Revelation isn't Gnostic

The YouTuber TIK has recently done a video on Gnosticism.  TIK is a frustrating YouTuber, he says some things I agree with and has provided me with lots of useful information, I like that he acknowledges the differences between Fascism and Nazism.  But he is also clearly a weird type of Classical Liberal and that renders incomprehensible his understanding of what Socialism is.  

In this case he's correct that certain Nazis had ideas related to Ancient Gnosticism, but Hitler himself didn't take that stuff seriously and even found Himmler's obsessions kind of annoying.  And I agree that Gnostic or at least Platonist ideas have become a part of Mainstream Christianity, but I wouldn't frame how that happened in such Conspiratorial terms.

The idea that Revelation specifically is a Gnostic text, especially the way TIK is defining Gnosticism, is absurd.  There is no conventional conception of the Afterlife in Revelation, the Utopia we are looking forward to is this world perfected, and it anticipates a literal Bodily Resurrection of The Dead.

The truth is many Gnostics, especially Marcionites, eventually become hostile to Revelation.  You see once you fall for a Marcionite rejection of the Old Testament you will eventually realize that, in terms how we often use the term colloquially, Revelation is more Old Testament then the Old Testament.  For a contemporary example of that see the Good God YouTube channel.

It is true that some rejectors of Revelation propose that it was written by Cerinthus or someone with similar ideas and that Cerinthus is sometimes labeled a Gnostic by websites like Wikipedia  However the main Gnostic like belief associated with Cerinthus is believing the material world was created by a lesser Angel not the Supreme God and that that lesser Angel was the YWHW who gave The Torah.  But he didn't believe that Creator was Evil and thus didn't view the physical world as evil and was in fact the exact opposite of Marcion in his view of the Old Testament, he actually felt Christians should continue keeping The Torah.  Now I don't believe Revelation agrees with Cerinthian theology either, but the point is most Anti-Revelation people see it as having the opposite problem to Gnosticism.

There is a Podcast on YouTube of some modern Gnostics talking about Revelation with a title that may imply they're going to argue it is Gnostic, but in fact they agree on everything I just explained about how materialist and Anti-Gnostic it is, though will try to from their POV find positive traits within it.

TIK uses Augustine as one of his sources talking about Augustine as a former Gnostic.  But the thing is Augustine was a former Gnostic who brought Gnostic baggage with him, He was a Gnostic first because he was uncomfortable with the Old Testament's depiction of an Emotional Changeable God, he didn't leave Gnosticism for the mainstream Church because he rejected that hostility but because Ambrose convinced him all that stuff could be allegorized away.  Augustine's hostility towards Revelation, or at least to interpreting Revelation literally/Premillennially was a product of how still Gnostic he was.  Augustine openly defended taking ideas from Plato, Gnosticism is really just Hyper Platonism.

TIK goes on to claim that the "Dialectical Materialism" of Marxists and other Leftists isn't real Materialism because they use terms that sound weird to him.  I also feel that Leftist Dialectal Materialism should separate itself from Hegelian terms, but everything that sounds Mystical or whatever in Hegel is an allegory, it's still meant to be Materialist.

Another part of the problem is how Immanuel Kant kind of changed what it means to be an "Idealist" because for him the Ideas came from the Mind.  Kantian Idealism would have been considered at least Semi-Materialist in the Ancient Greek world because they considered part of the material world even Supernatural things like Spirits and lower case g gods.  And that goes even more so for how Kantianism evolved in different directions under Schopenhauer and Hegel.

But also Marx is someone who changed over the source of his life, some of his very early stuff was Hegelian before Marxism was actually a thing, but many have argued he was effectively Anti-Hegelian by the end.

No Premillennialists do not believe the Great Commission will fail.

As InspiringPhilosophy claimed in his latest End Times Video.

His understanding of the Great Commission is based on the bad "Make disciples of all nations" reading of the last two verses of Matthew 28, but that is not supported by the KJV or the Young's Literal Translation where it says to teach all nations (the Peshitta also supports this reading).

I believe The Great Commission has already succeeded because I don't view it as requiring the entire earth to become Christian, there are Christians in every country now, The Bible can be read in pretty much every Language.  The Gospel has indeed been published in all the world.

While IP is different from Victorious Eschatology, once again he repeats the trope that Partial Preterism is a more "Positive" view then Futurism.  And again I believe in Universal Salvation, if you do not then you can't claim your eschatology is more optimistic then mine.

"The Night is Darkest just before The Dawn" that's a quote from the last episode of the Canadian English Dub of Futari wa Pretty Cure season 1.  Bad things happening before the end does not make our view inherently nihilistic.  

That said I'm far from a standard Pre-Mil Futurist and have not made up my mind actually how much of the traditional view of The Beast I still hold to, there is plenty of room within Pre-Mil and Futurism to debate just how bad things will get.

Thing is we've reached the point where it's pretty secularly undeniable that things are gonna get pretty Bad if Jesus doesn't return soon.  We have little hope right now of solving Climate Change before it become irreversible.  "Lest those days be shortened there will be no flesh left".

I have already made a point on this blog out of how what actually is defined as being exactly a Thousand years is Satan being bound in The Abyss.  The Kingdom doesn't end when the Thousand Years ends, and I place the Parousia some amount of time before it begins as well (at the 7th Trumpet and thus before the Bowls).  The sense in which The Kingdom began at Pentecost and/or with Jesus's Ministry is not in conflict with Premilenialism, not how I understand it anyway.

Revelation isn't the only Book to mention a time period between the Parousia when Believes are Resurrected and the final General Resurrection, it is in fact also in 1 Corinthians 15:23-26.  Revelation 20 is simply the only place this time period is given a specific number of years.

The difference between Revelation and other Prophecies isn't a matter of how "clear" or "cryptic" they are, even the Olivet Discourse uses figures of speech you can't take hyper literally, before it even gets to the Parables.  

Revelation needs to be interpreted Chronologically because it's opening defines itself as Jesus revealing to us what God has revealed to Him that previously even He didn't know.  In Matthew 24 that is explicitly the timing of everything.  The book clearly presents itself as a sequence of evens being revealed to John as a sequence of causes and effects, the only reason the book has ever been confusing is because even most Futurists now insist on garbling the Chronology to suit their pet theories.

Eventually the video delves into the usual Preterist memes I've already talked about on this blog like making everything about 70 AD (most Prophecies I do interpret preteristically I see as about the reign of Hadrian) or the 666=Nero lunacy.

Revelation is Paulian

Both people who want to reject Paul as a false Apostle and those who want to remove Revelation from the Canon base a lot of their arguments on a perceived inherent conflict between the two, almost no one is trying to throw out both, rejecting one tends to be tied to an attachment to the other.

This perception has a lot to do with misunderstanding both of them.  Revelation has in my opinion the least to say directly about Soteriology or Justification of any New Testament book, you're supposed to have already gotten the message on that if you've even made it this far.  But if we define what it means to Overcome the same way 1 John 5:5 does, then Revelation can easily be understood as agreeing with Paul's emphasis on Faith.  And Paul does still anticipate a Judgment based on works in 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5:10.

The crux of the debate is the issue of eating food sacrificed to Idols, which Paul discussed in 1 Corinthians 8 and is relevant to Revelation 2 in the messages to Pergamos and Thyatira.  The argument being that Paul's position on this issue is what Revelation is calling the Doctrine of Balaam and teaching of Jezebel.

Paul is actually taking a sort of middle ground on this issue, he's arguing that when buying food at the market Christians need not concern themselves with if it was or not, because we don't believe in it actually doing anything magical to the food.  But he is still clear to not do it publicly in a public ritual to appease the world.  In Revelation this issue first comes up talking to the church in Pergamos a center of the Imperial Cult, such Public engagements with Idolatry being demanded of Christians to prove their Loyalty to the Emperor is clearly the context.  

People will then cite Paul's statement to Timothy in II Timothy that "all of Asia" had left him to insist none of the Churches in Revelation deemed good can be Paulian.  Paul was using hyperbole, clearly there was a Remnant in Ephesus in the community Timothy himself is a leader of.  So the False Apostles the Church of Ephesus is praised for rejecting could be the very Ravenous Wolves Paul warned them about in Acts 20.  

