CorvusRexus
The Raven King
- Mar 6, 2014
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GNT. Revelation 13:18- This calls for wisdom. Whoever is wise can figure out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for the name of someone. Its number is 666.
Anti-christ and Comming One World Goverment.
- Thread starter GISMYS
- Start date
GNT. Revelation 13:18- This calls for wisdom. Whoever is wise can figure out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for the name of someone. Its number is 666.
UllysesS.Archer
Gold Member
- Jul 3, 2014
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King James Bible
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
I can see how that translation can make you think it's easy to name the beast. Problem is the beast might not even have any power yet. What this verse has always meant to me is that it was an imperfect man, and not in the way that all men are imperfect, but imperfect as not created by God, perhaps someone created by man, perhaps a clone?
How old is Dolly the sheep now? If she was alive she would have just turned 18. We have been able to clone for 18 years now. What would you think God would think of as a beast? Do you think that all scientists are moral and influenced by the rules of morals? Or could there be just 1 out there somewhere, that had to try it out, they had to try to clone their long lost son or daughter or wife or husband, they had to bring them back? Do you think that's possible?
I know many doctors who got into medicine, to seek out a specific cure for a specific disease, because their son or daughter had that disease, and they were blessed when God gave out brains. Could just 1 doctor have tried to bring back a loved one, or perhaps save a loved one using un-ethical means?
6 is God's in-perfect number, it is the number nearest to the complete number of 7, but it is a number that is not complete, in God's ways. That is one of the reasons I believe the anti-Christ will be the first clone that man made. One made without a soul. Would a man without a soul be a beast to God?
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
No...it proves that some of the books were preserved remarkably well in antiquity while others had some very dramatic changes.
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
What John of Patmos was doing there was called gematria. It was a puzzle of sorts that was popular at the time. Think of it like an ancient crossword puzzle of sorts. What you did was to take letters and assign them a number. So in Hebrew alef would be one, bet would be two, gimel would be three and so on. When you spelled out a name or a word you could add up all the corresponding numbers and reach a sum. When you spell out Caesar Nero in Hebrew and use the numbers assignments it equals 666.
Earlier copies of the Revelation actually list the number of the Beast as 616. This is because when the Revelation was written the Hebrew language was a bit different and they only used letters that were sounded out. Think of it like old English where they didn't use a silent e. So in old English the word "like" would be spelled "lik". Well the same dynamic happened in Hebrew. Originally Caesar Nero was spelled without a silent character at the end and when you spell it that way it equals 616. A few centuries later after the language had changed a bit they started using that silent character and with it Caesar Nero equals 666.
The point is that John is not predicting a future event. He is talking about what was happening at the time. John was angry and writing an angry letter to the churches of Asia minor. Think of someone today standing on a corner with signs and a bullhorn screaming about the United States government.
He yells perhaps: "The united States government claims it is for the people but it is for themselves. The government is Solyndra, Iran-Contra, and Watergate. You want to know who the government is? It's Richard Nixon. THAT'S your government!"
John is doing the exact same thing. He is screaming "Rome is not a beautiful lady that secures peace and prosperity. Rome is a whore drunk of the blood of the faithful. You want to know who Rome is? Rome is Nero. That's who Rome is...NERO"
No. No. No. It is the other way around. Most of the copies were 666 and someone changed the number in one manuscript to be 616.
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
The Revelation never speaks of the anti-Christ. The phrase "anti-Christ" was used in the letters of John (first John I believe) and it references those who were faithful Christians and then left the church and turned against Jesus. According to John there are many many anti-Christs.
Later interpreters tried to get an understanding of this and throughout time many characters were rolled together as one. These include the first horseman, the man of lawlessness from the letters of Paul (Thessalonians I believe), etc. When the revelation was written the concept of "an Anti-Christ who would come and bring havoc on the world" didn't exist. That's a later thing that people made up in the centuries that followed.
Anti can mean "in the place of" so his position in the book of Revelation fits.
