those rejecting the traditional Alexander The Great identification are that he was Cyrus and also Messiah Ben-Joseph.  Britam has argued Cyrus was a type of Messiah Ben-Joseph, and Yair Davidy told me personally in an email many Rabbinic Jews are open to Ben-Joseph and Elijah being the same, since Elijah was of Manasseh.  In the same Sura is the story of Al-Khadir which some view as linked.  Al-Khadir is clearly based on a Rabbinic story about Elijah.

I now, still, even after all I feel compelled to observe here do not think the Mahdi model is the most likely.  What I do believe is all the messianic exceptions of false religions (including heretical Judeo-Christian traditions) are potential seeds for The Antichrist planted by Satan who I think himself doesn't know exactly how things will play out.  And obviously does not necessarily want them to play out how The Bible says anyway.  None of these false Prophecies account for the Abomination of Desolation event because that is when the deception ends and things become open Satanism.

I likewise even now as a critic of the Mahdi theory have issues with many common arguments against it including Chris White's.

I enjoy Chris White's video on the origins of Islamic Eschatology.  But I disagree with the idea that this natural development of the idea contradicts a Satanic subconscious influence.  Especially since The Last Roman Emperor tradition is EVEN MORE OBVIOUSLY based on The Antichrist.  And there is another factor to the figure's origin he leaves out, it was probably originally about the Third Abbasid Caliph, predictions made by people then who felt they were in the End Times. 

Biblically The Antichrist is the Last Roman Emperor (I know that White disagrees with that).  And he's also said to be Greek fitting how Chris White interprets Daniel 8.

Chris White also obsesses over seeing Daniel 11:40 as the key to recognizing The Antichrist.  I have come to reject that Prophecy being Antichrist relevant at all.  But even so as White was describing The Last Roman Emperor he records how he's supposed to conquer Syria and Egypt and doesn't even stop to comment on that similarity.

Meanwhile White elsewhere tries to use Daniel 11:40 against an Islamic Antichrist by saying "why would he be waging war with all these Islamic countries".  It comes off as ignorant of contemporary geo-politics where they're at war with each other all the time.  But also the Mahdi prophecies include statements that...

• The vast majority of people who profess to be Muslim will be so only in name despite their practice of Islamic rites and it will be they who make war with the Mahdi.

Sunnis and Shiites both include the other in this fake Muslim category.  And there is also the figure of Sufyani who will rule much of Syria and possibly some of Iraq fitting the King of The North.  Who is said to be the first enemy The Mahdi will defeat.

And White's logic here hurts his own theory, because the Messiah Ben-Joseph tradition entered it's modern form in that exact same cultural context, largely inspired by Nehemiah Ben-Hushiel.

Another thing White could have mentioned is how The Antichrist having a darkened right eye probably has it's roots in Zechariah 11:17.

I used to be confused by how the traditional Jewish Messiah aspect of Al-Maish ad-Dajja fits with the Koran and other oldest sources saying he'll first emerge in Iraq (between Syria and Persia).  But as I've learned more about the historical context of Muhammad's life, I've learned there were attempts by the Davidic Jewish Exilarchs in Babylon to rebel against the Sasanian Empire and create an independent Jewish state in Mesopotamia.

Dajjal leading a migration of Jews from Persian territory to Israel has me thinking the best parallel for him in the Book of Revelation is the Kings of The East.

Perry Stone thinks all Muslims expect the Mahdi to emerge in Iraq because he's basing his acknowledge on local tradition and local Iraqi Muslims fighting with each other.  No Sunni Muslims outside Iraq expect him to emerge there.  The only thing geographically agreed upon is he'll be first acknowledged in Mecca.

I'm also curious about the traditions that ad-Dajjal will die in Lud.  Because in the Toldoth Yeshu traditions (Jewish anti-christian parodies of the Gospel narrative) Yeshu was stoned on the eve of Passover in Lud.  Which has it's roots in what Talmud Sanhedrin 67a says about Ben-Stada.  Is it possible Muhammad or other early Muslims were influenced by the developing Yeshu traditions?  He certainly showed familiarity with the Talmud elsewhere.