Also the limits of what Asia meant were a bit amorphous and flexible, all Seven Churches of Revelation were in the Roman Province of Asia, but Acts 16:6 in context is arguably using Asia in a more limited sense where Ephesus might be the only city of Revelation 2-3 to qualify.

I've also seen the accusation that Revelation is contradicting Paul on Jesus being the only Mediator by having this Angel guide John through much of this vision.  Jesus speaks to John directly at the beginning and end of Revelation, but more importantly to say this Angel's role contradicts Paul in Galatians 3:19-20, Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24 and 1 Timothy 2:5 is to miss the point of what Paul means by Mediator in those passages, Paul is talking about Salvation and Atonement and who we Pray to, it's not a contradiction that Angels will still sometimes be used as messengers, messengers are literally exactly what Angels are, so Paul's acknowledging they still function at all proves they can still be used for exactly what Revelation depicts.

But I want to go further and argue that Revelation is not just compatible with Paul but dependent on Paulian innovations, that it may well be the most Paulian NT book that no one thinks Paul wrote.

It is largely Paul who built the doctrine of The Church as The Temple of God, it has some roots before in Stephen's Acts 7 Sermon, but it's Paul who fully develops it.  And it's a doctrine vital to understanding Revelation, being explicitly in both the message to Philadelphia and chapter 21, but I would argue every reference to The Temple and/or Tabernacle in the book needs to be interpreted through the lens of this doctrine, (same with chapter 14's heavenly Zion which also comes from Paul).  And it does so using specific language from Paul like The Apostles being Foundations in Ephesians 2:20., and Revelation's Pillar imagery could have it roots in things Paul said in Galatians 2:9 and 1 Timothy 3:15.

The concept of being Sealed with The Holy Spirit is another of Paul's ideas Revelation brings up, also the way chapter 14 uses the term Firstfurits I think is tied to how Paul used that term.  And Paul's idea of representing the Word of God as a Sword in Ephesian 6 also seems influential on at least some of the Sword imagery in Revelation.

There is also my theory that the Fifth Trumpet account in Revelation 9 explains the Removal of Restraint referred to II Thessalonians 2.

Luke, the most Paulian Gospel, may well be the most relevant of the Four Gospels to understanding Revelation.  Luke 21:24 specifically is I think being quoted by at least two verses in Revelation, 11:2 and 13:10 though the latter may also have in mind Matthew 26:52.  The end of the message to Laodicea in Revelation 3:20 is possibly drawing on Luke 12:36.  Luke 11:22 uses a specific form of the word Nikao (Overcome, To Conquer) that elsewhere appears only in Revelation 6:2.  Luke is also the only other NT Text to use the word translated "Lake" in Revelation, Lmne.

I added a section on one particular Anti-Revelation Hyper Paulian to my Thyatira post.  I have also written an Amazon Review of that Author's book.

I have increasingly come to hold the view that the John of Revelation is John Mark not the Son of Zebedee.  While Mark is first introduced as an associate of Peter he becomes close to Paul and Barnabas for a time in Acts 13-15 and Mark is mentioned by Paul in a few of his later Epistles.  In fact 2 Timothy 4:11 implies he was in Ephesus with Timothy for a time.

And historically the contexts of the Seven Churches supports them being Paulian Communities.  Only three are mentioned by explicitly those names elsewhere in the New Testament and all of them imply Paulina contexts. 

Ephesus is tired to Paul all over Acts 18-20 and receives a Paulina Epistle and appears to be where Paul was when he wrote 1st Corinthians, meanwhile Timothy was in Ephesus when Paul wrote his Epistles to him.  Thyatira explicitly comes up in the person of Lydia converted by Paul in Philippi, and later Paul visited unnamed cities in Lydia whish could account for Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia.  And the Laodiceans are mentioned in Colossians.  

Later traditions sought to make Polycarp of Smyrna a student of John but his own Epistle makes no such claim and rarely quotes books attributed to John, it's content is mostly Paulian.  What I said above make sit possible John Mark was the John the Elder who Polycarp and Papias knew.  Another figure tradition credits with starting the church in Smyrna was said to be Timothy's brother.

Thousand years as a Day

The hyper literal face value understanding of the "surely I come quickly" verses that Full Preterism is built on is naturally incompatible with taking the Thousand Years of Revelation 20 at equally face value.  If EVEYTHING in the book must surely happen quickly, then clearly two of those events can't be separated by a full Millennium.

I specify Full Preterist here because Partial Preterist and Post Millenialists tend to make the Thousand years longer not shorter.  I do still think Partial Preterism is partially correct on many things.

The problem with the Full Preterist understanding of the Millennium is that even a not exactly literal use of "Thousand years" is still clearly meant to imply a long time, it's meant to imply we shouldn't expect it to end within a mortal lifetime.  

So Full Preterists cling to the "Thousand years as a day and a day as a thousand years" verses.  When you engage in very unscholarly proof texting yeah those seem like they give you the excuse they need to make a Thousand utterly meaningless.  

But when you read them in context, when you read the entirety of Psalm 90 and 2 Peter 3, the point being made, the Impression being given, is clearly all about how what can seem like endless ages to humans is nothing to God.  They are clearly conveying the opposite of what Full Preterists want, they give us every reason not to take "surely I come quickly" at face value and no reason to think a promised Earthly Millennium will end in a day.

2 Peter 3 is especially clear on this, because earlier that chapter is foretelling how people in the future will lose faith in the promised Coming because the "fathers fell asleep" and nothing has changed.  The whole point of the passage is specifically that Jesus did not "surely come quickly" by a mortal understanding of time, but we should none the less have faith that God is not slacking off but delaying only to give the heathens more time to repent.

1 Peter may have been written before 70 AD, but 2 Peter certainly came after, Peter never went to Rome and the Neronian persecution didn't happen.

Even without this understanding of the "Thousand Years as a Day" verses, Greek scholars understand that this kind of language used in Revelation 22 was often used euphemistically to mean "certainly will come to pass" and are not inherently meant to be literally taken as timing statements.  Hebrews 10:36-37 is similar, on the one hand it seems to say "soon" but also says "awhile" and tells us to be patient.

Honestly part of the problem with preterist interpretations of passages like Hebrew 10:36-37 is modern individualism which runs contrary the the more collectivist thinking of all first century people Pagan, Jewish and Christian.  They are speaking as if the audience reading this will be there when it happens because they are speaking to the Church and/or Israel (depending on how you prefer to look at it) as a collective not the specific individuals who were the very first to ever read it.

The "this Generation" statement of Matthew 24 exists in the context of what Jesus said before, "this" is grammatically applied to the generation that sees the signs.  Now understand that I am not a conventional Futurist, I have my doubts "this Generation" began when most Dispensationalists currently think it did.  I think the key sign to look for is The Abomination of Desolation.

And it doesn't matter how many other times "this generation" means the people listening to Jesus right now, "this generation" is a phrase that doesn't automatically always mean the same generation every time it appears, the context of where it's said determines it.

And the "there be some standing here" verses always directly proceeds the Transfiguration for a reason.  The "Son of man coming in his kingdom" wording of Mathew 16:28 is in fact peculiar and in my opinion should not be interpreted as specifically about the Parousia, not even just because that word itself isn't used in the Greek, it's about Him glorified having the qualities of the Kingdom.  But if you aren't satisfied by it being fulfilled just by the Transfiguration then it could also apply to just seeing the risen Jesus which all but one of the 12 got to.

Also "some" is a misleading translation, the YLT says "certain" instead and other versions don't feature an equivalent word there at all which actually does better match the Greek.  So no the text of this verse does not imply inherently a minority of the audience being referred to.

A Millennium already past

This post shall be me playing Devil's Advocate with Post-Millenialists and Partial Preterists, by arguing that their eschatological position does not necessarily require allegorizing the time period of The Millennium.

There is a common misnomer out there that believing in a Literal Thousand Years means believing The Kingdom of that time period ends at some point, which is why you occasionally see an argument that the Nicene-Constantinople Creed's quotation of Gabriel in Luke 1:33 somehow was specifically a refutation of Pre-Mil.  However the only thing Revelation 20 explicitly says happens exactly a Thousand years later is Satan being let out of the Abyss, he then stirs up Gog and Magog and they besiege the "Beloved City" however their siege fails.  Revelation 21 and 22 are about the separation between the spiritual and physical finally completely ending, not about a completely New Messianic Kingdom starting.  The Greek word translated New in those chapters isn't Neo which I wrote an entire post on already.