Too many people who read the bible don't know it's history. Nice post. Sounds like you know what you are talking about. I've heard these things before and I often wonder, "do christians know this?" Typically they don't. They think god wrote the bible.
I've studied it more than you.
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Which came first and which came second is irrelevant in regard to the point being made. We can debate that another time. The point is that John of Patmos is not making a prediction about a future time when the Beast and the Anti-Christ will appear. He's making a political statement about what was happening at the time he wrote it.
There is not going to be a time when the Beast and the Anti-Christ come to Earth...at least not according to The Revelation. That was a tradition that came into being centuries later when Christianity BECAME the government. Prior to Constantine The Revelation worked just fine because it attacks the government for being oppressive against Christians. But what happens when the government BECOMES Christian? Now you have a problem and to deal with that, church leaders came up with a way to interpret it differently so they didn't have that problem.
They also found that by reinterpreting it from a futuristic perspective they could manipulate the peasant and control their behaviors and score political points against their rivals by accusing their rivals of being the Beast or the Anti-Christ. A great example of that is Martin Luther who totally dismissed the Revelation and argued that it had no place in the Bible until he realized that he could use it to portray Pope Leo X (if memory serves) as the Beast. Well then it was a great book. LOL
Stuff like that has been going on for about 2,000 years, but that's not what John of Patmos was getting at. Those who think that The Revelation is talking about some future event are completely missing the point
Vandalshandle
Gold Member
I'm not sure whether GISMYS is reading the Bible, or a Steven King book...
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well he certainly has a unique take on it. You know I just returned from a two year hiatus so i don't know him or his background. From what I have read I would assume that he is from a background that is strongly evangelical or some sort of extremist sect. There's nothing "wrong" with that really, but unlike more mainstream churches where pastors and priests have to get formal educations in theology, those kind of churches don't require that. The pastors of those churches usually don't have any formal education or training. They just read the Bible in English and have the gift of being able to speak well. As a result they can deliver a passionate sermon that's well reasoned, supported by literal interpretation of select passages, and totally wrong.
That lack of education or at least lack of really good research means they don't understand the context of what was going on at the time, what the cultural norms were at the time, what specific words in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic actually mean, etc. They read that a seven headed Beast is going to crawl out of the ocean and they literally believe that's what the author meant...that it was literal. And it's a shame because The Apocalypse is a great book with a very good message. It's a message of joy and happiness and success. But people get so wrapped up in the negative aspects that they miss the point.
A great example would be the seven trumpets. People miss that after all that is explained, the angel tells John that that is not what God is going to do. That was just an example of what God COULD do in response to the martyrs who were asking God why he allows their suffering to continue after the fifth seal is broken. The point is made that even if God did all that, nothing would change. It wouldn't matter. So John is told to eat the scroll that has that course of action on it because that's not what the plan is. God is going to do something else.
Anyhow...you know...it's a shame that people who read it literally are missing it so badly, but frankly people with that kind of attitude are impossible to convince. You can put smoking gun proof in front of their face and they still won't accept it.
You know. Whatever
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well to some degree I think it's a question of perspective. I have studied the Bible in great depth for 33 years and that study has included individual study as well as formal educational study and I approach it in a very different way. Very early on I realized that there were going to be misinterpretations when translated into English and I realized that cultural influences, and history were going to have a lot to do with what the Bible says. So instead of just reading the Bible in English and going with it, I also study ancient history, ancient languages, ancient cultures, etc. I have developed and maintained a group of friends who are experts in ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic so if I am reading something in Greek and get stuck on a word I can call them and discuss its meaning.
When you approach it that way you find a very different book in the Bible than if you simply pick up a copy of the NIV or KJV and go with it. Let me give you a very simple example of a concept that has been lost in translation.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus says (paraphrasing) "the kingdom of God is here, repent and spread the good news". Ok well the Greek word that is used for "good news" is "euaggelion" and when you translate it literally word for word it means "good news". It's a correct literal translation. What is missed is the cultural meaning of the word. An euaggelion was actually a very specific kind of good news. It was used to spread the word about a victory (usually a military victory) over an oppressive enemy.
