Why the Assumption that China will field the Tribulation Army?

[william the wie]

Given population trends in India and China I find a 200 million man army from India more credible than for China.

Likewise logistics favor India over China. Landing troops and supplies in the Sudan in order to use barge traffic down the Nile to get to Syria is not the Biblical path of the army of Armageddon but the only sensible path for the Chinese army. India on the other hand can use relatively safe nukes to get into Central Asia where China is building infrastructure and use OPM to get to Israel.

India which has a much stronger naval tradition and better navy than China can block China from using its least stupid path to Israel

China's western border is the second highest mountain range in the world and to get to those mountains you have to go through one of the worst deserts in the world. The original name tali makin meant "You go in, you don't come out"

A break out from India to central Asia would be a nightmare but that would still be ten times easier than what China would have to deal with. Persia is supposed to be trashed well before the return of Christ. India could get a secure route to Israel by landing troops in the Persian Gulf and use the biblical route to Israel. The Chinese navy is not good enough to interfere with Indian naval operations in the Indian Ocean where India has always dominated all other navies except for the French, Portuguese and British and then only when the colonial breakout happened during a succession war among the Mughals.

So, why the persistence of the notion that the 200 million man army is of course China?

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

A 200 million man army regardless of origin can be quickly reduced by an opponent with backbone and modern technology.

 

[william the wie]

A 200 million man army regardless of origin can be quickly reduced by an opponent with backbone and modern technology.

True but killing them with a word from Christ is what the prophecy is. They Otherwise do quite well since over a third of the world"s population has died prior to this and their march across Iraq is low or no incident.

 

[BlackFlag]

You can argue with equal credibilities that the “tribulation army” could come from anywhere in the world and include whatever the hell peoples you want.

 

[norwegen]

In his book The Parousia, J. Stuart Russell writes:

When we have high numbers stated in the Apocalypse they are usually, if not invariably, to be understood indefinitely. For example, it is not to be supposed that the hundred and forty and four thousand of the sealed signify exactly that number, and no more and no less. It would be absurd to say that there were exactly twelve thousand, to a man, saved out of each of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The conception is appropriate in a vision, but incredible in a historical statement. In like manner the army of the horsemen in Chap. 9:16 is set down as two hundred millions; but no sane commentator ever ventured to assign to this a precise and literal signification.​

 

[shimon]

lol... Think out of the box...I don’t buy anything written in the New Testament but that being said if a huge army was to come against Israel from the north it would probably be an amalgamation of many countries if it was to come through the Tigris Euphrates region then Turkey that controls all the headwaters of those two rivers would have to stop the flow... Meaning Turkey would be in on it as well as its allies say Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc etc.... Now what people don’t understand is that ancient Israel included large parts of modern day Syria so this army may not even reach the remnant of Israel today but might fight each other and destroy each other before they even get close to what is Israel today...Having large groups of men travelling from China or India is a rediculous assumption and quite frankly a waste of time..

 

[Picaro]

Biblical numbers are almost always symbolic, whether OT or NT. The following is about the number '144,000', for instance, across several religions:

Bible Code 666 and 144000 - Esoteric Meanings

As for myself, I don't see much re the claim the Chinese are being referred to; no one knows and I usually assume it means Muslims of all nationalities in modern sense.

For the Judeo-Christian version, there are several opinions; just Google them. One example:


What's the Significance of the "144,000" in Revelation 14?

Well, one thing that's helpful to remember in Revelation, is that numbers mean things, sometimes in a different way than they do in historical narratives because Revelation is an “apocalyptic work” that shows this thing by pictures. It seems to represent all of God's people, from the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The 12 Tribes of Israel… times the 12 apostles and those that they represent… times a very great number: 1,000. And so 12 x 12 x 1,000 is 144,000. And these are marked with the Seal of God on their foreheads. This shows us that they bow to the Lamb and to His Father, and we can contrast this with the Mark of the Beast that appears on those who do not belong to the Lamb.

Another example is in Genesis, regrading the numbers of animals taken on Noah's Ark; there are two accounts and the numbers differ; they differ for a reason, not because they are errors.

 

[Picaro]

This one is interesting; it brings in Daniel and Psalms as well as Revelation:

200 Million horsemen - Revelation 9:16 - EXPLAINED!

The tribes of the house of Israel lay to the north and the tribe of the
house of Judah to the south. (When the two houses formed the king of the
house of Israel, Jeroboam, set up idols at the limits of his kingdom;
at Bethel in the south and at Dan in the north. 1Kings 12:26-30.)


So combining the above thoughts we can see that the 200 million horsemen
represent;

"the great multitude of the vineyard workers of spiritual Israel"

Whatever the case, it's important to remember that most uses of numbers in the OT and NT are symbolic references.