Now at face value it seems like everything from Satan being let loose to the White Throne Judgment happens pretty rapidly.  But that's because we're reading a summary, maybe it will happen quickly but it could theoretically all take decades, centuries or maybe even another thousand years to play out.

So Post-Mils and Partial Preterists do have the option to consider identifying The Millennium with an exactly one Thousand year time period of recorded Church Age history, and placing us right now in Revelation 20:9 with the "Camp of the saints" being understood spiritually rather then tied to a specific geographical location.

And in that context I have a few hypothetical models to propose, because even though I'm not Post-Mil currently I have considered it.  

But first I want to address how most of these models implicitly identity the "Hoards of Gog and Magog" with principally the Turks and perhaps by extension other Altaic peoples like the Mongols.  This part of Revelation is among the Bible passages that have been abused by White Supremacists so I want to make myself clear, IF any of these interpretations are true it's about the Turks having a specific role to play in God's plan, however I believe in Universal Salvation meaning all of them are still Children of Adam who God Loves as much as everyone else.  So do not use this material to justify being Racist.

Now on to the hypothetical Millenniums.

I place the end of the 70 Weeks of Daniel in 37 AD one Week following the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Pentecost in 30 AD, which I argued for on this blog years ago.  Low and behold 1037 AD is the beginning of the reign of Tughril the first Sultan of the Seljuk Turks.  It was under his leadership that the Turks first moved south of the Gates of Alexander into Persia.

However it was under Alp Arslan and Malik Shah that the Seljuk Turks first came into conflict with "Christendom" around 1070 AD.  The significance of 1070 minus 1000 I shouldn't need to explain to Preterists.

In 1135 AD a thousand years after the defeat of the Bar-Kochba Revolt Seljuk Ruler Imad Al-Din Zengi crossed the Eurphrates River.  1137-1144 contained other notable events.

Later in the early 1300s a Thousand years after Constantine is when the Ottomans under Osman I and Orhan and other Turkic Tribes conquered deeper into Western Anatolia capturing what had long been core Byzantine territories including the cities that housed the 7 Churches of Revelation 2-3. They besieged Nicaea just a few years after the one thousand year anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.  324 was the year Constantine defeated Licinius and began the founding of Constantinople, 1317-1326 was the Seige of Bursa which secured Ottoman control of most of Asia Minor with only the core area around Constantinople still free.

The decade from 380-390 is when Theodosius I firmly established Christianity as the State Religion of the Roman Empire.  Ticonius published the first real Post-Millennial interpretation of Revelation in 380.  A thousand years later 1380-1390 would be when the Ottoman Empire really began entering Europe.

The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans was in 1454 BC, about 3 years following the Millennial Anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon.

There isn't a single event in the reign of Emperor Justinian that doesn't have it's Millennial anniversary during the reign of Suliman The Magnificent.  I actually already made a post on arguing for Bible Prophecy being fulfilled in the time of Justinian, that was mainly in the context of playing Devil's Advocate with Historicism, but it can be adapted for this purpose.

Some people have an odd fixation on viewing Bible Prophecy from an Anglo-Centric POV.  Interestingly the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons was pretty complete by 640.  One thousand years later and 1640 is when the English Civil War starts.

A lot of passages are applied to The Millennium when they're actually about New Jerusalem

I know I did this post once already very early in this blog's history, but that post is strongly tied into things I've changed my mind on since.

Let's start with how Jesus promised The Twelve Disciples they would sit on Twelve Thrones ruling the Twelve Tribes of Israel at the Last Supper.  I've seen that applied to The Millennium multiple times, but The Twelve don't come up in Revelation 20.

Revelation 21:12-16 refers to Twelve Gates for the Tribes of Israel on which are named the Twelve Tribes and by them are Twelve "angels" and also Twelve Foundations in the Walls with the names of The Twelve Apostles.  I've already explained how "Angels" can refer to human believers but even without that detail I'd still conclude that this is where the promise of the Twelves' Thrones is fulfilled.  In the ancient Near East leaders of a city were often seated by the gate, this custom is alluded to in Ruth 4.

Outside Revelation allusions to The Millennium are much more rare.  But I definitely see it in 1 Corinthians 15:23-28 and probably also in Daniel 7:12.  When it comes to things like where Zechariah 14 ends or Isaiah 19 I'm far from decided.  But at least one other probable TNAK reference to the Millennium will come up later.

However the big passage I want to discus is Isaiah 65-66, chapter 65 verses 17 and 22 are what Revelation 21 verse 1 is practically directly quoting.  And verses 18-19 refer to New Jerusalem though without using the word "new" as explicitly, and Isaiah 66:1(as interpreted by Stephen in Acts 7:44-50) is possibly the reason New Jerusalem is said not to have a Temple.

But verse 20 is thrown around as proof this can't be The New Creation because people still die.  Isaiah is very poetic in style, and considering what I explained on my other blog about how to interpret Scripture Impressionistically rather then Lexically,  It feels to me like it should be blindingly obvious Isaiah 65:20 is actually saying the opposite, that this is his poetic way of saying people will not die and there will be no sin.

People abuse what Jesus said about people neither "Marrying or giving in marriage" in The Resurrection "Like the Angels in Heaven", to prove that there is no Biological Reproduction going on in the New Heaven and New Earth.  Jesus said that in the context of refuting the Sadducees trying to discredit The Resurrection by implying the Levirate marriages will create Polyandrous situations.  It's marriage as defined in Genesis 3 that will end, marriage as a hierarchy, not the Marriage of Genesis 2.  In New Jerusalem we will ALL be Married to Jesus and each other.  

But on the other hand the verse in Isaiah 65 taken to imply new people being born is the very same poetic passage taken to imply some people will die.  Still I believe The Resurrection is the restoration of The Pre-Fall conditions, and so I lean towards suspecting painless childbirth will be an option.

The Patristics often didn't distinguish between The Millennium and New Jerusalem at all.  And while today they are distinguished by all Pre-Millennialists, there is still a desire to make The Millennium far more Utopic then it actually is.  The New Heaven and New Earth will be a Communist Utopia, The Millennium is more complicated, in proper Marxist terminology it's perhaps more like the Dictatorship of the Proliteriate.

For one thing The Saints are NOT ruling the entire world, we have a Camp which is also called the Beloved City.  And based on Revelation 20 alone there is no proof that Camp is Jerusalem. 

You might express concern that this "downgrading" I appear to be doing of The Millennium could serve the interests of Post-Millenialists who argue it fits the current world just fine.  Well indeed I don't consider Post-Mills or Partial Preterists to be Heretics in the way I do Resurrection denying Full Preterists and Amillenials, but I do still disagree with them.

Number 1, my main reason for viewing The Millennium as still yet future is less anything about The Millennium itself but more what must happen before it starts and the absurdity of claiming those things have already happened.  Which is the Parousia and the literal physical Bodily Resurrection of at least all Church Age believers.

Number 2 is the post I made on Zion recently.

The Thousand years strictly speaking refers to the time Satan is bound not the Kingdom itself which will have no end.  The Kingdom begins on Mount Zion in Revelation 14 and then it conquers The beast after The beast destroys Babylon.  Since I do believe the Gog and Magog invasion of Revelation 20 is the same as Ezekiel 38, that gives me confirmation that Israel is the location of this Camp.

Since I don't view The Millennium as a pure perfect Utopia, but it is distinct from the world we know now, what will it be like?  Well if I had to pick an inevitably very flawed literary analogy I would say the Second Age of Middle Earth aka Arda.  At the end of the First Age Morgoth (the Satan analogue) is sealed away and it's not till a Thousand years into the Second Age that the Enemy begins taking direct action again via Sauron's founding of Barad-Dur.  But instead of an Atlantis analogue it's a land at the crossroads of the major continents being ruled by Resurrected Saints that the Enemy is planning war with.

[There is also a part of my Weeb Brain that sees traits of the Millennium in Crystal Tokyo from Sailor Moon lore, particularly in the Manga/Crystal continuity.]

I know I sometimes criticize views opposed to mine for treating The Bible like a fantasy novel, that's why I stressed it's not a perfect analogy.  First and foremost I reject the opinions of some that any future Messianic Kingdom will involve a rejecting of modern technology, in fact I believe we will be colonizing the Stars.

