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.

InspiringPhilosophy finally made a video about his Eschatology views.

He'd been mentioning casually in Tweets being a Partial Preterist and Post Millenialist for awhile now.  So I can't agree with everything in this video but as someone who's become more open to those views it is interesting, certainly closer to something I could accept then the Partial Preterism of Victorious Eschatology.

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.

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.

Translation issues in Revelation that could be important.

They involve the Subject of The Beast and comes from chapters 13 and 17.

In Revelation 13:5 the KJV says The Beast will "continue" 42 month.  That reading being my default understanding of the verse has always lead me to interpreting it as saying the end of the 42 months must be when the Beast is defeated in Revelation 19 and they begin when the Mortal Wound is healed.  Since the meaning of "Continue" in my mind meant his life and reign being prolonged past the point when it should have ended.

But I recently checked the Young's Literal Translation and it says that The Beast was given authority to "make war" for 42 months.  Now this is not actually a perfectly hyper literal translation because the Greek word for War isn't in the verse, but it is elsewhere in the chapter and associated with The Beast in other chapters.  For example in both Revelation 11:7 and 13:7 the phrase "make war" appears, and in both the word for "make" is the Greek word translated "Continue" in 13:5, in fact the same word is translated lots of other ways as well.

I think the "make war" appearances are actually best translated "wage war".  In 13:7 the waging of war is defined as something The beast is given power or authority to do.  And 13:4 was also about the Beast's prowess in warfare. So it makes sense that what The beast "makes" or "wages" in those other verses is what is probably the context of verse 5.

The next is not a criticism of the KJV, but more the way we casually talk about Revelation 17 that may not even be supported by any actual translation.  And that is how we often refer to the Woman as Riding the Beast.  The Language the text uses is that The Beast is carrying the Woman.  And this difference is significant in terms of who can be presumed to have the agency in this situation.

The third is perhaps not a matter of a single word.  But I'd already argued on this Blog that I think the Miracles or Wonders that the later part Revelation 13 attributes to the Second Beast are meant to be believed by those being deceived to be performed by the First Beast.  But I didn't much try to support that with anything in the actual text of Revelation 13 but from inferences drawn by other prophecies I then assumed to be about the same persons.  I'm now more skeptical of a lot of those assumptions about what passages are and aren't about the "Antichrist", but instead have been thinking about what it means that the miracles are performed "in the sight" of The Beast, or "before the beast" in the YLT.

Such language exists in The Hebrew often about the relationship between The LORD and His Prophets or Anointed Ones.  In those Contexts is about how what the Agents of God are able to do what they do because of Power or Authority given to them by God or Jesus.  The natural perversion of that would be a False Prophet attributing his miracles to the person he's seeking to deceive the world into thinking is a god.

However another issue near here is about the Image of The Beast.  The KJV says that the Second Beast convinced the people to "male" an Image of the Beast but other translations say something like "set up" which I think is more accurate looking at the Greek verb itself.  The issue is the "make" translation had at times lead me to think the Image is something that didn't exist already prior to this, but the Greek is actually NOT using a word for Create. So it could be referring to doing something with an Image that was already there.

When was Jesus's Not One Stone Prophecy fully fulfilled?

You might think the answer to that is obvious and well known, but you'd be surprised.  First I'm going to quote the account of the Prophecy from Mark 13:1-2 since I think it's the most complete account of exactly what Jesus in this case.

And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, "Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" And Jesus answering said unto him, "Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down".

Notice that it isn't JUST about The Temple, it's about all the Buildings, plural.  

While Matthew and Luke's account of this in their main Olivet Discourse chapters downplay the inclusion of other buildings, Luke 19:44 also refers to not one stone being left, with The Temple not even being the focus, that Prophecy is about the entirety of Jerusalem.

The 9th of Av in AD 70 (presumed to be August 4th on the Roman Calendar) as recorded in Josephus Wars of The Jews Book VI Chapters 4-5 is the day The Temple was destroyed in the sense of not being able to be used as a Temple anymore.  Remember what happened to the Notre Dame Cathedral a few years ago?  The worst case scenario people were fearing that day is basically what happened to The Temple on the 9th of Av.  The next day however as recorded by Josephus in Wars Book VI Chapter 6 there are clearly still standing ruins.  

The beginning of Book VII is when Titus demolishes even those ruins and thus this is where most Christians talking about AD 70 via Josephus (both Preterists and Futurists) say the Not One Stone Prophecy was fulfilled.  Except Josephus tells us there were three towers that Titus left standing, in my view as long as those three towers were still standing this Prophecy of Jesus was incomplete.

In AD 131 Emperor Hadrian while visiting Jerusalem after ending his extended stay in Egypt announced his plans to rebuilt Jerusalem as a Greco-Roman City with a Temple to Zeus being built over the former site of The Temple.  I think the early stages of that project is when even those three remaining towers were torn down.  

Then after Hadrian left the Near East for Asia Minor in 132 the Bar Kokchba Revolt broke out.  That probably stalled the reconstruction project even though the Rebels never held Jerusalem during that war.  Then after the revolt was put down in 135 the project restarted.