So for example if a nation had occupied and area and oppressed the people and those people revolted and overthrew the conquerors they would send someone running through the streets to announce the euaggelion. Picture a guy running through the streets screaming "we won, the enemy has been defeated, we are free!!!"
So in Mark when the author(s) attribute the word euaggelion to Jesus it's a VERY powerful statement. Jesus is saying essentially "evil has been defeated, the battle against evil has been won, your souls are free". But when we read it in English we read "good news" and it loses the impact of what was really being said. You know we hear "good news" today and we think "oh ok great, I like good news." Or someone knocks on your door and announces that they are there to tell you the "good news" and you kind of roll your eyes because it's pretty corny. But when read in Greek and when you put it into the context of ancient culture, it's a tremendously powerful statement that unfortunately has been lost in translation because there is no word in English that means exactly what euaggelion means.
Unfortunately the Bible in English is full of such issues. Translation issues, changes over time, things added, things removed, and in reality what we have in an English Bible is a translation of a Bible in Latin that was translated from a Bible in Greek that was translated from a Bible in Hebrew. Well shit....how many errors in translation do you think have occurred when you go through all those turnstiles?
In regards to God writing the Bible....you know, I am willing to entertain the idea that the very first time a book was written, the author may have been divinely inspired and the true word of God was written down. Unfortunately, it's been mistranslated, there have been so many errors in copying the books in ancient history, some of the language has been lost* (see note on Paul below) that if it was the true word of God, it no longer is...it's become the word of man.
* In regards to the languages being lost this happens a lot but it happens most with the letters of Paul. Paul apparently liked to invent words or so it seems. In his letters he uses words in Greek that are not found in other writings anywhere else. Scholars have no idea what those words mean and some of them are very significant words describing very significant situations. Because they had to translate it into SOMETHING (I mean they couldn't just write [word unknown] in the text) they took their best guess in best case scenarios and took the opportunity to make a political statement in worst case scenarios.
A great example of this would be the word "arsenokotai" in Romans. No one knows what the word means. It has never been found in any other writing that was during Paul's time or frankly for hundreds of years afterwards. It's a total mystery, yet in English it's translated into "homosexual". Why? Beats me and no other scholar can tell you why either. It seems that somewhere along the line a translator ran into a word they didn't know and seized the opportunity to make a political point on something they disagreed with. There have been arguments about the word ever since and if you google it you will find a wealth of information and rationale on both sides of the debate justifying their point of view in order to further their political agenda. But the truth is no one has any idea what it means.
That's enough for tonight. LOL. I get going and it's hard to stop.
- Thread starter
- #74
Well to some degree I think it's a question of perspective. I have studied the Bible in great depth for 33 years and that study has included individual study as well as formal educational study and I approach it in a very different way. Very early on I realized that there were going to be misinterpretations when translated into English and I realized that cultural influences, and history were going to have a lot to do with what the Bible says. So instead of just reading the Bible in English and going with it, I also study ancient history, ancient languages, ancient cultures, etc. I have developed and maintained a group of friends who are experts in ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic so if I am reading something in Greek and get stuck on a word I can call them and discuss its meaning.
When you approach it that way you find a very different book in the Bible than if you simply pick up a copy of the NIV or KJV and go with it. Let me give you a very simple example of a concept that has been lost in translation.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus says (paraphrasing) "the kingdom of God is here, repent and spread the good news". Ok well the Greek word that is used for "good news" is "euaggelion" and when you translate it literally word for word it means "good news". It's a correct literal translation. What is missed is the cultural meaning of the word. An euaggelion was actually a very specific kind of good news. It was used to spread the word about a victory (usually a military victory) over an oppressive enemy.