Now I have saved Ezekiel 40-48 for last because my thoughts on that are uniquely complicated.  In fact I'm saving it for after the jump break.

Chilialsm vs Premillennialism.

I am definitely a Premillennialist but I'm not comfortable with being called a Chilialist.  That might confuse you since enemies of Premillennialism treat the two terms as utterly synonymous.

I'm Premillennial because I believe the visible Parusia of Jesus Christ (and Bodily Resurrection of Church Age Believers) precedes the start of the Millennium described in Revelation chapter 20, and thus since that Parusia obviously hasn't happened yet, the Millennium hasn't started yet.

However what Chiliasm seems to refer to, especially when spoken of negatively by some early Christians, qualifies as that but also seems tied to fundamental misunderstandings of what the Millennium is.  Though those misunderstandings are to varying degrees also held by a lot of my fellow contemporary Premillennialists.

What I'm referring to is also distinct from the disagreements Dispensationalists and Supersecenists and Two House Theology have about what the Millennium is.

I've already discussed on this blog how The Millennium is not a Utopia or a Paradise, the paradise we await comes after that in Revelation 21-22.  The Millennium will probably be better then the world currently is, but it is still to a large extent an era in which the battle against Sin isn't over.  The main place I point to as being an allusion to the Millennium outside Revelation is 1 Corinthians 15:23-28, what Paul places between the Parusia and the General Resurrection.

I have already expressed on this blog annoyance at how many Christian prophecy teachers will refer to various Hebrew Bible Prophecies as being about the Millennium when they are clearly about the New Heaven and New Earth and New Jerusalem, and in fact they are the very Prophecies Revelation 21-22 is quoting, like Isaiah 65-66 and Ezekiel 40-48.

I do think there are some Old Testament allusions to the Millennium, like Daniel 7:12.  My current view of Ezekiel 38-39 means we possibly see glimpses of the Millennium in those chapters, as well as possibly the chapters preceding those.  And Maybe also the end of Zechariah 14.

I've also noticed a tendency for Chilialsm to be linked to viewing the Millennium as the last era of the Physical Word, that Revelation 21-22 are just describing a purely spiritual existence in which anything that looks physical there is merely an allegory, that it's really just about our Spirits becoming one with The Force.  Of course Amillennial and Postmillennial views are often also guilty of that heresy in their own way.  Especially since any view that we're already in the Millennium is an obvious gateway drug to rejecting the Bodily Resurrection altogether.

In my view Revelation 21-22 is a physical carnal world, in fact it is our world perfected to it's Pre-Fall condition.  And any desire to reject or weaken that is Platonic, Neo-Plaotnic or Gnostic heresy.

Basically what most Chiliasts think the Millennium is like is how I view Revelation 21-22.

My last post already addressed the misconception that Premillenialists think the Kingdom has an end.

When I say there was no Amillennial or Postmillenial interpretation of Revelation 20 before Augustine and certainly not before Nicaea, I'm open to being proven wrong on that.  But you need more then just the existence of people not liking Chilialsm and it's implications.  You need to specifically prove that they interpreted the Thousand years of Revelation 20 as not a literal time period and/or having already began.

And again, many people who wanted to reject any notion of a Millennium simply rejected Revelation altogether, like Eusebius of Caesarea.

Update Correction: Ticonius does beat Augustine to forming a Postmillenial interpretation of Revelation, in fact he is who Augustine got it from.  Still his Commentary was published in 380 AD, same year Christianity formally became the state religion of the Empire and after over half a century of being effectively the state region.  And it went hand in hand with being a purely Spiritual interpretation of Revelation.  And he was a Donatist, so officially a Heretic according to the Council of Nicaea.

His Kingdom Shall Have no End.

In Luke chapter 1 verse 33 the Angle Gabriel tells Mary about her Son.

"And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

This verse is the basis for one of the additions to the Nicene Creed.

whose kingdom shall have no end.

I have recently learned that many Amillenial scholars want to use this line as evidence that the Second Ecumenical Council condemned Premillenialism.  This PDF I found refuted the notion that Premillenialism was the reason for adding that line.
http://francisgumerlock.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Millennialism%20and%20the%20Early%20Church%20Councils.%20Gumerlock.pdf

However more important then if that was the reason for the line being added, is the matter of if this line even is in conflict with Premillenialism, because in my view it's not.

Every Premillenial agrees that Christ's Kingdom is without end.  Some may start by saying this declaration is more about the Kingdom of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21-22 then what Revelation 20 is about.

But I prefer to stress that in Revelation 20 the Kingdom doesn't end when the Thousand Years ends, the only thing that happens exactly when the Thousand years are over is Satan being let out of the Abyss.  He then deceives Gog and Magog, the nations in the four corners of the Earth, to wage war on the Camp of the Saints, but then they are defeated.  The whole point of the Narrative is that the Kingdom doesn't end.

I would argue it's interpretations of the book that make the Millennium and New Jerusalem basically the same thing that are more likely to be hindered by this deceleration.

If anything this statement of Luke 1:33 is more of a problem for a face value reading of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 then it is Revelation 20, but even then it's just a matter of exactly what Paul means.  I think Christ is still Reigning after He gives all Authority to The Father, there's merely a nuanced difference in how exactly it looks one the Material and Spiritual are no longer separated.

As I've said before, Amillennial or Post-Millennial interpretation of Revelation were very rare before Augustine, those who didn't like the Millennium as a doctrine instead rejected Revelation altogether.

The Origenist attitude condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council is ironically to me exactly the same attitude that leads to Amillenialism.

Amillennial and Post Millennialism

If you have trouble telling the difference between these two eschatological models, it's not just cause they seem effectively the same to us Pre-Millenialists, even unbiased scholars are unsure which of these best describes the Eschatology of Augustine of Hippo.

The gist is, Amillenials believe there is no Millennium, while Post-Millenial means you believe the Parusia(Second Coming) happens after the Millennium.  Both however have a tendency to involve believing the Thousand Years of Revelation 20 are not literally that exact period of time.  And both tend to involve not taking the Chronology of Revelation at face value thus putting them in direct conflict with the premise of this Blog. 

My belief that the Resurrection is a literal physical bodily resurrection of the Flesh is core to my understanding of The Gospel itself.  And that is why I have long been opposed to any model saying the first 6 verses of Revelation 20 are already fulfilled.

But, I have recently become aware that some people feel you can believe in both.

Some believe the General Resurrection at the White Throne Judgment at the end of Revelation 20 is bodily, but Revelation 20:4 can be read as defining itself as of Souls not Bodies sitting on those thrones.  And I have been giving this view a very open-minded assessment.

That argument involves citing passages where Paul says we die in Christ and then are Risen in Christ when we become Believers, symbolically pictured in Baptism.  So believers have a spiritual Resurrection before we even die.  Which is why Revelation 20:4 isn't really describing the Resurrection event itself.  Basically Unbeleivers Spirits/Souls aren't resurrected before their bodies but Believers are.

This overlaps with a view on the Second Death that exists among Evangelical Universalists.  In the past I've taken the tactic of saying the Second Death is the death of death, but I've come to realize that only really fits one of the three verses to use the term.  I've now seen it argued by supporters of Universal Reconciliation that the Second Death is when unbelievers become Dead to Sin, which for Believers happened during our mortal life so that's why the Second Death has no power over us.

The first issue is that I'm only open to an argument for Post-Millenialism that doesn't play games with the chronology of Revelation.  You're not going to convince me that Apollyon and Satan are the same entity.  The Book Revelation defined itself as a clear chronology.

Secondly even if I could accept that interpretation of Revelation 20:4.  Revelation 11 is still clearly depicting the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses as bodily, you're not going to convince me that is merely symbolic.  The various Preterist views on the Two Witnesses account for their Deaths but not their Resurrection.

And then there is the mater of the Rapture of The Man-Child which I've shown isn't Jesus but The Church, and the 144,000 being described as already Redeemed from the Earth and as Firstfruits in Revelation 14.  And the Armies following the Rider on the White Horse in Revelation 19.

And the fact remains that it isn't the White Throne Judgment but various events between the 7th Trumpet and first Bowl that resemble how The Olivte Discourse and the Thessalonian Epistles describe The Paursia.

Revelation 20:4 also defines itself as being specifically those Martyred for not taking The Mark.  So it could be they are not Physically Resurrected yet because they were Post-Rapture Believers.