I believe there will be decoy Antichrists.  It's possible there will be Jewish and Muslim would be Messiahs waging war with each other each accusing the other of being The Antichrist, and maybe neither of those will be the real deal.  I still strongly think I.S.I.S. could be the Assyrian.

Can Sunday worship be the Mark of the Beast?

Seventh Day Adventists and similar groups are obsessed with this idea, tying it into The Pope being The Antichrist theories.

Obviously it departs from the plain reading of The Text of Revelation 13.  Which says it is the Number of the Name of a Man (Anthropos).

Some people will try to deny it actually is a number by saying no other time does The Bible use Gemetria, it always spells out numbers phonetically.  Problem is the Greeks texts all put a line over the Chi-Xi-Stigama which in the rules of Koine Greek tells us it's Gemetria.  The Bible does it different here because the context tells us Gemetria is what it is about.

But for Seventh Day Adventists (who I think are right that there is no NT basis for replacing The Sabbath with a different day) everything revolves around The Sabbath issue which is why they name themselves that.

First of all, Sunday worship does not actually break The Sabbath law, even if you think we are still under the Law.  The Sabbath Law can only be broken by what you do or don't do on The Sabbath.  Nothing in the Sabbath commands make it a sin to, if you're able, also rest a different day.  In modern America most people get both Saturday and Sunday off work.  So even if some global Law DEMANDING Sunday observance was made as Adventists predict, it would not stop Torah observing Christians or Jews from doing what they do on The Sabbath.

The only way it could be even remotely possible to violate The Sabbath with what you do on a different day would be maybe on Friday.  We see for example with The Manna that Israelites tended to do extra work on Friday to prepare for The Sabbath.  But on the First Day of the Week the Sabbath is over, so it's the least likely to be a day you would even be worrying about the Sabbath issue.

Meanwhile nothing in Revelation 13 can be taken as pointing to Sunday.  Nothing about the First Day of the Week, and nothing about Sun-Worship.

If you really want to twist the text of Revelation 13 to allude to a Day of the Week, the Sixth Day is what makes sense, 666 being a multiple of 6.  And I've observed reasons before to thematically link this part of Revelation 13 to Genesis 2 and Adam's creation.  And that the Gemetria of Iesous is 888 has been thematically linked to the Resurrection being on Sunday.

The Antichrist would presumably be taking titles of Christ for himself.  One of those is The Last Adam.  Gnosticism and Kabbalah have given the Last Adam concept their own special meanings.

Islam interestingly does call for weekly observance on Friday to commemorate the creation of Adam.  Because Islam has actually canonized the Apocryphal legend that God ordered The Angels to worship Adam.

Main article: Jumu'ah

The Quran acknowledges a six-part Creation period (32:4, 50:38) and the Biblical Sabbath as the seventh-day (yaum as-Sabt: 2:65, 4:47, 154, 7:163, 16:124), but Allah's mounting the throne after Creation is taken in contradistinction to Elohim's concluding and resting from his labors, and so Muslims replace Sabbath rest with jumu'ah (Arabic جمعة ). Also known as "Friday prayer", jumu'ah is a congregational prayer (salat) held every Friday (the Day of Assembly), just after midday, in place of the otherwise daily dhuhr prayer; it commemorates the creation of Adam on the sixth day, as a loving gathering of Adam's sons. The Quran states: "When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday, hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business: That is best for you if ye but knew" (62:9). The next verse ("When the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land ...") leads many Muslims not to consider Friday a rest day, as in Indonesia, which regards the seventh-day Sabbath as unchanged; but many Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh, do consider Friday a nonwork day, a holiday or a weekend; and other Muslim countries, likePakistan, count it as half a rest day (after the Friday prayer is over). Jumu'ah attendance is strictly incumbent upon all free adult males who are legal residents of the locality.