So for example if a nation had occupied and area and oppressed the people and those people revolted and overthrew the conquerors they would send someone running through the streets to announce the euaggelion. Picture a guy running through the streets screaming "we won, the enemy has been defeated, we are free!!!"
So in Mark when the author(s) attribute the word euaggelion to Jesus it's a VERY powerful statement. Jesus is saying essentially "evil has been defeated, the battle against evil has been won, your souls are free". But when we read it in English we read "good news" and it loses the impact of what was really being said. You know we hear "good news" today and we think "oh ok great, I like good news." Or someone knocks on your door and announces that they are there to tell you the "good news" and you kind of roll your eyes because it's pretty corny. But when read in Greek and when you put it into the context of ancient culture, it's a tremendously powerful statement that unfortunately has been lost in translation because there is no word in English that means exactly what euaggelion means.
Unfortunately the Bible in English is full of such issues. Translation issues, changes over time, things added, things removed, and in reality what we have in an English Bible is a translation of a Bible in Latin that was translated from a Bible in Greek that was translated from a Bible in Hebrew. Well shit....how many errors in translation do you think have occurred when you go through all those turnstiles?
In regards to God writing the Bible....you know, I am willing to entertain the idea that the very first time a book was written, the author may have been divinely inspired and the true word of God was written down. Unfortunately, it's been mistranslated, there have been so many errors in copying the books in ancient history, some of the language has been lost* (see note on Paul below) that if it was the true word of God, it no longer is...it's become the word of man.
* In regards to the languages being lost this happens a lot but it happens most with the letters of Paul. Paul apparently liked to invent words or so it seems. In his letters he uses words in Greek that are not found in other writings anywhere else. Scholars have no idea what those words mean and some of them are very significant words describing very significant situations. Because they had to translate it into SOMETHING (I mean they couldn't just write [word unknown] in the text) they took their best guess in best case scenarios and took the opportunity to make a political statement in worst case scenarios.
A great example of this would be the word "arsenokotai" in Romans. No one knows what the word means. It has never been found in any other writing that was during Paul's time or frankly for hundreds of years afterwards. It's a total mystery, yet in English it's translated into "homosexual". Why? Beats me and no other scholar can tell you why either. It seems that somewhere along the line a translator ran into a word they didn't know and seized the opportunity to make a political point on something they disagreed with. There have been arguments about the word ever since and if you google it you will find a wealth of information and rationale on both sides of the debate justifying their point of view in order to further their political agenda. But the truth is no one has any idea what it means.
That's enough for tonight. LOL. I get going and it's hard to stop.
YOU ARE VERY WRONG!!! The over 2000 year old dead sea scrolls prove the Bible has not been changed!!
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well to some degree I think it's a question of perspective. I have studied the Bible in great depth for 33 years and that study has included individual study as well as formal educational study and I approach it in a very different way. Very early on I realized that there were going to be misinterpretations when translated into English and I realized that cultural influences, and history were going to have a lot to do with what the Bible says. So instead of just reading the Bible in English and going with it, I also study ancient history, ancient languages, ancient cultures, etc. I have developed and maintained a group of friends who are experts in ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic so if I am reading something in Greek and get stuck on a word I can call them and discuss its meaning.
When you approach it that way you find a very different book in the Bible than if you simply pick up a copy of the NIV or KJV and go with it. Let me give you a very simple example of a concept that has been lost in translation.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus says (paraphrasing) "the kingdom of God is here, repent and spread the good news". Ok well the Greek word that is used for "good news" is "euaggelion" and when you translate it literally word for word it means "good news". It's a correct literal translation. What is missed is the cultural meaning of the word. An euaggelion was actually a very specific kind of good news. It was used to spread the word about a victory (usually a military victory) over an oppressive enemy.
So for example if a nation had occupied and area and oppressed the people and those people revolted and overthrew the conquerors they would send someone running through the streets to announce the euaggelion. Picture a guy running through the streets screaming "we won, the enemy has been defeated, we are free!!!"