On the subject of rejecting The Millennium altogether.  I've read some anti Premilennial articles expressing how the face value chronology of Revelation 20 conflicts in their view with the plain reading of other passages on the Resurrection and the Parusia like 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Peter 3.

The whole Premise of my Blog is how Revelation right from the first Chapter defines itself as explaining what was unclear before.  The very first verse says that what even The Son didn't know before is being Revealed to us now, from Matthew 24 we know the timing of events is specifically what that was.  So whenever there is an apparent conflict between other passages and Revelation on Chronology, Revelation is the one to be taken at face value.

What's interesting is that Pre-Augustine those uncomfortable with the very idea of the Millennium simply rejected Revelation altogether, wanting to say Revelation was really the work of Cerethius or John the Presbyter.  Pre-Nicea that was mostly a fringe minority, as the Muratorian canon shows Revelation's canonocity was not in question.  And from Tertulian to Ireaneus to Hippolytus to Methodius of Olympus, everyone to speak on Eschatology in the Pre-Nicene Church was clearly Pre-Millennial.  They had other areas of disagreement, but they were all Pre-Millennial.

But post Nicea this Anti-Revelation camp got a prominent supporter in Eusebius of Caesarea.  In his discussions of what books to consider Canon what he says on Revelation is schizophrenic because of how his personal bias infests it.  He acknowledges it as being universally accepted as Canon by all Churches, not even disputed the way Jude, 2 Peter or Hebrews were.  But he also talks about it under spurious books because that's how he viewed it for no good reason.

It was Augustine of Hippo who introduced the idea that you can simply allegorize The Millennium away, along with a lot of other bad doctrines.

Before him everyone who considered Revelation Scripture, (which was the vast majority of Christians, especially who weren't part of some alternative Gnostic or Ebonite cult) believed in a Millennium.  They of course were wrong when they predicted it to begin in the 500s AD, but that date setting mistake was the product of other bad assumptions and shouldn't be blamed on the Millennium doctrine itself.

My view on Modern Israel in Bible Prophecy

I don't believe in traditional Dispensationalism, or Two House Theology, or Catholic and Mainline Protestant understandings of "Replacement Theology".  So what do I think about Modern Israel?

I agree that most of the Bible Prophecies that Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists want to cite as being about 1948 like Isaiah 11:11 are clearly about something far more Supernatural and Messianic, where they return in belief.  However I disagree with Rob Skiba that they are about the Millennium.  I think they are about the New Heaven and New Earth and the descent of New Jerusalem.

Well, Ezekiel 37 is an exception, that is the one directly linked to the Resurrection, so that is possibly about the Millennium, though I think it may be possible it'll take the entire Millennium for all of it to be fully fulfilled.  And then Ezekiel 38 is about what happens between the end of the Millennium and the White Throne Judgment.  And then Ezekiel 40-48 are about the New Heaven and New Earth.

Psalm 48 is about New Jerusalem.  I've already argued that Isaiah 65-66 define themselves as being about the New Heaven and New Earth.  Leviticus 26&Deuteronomy 29 is where Bible Prophecy about the regathering of Israel begins, they I have come to view as not fully finally fulfilled until the descent of New Jerusalem.

I have talked before about how The Millennium is not as Utopic as people are assuming it will be.  For Believers it'll certainly be better then the world is now.  But most of the World will be obeying Jesus out of Fear not Love during this time.  This is where I think Zechariah 14 ends.

The Rothschild involvement in the 1948 birth of modern Israel is grossly overstated by Conspiracy Theorists.  Some of them financially supported it, but they were not the masterminds of it.  And to this day some Rothschilds are still Anti-Zionists.

Anti-Zionist Christians like to say it can only be God doing it if it's blatantly Supernatural.  And when we remind them about Cyrus they dismiss that by saying that God would tell his people through his Prophets if he was going to do it that way.  Well I'm a Continuationist, and the fact is throughout the 19th and early 20th Century many Christians seemed to know the time of Israel's return was approaching, and history vindicated them.

God tells us it was Him who scattered them, even though to terrestrial eyes it was Gentile Nations.  So who says their return can't be done the same way?

The Roman Captivity was very much a repeat of the Babylonian Captivity, right down to events playing out on the same days.  Chad Schafer has been talking a lot about Egypt's overlooked significance to the Roman Captivity, well Egypt was very vital to the Babylonian Captivity as well.  Jeremiah tells us that many Jews went to Egypt after Jerusalem fell, and that is part of why Egypt was carried away into Captivity by Babylon.

So it makes sense that the Return from the Roman Captivity would be very similar to the return from the Babylonian Captivity.  Truman however was not the Cyrus of 1948 like he sought to claim to be, he had nothing to do with making it happen.  Great Britain was in the role of Cyrus, and it's King at this time interestingly had Arthur in his full name.  Great Britain cemented their status as a modern successor to Rome when they defeated Napoleon and erected the Wellington Arch.  Just as Cyrus had taken the throne of Nebuchadnezzar.

However another layer of Typology is that I see the Seven Years King David ruled from Hebron as a type of the Seven Year period over which much of Revelation will play out.  And the time David Ruled from Zion and Jerusalem a type of the Millennium, and the early Reign of Solomon, when he was doing well, as a type of the full Messianic Kingdom.  In which context it's interesting to remember that before that was the reign of King Saul.

Could Modern Israel's destiny be to become the House of Saul to the Returning Jesus's David?  It's interesting that the current Prime Minister is named Benjamin, after Saul's Tribe.  I also alluded to reasons based on Jeremiah 6 for associating modern Israel with Benjamin in a Revelation 12 theory I came to last year.  In which case it's interesting that Ishbosheth ruled in the Trans-Jordan, near Mount Hermon.

The secular Capital of Modern Israel is Tel-Aviv.  The Ancient City that Tel-Aviv is adjacent to is Joppa/Jaffa.  Acts 9:32-28 refers to Lydda as being nigh to Joppa.  Lydda is in the Hebrew Bible Lod which is identified as a town of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35).

It's interesting that most Ahskenazim (and to a lesser extend many Shephardi) families that claim descent from David, do so via Rashi who did so via Hillel The Elder.  Hillel claimed through his mother descent from David's son Shaphatiah by Avital.  But Tribal Identity was traditionally determined paternally, and Hillel's father was a Benjamite, since he was born in Babylonia he may have come from the same Benjamite clan that Esther and Mordecai did, which came from a relative of Saul.  Gamaliel was Hillel's grandson, Paul claimed to have studied at his feet, and we know Paul was a Benjamite and originally a namesake of Saul, could Paul have been a relative of the House of Hillel?

The Khazar myth about where the Ashkenazim come from can be easily debunked, like in this video by Chris White.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDWUZ6EqWHc

[Update: or this one from Casual Historian.]

There is a small truth to it in that yes some Khazars intermarried into Jewish families, so many Ashekanazim may have some Khazars in their ancestry, but that does not contradict also descending from Jews who were in Israel at the Time of Christ.

Some like Britam and Veilikovsky (in Beyond the Mountains of Darkness) have sought to claim Lost Tribes descent for the Khazars.  But I find it more interesting that Benjamin had a son named Rosh (Genesis 46:21), and that the name of Rosh can also be linked to the same region as Meshech and Tubal, which is the land where the Khazars emerged, between the Black and Caspian Seas (something Chris White has also talked about).

I obviously disagree with the aspects of Velikovsky's argument that involve reinterpreting where Assyria first took them, I've built much of this Blog on that they were taken to parts of eastern Iraq and northern Iran.  But it's also possible that just as some remnants of the northern Tribes existed in Judah, that some Benjamites might have been among those deported when Samaria fell.  When the division first happened the border was mostly Benjamite territory on Judah's side.  But later there were times were Israel was winning in it's wars with Judah and so the border moved further south.

There is at least one website out there seeking to argue the Spanish came from Benjamin.  What they wound up making is a strong argument for the Shaphardi Jews coming chiefly from Benjamin, but Shaphardi Jews are genetically distinct from the gentile populations of Spain in-spite of how much they may look the same.  Another connection between Benjamin and Spain is Paul himself who in Romans expressed a desire to go to Spain which later traditions say he did.