I remain highly skeptical of the Islamic Antichrist theory, but this is an interesting observation.

But of course a Friday reverence can be connected to Catholic and other heretical Christian beliefs via the completely unsupported by Scripture Friday Crucifixion tradition.  Perhaps the counterfeit mortal wounding and healing of the Beast will follow the Catholic model.

The fact remains, the plain reading of Revelation is that it's a name not a day of the week.

The Seven Heads and Daniel 7

In the past I've been hostile to viewing the 7 Kings as 7 Kingdoms or Empires rather then a specific succession of individual Kings.  Chris White argues they are 7 Kings of 7 Kingdoms.

I'll never be convinced of a model that adds two empires or even one before Nebuchadnezzar.  But my perspective on this changed when I noticed something about how Daniel 7 and the Beast from the Sea in Revelation are compared.

This thesis here could damage a lot of my earlier theories.  But not my over all view of Bible Prophecy.

Seven is also the total number of heads in Daniel 7, 1 Lion, 1 Bear, 4 of the Leopard and the Ten horns are defined as on a head in Daniel 7.  The Beast of Revelation 13 is all four of Daniel 7's beasts merged together.

So we have 7 Kingdoms, each also with one specific of their Kings to single out.  That is how I now look at it.

The 7 kings do NOT each have to be a type of The Antichrist, that is just a made up rule some people have for studying this.  Cyrus is indisputably the Second King in question here, he is never portrayed negatively in Scripture.  In fact he is the only Gentile The Hebrew Bible ever declares a Messiah, and it's God himself saying it to Cyrus in Isaiah 44/45.  Some of them may be types, but they don't all need to be.

In fact even though I've done and may still do a lot of talking about potential types of The Anitchrist on this Blog.  The Biblical endorsement for the concept of types are entirely about Jesus, Paul in Colossians saying everything in the law was a foreshadowing of Jesus that had already been fulfilled, Jesus saying the Volume of The Book is of Him.  There is no Biblical basis for calling ANYONE a type of The Antichrist.

This model has to make Rome the 7th rather then 6th Empire.  How can Rome possibly be yet Future in John's time?  Or be said to have not lasted very long?

The 7 Kings we're are looking for are not rulers or occupiers of Israel/Jerusalem.  Revelation 17 is specifically about Babylon, it's about 7 Kings of 7 Kingdoms who ruled Babylon, starting with it's native kingdom.  Daniel 7 is in the Aramaic part of Daniel, the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians of Daniel's time.  And he was in Babylonia when he had this vision.  The four beasts are described as World Empires and all four are, but to the point of view of the Babylonians Daniel first made this Prophecy for, no one truly became a world empire till they conquered their world.

Rome did NOT rule Babylon at any point during the New Testament era or before it. John wrote Revelation at the latest during the reign of Domitian.  The second Emperor after that, Trajan, was the first Roman to take Mesopotamia and Assyria. and it was at the very end of his reign that he did.  Then Hadrian succeeded him, and he pretty much immediately gave them back to Parthia.  So Rome only ever ruled Babylon for a very short time, just a few years.

The ruler of Parthia when John wrote was Pacorus II. (Who's mother was a Greek concubine, further showing he can count as a Greek King, and his father's maternal grandmother had Seleucid ancestry).  When Pacorus died Trajan was already Emperor of Rome.  Later in the 160s AD there was another Roman military incursion into Mesopotamia, but it never reached Babylon, it's focus was on Seleucica.

While it's not a coincidence that the 4 heads of the Leopard are the same number of horns the Notable horn of the Ram breaks into.  I think what they represent specifically here could be sort of different.  We are dealing with four Hellenistic era Kingdoms that ruled Babylon.  The first is Alexander himself, then comes the successors.

I believe Parthia while often thought of as a quasi Persian empire can be looked at as coming out of Alexander's Empire.  He had conquered that region, and by the New Testament period the Arascid Royal Family had Seleucid blood intermingled into them.