So in Mark when the author(s) attribute the word euaggelion to Jesus it's a VERY powerful statement. Jesus is saying essentially "evil has been defeated, the battle against evil has been won, your souls are free". But when we read it in English we read "good news" and it loses the impact of what was really being said. You know we hear "good news" today and we think "oh ok great, I like good news." Or someone knocks on your door and announces that they are there to tell you the "good news" and you kind of roll your eyes because it's pretty corny. But when read in Greek and when you put it into the context of ancient culture, it's a tremendously powerful statement that unfortunately has been lost in translation because there is no word in English that means exactly what euaggelion means.
Unfortunately the Bible in English is full of such issues. Translation issues, changes over time, things added, things removed, and in reality what we have in an English Bible is a translation of a Bible in Latin that was translated from a Bible in Greek that was translated from a Bible in Hebrew. Well shit....how many errors in translation do you think have occurred when you go through all those turnstiles?
In regards to God writing the Bible....you know, I am willing to entertain the idea that the very first time a book was written, the author may have been divinely inspired and the true word of God was written down. Unfortunately, it's been mistranslated, there have been so many errors in copying the books in ancient history, some of the language has been lost* (see note on Paul below) that if it was the true word of God, it no longer is...it's become the word of man.
* In regards to the languages being lost this happens a lot but it happens most with the letters of Paul. Paul apparently liked to invent words or so it seems. In his letters he uses words in Greek that are not found in other writings anywhere else. Scholars have no idea what those words mean and some of them are very significant words describing very significant situations. Because they had to translate it into SOMETHING (I mean they couldn't just write [word unknown] in the text) they took their best guess in best case scenarios and took the opportunity to make a political statement in worst case scenarios.
A great example of this would be the word "arsenokotai" in Romans. No one knows what the word means. It has never been found in any other writing that was during Paul's time or frankly for hundreds of years afterwards. It's a total mystery, yet in English it's translated into "homosexual". Why? Beats me and no other scholar can tell you why either. It seems that somewhere along the line a translator ran into a word they didn't know and seized the opportunity to make a political point on something they disagreed with. There have been arguments about the word ever since and if you google it you will find a wealth of information and rationale on both sides of the debate justifying their point of view in order to further their political agenda. But the truth is no one has any idea what it means.
That's enough for tonight. LOL. I get going and it's hard to stop.
YOU ARE VERY WRONG!!! The over 2000 year old dead sea scrolls prove the Bible has not been changed!!
No....no they don't. First of all the Dead Sea Scrolls only include books of the Old Testament. Some of those books were indeed remarkably unchanged. Others not so much.
There was a scholar in the 18th century (can't remember his name off the top of my head and I am at work so my notes are at home) who looked at 400 manuscripts of the Bible among the thousands that exist and in only those 400 he identified thousands of changes.
The most recent work done on it identifies even more changes:
"Bible scholars are buried in a 20-year project to codify the thousands of changes, verse by verse, word by word — even letter by letter — that crept into the early New Testament during hundreds of years of laborious hand-copying....The first phase of the researchers’ work is done. They have documented thousands of creeping changes, down to an extraneous Greek letter, across hundreds of early manuscripts from the 2nd through 15th centuries, said Bill Warren, the New Testament scholar who leads the project at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary....Moreover, with Christianity in its infancy and the earliest Christians still trying to clarify the full meaning of Jesus, his mission and his stories, the texts themselves sometimes changed from generation to generation, said Warren. As archeologists and historians in later years uncovered more early manuscripts, each one hand-copied from some predecessor, they could see occasional additions or subtractions from a phrase, a verse or a story."