The term Mizrahi Jews refers to Jewish communities of Iraq/Persia, and the Mountain Jews also associated with the same region as the Khazzars and Rosh.  Also the Oral Traditions of the Mountain Jews claim they came specifically from Jerusalem.

As far as the Jewish communities of Iraq/Persia go, we know the family of Esther and Mordechai dwelt there coming from a relative of Saul.  And that the Descendants of Hillel were based there during the time the Babylonian Talmud was composed.  The Exilarchs (traditionally descendants of David via Zerubabel) were also in Iraq for a long time.  But the Rabbinic Jewish traditions about them skip right form when the TNAK ends to the time of Hadrian, maybe their claimed David descent was not unlike Hillel's.  At any-rate most families today claiming descent from the Exilarchs do so via a lot of intermingling with the descent from Rashi.

Temani/Yemenite Jews I theorize mainly descend from Simeon (probably from the clan of Jamin) Simeon and Levi were both destined to be scattered among the other tribes.

I also see a poetic logic in the early Jewish Communities of Rome (who existed at least as early as the first Pentacost) coming from Benjamin.   Given the wolf association of both.

I think some remnant of Judah may exist among them.  But mostly I think Judah went to Africa after 70 AD.  Though I also think the descendants of the half-siblings of Jesus, and of Jesus Apostles, inevitably became absorbed into gentile populations.

David promised Johnathon Ben Saul that his seed would be preserved.  And we see him keep that later when he spared Johnathon's son Mephibosheth from the killing of descendants of Saul done to appease the Gibeonites.  Often such promises correlate to that line having a role to play in Eschatology.

Benjamin was the only son born in the Promised Land.  Maybe that is a reason for it to make sense he would be the only one who's Nation at the time of the Regathering would be already in Israel.

Ezekiel's Temple and the Millennium Follow up

This is a follow up to Distinguishing between The Millennium and the New Heaven and New Earth.  And also my more recent Bethel, The House of God post.

My position on Isaiah 65 and 66 being the New Heaven and New Earth not The Millennium remains unshakable.  I've been doing some rethinking on Ezekiel, I certainly think many of the conditions in Ezekiel could also apply to The Millennium, and was also thinking maybe it's not the New Creation till YHWH-Shammah descends.  But the fact remains it's Revelation 21-22 that draws on this part of Ezekiel while 20 draws on 37-39.

Isaiah 66 which is still the same Prophecy as Isaiah 65 says in verse 3.

He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as he that breaketh a dog`s neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as he that offereth] swine`s blood; he that burneth frankincense, as he that blesseth an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations:

This further assured me that if indeed the Sacrifices being carried out in Ezekiel proves it's the Millennium in some people's minds then Isaiah can't be talking about the same time period.

But that also reminds me of why as a Christian the Sacrifices Ezekiel describes makes me uncomfortable either way.  The rationalizations I often hear from Christians for them are not satisfactory to me.

I read a few months ago an argument a Christian made that Ezekiel 40-48 is not going to be fulfilled in The Future, it was a hypothetical Constitution for the Return from Captivity that Israel rejected.  While that argument sounded quite reasonable, the problem I have with that is so much of Ezekiel's Temple besides the Sacrifices seem to anticipate what changed at The Cross.  No veil, no wall of separation, no separate courts for gentiles and women, ect.   

Add to that how Revelation 21-22 clearly draws on this part of Ezekiel.  And my recent insights regarding Bethel.  And I simply can't write off the Eschatological relevance of these chapters.

Then it hit me, what if both views are right in a sense?  It was originally a potential model for the return from captivity but was rejected.  However God still plans to make it happen anyway, but certain conditions will be different because of The Cross chief among them being no Sacrifices as Isaiah 66 clearly instructs.  Though some ceremonies may be performed using Jesus' already shed Blood.

You may think "what do we need the Brazen Altar for then?"  I'm thinking maybe it'll be converted into a monument with a Cross on top, a memorial of the permanent Sacrifice that made all others moot.

For the options I provided before for dealing with the size difference between Ezekiel's YHWH-Shammah and New Jerusalem.  I was favoring the John saw it from the inside option, and I still like that view, but....  I've watched this video from Rob Skiba.  I really don't like the Pyramid parts and I could do without the Flat Earth stuff.  But he still has interesting speculations.

That made me re-think the New Jerusalem borders include everything in Ezekiel's vision option.  The borders if you put YHWH-Shammah or Bethel (or the Altar east of Bethel) at the center of New Jerusalem would include everything in Ezekiel's vision, and it seems everything God promised to Abraham.  Plus Assyria and Egypt fitting Isaiah 19.  It'd also include some of Greece and about all of Asia minor, that's most destinations of Paul's travels, and all Seven Churches of Revelation, where Jesus also talks about New Jerusalem in the message to Philadelphia.

I keep looking into the Montanists, trying to decide if I think it's fair to label them heretics or not.  I can't find any clear statement on their soterology.  Much of what we know of them comes from their critics which had me skeptical of the most negative things said.  Still I do suspect they were an early example of how modern Charismatics sometimes go over board.

One of that movement's founding principles was the founders having a Prophetic revelation that New Jerusalem would be in Asia Minor, which had me thinking "well that's clearly a False Prophecy".  Now however I'm considering what if they misunderstood a Prophetic revelation that New Jerusalem would include Asia Minor? 

On the subject of Noah's Ark, I believe Bob Cornuke's theory that it's in Northern Iran, that site is within the cube also (as well as Jabal el-Lawz, the real Mt Sinai).

And the traditional location of the mythical Gates of Alexander is around about where the northern border would be between the black and Caspian seas.  A legend I mention in a Biblical context only because of how it's legacy became tied to Gog and Magog.

It may be both those options for the size issue are valid in a sense.  Because again the very laws of physics will change I believe.

If you're wondering "what about Jerusalem in the Millennium then?"  I don't know.  I notice Revelation 20 never clearly refers to the Holy City till after the Thousand Years are over and doesn't name it.  But I'm pretty sure that's Jerusalem since I see it as the same as Ezekiel 38-39.

I also found this study helpful.

A New Perspective on Isaiah 14

I did a major study on Isaiah 14 before.  I now have new insights that have forced me to reject the idea of it being relevant to the Death and Resurrection of the Antichrist.  Much of my insights there are still helpful, and I don't feel like repeating my adjustments to the Translation.  That post however also predates my changing my view on Daniel 11:36-45.

Isaiah 13:1-14:27 is all one Prophecy, remember that as you study this yourself.  I still feel this thematically connects Revelation 12 to Revelation 18.

As I was thinking about that again recently, it hit me how I really should have realized after talking about a possible allusion to the Abyss there that I had just discovered an Old Testament reference to Satan being bound in the Abyss.

Verse 19 was the main smoking gun to my reading Revelation 13 into it, "thrust through with a sword" but as I read it more carefully now, it's not Satan or the King of Babylon being described that way, just talking in general about people who have died violently because of this individual's evil deeds.

I also realized that when talking about the King of Babylon being sent to Sheol it never says this individual died at any point.  Another note I should mention is the word translated "dead" in verse 9 isn't a usual Hebrew word for dead but Raphaim.

The standard view of Isaiah 14 among the faithful is that it starts out talking about the King of Babylon then the subject switches to Satan.  I said in the prior post I felt verse 12's grammar justified that, but I now realize that was my bias talking.

Another view is that this is all just about a human King of Babylon and that the seeming references to someone falling from Heaven shouldn't be taken at face value.  One video on Youtube insists the term "Sides of the North" being used in Psalm 48 about Zion proves that term is about a Terrestrial location, Jerusalem.  However Psalm 48 could be the Heavenly Zion of Hebrews 12:22 and Revelation 14, the heavenly location that will become New Jerusalem and then descend after the New Heaven and New Earth are created.  The "Sides of The North" is where I believe the Heavenly Temple/Tabernacle is.  Interestingly Pagan Canaanite texts also use this same terminology of Heaven.

And the view of Bible skeptics is that Isaiah is just poetically comparing a human King of Babylon to a mythical god.  I have addressed that elsewhere.

I have considered a new option.  There is no Human King of Babylon in this chapter, this King of Babylon is never described as an Adam or an Enosh, he's never defined as human.  Just as Ezekiel 48 refers to Satan as the King of Tyre after talking about Tyre so here Satan is called the King of Babylon after talking about Babylon.  Because Jesus called him the Ruler of The World (Archon of the Kosmos) in John's Gospel, and Paul called him the "God of this Aion".  He offered Jesus all the Kingdoms of The World and will give them to The Beast in Revelation 13.