Babylon was taken from the Seleucid Empire by Parthia in 150 BC.  It was still firmly Seleucid during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Hasomonean revolt.

Antigonus and Seleucus Nicator fought over Babylon early on after it was clear Alexander's own Dynasty would not survive.  Eventually Seleucus secured it.

I'm going to consider Ptolemy the true successor to Alexander in this context.  He had Alexander's body buried in the city named after him, an act that secured succession in Macedonian custom, and was possibly a half brother or cousin of Alexander.

The 4 Heads of the Leopard could be viewed as Antigonus in Macedon =The West, Antioch=The North, Alexandria=The South and Parthia=The East.  Thus fitting the Four Winds of Heaven reference in Daniel 11.  Though for that context we could also say the West was the Macedon-Greece homeland which was originally ruled by the Antipards but which the Antigonids took as they lost what was originally allotted to them to Seleucus.

So the 7 King(dom)s of Babylon from Daniel are Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander The Great, Antigonus, Seleucid Dynasty, Pacorus of Parthia, and Trajan of Rome.

In the past I firmly argued that I believe The Antichrist's Death and Resurrection must both be in the future.  And I was not comfortable with the theories making him some past King being brought back.

But in light of this, I must be consistent with my clear understanding of Revelation 17's terminology.  "Was, and is not" means the Eight King is one of the first 5, since it defines the present of this message as the 6th.

I still believe the Beast Empire is largely a Revived Roman Empire, but the Little Horn shows up among the ten horns in Daniel 7, distinct from Daniel 8 where he comes out of one of the 4 horns.  He's ruling Rome but not as a Roman himself.

I don't believe it has to be someone who died from a head wound.  The doctrine of The Antichrist's Resurrection to me is proven not by the mortal head wound being healed but by his ascending out of the Bottomless Pit, and how that theme ties into Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28-32, (though fatal sword wound references are there too).

It could be he's already an early example of the second resurrection when he receives the mortal wound, and what amazes people is him surviving something that should have killed him, because he now has a body like a fallen angel.

Alexander The Great is distinct as being in a sense the main King of the Leopard as a whole as well as one of the heads.  I see Daniel 7:12 saying both that the Assyrian, Persian and Greek nations will exist during the Millennium.  And that their main three Kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Alexander The Great, are saved individuals and will exist in The Millennium too.

That only leaves Antigonus and the Seleucids.

Daniel 11:40-45 seems to have The Antichrist as separate from the King of The North.  However, I've explained why I'm no longer certain that even is The Antichrist, and that it might be Augustus.  But if that is the End Times and is The 8th King, it's while he's not a ruler of his original kingdom anymore but of the 10 horns to emerge from Rome.

There is nothing to link Antigonus to the Antichrist, but a lot of reasons to link the Seleucids.  Daniel 8 as well as Epiphanes doing the first Abomination of Desolation, which Jesus clarifies there will be one yet future.

I argued in the past when discussing Daniel 8 that there The Little Horn is the Seleucid dynasty as a whole, not just 1 or 2 individuals.  So unlike others who've argued a thesis similar to what I'm arguing here, I don't necessarily think it's Antiochus Epiphanes himself who is the Seleucid ruler that will ascend out of the Bottomless Pit, but certainly could be.

There are reasons to believe The Antichrist will be someone The Jews accept at first until the Abomination of Desolation happens.  If he's Epiphanes and is known to be Epiphanes, that would be unlikely.  Epiphanes is up there with Hitler and Haman on the most hated by Jews list.

I do think it must be a Seleucid mentioned in Daniel 11, making him a Biblical figure.  Seleucus I might be the candidate to start with, but while important to Seleucid history obviously, what's said of him in Daniel 11 is brief and pales in comparison to some of the others.  But it is interesting that a legend existed in the ancient world that his mother Laodice claimed he was fathered by Apollo.

