I've expressed on my other blog that The Beloved Disciple was Lazarus (and maybe also his Sisters) not any of the 12, and that they wrote the Gospel and Epistles commonly attributed to John. I also believe John was never in Ephesus and that one of the False Apostles of Ephesus mentioned in Revelation 2 is the origin of that false tradition. I think Letois was identified with Patmos derivative of that 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.
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. And this John does not claim to be one of the 12 or a Son of Zebedee either.
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.
The first time the New Testament uses a word for Island/Isle is Acts 13:6, while Paul, Barnabas and someone named John were on the Island of Cyprus, when they arrive at a city on Cyprus called Paphos. It is upon leaving Cyprus in this chapter that this John separates from Paul and Barnabas. It's pretty easy for me to imagine Patmos being an alternate form of or nick name for Paphos.
This John in Acts 13 was appointed to be Barnabas and Paul's "Minister", the specific Greek word used here implies a type of recorder or record keeper, someone who will be writing stuff down. His record of these events was probably used as source material by Luke when he compiled Acts, though I don't think Luke simply copy/pasted it. The Book of Revelation is it's John serving that exact same function.
The reason scholars are pretty sure the John of Acts 13 is John Mark is because these events are referenced back to in Acts 15:37-40 where he's called both John and Mark. That passage also tells us Barnabas and John Mark went back to Cyprus. So could this John Mark have written Revelation at Paphos on Cyprus? If John Mark is also the Mark who was a relative of Barnabas then he was a native of Cyprus to begin with.
But what if Mark and Revelation could have the same author? Literary analysis only focuses on if Revelation lines up with books we've named after John son of Zebedee. Mark's Gospel is likewise his record of what Peter preached. Differences in literary style could perhaps be explained by him being the recorder of different reciters.
Acts 13 at Paphos is the only place outside of Revelation the word Pseudoprophetes (False Prophet) is used of a singular individual.
Kittim was a Son of Javan Son of Japheth in Genesis, but the name pops up a few times in Bible Prophecy. It's pretty agreed on that it's an early name for the island of Cyprus, it's just disagreed to what extent Kittim extends beyond that, or if it's more specifically just Kition.
Cyrpus at one point in it's ancient history was divided between Ten City-State Kingdoms, one of them was based in Paphos, one was Salamis and one was Kition.
The Wikipedia page for Paphos says some interesting things about the local Greek Mythology. For one it's the source of the legend of Pygmalion, a myth about a statue named Galatea being brought to life by Aphrodite, many people talking about this story leave out that it was specifically a statue of Aphrodite.
The local cult of Aphrodite at Paphos believed the version of her origin story where she rises from the Sea, (the word for Sea in question being Thalassa the same one Revelation uses) after the genitals of Ouranos (Heaven) were cut off and cast into it (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 12.43, it's also in Hesiod). Serpents were often used as Phalic Imagery in antiquity, so to a literate Greek reader Revelation 12 talking about the Old Serpent being cast out of Ouranos to the Earth might seem evocative of that castration.
The Greek text of Revelation may not define the Beasts out of the Sea and Earth as inherently masculine as our English Bibles make us assume. The word for "Man" is always Anthropos which actually means Human and is not really gender specific. And English is often forced to make pronouns Gender Specific that were not always so in the original.
There was also precedent for Aphrodite being worshiped as a War deity, Aphrodite Areia. "Who is able to Make war with the Beast".
So it might be some of these local Pagan traditions influenced the Symbolic Imagery Jesus choose to use to communicate His message to this John.
It is also part of the Mythology of Paphos that they were colonized by Arcadians who fought in the Trojan War. I have long theorized the Arcadians of Greek Mythology are the Arkite tribe of the Canaanites. And I also think that Troy was partly based on the Northern Kingdom of Israel. There is also a legend mentioned by Strabo about Paphos being founded by Amazons, who I also have wild speculations about.
Pygmalion was also the name of a King of Tyre who's reign is typically dated to 831-785 BC, he is known to have built colonies on Cyrpus and Sardinia. His grandfather was the brother of Jezebel, Jezebel's father had been a priest of Astarte according to Phoenician historians quoted by Josephus. Dido the founder of Carthage was the sister of Pygamlion of Tyre, she had stopped at Cyrpus on the way to Carthage. Dido had also been married to a Priest of Melqart (The King of Tyre of Ezekiel 28:11-19).
This is why Cyrpus is often viewed as the origin of the cult of Aphrodite, or rather that it was on Cyprus Astarte became Aphrodite.
After the Christianization of the Roman Empire, The Virgin Mary began taking on aspects of the worship of many Olympian goddesses, including Aphrodite/Venus. An Adonis Cave in Bethlehem became the Church of the Nativity. Still it's important to avoid the bad Hislop derivative research you see being promoted by many Protestants, Hebrew Roots followers, Neo-Pagans and New Atheists. Nimrod did not have a wife named Semiramis, but it is true that the title "Queen of Heaven" in Pagan mythologies was often given to goddesses associated with the planet Venus. And there is indeed a Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Paphos, and a few others elsewhere on the island of Cyrpus.
The title of Theotokos (Mother of God or God-Bearer or Birth-Giver of God) is part of Mary's quasi deification, so even though I'm not Nestorian I have my own reasons for not using that title for Mary, it's not Biblical so it doesn't matter if it's technically accurate. Aphrodite/Venus did have mother goddess aspects, as the mother of Aeneas she was a mother to Rome, and she was sometimes the mother of the god named Love. Indeed one of the confusions of the conflicting accounts of Greek mythology is how Eros was both a son of Aphrodite but also a primordial deity who existed before Aphrodite's parents, sometimes Eros was even made the very first god.
There is a theory that one or both of the Jewish Temples (or maybe the Tabernacle of David) stood where Justinian built the Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos. So that's a pretty literal definition of an Abomination of Desolation. But if you want a more symbolic one there is the fact that Catholics defend their Marian Doctrines by saying Mary is the Tabernacle and Ark of the New Covenant. The New Testament actually teaches that every and all believers are The Temple/Tabernacle of God.
Update April 2020: I've decided this post should be viewed first and foremost as an argument for John Mark being the John of Revelation. As a relative of Barnabas he was probably also born on Cyprus so so Jesus using Cypriot perspectives on things in the Vision is just evidence of that more so then Patmos being Cyprus.
I still have my doubts about the traditional identification of Patmos. Is there any solid proof Letois was called Patmos before being associated with The Revelation? Or that that association happened before the Fourth Century?
Update May 27th 2020: It has just been brought to my attention that there are some texts published by von Soden which say "John" wrote his Gospel after returning to Ephesus from Paphos. That doesn't directly relate to Revelation at all, and ties into traditions I now consider false, but it is an interesting witness.
Here is the best link I find for a source on them.
Further Updates: The author of that book I've also interacted with on the comments section of a Preterist blog.
https://deanfurlong.com/2020/04/06/john-mark-beloved-disciple/comment-page-1/#comment-17
And they've written another blog post on the subject.
https://deanfurlong.com/2020/05/28/the-confusion-of-cyprus-and-patmos/
Update: We now need to depend on the Way Back Machine to read these.
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