The beast is in conflict with Babylon in Revelation 17, but I think that plays into Satan's manipulations.  And it could be God's destruction of the City in chapter 18 is after The Beast conquers it and destroys it's system represented by the Harlot in chapter 17.

(Note, this does not change my view that the Prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 48 is a human ruler, but I'm less certain that has anything to do with The Antichrist).

It could be the Abyss is being idiomatically spoken of as his grave in verse 19.

In verse 20, the "thy" before both "land" and "people" isn't in the Hebrew. Even if their presence is grammatically justified somehow (I'm by no means a Hebrew expert), this could be going back to whatever Satan's intended role was before he started working against God's will in Genesis 3, that he's destroyed lands and people he was meant to be responsible for.

It could be the narrative jumps forward a thousand years, from when Satan is cast into the Pit to when he's cast out.

In that past Isaiah 14 study I talked about The Assyrian at the end.  This now gives me a new answer to that mystery.

Chris White has a video where he seeks to refute the view of The Antichrist being an Assyrian.  I basically agree on that but have differences, for one in the past I'd criticized that video for ignoring Isaiah 14.  But I completely agree on Isaiah 9-11, though I do think that could have an End Times second fulfillment, if so that Assyrian would be more likely a decoy Antichrist.

The key to it's relevance here is Micah 5 starting in verse 4.  I agree with him that the context of that Prophecy is Millennial, (I had even before this recent insight).  But I'm not so convinced of the argument that the hypothetical language means it's not something that will happen.  White himself uses hypothetical statements to build eschatological doctrine elsewhere, with John 5 which his False Christ book is dependent on, but I possibly have a different view on.

Now I'm thinking again of my argument that there may be more time between Satan being let out of the Abyss and the Gog and Magog invasion then people realize (I agree with Christ White that Ezekiel 38-39 is post Millennial).  What if Micah 5's Assyrian invasion of Israel is something that happens very soon after Satan is freed from the Abyss?  Satan's first act in the events leading up to the Gog and Magog War?  A detail Revelation 20 skips or glosses over?

In which case Micah 5 and Isaiah 14's Assyrian Prophecies could be the same event, an event soon after the thousand years expire.  And whether there is an individual being called "The Assyrian" or just about the nation and people of Asshur would be irrelevant.  This could also tie in with my thoughts on Isaiah 17 and Damascus.

Isaiah 17, past or future?

I've been on the Isaiah 17 is about modern Syria's political turmoil bandwagon since before it was a Bandwagon, as far back as at least 2004 saying it on IMDB message boards.  I was with it before it was popular.

But I've read an article that makes important points arguing that it is already fulfilled.  The people behind this article might be Preterist in general which I would disagree with, I'm not very familiar with the site.

What's important is how the "it can't be already fulfilled" arguments are strongly linked to a Translation error that has it's origin in the Septuagint.  Because I've argued that the Septuagint is a problem before.  [And now I would argue Aion doesn't mean forever either.]

I certainly agree that Damascus won't cease to be a City "forever" since Ezekiel 47&48 clearly has Damascus existing in the New Heaven and New Earth.  Babylon is the only City permanently destroyed forever, and Edom the only entire nation.

And what is pointed out here about the "Day of the LORD" terminology can be good for weakening the flawed logic of Post-Tirbbers and Pre-Wrathers and others who want to garble the chronology of Revelation.  And those who insist that day must be a literal 24 Hour day.

That Isaiah 13 is in the future is something I will not be shaken on however.

What I don't get is this article not addressing how the end of the Chapter describes a FAILED invasion of Israel by the nations, not the Northern Kingdom's fall.

Indeed the second half of the Chapter has everything sounding rather Millennial to me.  I've talked before about how I don't view the Millennium as a Utopia.  Also my view that there is more time between the end of the Millennium and the Gog and Magog invasion then most people assume.

The Millennium and Tabernacles

I've talked before about how I think many passages people assume are The Millennium are really the New Heaven and New Earth.  Mainly Isaiah 65, Ezekiel 40-48 and Psalm 48.

I have decided one Old Testament passage I think is definitely The Millennium.  The end of Zachariah 14.

And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.   And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.  And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.  In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD'S house shall be like the bowls before the altar.  Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

This theme of punishing Nations I don't see happening in the New Creation.  This fits my suspicion that The Millennium is not going to be as Utopic as everyone assumes.   The passages I disagree with seeing as The Millennium are about the Gentile Nations enthusiastically worshiping Yahweh.

That only Tabernacles is mentioned here I find interesting.  I doubt it'll be the only of the Feast Days kept at this time, but it may be the only one that God will require the Gentiles to come to.  Ezekiel 45 has Passover/Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles still being kept, but not First Fruits, Pentecost, Yom Teruah or Yom Kippur.

You may be thinking, "having a required pilgrimage for the Jews is one thing, but do you really think the whole world's population is gonna fit in Jerusalem?"  Well what Zechariah 14 says is focused on the Nations, not on individuals.  It may be each nation will send representatives there, or that the leaders are supposed to go there.

It is my view that the Fulfillment of Tabernacles is after the Millennium and the Gog and Magog war.  While Yom Teruah is fulfilled at The Rapture.

Zion and New Jerusalem

I've expressed in the past my view that The Church isn't on The Earth during The Millennium.  We're in New Jerusalem, which is also Yahweh-Shammah.

The physical city of New Jerusalem already exists, it's in Heaven, maybe it's accurate to say in a sense it IS Heaven.  It is the Heavenly Jerusalem and Zion of Hebrews 12:22.

The term "Sides of The North" appears in The Bible twice.  Once dealing with Lucifer's Fall in Isaiah 14, and once in Psalm 48 talking about the Heavenly Zion when it descends as New Jerusalem.

It is my belief that the 144,000 are part of the Church and in some sense represent The Church.

Revelation 14 describes them as standing on Mount Sion.  In terminology that implies now they have been Resurrected.

I see The Rapture in the Seventh Trumpet (which extends into the opening part of Revelation 12).

Revelation 14 depicts the Raptured Church standing in the Heavenly Zion.

The Seven Millenniums of Human History Theory

It's a very popular hypothesis, it makes sense in light of the thematic importance of the number 7 in Scripture.  But I feel the foundation of it is rather shaky.  Yet most people who aren't entirely against Date Setting base their calculations almost solely on this theory, or some variant of the This Generation shall not pass theory, or some contrived view of Revelation 12.

2 Peter 3 draws on a statement from one of the Psalms to say "A day is like a Thousand years and a Thousand years like a day".  The intent of this statement is merely a poetic idiom of God's Timelessness.

But it's popular from there to build a doctrine of the 7 days of Creation representing 7 Millennium of Human History.

It is interesting that this 7 Millenniums theory is expressed in The Talmud and other Rabbinic sources, and Christian supporters of these views keep pointing to the Rabbinic and Kabbalistic support of the idea to prop it up, since it lacks direct Biblical support.  Still Christian support for the idea goes back to Ireaneus.  But the Church Fathers who held this view believed Jesus first advent was around 5500 AM because they used the Septuagint, so they predicted about 500-5030 AD for the Millennium to start.

The core thing that makes it seem credible to Christians is the doctrine of The Millennium from Revelation 20., which becomes viewed as the Sabbath millennium.

One problem is the Revelation 20 Millennium is never Biblically defined as a period of rest or even of peace.  1 Corinthians 15, the only place outside Revelation that clearly addresses there being a period between the Second Coming and the full New Creation, says in verses 24-28.

"Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.  For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.  And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all."

It's defined sort of as a period of Conquest.  Zechariah 14 also seems to show it as a time when Jesus is ruling, but people are obeying him out of fear not love.  I've explained elsewhere how lots of passages people think are The Millennium are really the New Heaven and New Earth.  Those include Isaiah 65, Ezekiel 40-48 and Psalm 48.

But the greater death nail to the theory is that in fact there is more then a Thousand years between the destruction of The Beast and the Descent of New Jerusalem..

Revelation 20 has many conditions, but only one is defined as ending "when the Thousand years are over", Satan being bound in The Abyss.  The Beheaded Saints reign with Christ a thousand years, but it doesn't say their reign ends then.  The "rest of the dead" are not raised till after the Thousand years, but it doesn't say that happens immediately either.

Satan has to deceive the Nations before the Gog and Magog invasion can happen.  We have no idea how long he'll do that, it certainly could be very quickly, but maybe it could be a long time, years, centuries, maybe even another thousand years.

More important then that however is that I do agree with Chris White that the Gog and Magog invasion of Revelation 20 is the same as Ezekiel 38-39.  In which case we know their dead bodies will be buried for 7 years before being raised for the White Throne Judgment.  And the burying will take 7 months.

So I certainly think roughly 7 Thousand years is possible.  But I would highly advise against making needing exactly 6000 years pivotal to your chronology.  Though I have suggested one such theory in the past, but I had other reasons for that theory also, and now no longer support that chronology at all.

A stronger Biblical argument can be made for using the "Day like a Thousand years" idea with Hosea 5:15-6:2 for Two Thousand years from the Ascension.  Which refers to YHWH returning to His place for two days and coming back on the third day when Israel acknowledges their offense.  Hosea 5:15 is God talking.  Chapter 6 records what Israel will pray in their repentance, 6:2 has the time reference in mind.

Which based on my 30 AD date for the Crucifixion can back up a 2030-2037 model with a 2033 Rapture.

Because Hosea's statement was a Prophecy, that works better then looking at 7 literal days that did literally happen and saying that tells how long history will be when no Bible passage directly tells us that.

But it could be Hosea is also talking about literal 24 hour days.  Perhaps events that will transpire during the end times.

So I see Hosea as possibly implying about 2000 years from the Ascension to the Second Coming, but not necessarily exactly to the day or even exact year.

But I'm not gonna be dogmatic on that either, since I hate the Day=Year theory of historicists, I feel considering Day=Millennium definitive when the scriptural support for both is about equal is quite hypocritical.  The Day=Year theory does have a precedent in Ezekiel 4, but that is Ezekiel doing something for days he's told represents years, it does not justify saying every reference to days in Daniel and Revelation is really years.

Many people arguing for the 7 Millenniums theory incorporate the Hosea reference into it.  They argue Jesus was Crucified in the 4000th year from Adam, they provide no proper chronology to back that up, only asserting symbolic reasons it would make sense.  Then cite Hosea to support 2000 years from the first advent to the second.

Another argument for 6000 years is trying to say the 120 years of Genesis 6 refers to 120 Jubilees and 50x120=6000.  1. That is clearly about 120 years before the Flood, no mention of Jubilees, a second application to human life spans/what a generation is possible but not solid.  2. A Jubilee is actually 49 years, the 50th year is the first year of the next cycle.  3. The Jubliee was given to Moses to be instituted by Joshua, it's not relevant to any pre-Mosaic history.

I lay out a possible opinion on when the year 6000 was here.

Genesis 5-6 don't have anything happen on exactly the year 1000, Genesis 11-12 has nothing happen on exactly the year 2000 though there is a rabbinic tradition based on the wrong 1948 AM birth-date for Abraham that he first became a Believer at 52.  Ussher had the completion of The Temple in the year 3000 AM but if he was wrong on anything then that doesn't work.  Ussher's Creation date could also be used to make the proposed 3 BC Birth of Jesus date 4000 AM, but I no longer consider that date valid.

So I see no reason to think the year 6000 was or will be important.

I'm a Dispensationalist, but a different kind

I agree that not all saved are part of The Church, and The Church age is from Pentecost to The Rapture.  I agree the Church is a distinct Covenant from Israel, but not as completely separate a people often say.  Their destinies are linked.

I agree The Church is distinct from the Mosaic Covenant, and the Circumcision Covenant of Genesis 17.  Most Dipsensaitonlists agree that Abraham's Genesis 12 makes all of the Saved the spiritual Seed of Abraham (including those not part of either Israel or The Church).

However I do believe The Church is derived from the Genesis 15 Covenant just as much as the Mosaic one is.  And Jesus' promise to the 12 to rule the 12 Tribes of Israel makes The Church linked to the Davidic Covenant.

People get confused by what Paul says about The Church being a Mystery (Mysterion in Greek) in Ephesians 1:9 and 3:3-9, and other passages.  It does not mean The Church is completely absent from The Hebrew Bible, or not originally part of God's Plan.  Mysterion means that which was hidden.  Pieces of The Church doctrine are all over the Hebrew Bible, from the Pentecost Holy Day itself, to The Rapture allusions in Isaiah 26 and Joel 2:15-16, to the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31, And Joel 2:28-32 foretelling the out pouring of The Holy Ghost.  And of Course the Brides who are types of The Church like Rebecca and Ruth.

In II Samuel 7 David is told his Son not him will build The Temple.  This is viewed as a double fulfillment Prophecy, Solomon and his Temple as the first, and The Messiah Ben-David and the Messianic Temple described in Ezekiel 40-47 as the true final fulfillment.

1 Kings 5:3 tells us the reason David couldn't build The Temple was because he fought Wars.  Solomon's name is derived from Shalom, the Hebrew word for Peace.  The Temple has to be built by The Prince of Peace.  It occurs to me a potential problem exists with The Christian view of Messianic Prophecy that I'm surprised I haven't seen Jewish critics point out.  Jesus fulfills the roles of David and Solomon both.  How can that be possible?

I think the way Jesus gets around this is He builds His Temple first, then fights The Wars.  And I think that's part of the reason for the gap between the Two Advents.  The last thing he does at the First Advent is lay the foundation for The Temple.  The first thing he'll do at the Second Advent is remove his Temple to a safe place before His Wrath is poured out.

That The Church is The Temple of God is an important part of New Testament theology.  But because of the errors made by most Dispensationalists, they fail to see the Messianic Temple foretold in The Hebrew Bible as that same Temple.  But I have argued elsewhere that Ezekiel 40-48 corresponds to Revelation 21-22 not 20.

I can add to that the question of who resides in Jerusalem in Ezekiel?  It's not part of what's allotted to any of the 12 Tribes.  And even the portions of The Holy District given to the Priests, Levites and The Prince (probably David based on Ezekiel 33-36) are distinct from Jerusalem.  The simple answer might be that as The Capitol it has people of every Tribe.  Well that agrees with my belief that it is The Church, The Church has people from all of The Tribes as well as many Gentiles.

We are grafted into Israel as Romans 11 says, but not into one of the already existing Tribes, we're like a 14th Tribe.

None of that contradicts there being a literal structure with the design Ezekiel saw.  But that Tabernacle is the Heavenly One having descended to Earth (I believe it'll be on or near Mt Gezrim).  And has always existed, Moses saw it in The Wilderness, John saw it on Patmos.  And I suspect it had been on Earth once before, in The Garden of Eden before The Fall.  So it's construction isn't part of Prophecy.

As for how this effects the Rapture timing debate.  I agree with Chuck Missler that The Church is a unique entity.  I disagree that God can't or won't deal with Israel (and thus begin the 70th Week) while The Church is still here.  He dealt with Israel in 70 AD and and has again in 1948 and 1967.

He is correct based on Romans 11:25 that Israel's National Spiritual Blindness won't be lifted until The Fullness of The Gentiles has come in.  But that Blindness is only partial and does no contradict the 144,000 being Church Age believers.  When the Abomination of Desolation happens is when the blindness begins to be lifted, when they see that what Jesus foretold was correct and flee as he warned them to.

Chuck Missler is correct that up to verse 24 Luke 21 is about 70 AD.  Where Preterists stumble is in verse 24, after describing the captivity and diaspora.  "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." and then The Second Coming begins in the following verses, verse 27 makes clear he comes on a Cloud not a White Horse, so it's The Rapture.  Preterists want to make that "trodden under foot" period end with the Fall of Jerusalem even though Jesus clearly says that's where it begins.

The Rapture connection makes it very logical to see this "times of the gentiles" as corresponding to Paul's "fullness of the gentiles".  Luke is often defined as the most Paulian of The Gospels.

Revelation 11 describes the end of this period.  It makes clear that during the first half of the 70th Week while The Temple will be standing the Outer Court will still be Trodden under the foot of The Gentiles.  This is also clearly contemporary with the ministry of The Two Witnesses.  And after this 3.5 year period is the 7th Trumpet.

So that's pretty solid proof that the first half of the 70th Week is still The Church Age.