Changes to the Bible through the ages are being studied by New Orleans scholars | NOLA.com
Now most of those changes are frankly totally irrelevant. Most are akin to using the word "also" instead of the phrase "as well as", but some of them are quite significant indeed.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have nothing to do with it
- Thread starter
- #76
BOTTOMLINE = YOU will believe GOD'S WORD or satan's lies. Little sin loving,GOD rejecting man has been trying to attack GOD and GOD'S INSPIRED (GOD BREATHED) ETERNAL LIVING WORD FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS,MOST are long dead and in hell today,will you join them there??? your choice!!
Delta4Embassy
Gold Member
Worth noting, every thing the Jewish Messiah is supposed to do like rebuild the Temple, establish world peace, recall all the world's Jews to live in Israel - Jesus didn't do. And that if that actual Messiah ever shows up, and does all those things fulfilling Jewish prophecies it will include a united global government. So when Christians say how the guy who comes along and establishes world peace under one government aren't they saying how they will reject the true Messiah? 
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
oh i doubt it since the Bible doesn't say a word about hell. That's an invention of man (Pope Gregory I if my memory serves correctly really brought it to the forefront) and intentional mistranslations in an effort to get the peasants to behave and stop participating in pagan rituals.
I gotta say I just love how so many posters here dismiss historical evidence as the work of Satan and claim that those who recognize historical evidence are atheist or one of Satan's minions. It's truly amusing. Seriously....I am getting a very good laugh out of all of this.
BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Worth noting, every thing the Jewish Messiah is supposed to do like rebuild the Temple, establish world peace, recall all the world's Jews to live in Israel - Jesus didn't do. And that if that actual Messiah ever shows up, and does all those things fulfilling Jewish prophecies it will include a united global government. So when Christians say how the guy who comes along and establishes world peace under one government aren't they saying how they will reject the true Messiah?
Well rebuilding the Temple wasn't part of what the Messiah was supposed to do. The Temple was still standing in Jesus' day and wasn't destroyed until 70 CE. The Messiah was supposed to do a lot of things but two big ones were to restore the line of David to the throne (which is why so much effort is taken in some of the gospels to trace the lineage of Jesus to David) and expel all foreign oppressors from Israel. How he was supposed to do this was a subject of debate. Some figured he would be a great military leader, some a wise sage....there was all sorts of speculation. However, the idea of the Messiah getting nailed to a cross by foreign oppressors was almost blasphemous in those days. This is precisely why Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus did not restore the line of David to the throne of Israel (Christians argue that he did so in heaven) and he didn't get the Romans out.
Now I personally doubt anyone is ever going to be able to trace their ancestry back to David at this point and I don't see Israel establishing a monarchy anytime soon so I don't think we have a whole lot to worry about in regards to the Messiah of Jewish tradition arriving anytime soon.
- Thread starter
- #80
Worth noting, every thing the Jewish Messiah is supposed to do like rebuild the Temple, establish world peace, recall all the world's Jews to live in Israel - Jesus didn't do. And that if that actual Messiah ever shows up, and does all those things fulfilling Jewish prophecies it will include a united global government. So when Christians say how the guy who comes along and establishes world peace under one government aren't they saying how they will reject the true Messiah?
Well rebuilding the Temple wasn't part of what the Messiah was supposed to do. The Temple was still standing in Jesus' day and wasn't destroyed until 70 CE. The Messiah was supposed to do a lot of things but two big ones were to restore the line of David to the throne (which is why so much effort is taken in some of the gospels to trace the lineage of Jesus to David) and expel all foreign oppressors from Israel. How he was supposed to do this was a subject of debate. Some figured he would be a great military leader, some a wise sage....there was all sorts of speculation. However, the idea of the Messiah getting nailed to a cross by foreign oppressors was almost blasphemous in those days. This is precisely why Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus did not restore the line of David to the throne of Israel (Christians argue that he did so in heaven) and he didn't get the Romans out.
Now I personally doubt anyone is ever going to be able to trace their ancestry back to David at this point and I don't see Israel establishing a monarchy anytime soon so I don't think we have a whole lot to worry about in regards to the Messiah of Jewish tradition arriving anytime soon.
YOUR IGNORANCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!! lol!!
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