Three times in Daniel 11 a king is described as "doing according to his will".  One of these is verse 36 which is clearly past the immediate history of Epiphanes already, after the Hasmonean Kingdom has fallen to Rome.  And may or may not be about The Antichrist.  It's first used of Alexander The Great at the start of the chapter.  Between them it's in verse 16.

Verse 16 is during the time of Antiochus III The Great's wars. And usually he is identified by scholars as the one "doing according to his will" there.  But Hippolytus of Rome in his Daniel commentary confusingly says this was an Alexander not known from any other surviving historical sources we have on the period.  He might have gotten confused by how that phrase was earlier affiliated with Alexander The Great, or maybe it's a scribal/copyist error.

It was under Antiochus The Great that Israel was taken from the Ptolemies and became part of the Seleucid Empire.  He is overall remembered fondly by The Jews as recorded by Josephus.  His relationship with them in Daniel 11 seems positive.  He continued Alexander and the Ptolemies general policy of not interfering with their Faith or The Temple.

But Josephus seems to be familiar with only 1 Maccabees and not 2 Maccabees.  2 Maccabees chapter 1 seems to refer to the death of Antiochus III and deems him ungodly.  Some see the benefits Antiochus gave The Temple as having been good for the Priestly class but not really for the common people.

Epiphanes is still the key link this dynasty has to The Antichrist.  It's highly possible he will lie about who he is, even when he first reveals himself to be a resurrected past individual he may lie about exactly who he is. Maybe he'll try to claim he's Elijah or David or Solomon or someone like that.  Or maybe just a simple matter of lying about which Macedonian or Seleucid ruler he is.

Some have agreed that Daniel 11:36-45 can't refer to anything Epiphanes did, yet still feel that the tone of the text wants us to think of him.  This could agree with a notion that he was recorded earlier as the 5th King and 36-45 is about him as the 8th King.

On the notion that we're dealing with a ruler of one of the earlier Kingdoms now ruling/reviving Rome.  Epiphanes had been a hostage in Rome, and Polybus said he liked to rule as if he were a Roman.  Maybe he is the ideal person to revive the Roman Empire.

Which would create more options for someone he could claim to be, like Augustus.

But one interesting option is for him to claim to be Constantine XI, the last Byzantine Emperor.  Like all later Byzantine Emperors he was firmly Greek, so Antiochus could remain the same ethnicity and native language.  Constantine XI supposedly died in battle when Constantinople fell to the Turks, but his death was never solidly confirmed.  So a rumor spread that an Angel had saved him and turned him into a statue and hid him beneath the Gate of Constantinople and would one be awoken to drive to the Turks.  His legacy has remained important among the Greeks, drawing on it during their War of Independence in the 19th Century.

And the legend of his return no doubt became interwoven with the Last Roman Emperor tradition.  The original seed of which, the late 4th century prophecy attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl called him a King of The Greeks named Constans.

One argument against the idea that 36-39 could be about Epiphanes is that he was consistent with the religion of his fathers.  However there is also a sense in which Epiphanes did change the religion of the Seleucid Empire, ironically the opposite of the change Augustus later made in Rome.  Apollo had been the favored deity of earlier Seleucids, but Epiphanes downplayed him and was more fond of Zeus.  But it still would be absurd to label Zeus a god "whom his fathers knew not" for any Greek people.

But if Epiphanes returns in the End Days his religion may be different, especially if he comes back after being resurrected and thinking Satan was responsible for it.

He did deify himself, technically the full name he used was Antíochos D' ho Epiphanḗs (Antiochus God Manifest, or Antiochus Zeus Manifest).  I've noticed that while none of the known forms of Epiphanes/Epiphany I've found used in ancient Greek texts have a Greek gemetria value of 666, it isn't difficult to construct a form that does have that value, it seems 1 or 2 letters could make the difference.

Update August 2016: I just argued that the Eight King could be a Ptolemy.

Walid Shoebat's Mark of the Beast Theory Debunked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQkcFOPuvIg