Book of Revelation: A REAL Vision' or a FAKE Prophecy' PatchedTogether from Scraps of 'Old" Test

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi Kallisti -

You wrote : "As I said, the MT wasn't compiled for another 1,000 years. Proto-Masoretic simply means written in Hebrew and it was hardly the definitive collection of texts back then (that would have been the LXX which the NT sources much more often)...."


Actually, no.

The term 'protoMasoretic text family' does NOT mean merely that it was wrritten in Hebrew.

It refers to that specific family of [i.e. Babylonian] consonantal un-pointed (un-vowelled) Hebrew and Aramaic texts which circulated andd originated among Diaspora Jews in Babylon (but until c.1000 CE it was not YET a SINGLE 'sacred' text which could bear 'counting middle letters' in a column of consonantal Hebrew text ) - the same family off consonantal Hebrew-Aramaic texts which existed & was certainly being used by SOME Jews as early as 100 BCE...

(Witness the Qumran findings in the Great Isaiah Scroll (1Q-IS-a) from c. 100 BCE which was pointed out as strong evidence of its existence in its proto-form as early as c. 100 BCE by Talmudic Scholars etal. such as Dr Lawrence Schiffman in the 1990s) -

In other words, 'the protoMasoretic consonantal text' (or protoMT) refers to the UNPOINTED Hebrew text family which later gradually morphed and grew into the Masoretic Text of the so-called Leningrad Codex by c. 1000 CE that we recognise to-day and in use by Rabinnic Jews and Protestants as 'holy scriptures' - was in fact only ONE of MANY such Hebrew-Aramaic text families of 'scriptures that defiled the hands' used among various groups of persons who styled themselves 'Jews' who lived before Jamnia's Council i.e. prior to 90 CE (which included the lifetimes of e.g. 'Yohanon bar Zechariah' aka John the Baptist' and also of 'Iesous' and 'the 12' and even James, the brother of Iesous, head of the Ebionites (who was NOT one of the 12 'disciples', but took over the Jerusalem Messianic synagogues populated by the '12' disciples, and soley based on his Daviddic Blood Line as a 'Meqabber' [ lit, 'overseer', a term found in the Dead Sea Scrolls for their own Overseers Gk: Epi-skopos -]

So...let's be very very clear about this definition of the protoMT and any distinctions between that family of unpointed Hebrew-Aramaic texts and the later Masoretic Pointed (Vowelled) text of the MT represented by the so-called Leningrad Codex (c. 1000 CE) about which you seemed a tad confused in your last post:

The unpointed (un-vowelled) consonantal PROTO Masoretic Texts (plural !) of the Hebrew scriptures (as they existed say during the time of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir aka the Gk. 'Iesous; of the Greek canonical gospels c. BCE 12 to CE36) was only ONE of SEVERAL competing Consonantal Hebrew Text Families that did not BEGIN to get narrowed down into anything we now recognise clearly as the MT of the Leningrad Codex (c. 1000 CE) long AFTER the Rabinnic Council of Javneh in AD 90.

In other words, John the Baptist, 'Iesous' and the 12 disciples did NOT have a single text version of 'sacred' Hebrew Scriptures which 'defiled the hands' when they lived and by the time they all died - and the Dead Sea Scrolls amply prove this beyond any shadow of a doubt

Note for example that the Qumran Caves (housing the 'Dead Sea Scrolls') were all sealed up in their Rock Caves like a giant Time Capsule in June of 68CE i.e. during the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE)-- thus, we have a glimpse as to what passed for 'Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures' (and also some widely differing Greek translations of e.g. some of the Psalter, in editions which added some not found in today's Bibles...) before AD 68 - and it shows beyond doubt 'the most fluid and open ended versions of these texts, with one text family being copied side by side with other consonantal text families not very closely related to them' (Dr John Rogerson, Durham Lecture series, Nov. 1978), a point made crystal clear by the recent studies of Emmanuel Tov, ref: such Dead Sea Scrolls-related (Hexapla like) textual evidence for all the various text families which existed and were copied side by side before 90 CE ang circulated for use among Jews BEFORE the 1st Failed Jewish Revolt against Rome -

e.g. the texts which were used to support (via Vorlagen Heb. text underlays) the later Septuaginta (protoLXX Vorlagen Hebrew-Aramaic consonantal texts) the family used by the Samaritan Pentateuch compilers (aka SamPent) the Hebrew & Aramaic Vorlagen underlying consonantal texts used by Aquila for his Greek translations, the Hebrew-Aramaic Vorlagen texts used to produce the Greek translation of Theodotion as well as the Hebrew-Aramaic Vorlagen consonantal text underlays for the Greek translation produced by Symmachus - alongside the protoMasoretic unpointed consonantal text families - all of which are finally being discussed more widely and even shown to the general public after so many years since the re-discovery of the Dead Sea Fragments in modern times beginning in November of 1946....

Here are two links for just a couple of Emmanuel Tov's research papers

www.emanueltov.info...

www.emanueltov.info...

Note too that protoMasoretic consonantal only text family LATER grew into what we see today 'as the sacred text of the Hebrew Scriptures that alone defiles the hands' i.e. the text traditioin that is used by Protestants and Rabinnic Jews today - BASED on the proto-Masoretic family when a SINGLE version was pointed (vowelled) by the Masoretes c. 1000 CE

was referring to the protoMasoretic consonantal text family which certainly WAS around in its base form c. 100 BCE - but again, as I said, it was ONLY ONE of MANY such consonantal text families floating around until the Council of Javneh began to put the proverbial kabosh on any text family NOT of the protoMasoretic Babylonian family (which at the time was 'still evolving...' textually speaking) - probably under the undue influence of Gamaliel II who attended the Council and was born in Babylon, and evidently used his clout to get HIS version of the Hebrew Scriptures to be THE ONLY version for all Jews who survived the Failed Jewish Revolt against Rome - it was already the version used in Babylon - unscathed during the War (i.e. between 66-72 CE) which wiped out nearly a million Judaeans and destroyed Eretz Yisroel, the city of Jerusalem and Herod's 2nd Temple as well...

Is all of this clear now, or would you like me to elucidate any of the above ? You will see that in this one point, I actually (shock and awe!) am agreeing with you, viz. that the Masoretic Text (although was around being copied in its proto-consonantal forms as early as 100 BCE) was not the only crayon in the box in terms of text traditions used by the earliest ddisciples of both John the Baptist and 'Iesous', and we can see that many text families (e.g. Theodotion's Hebrew Aramaic Vorlagen texts used to translate from) were widely quoted by the author of the so-called Book of Revelation...

Now as for your several points made in your other post to me, you will have to allow me to divide up my answers over several posts, since you are sorely lacking in any hard information about the Nazorean Ebionim (aka The Poor Ones)

You have again confused the identities of TWO different people, this time, the TWO Jameses in your last post - e.g. the identity (and co-martyrdom-fate with his brother 'Yohanon') of Yakkov bar Zavdai aka 'James the Greater' (i.e. the blood brother of Yohanon bar Zavdai, one of the Benei Regesh or 'sons of Thunder') awith the OTHER James who was not a Disciple as one of the 12 (i.e. Yakkov bar Yosef, the blood-brother of Iesous, who took over the Ebionite ministry in Jerusalem after his brother's execution for armed seditino against Rome during THE Insurrection, c. 36 CE) and who was the 2nd Ebionite ['Brother-of-Iesous') James who was the one murdered in the Temple by Judaean mobs in c. 52 CE and referenced by Josephus in his book, The Jewish War.

This is the 2nd time you have confused 2 people who happen to have the 'same name' - so be very very very careful about exactly to whom you refer in future posts

And also...before we continue any further, I must ask you to please step way back from all your pre-suppositions, and take a harder and far more sober look at the mounting evidence about the history of the Ebionim in Jerusalem as they existed BEFORE the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE) - and their inimical relation to the Pauline Churches - in fact the two groups violently anathemetised each other for Decades...

And stay tuned for more on this and other aspects of your last post all this ccoming week - which (from the tone of your last) is going to be a very bumpy ride for you as this discussion heats up....!

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi Kallisti

I had earlier written :

QUOTE 'John the Elder' (whoever he really was...) apparently 'really met' Polycarp c. 85 AD (i.e. the later Bishop of Smyrna - who was said to have been then around age 15) 'in the flesh' when the Elder John was c. 95 years old and had to be carried into the Ephesian synagogue 'on a stretcher' (his few words at the time of his appearance in Ephsesus according to Polycarp was a single phrase -

'Little children...Love one another...' but it was widely believed at the time that the 'Ephesian John the Elder' had at least met R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. Iesous) in the flesh which made the old man kind of a celebrity c. 85 AD "

UNQUOTE

The cute little anecdote ref: John the Presbyter (aka ‘The Elder’ whoever he was) is quoted in various books e.g. John R.W. Stott, The Epistles of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries; Eerdmans, 1964), p. 49, which was citing St. Jerome's commentary on Galatians 6, longer version, chapter VI.

QUOTE: In his commentary on Galatians 6:10, Jerome tells the story of "the Blessed John of Ephesus who is called the Presbyter" who in extreme old age (c. 90 yrs old) at Ephesus used to be carried into the ‘congregation’ by his acolytes but was hardly able to speak any more – the most he could say was: "Little children, love one another."

At last, wearied that he always spoke the same words, they asked: "Teacher, why do you always repeat over and over this same phrase ?"

"Because," he replied, "it was a Mitzvah of the Master and if only this is done, it is enough to live by…’

UNQUOTE

So this cute little anecdote about the Presbyter Hohn (whoever he was) it is ultimately traceable through a commentary of Jerome in the early 4th century – of course I’m not sure how reliable all that hearsay evidence is, but it is a very cute story just the same !


Iranaeus the later Bishop of Lyons (who was thought to have met Polycarp when Polycarp was very old) Imakes a very generic statement about the so-called ‘Apocalypse’ – but he says nothing about its author, specifically - see "Against Heresies, 5:30:3" which Iranaeus wrote c. 170–180 CE –


QUOTE

"We will not risk pronouncing anything definite ref: the actual Name of the Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be known in this present time, it would have been clarified by the one who had the Apocalyptic vision in the first place towards the end of Domitian’s reign -

And this was seen by him not a very long time ago, but fairly close to our own day – the author merely indicates the number of his Name so that when this Man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is: his actual Name, however, is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being proclaimed by the Holy Spirit. For if it had been declared by Him, he (Antichrist) might perhaps continue for a longer period – but it says rather “he who was, and is not, shall ascend out of the Abyss, and shall go to perdition…’

UNQUOTE

You’ll notice that in this passage of Iranaeus c. 170 CE, but the author of Revelation is not actually named by Iranaeus – see "Against Heresies, 5:30:3" which Iranaeus seems to have written c. 170–180 CE –

Interestingly, Iraneaues specifically calls The Beast in the Book of Revelation (e.g. Chapter 13 ) the ‘Anti Christ’ even though the actual Greek word ‘ANTICHRISTOS’ never ever once appears in any Greek version of the text from antiquity –

Which really makes you wonder how reliable Iranaeus is about this book I other respects – he states that the book of Revelation was written during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian – but a group of older Syriac manuscripts (older than most of the Greek ones) offer more reliable evidence than Iranaeus – they placed the writing of the book during the Neronian Persecution c. 68-69 CE

Here is what some of the Syriac MSS say in the opening Titilus: e.g. "The Book of Revelation, was revealed to John the Presbyter on the island of Patmos, to which he was banished by the Emperor Nero ."

Most of the Syriac translations, known variously as the "Pe#ta," "Curetonian," the "Philoexenian" and the "Harclean" were translated c. 100 CE – 150 CE

It seems to me at least that Iranaeus with respect to the Book of Revelation, does not add much to support your claim that ‘John the Disciple’ (i.e. Yohanon bar Zavdai) the fisherman from the Galilee wrote the book himself – so why would you drag Iranaeus into this discussion in the first place?

More later this week – your post has too many issues (and misleading as well as patently false statements of face that need to be sorted through)

Stay tuned and fasten your seatbelts !

reply to post by Sigismundus


You are correct, I did mix up the James'.

I can see your technical knowledge outstrips my own, but you have made numerous fallacies in your theories. First of all Ebionite-Nazarene is an oxy-moron. These were two early Jewish Christian sects with very very different Christologies and approaches to Gentile ministry. James was a Nazarene, he kept Mosaic law and Jewish practices, but conceded at the Council of Jerusalem to exempt Gentile converts from this. He is named a "Pillar of the Church" by Paul who would not have done such if he carried the exceptionally low Christology of the Ebionites who thought of Ya'hshuah as a humanistic Messiah (denied the incarnation, trinity, and pre-existence of the logos). The Ebionites claimed succession from James, an adelphos (brethren, likely a relative, but the word "brother" is ambiguous in Semitic languages) of Ya'hshuah, because they believed leadership to be hereditary and because he was easily the most Jewish leader. This connection is a false one though, because his high Christology is evident in his epistle and his assent to the Council of Jerusalem shows very clearly that he was not an ebionite. John (or any John if they all happen to be different) was absolutely not an Ebionite given his writings had the highest Christology. The Ebionites were a schismatic non-Orthodox group and are not reliable authorities in discovering the roots of Christianity. This is evident in their false lineage and edited Matthewite scripture that they exclusively held to. They are called out on heresy very early in Christianity and their doctrines and their teachings do not reflect legitimate Christian writings of the time. In many ways, they are very similar in modus operandi to the Marcionites, but completely opposite in Christology. Where the Marcionites denied Christ's humanity, the Ebionites denied his divinity. They both, however stubbornly adhered to a doctrine contradictory to the gospels and teachings of the apostles so they held there own versions of "scripture" so that these contradictions would not be discerned by their adherents. The Ebionites just like the Gnostics are known for producing psuedepigraphia such as the psuedo-Clementine literature. I repeat: Ebionites are not an accurate source for understanding early Jewish-Christians.

You're theory of the dual martyrdom of James and John is very tenuous. I am well aware that the Gospel of John is anonymous, but the writer identifies himself as the Beloved Disciple. He describes events that only Peter, James, and John were privy to and the process of elimination is very simple from there. Whoever wrote the Gospel of John, was writing from the perspective of John. I am not at all surprised that John would hide himself in the text rather than take credit for the Gospel. The Apostles, especially John and James (in that quote from Mark you gave) were called to be humble. John's gospel contains concepts and theology that was given by revelation later in his life. Content for the 4th Gospel carries over into the Johannine Epistles as well as Revelations. According to tradition he lived longer than all other apostles and was privy to some of the most important revelations. This ties all Johannine literature together despite differences in Greek style which make sense in light of the explanation that John used a secretary when one was available.

Your theories are just that: theories. They are novel and of the same line of thought as Tabor and Eissenman who have numerous critics who are better educated than I. I am self taught in theology, Christian history, and scripture. While this most certainly makes me less technically and professionally qualified than you, I have been sheltered from the philosophical fads that permeate study of exegesis, Church history, and theology while you seem to have been immersed in it. I may not have the degree of formal education as you, but I have read a wide spectrum of opinions and lines of thought in these fields to discern fads and their source. In the end, I settled on Orthodox Christian exegesis and theology though I started off far from it. History defends this stance as does scripture and sources geographically and chronologically closer to the apostles than Ebionite, Gnostic, and Essene derivatives.

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi again, Kallisti

You’ll find in the course of our future ATS post discussions [i.e. on this thread ref: the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ and its composition methodologies] that my (ahem) ‘theories’ are actually quite in line with modern mainstream theological teaching as taught in the various European University Systems [and of course in the UK] - I’m not ssure what the status is in the US outside of the Ivy Leagues (e.g. Princeton, Yale or Harvard theology courses) but it seems to me that most ‘college’ courses in theology in the US have a long way to go to catch up with e.g. the German Theological ‘School’ or the British Theological ‘School’ of modern textual criticism &tc.)

At this point, it seems to me that it is only a matter of ‘elucidation’ on my part if only to make some of my points clearer – since evidently you are either mis-understanding their import or are not aware of their probity - so I will divide my answers over several threads – since, when all is said and done, there is scarcely room in a single ATS post to answer ALL of your comments/queries and points of evident confusion as to various nuances of my exact meaning in several places on this Thread…

Having said that, I will again re-iterate that I will be answering your observations and comments over several threads – mainly so I can squeeze more data in per point being made on a single post and also to help those others on this thread who might be interested to learn more about their own religious presuppositions and Weltanschauung to which they may have not perhaps given much thought previously.

Let’s grab one off your comments at random – I seem to remember your mentioning earlier that in the ‘entire NT’ there is no doctrine or hint of the concept of the Two Messiah’s (something we see not only in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the writings of the Later Rebbes (e.g. ‘the Messiah ben Joseph’ and the ‘Messiah ben David’ etc.) , but also in the early Daviddic ’Kairite’ literature, who later combined the Two Messiah’s into one – much like the Christians were to do with ‘Iesous’ – who, by the time of the Greek canonical ‘gospels’ was referred to BOTH as the ‘son of David’ (e.g. Matt chapter 15) and the ‘son of Joseph’ e.g. in the 4th Gospel – ‘we have found the Messiah, even Iesous, the Son of Joseph, i.e. R. Yehoshua bar Yosef )

Here it is: YOU WROTE:

“…John of Patmos holds up the sanctity of Virginity… [but] more importantly, the Authors of the DSS were clearly waiting for Two Messiahs, a concept not found anywhere in the NT…”

I don’t know about you, but the last time I looked at what most ‘modern Christians’ consider to be the canonical NT – which is virtually the same list of books that was finally decided upon by c. the 5th century CE - in both the Greek & the Latin Vulgate NT as containing 27 books familiar to this day…] the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ was among the list of 27 ‘sacred books’, and specifically ‘Revelation’ chapter 11 still exists in its own weird form in the horribly mangy Greek of book…

Here is some echoes of that ‘Dual Messiah’ thingy extracted from various Greek manuscripts recording the textual gibberish in Rev chapter 11 which you deny even exists in the NT canon:
Interestingly perhaps, when alll the Greek ungrammatical Gibberish (and textual interpolations) of chapter 11 is carefully translated back word for word into Aramaic, there emerges from the text a kind of Qinah Lament Poetical Meter…in neat six line stanzas.

And I looked & behold, I saw: Two Olive Trees :
And lo, they were both standing before the face[s] of the Throne of EL in heaven
And I could see that they both were slowly pacing up and down
Even between two of the 7 Golden Menoroth (‘lamps’) in Heaven.
And behold, they were clothed head to foot wearing Saqcloth
And, lo, they each had the Ritual Ashes [of Lament] sprinkled upon their heads.

And I turned to one of the Watchers standing near me & spoke to him saying:
Who are these Two Olive Trees walking between the Menoroth dressed in Saqcloth?
And he who stood near spoke to me saying, These Two Olive Trees are The Two Martyrs
Who having completed for ever their Preaching of the Good News [of the Kingdom]
Whose combined Times of the Words of the Testimony was [Daniel’s] 1260 days
And are both Worthy to pace between the Menorot standing before the face[s] of EL


For, lo, during the Times of their Preaching they were granted Power to shut up Heaven
And also the Power to turn the Fresh Rivers & Fountains of the Land [of Yisroel] to Blood
And to smite the Land [of Yisro’el] with any Plague that they chose to inflict
But lo, should anyone try to harm them in any way at all
They would shoot out Fire out of their Mouths
Which would immediately consume their Enemies.

[in the margin: May anyone who ever wished them harm them die in the same way…]

And when all the Days of their Testimony was completed,
The Beast that rose from the Abyss began to attack them,
And lo, he overpowered them both [in battle]
And he was able to put them both to death
So that their corpses lay in the open streets of the Great City,
Even for a Period of Three and a half Days.

[in the margin: this is spiritually called Sodom or Egypt, where ‘Their Lord’ was crucified]

And the Occupiers of the Land [of Yisro’el] of every Nation, Tribe & Tongue
Looked upon them and refused them burial [in the tombs of their fathers]
And the Occupiers began to gloat over their [deaths]
And celebrated [their Martyrdoms] by sending Gifts to one other
Because these two Prophets prophesied [Oracles of] Torment
Even against All the Occupiers of the Land [i.e. of Yisro’el].

But after a Space of Three and One Half Days,
The Breath of Life came down from [the 4 winds of] EL
And entering their corpses, they were able to stand again upon their feet,
Then ‘Shaking and Terror fell upon All the Watchers’ on that day
And they heard a Loud Peal from Heaven saying ‘Ascend up to Heaven ! ‘
And lo, they caught up to Heaven in a cloud while their Enemies looked on…


It doesn’t exactly ‘take a rocket scientist’ to be able to see that there are clear Martyro-Messianic overtones in the Story of the Two Olive Trees (‘two Martyrs’, or ‘two prophets’) i.e. of the Two Preaching Witnesses in the (albeit at times grammatically impossible) Book of Revelation Chapter 11 - whether you take the Two Witnesses to be the 2 Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls (‘until the day that the Messiah of Yisro’el and the Messiah of Aaron should be made manifest to Israel, etc. ] or the Two Olive Messiahs spoken about in the Book of the Prophet Zechariah chapter 4: 1b – 14

Then the angel who talked with me returned waking me up: and I awoke still bleary eyed, when he began to ask me :

"What do you see?"

I answered, "I see a solid golden Menorah with a bowl at the top and seven lights on it, with seven channels to the lights.

Also I see before me Two Olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."

I asked the Angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?". He answered, "Do you not know what these are?"

"No, my lord," I replied. So he said to me, "This is the word of YHWH to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says YHWH El Elyon !

Then the word of YHWH came to me saying :"The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; His hands will also complete it. Then you will know that YHWH El Elyon has sent me to you.

Yea, Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

"(in the margin: Now these seven are the eyes of YHWH, which range throughout Qol Yisro’el)

Then I asked the angel, "What are these two Olive Trees on the right and the left of the Menorah ?"

Again I asked him, "And what are these Two Olive Branches beside the two gold pipes that pour out golden oil?"

He replied, "Do you not know what these are?" "No, my lord," I said. So he said, "These Two Olive Trees and the Two Olive Banches which you see are the Two Messiahs who serve the clan god of Qol Yisroel”

One could easily write a whole book about the contents (and theological implications) of Rev. chapter 11 – which seems to reflect an early Nazorean (Ebionite) possibly even pre-Christian belief in a pre-Gospel Jewish Messiah as a Holy War Martyr Figure (cf: the use of the Suffering Servant passages by later Christians in the gospels)

All of which indicates that the ‘Book of Revelation’ in many places represents some of the oldest i.e. earliest Judaeo-Christian more ‘primitive’ Theologies as they existed prior to the 1st Failed Jewish war against Rome (66-72 CE), at which time most of the Nazorean Evionim (as well as most of the original disciples of R. Yehoshua and his family too) were wiped off the face of the earth –

This clearing of the Nazorean Evionim out of their Jerusalem HQ (some actually survived as a much smaller Remnant after the War to harass the Paulinists ! ) to leave other ‘Christianities’ in the open field relatively unscathed in Greece, Asia minor and North Africa (e.g. all the various Gnostic Christianities which existed well into the 8th century AD, and all the the various Pauline Christianities (one of which included the weird Marcion’s Gnostic-Dualistic Pauline Mix of ideas) and the kind of Christianities which we find in places like Alexandria (e.g. the Christianity of the author(s) of the 4th Gospel and the Epistles of John the Elder)..

I have to catch a plane, but I’ll be back in the AM tomorrow to give you a little more background on all of this Two Messiah Thingy…

reply to post by Sigismundus


It also "doesn't take a rocket scientist" to see the liberties taken in translating a little known language into an even less known language and back into english by those with a bias against "Pauline Christianity". It also, doesn't seem any closer to the idea of two Messiahs given the context. The translators just try to emphasize that connection, but it doesn't hold up in context. There is only one lamb of God and one Lord Iesous Christ in Revelations. The two witnesses are what they are in the context of the Bible which describes two prophets having been taken bodily into heaven: Enoch and Elijah. Furthermore, by making the two witnesses two Messiahs in a prophetic Revelation, you are implying that the author of Revelation did not think of Ya'hshuah as the Messiah and was still waiting for the two Messiahs. Yet again your argument falls in light of context and history so you have to grab at early vagante groups with murky histories and fragmentary texts.

I really am not impressed by your *exceptional* British education beyond your technical savvy in the field. Underneath the show of techno-babble you are still just grasping at straws.

I find this video to be incredibly relevent to the thread and OP's tactics

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi again, Kallisti

Believe it or not, I have tried whenever possible to avoid having to use ‘technical theological babble’ on this thread and will try to explain any technical terms to make them understandable to the ‘lay’ person who might not have the requisite technical background to deal with these matters in an intelligent manner…this is meant to be an ‘open discussion’ as long as people can back up their claims with some hard facts – and if you need something explained in clearer language, then just ask…

But I suspect that I may well find myself singing to the tables and the chairs a lot of the time on this thread…

The first thing you will have to understand is that we are dealing with a composite text compiled from some extremely BAD Greek hand copied MSS which were translated out of what seems to have been an Aramaic (and/or Hebrew) Poetical Original – using a technique of Hebrew Scriptural exegesis known as Midrash –

i.e. literary (not necessarily ‘visionary’) expansions of older prophetic Hebrew texts, words, or phrases which are placed in new contexts for application to the writer’s own day and place etc. (MIDRASH derives from the Hebrew root D-R-SH – the word for ‘search out, discover, investigate’) and using ‘technical’ Hebraic literary devices such as ‘Gezara Shewa’

i.e. linked passages joined together by catch words or catch phrases…which we see so much of in the ‘logia’ of the Greek speaking ‘Iesous’ in the canonical Greek Gospels (e.g. where Gezera Shewa link words using FIRE link to un-related sayings (A, B, C & D below) about SALT in the 2nd canonical Greek Gospel ‘according to Mark’

See 'Mark' chapter 9: 47-50

A. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.
For it is better for you to enter the kingdom of [Heaven] with one eye
Than to have two eyes and be cast into Hinnom
Where ‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the FIRE is not quenched.

B. Everyone will be SALTED with FIRE

C. SALT is good, but if it loses its SALT-NESS
How can you make it SALTY again?

D. Have SALT among yourselves,
and be at peace with each other.”

Now that I have given you an example of how Gezera Shewa works using Catch Words you can apply this to what we often see in the literary hotchpotch of midrashic expansion oracles in the so-called Book of Revelation...e.g.

In Chapter 11 of 'Revelation’ the opening 3 verses are a floating Oracle with no logical connexion to what follows – linked together (via Gezara Shewa – catch ideas) by the idea of '42 months'

(i.e. 42 months = linked to the next oracle containing the phrase '1260 days' – but of course only if we make each month 30 equal days…)

Rev 11: 1-2 = ORACLE 1 (but missing from Codex Ephraemi)

And lo, I was given a Reed like a Measuring Rod & was told,

“Go forth & measure the Hekal of EL
And measure also the Altar,
And take the number of its Worshipers therein.

But exclude measurements of the outer Court;
Nay, do not measure it at all
Because it has been given over to the Goyim

And they will trample the Holy City underfoot
[and shall lay siege unto it]
Even for the space of 42 months.

ORACLE 2 (Rev 11:3 ff)

[Thre Greek MSS show an interrupted Fragment beginning in verse 3 – the text begins in the MIDDLE of an oracle – I have provided the missing section based on Zech 4 in my last post - which you misunderstood, apparently ! ]

…'And I will grant' [ the noun is missing: probably a direct object [?] 'to My Two Martyrs'
And they will Prophesy for the space of 1,260 days,
Clothed in sackcloth during the Times of their Prophecies.


From this point, Codices Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus & Ephraemi have:

These are “The Two Olive Trees”
(in all 3 Greek MSS the specific reference here is to Zechariah chapter 4:1-14, i.e. ref. The Two Messiahs)
And the ‘Two Lampstands’,
Even they who “stand before YHWH of the earth.”

And if anyone tries to harm them,
Fire will emit from their Mouths
In order that it might devour all of their Enemies.

Now in view of the above if you cannot see that the (albeit mangled) Greek texts used to reconstruct Rev. chapter 11 is NOT a midrashic expansion of Zechariah chapter 4:1-14 (which speaks explicitly of TWO MESSIAHS), then show me how it is that the writer of Rev. 11 uses the SAME language and SAME images and SAME phraseology along with the SAME specific technical terms as used in the Hebrew and Aramaic Targumic texts of Zechariah chapter 4 which speak, like the Dead Sea Scroll Covenanters, specifically of TWO MESSIAHS, not one.

I have tried in my post to show you where your statement i.e. that ‘there was not a hint of the Two Messiah Theology in the entire NT’ can be shown to be palpably wrong – (and you’ll find a lot of ‘non conformist’ theology expressed in the so-called Book of Revelation if you read it over very carefully) and you have not been able to discuss the matter further, accusing me of techno-babble.

Apparently you have no rejoinder on this specific issue, and we may consider it ‘closed’.

I have seen at least a dozen of these gross mis-statements of fact (and some distortions) of yours that need to be answered in some way, so this week I will see if I have the time to discuss some of them on this thread…
But, try not to lose sight of the main Purpose of this ATS thread is to show that the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ is not a NEW prophecy at all, but a Midrashic expansion of OLD prophecies, much like the author of the Book of Daniel midrashed parts of Jeremiah’s older prophecies when that writer spoke of ’70 weeks of years’ etc. and that his purpose in writing was to form a new understanding of older well known Hebrew Scriptural oracles he knew as part of his priestly training (and that the book of ‘Revelation’ was not a collection of real, physical ‘divine visions’ in some cave on an island !)

The author(s) of ‘Daniel (written c. 165 BCE, in a late kind of proto Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic mix) was not giving brand new ‘oracles’, but went about interpreting/expanding/adapting older prophecies –e.g the way he midrashed Jeremiah’s oracles.

And since the anonymous Jewish (albeit Messianically & Apocalyptically minded) Priestly writer of the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ (‘Yohanon’ whoever he was...) seems to have lived at a time ‘when the age of Prophecy was believed to be over’, naturally he would be reduced to ‘midrashing the Scriptures’ to discover what he considered of import for his own time during the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE).

Far from grasping at straws, I am pointing out valid hard evidence for you to re-examine – firm evidence that the writer of the ‘Book of Revelation’ (e.g. in chapter 11) was NOT in line at all with much of the other (later) theologies of the canonical New Testament books (especially NOT in line with the Pauline ‘salvation-by-faith’ churches) and represented one of the much more primitive Christianities that were in existence in Asia Minor, Greece, North Africa and the Levant during the 1st three centuries CE i.e. before the later Ecumenical Councils began to consolidate both texts and creeds under fewer and more centralized (what later became ‘canonical’) ecclesiastical umbrella entities especially after the time of Constantine.

So, just by reading this post, you've already learned some new ‘techno-babble’ about Gezera Shewa AND Midrash in the same post……which are only two literary aspects which will recur again and again in our discussion on ATS about this Book….

Only do me a small favour - knock off any future posting of silly evangelical video links from the 'wacko' right wing on this thread...save it for others who might actually believe half of what this person is actually propagandising !

reply to post by Sigismundus


Ah Zechariah 4! This is a very common chapter to back up the dual Messiah theory. You are welcome to that interpretation as were the Essenes, but the Mainline Jews and Christians understood the olive trees in a different way. Here are some of the varied interpretations:

Gill's Exposition of the entire Bible

Some Jewish writers interpret them of their two Messiahs, Messiah ben Joseph, and Messiah ben David (u). Some interpreters understand by them Enoch and Elias; others Peter and Paul; others, better, with Kimchi and Ben Melech, Joshua and Zerubbabel, the one anointed for the priesthood, and the other for the kingdom; of which two offices Jarchi interprets them; and others the two churches, Jewish and Christian.

The anointed (yitshar) in this passage is actually literally translated "sons of oil". This is the only instance in an english text where yitshar is translated as such. Moshiach on the other hand literally translates as Anointed and is where the word Messiah comes from. If mochiach was used in this case it could lend credence to your theory that the interpretation of two Messiah was a part of mainline Jewish and Christian thought, but it still wouldn't help your case with Revelations.

As I have pointed out, there are several interpretations of this prominent prophecy. The author of Revelations draws up this prophecy with the two witnesses. As I have pointed out, the witnesses are not Ya'hshuah and I am sure we can agree that whoever wrote Revelation believed Ya'hshuah was the Messiah. Therefor neither of the witnesses can be Messiahs because they are not Ya'hshuah. There is one King of Kings and Lord of Lords in Revelations. I stand by my statement: dual Messiah theology is absent from the NT.

I would hardly describe Dr. Craig as a "wacko" right-wing evangelist, he's pretty reasonable and a very intelligent apologist. Though I will honor your request and refrain from posting videos, that was admittedly a pretty low blow. Though it is relavent to my feelings toward people trumpeting their credentials in a ham-fisted attempt to establish authority so as to push novel theories and revisionist history.

reply to post by Sigismundus


I've also caught you in a number of fallacies throughout this thread that you haven't addressed:
1. Ebionites and Nazarenes were two polarized Jewish-Christian sects
2. Johannine themes are common in all works traditionally associated with John (the Logos, very high Christology etc)
3. John using a secretary when available adequately explains differences in Greek between texts
4. The author of Revelation could not have been an Ebionite due to his clearly high Christology and use of the doctrine of the Logos
5. The earliest Church Fathers attribute this work to John including St. Polycarp and St. Justin Martyr
6. the author of Revelations was not an Essene which is made evident due to a lack of dual Messiah theology
7. The author of Revelations could not have been a Levitical or Zadokite Priest, because of he addresses several of the same Churches as Paul, Ya'hshuah was rejected by the Priests of the 2nd Temple, and he speaks disparagingly of Jerusalem (Sodom and Egypt and Synagogues of Satan). If he was a priest, he would have been a renegade Priest and a surprisingly uneducated one to be writing in such "mangy Greek".
8. Ebionites are a notoriously unreliable source given their tendency to write psuedo works
9.There is not a shred of testimony canonical or apocryphal that describes Ya'hshuah leading an armed rebellion. It isn't even a vagante tradition.
10.Ya'hshuah's teachings don't remotely express an Essene/Qumran mindset

reply to post by kallisti36


Wow, Kallisti

By your list of inane misrepresentations of what you actually believe to be ‘facts’ you really are showing yourself to be quite quite oblivious to the actual ‘history’ underlying all the competing the 1st century Judaeo-Christianities that were in existence (often at each other’s throats) that had spread into in Asia Minor as well as in North Africca and in the Levant out of Palestine both before and after the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE) !

Having said that, it will take a few ATS posts to answer all of them, so let me first address some of your more egregious ‘maggots’ (to use a term coined by Rev. Charles Jennins back in 1740 to refer to ‘various warp’d Ideas crawling out of an unfocussed Brain’…)

First, the so-called Johannine Literature in the present canonical Greek NT refers to the 3 shortish Greek Epistles attributed to Yohanon the Presbuteros (‘John the Elder’) as well as the so-called 4th canonical gospel (‘according to Yohanon’) although the latter gospel-documents may well have been the work of several persons who surrounded this Presbyter John (whoever he really was) in life and edited or polished the work after his death.

This Johnanine corpus does NOT (repeat N-O-T) include the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ which is the product of another (anonymous) ‘Yohanon’ not related to the Elder – and no amount of bad translators can account for the vast differences in Content, Tone, Sentence Length, Grammatical constructions, peculiar Nazorean Ebionite (‘salvation by works’ i.e. ANTI PAULINE) theology, Weltanschauung, Style of Utterance and a number of other stylistic features which show that they come from two different Christianities in the 1st century CE.

For the sake of discussion we’ll call this Yohanon of the book of ‘Revelation’ simply as ‘John the Seer’, who seems to have a more anti Gentile, and more pro Zionist-Jerusalemite world view (as opposed to the Presbyter who speaks the more international pro-Gentile language of the Greek Mystery Schools out of Alexandria and Ephesus and other major Asiatic cult centers)- his attitude towards the Iudaioi (‘Judaeans’ which modern Christians read ‘Jews’ in their badly translated English bibles !) for example is quite the opposite in the ‘book of Revelation’ from what it is in the Elder John’s Gospel in a number of places…

So don’t continue in your jejune belief that the same ‘John’ is responsible for the the Gospel-Epistles and the ‘book of revelation’ – they are NOT of the same mind, despite some attempts in some later copies after the 3rd century to add editorial features (marginalia) to link the two together.

In case you had not noticed, the various doctrines of the Jewish Messiah as pre-existent creator LOGOS is oler than Christianity – and represents one of many attempt by Alexandrian Jews (and later Alexandrian-converted Jews to Alexandria’s version of Christianity) to merge older ‘pagan’ philosophical Platonic-Aristotelian ideas of the Divine MIND with YHWH the clan god of the Jews as it is expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures (not only as the ideas existed in germ form in Genesis, but also e.g. Proverbs chapter 8:22 where the idea of CHOKHMAH or WISDOM is used as the Tool of Creation through Speech or Word - see e.g. Philo of Alexandria’s work on this subject from a Jewish perspective c. 30 CE)

Proverbs 8:22

I am Chokhmah - YHWH brought Me forth as the first of his works, before deeds of old
I was appointed from eternity, from the Beginning, before the World sprang into Existence.
At the Time when no oceans existed, I was given birth,
I was there when there were no springs were abounding with water; .
I existed with him before the mountains were settled in place,
Yea before the hills were formed I was given birth,
Before he made the Land or its fields or any of the mud of the Ground.
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
And when he marked out the horizon on the Faces of the Tehomah ,
When he established the clouds above
And when he fixed securely the fountains of the Tehomah,
When he gave the sea its boundary
So the waters would not overstep his command,
And I was with him when he marked out the Foundations of the earth.
At that time, yea, I was The Craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
Always rejoicing before his Face[s]
Yea, Rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in the sons of Adam.

Philo of Alexandria had a lot of Greek Ink to spill over the above Chokhmah Traditions - something I am sure Shaoul of Tarsus would have choked on - praising Wisdom (Sophia/Gnosis etc.) in such an overt fashion !

This Yohanon the Elder (whoever he really was - apparently there were TWO 'Yohanons' buried side by side at one time at Ephesus according to Dionysius…not that you’d want to believe it….) who brought in the idea of the LOGOS into the Gospel material under his name also was a literary thief (like the author of the Book of Revelation in that one respect at least !) in that he not only stole his LOGOS ideas from Alexandrian Jews (e.g. Philo and his Jewish Platonist school c 30-40 CE) but also went as far as adapting NON JEWISH texts as well, e.g. the Rg Veda’s Famous Hymn to VAC (‘the Word’ or ‘the VOICE’) written more than 1000 years earlier which had wide circulation throughout Asia Minor before even Socrates or Plato was born !

Here is the stolen (or more politely, ‘adapted’) text that this John the Elder lifts from the Hindu Sacred Canon of Scriptures, specifically the Devi Sukta hymn Rg Veda 10.125 (c. 1200 BCE) when he introduces his Logos-centric canonical Greek gospel (which is expressed in a far different Greek Style of Utternace and Weltanschauung than the Zionist-Palestinian oriented mind behind the socalled ‘Book of Revelation’ let me assure you)

Devi Sukta hymn Rg Veda 10.125 / 10.114.8 (c. 1200 BCE)

In the beginning was VAC (lit. ‘The Word’ or ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Sound’ opersonified as a goddess) and VAC was with the seers viewing the god of Creation when VAC was herself a goddess - and no thing that sprang into existence was created without VAC….

Sound familiar? And from a far older, non-Jewish, thoroughly ‘pagan’ source too !

Now don’t tell me this is all news to you – and if so, you are going to be in for a very rude awakening, my friend, over the next couple of weeks when more of this hard evidence is thrust (or more politely ‘presented for closer inspection’) under your nose !

What is it about persons who style themselves ‘Christians’ to-day who insist on deluding themselves (like modern Jews still do about their own borrowed post Exilic theological underpinnings ! ) that their own ‘religion’ is somehow unique or divine or fell down from heaven in one whole cloth, without any substantial stealing…er…borrowings from other older more sophisticated and much larger cultural neighbours? (in this case the HINDUS of all ancient peoples !)

There is no specifically Alexandrian ‘LOGOS’ doctrine expressed in the ‘Book of Revelation’ – and nothing specifically ‘Elder Johnish’ about ideas like the Aleph and the Tav (i.e. the Urrim ve Thummim (beginning with the letters ALEPH and TAV) which represented the sacred pre-Jewish oracular Lots of Canaan for ‘Condemnation’ and ‘Release’ – and linguistically linked to Isaiah chapter 48:12, 41:4, 44:6 etc.)

There is not LOGOS idea in the image of the Bar Enasha (‘son of Man’ of Aramaic Daniel chapter 7:13 ff) holding the 7 Stars of Heaven in his Right Hand with a Dangling Sword with which he will exterminate all the Gentiles and Smash them all to Pieces like a Potter’s Vessel –

There is nothing LOGOS like about the ‘Daviddic Messiah - Bar Enasha Figure’ glowing brightly like something taken from a hot furnace (literally stolen from Theodotion’s own weird Vorlage textual underlay to the Hebrew consonantal version of Daniel 10:6-8) or about his Metatron like Temple Accolyte function, or about the Bar Enasha’s holding of the ‘Keys to David’s Kingdom whose doors when opened no son of man may shut’…

Nor is there anything particularly 'LOGOS-like' about the Book of Revelation’s Seer’s stealing of poetic images from the earlier Danielic, Hezekielite & Henochite visions of the 4 Chayyot (‘living creatures’) or of his evident use of the ‘Merkhava’ Throne-Chariot Literature (akin to the Dead sea Scrolls in places) throughout his ‘Book of Revelation’…

And clearly, most of the inserted textual references to ‘the Ram’ in all the 2nd temple imagery which make heavy and direct ‘steals’ of older Jewish Creation Hymns found in the ‘book of Revelation’ are clearly inserted ‘Christian marginalia’ into an earlier more Jewish (non Elder-Johanine) text which uses SINGULAR verbs in their praises in the mangled Greek copies most of the time and SINGULAR direct objects when referring to the divine presence e.g. ‘El Elyon, even the Eternal One sititing upon the Throne’ - nearly always expressed as a SINGULAR and not a DUAL Entity (e.g. ‘glory to the one who sits upon his throne’ (sg) [margin: yea, and also to the Lamb] etc.

And I certainly see nothing LOGOS-like about a Warrior Messiah mounting a White Horse and Slaying the Gentiles with the breath of his mouth, with his Followers dressed in white, causing the blood of the goyim to rise to the bridles of the horses, do you?

And as we have already pointed out, there is absolutely nothing LOGOS like about the TWO MARTYRS, i.e. the TWO MESSIAHS i.e. the TWO OLIVE TREES which stand before the Throne of EL in his Heavenly Temple and who are BOTH martyred and who BOTH ‘rise from the dead’ after 3 ½ days and ‘ascend into Heaven’

And I see nothing LOGOS-like in images such as the Conquored Gentile Nations all being marched captive into the New Jerusalem, with all of their gold and silver and wealth literally pouring into the City before them for the sole use of the (ahem) ‘victorious’ Elect of Yisro’el, like the 12 Fruits of the Tree of Life in the City Centre (‘one for each of the 12 Tribes of the Sons of Yisro’el) with all the battle-conquored ‘gentile-goyim survivors’ ’ gasping for mercy, bathing their ‘battle scars and wounds in the leaves of the Tree of Life’ – do you?

These ideas are NOT Elder-John theology (which tends towards the Universal and ‘anti Judaean’) whereas this is proZionist and ANTI-Gentile in the extreme if you look at each phrase closely.

Maybe you need to take another VERY close look at the mangled texts of the Greek underlay to the socalled Book of Revelation before you make such ignorant and unbased assertions?

As for the Evionim, it will require a separate post I am afraid. Suffice it to say, the author of the ‘book of Revelation’ was against all those who preached a salvation by faith alone (i.e. the Pauline ‘heretics’) and clearly supported a Salvation by Works (Heb: ma’aseh ha Torah) i.e. obedience to the Torah of Moses as defining ritual purity –

The writer of Revelation's hatred of Shaoul of Tarsus is obvious (‘Behold I know the Blasphemies of those of the Synagogue of Satan who claim to be Jews but are not Jews at all…I will force them to come to you on bended knee & worship at your feet ! see Rev 2: 9 or even earlier in the text, e.g. ‘I know your actions.. how you have weighed ‘the hearts of those who call themselves ‘APOSTOLOI ‘but are not APOSTOLOI but are Liars’ (Rev 2:2) clearly a swipe at Shao’ul of Tarsus (aka Paul) who addressed himself in this peculiar fashion, even though he never ‘met Iesous in the Flesh’ but only ‘in dreams and visions’ like my Gardner.

Pretty much sums up the Seer Yohanon-author of Revelation’s contempt for Paul’s ‘salvation by faith alone’ theology which drew in so many of the hated Gentiles into the Movement – see also Paul’s obscene ‘begging act’ when he ‘was summoned to Jerusalem’ to explain himself in front of the Ebionite ‘James the Just’ who was not even one of the 12 Disciples ! – yet this Torah Abiding James the Just still (by his Ebionite blood line) took over the Daviddic Messianic Kingdom ‘ministry’ of his brother (‘Iesous’) after his execution –
See the specific Greek words used in Acts chapter 15 and the vile contempt ‘Saul’ (i.e. Paul) held the Torah Abidiing Ebionites in Jerusalem when he spoke of them in his own words in ‘Galatians’ chapter 2 - especially if you read HIS Greek words very closely ‘those so called Pillars’ … and ref: Kephah ‘I called him an Hypocrite to his face !) – clearly they were at each other’s throats and separated after a major theological (and personal) quarrel (end of Acts 15 – ‘then Kephah took John Mark with him and left in a huff…’)

Even in the mangled texts of the so-called ‘7 letters’ (which by the way show a highly artificial literary construction and heavy use of repeated formulae) we see again and again, the idea to obey the torah of Moses …‘You must at the very least perform the chief ma’aseh of the Torah !’ (see Rev. 2:5)
We’ll postpone discussion of some of these other issues until later this week – so you can digest what has been written so far – read it over twice if you have to.

Certainly, to claim that the author of the Book of Revelation was ‘not a priest’ or trained professionally as such (e.g. as a member of the Dead Sea Scroll Zadokites, whose language he emulates) is ridiculous and without merit – the author’s extensive understanding of 2nd temple Herodian Ritual is clear even in the mangled Greek translation of his work – it is even very possible the mangy translator did not understand the Aramaic-Hebrew literary references he was actually translating –and more and more evidence suggests that the original Aramaic Hebrew Vorlage (UR-Text) was poetical in form –

which may account for some of the impossible Greek Howlers, but when re-translated back into Hebrew-Aramaic idiom, the 2nd temple Liturgical expertise begins again to shine forth – sort of like poor Suessmayr trying to make sense of Mozart’s sketches for his Requiem after the latter’s death, working as he did from skizze

(‘rough sketches and shorthand’) which he could not fully understand, but copied out the best he could anyway – later musicological scholars (e.g. Richard Maunder in the 1980s) were able to show how poor Suessmayr the pupil was able to retain some authentic Mozartean material simply because he was too afraid to cross anything out, whether he understood what he was copying or not !!

Originally posted by Sigismundus
reply to post by kallisti36


Wow, Kallisti

By your list of inane misrepresentations of what you actually believe to be ‘facts’ you really are showing yourself to be quite quite oblivious to the actual ‘history’ underlying all the competing the 1st century Judaeo-Christianities that were in existence (often at each other’s throats) that had spread into in Asia Minor as well as in North Africca and in the Levant out of Palestine both before and after the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (66-72 CE) !

Having said that, it will take a few ATS posts to answer all of them, so let me first address some of your more egregious ‘maggots’ (to use a term coined by Rev. Charles Jennins back in 1740 to refer to ‘various warp’d Ideas crawling out of an unfocussed Brain’…)

First, the so-called Johannine Literature in the present canonical Greek NT refers to the 3 shortish Greek Epistles attributed to Yohanon the Presbuteros (‘John the Elder’) as well as the so-called 4th canonical gospel (‘according to Yohanon’) although the latter gospel-documents may well have been the work of several persons who surrounded this Presbyter John (whoever he really was) in life and edited or polished the work after his death.

This Johnanine corpus does NOT (repeat N-O-T) include the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ which is the product of another (anonymous) ‘Yohanon’ not related to the Elder – and no amount of bad translators can account for the vast differences in Content, Tone, Sentence Length, Grammatical constructions, peculiar Nazorean Ebionite (‘salvation by works’ i.e. ANTI PAULINE) theology, Weltanschauung, Style of Utterance and a number of other stylistic features which show that they come from two different Christianities in the 1st century CE.

There is no difference in soteirology between Revelations and Paul. "I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely". This passage alone refutes any concept of "works salvation" which is a false derogatory Protestant term for Roman Catholic sotierology which is nothing of the sort. You also betray a complete ignorance of Early Christian understanding of scripture when you claim Paul taught salvation by "faith alone". Sola Fide is a novel teaching that is utterly absent in Patristic thought. There were no distinction between faith and works until the reformation. Clement (undeniably Pauline) makes it abundantly clear in his epistle to the Corinthians that we are saved by a synergy with the will of God. This means by faith, grace, and obedience to his will (in that order) we attain union with Him. Salvation is freely given by God (as seen in all Gospels, Epistles, AND Revelations), we do not attain it by our own works, but we are called to do the work of God once we have accepted our salvation. It's a process like climbing a ladder that was lowered from a helicopter to take us to safety. We didn't lower the ladder; it was given, we accept it and then we climb not truly "saved" until we reach the top. Furthermore, the only time "Faith Alone" appears in the Bible is in the Epistle of James that says we are NOT saved by faith alone.

For the sake of discussion we’ll call this Yohanon of the book of ‘Revelation’ simply as ‘John the Seer’, who seems to have a more anti Gentile, and more pro Zionist-Jerusalemite world view (as opposed to the Presbyter who speaks the more international pro-Gentile language of the Greek Mystery Schools out of Alexandria and Ephesus and other major Asiatic cult centers)- his attitude towards the Iudaioi (‘Judaeans’ which modern Christians read ‘Jews’ in their badly translated English bibles !) for example is quite the opposite in the ‘book of Revelation’ from what it is in the Elder John’s Gospel in a number of places…

Again: the author of Revelations addresses GENTILE CHURCHES. Not a single one of these Churches were in Palestine. The 144,000 of Israel represent the reconciliation of the nation of Israel with the Messiah they denied. The "synagogues of Satan" are those who denied Christ. The author of Revelations is clearly against the nations who are against Israel and the Messiah (as any Christian Jew or Gentile would be), but also speaks of the Healing of the nations (gentiles) in Revelations 21 and their part in the New Jerusalem.

So don’t continue in your jejune belief that the same ‘John’ is responsible for the the Gospel-Epistles and the ‘book of revelation’ – they are NOT of the same mind, despite some attempts in some later copies after the 3rd century to add editorial features (marginalia) to link the two together.

I love absolute statements coming from someone 2,000 years removed from the writings. Your evidence may be compelling, but it's hardly proof. It's still a theory as is the much earlier theory that the differences are due to the use of secretaries which would explain the textual differences given the circumstances (he wouldn't have a secretary on Patmos which explains why Revelations has the worst Greek of all Johannine work). This is one of your few theories based on objective evidence that isn't stretched to a ridiculous degree. I give credit where credit is due and this theory *actually* has weight. Still, I'll stick with mine.

In case you had not noticed, the various doctrines of the Jewish Messiah as pre-existent creator LOGOS is oler than Christianity – and represents one of many attempt by Alexandrian Jews (and later Alexandrian-converted Jews to Alexandria’s version of Christianity) to merge older ‘pagan’ philosophical Platonic-Aristotelian ideas of the Divine MIND with YHWH the clan god of the Jews as it is expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures (not only as the ideas existed in germ form in Genesis, but also e.g. Proverbs chapter 8:22 where the idea of CHOKHMAH or WISDOM is used as the Tool of Creation through Speech or Word - see e.g. Philo of Alexandria’s work on this subject from a Jewish perspective c. 30 CE)

Proverbs 8:22

I am Chokhmah - YHWH brought Me forth as the first of his works, before deeds of old
I was appointed from eternity, from the Beginning, before the World sprang into Existence.
At the Time when no oceans existed, I was given birth,
I was there when there were no springs were abounding with water; .
I existed with him before the mountains were settled in place,
Yea before the hills were formed I was given birth,
Before he made the Land or its fields or any of the mud of the Ground.
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
And when he marked out the horizon on the Faces of the Tehomah ,
When he established the clouds above
And when he fixed securely the fountains of the Tehomah,
When he gave the sea its boundary
So the waters would not overstep his command,
And I was with him when he marked out the Foundations of the earth.
At that time, yea, I was The Craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
Always rejoicing before his Face[s]
Yea, Rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in the sons of Adam.

Philo of Alexandria had a lot of Greek Ink to spill over the above Chokhmah Traditions - something I am sure Shaoul of Tarsus would have choked on - praising Wisdom (Sophia/Gnosis etc.) in such an overt fashion !

There is no worship of Gnosis/Sophia distinst of God in this passage, nor the preexistence of the soul. Gnostics had a base in Judeo-Christianity, but distorted these concepts. They weren't pulled out of thin air.

Even if there was a connection between Greek Philosophy and Hebrew understanding of God, that doesn't mean these ideas were stolen. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Gentiles were utterly without truth. Plato could have stumbled across a piece of the nature of God in his philosophical musings. Furthermore, Hellinization wasn't one sided. The Israelites influenced Greek thought as well and made a number of proselytes and you can find Genesis and Exodus being quoted in Greek Pagan works.

This Yohanon the Elder (whoever he really was - apparently there were TWO 'Yohanons' buried side by side at one time at Ephesus according to Dionysius…not that you’d want to believe it….)

Actually this information doesn't bother me at all. Two Johns of the same tradition in the same city would explain the similarities and differences between the Johannine works. It would mean that while there were two different authors, John the Apostle still had his hand in the works.

who brought in the idea of the LOGOS into the Gospel material under his name also was a literary thief (like the author of the Book of Revelation in that one respect at least !) in that he not only stole his LOGOS ideas from Alexandrian Jews (e.g. Philo and his Jewish Platonist school c 30-40 CE) but also went as far as adapting NON JEWISH texts as well, e.g. the Rg Veda’s Famous Hymn to VAC (‘the Word’ or ‘the VOICE’) written more than 1000 years earlier which had wide circulation throughout Asia Minor before even Socrates or Plato was born !

Here is the stolen (or more politely, ‘adapted’) text that this John the Elder lifts from the Hindu Sacred Canon of Scriptures, specifically the Devi Sukta hymn Rg Veda 10.125 (c. 1200 BCE) when he introduces his Logos-centric canonical Greek gospel (which is expressed in a far different Greek Style of Utternace and Weltanschauung than the Zionist-Palestinian oriented mind behind the socalled ‘Book of Revelation’ let me assure you)

Devi Sukta hymn Rg Veda 10.125 / 10.114.8 (c. 1200 BCE)

In the beginning was VAC (lit. ‘The Word’ or ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Sound’ opersonified as a goddess) and VAC was with the seers viewing the god of Creation when VAC was herself a goddess - and no thing that sprang into existence was created without VAC….

Sound familiar? And from a far older, non-Jewish, thoroughly ‘pagan’ source too !

I can't find a translation of this text anywhere near the same as yours, so I think I can safely assume you took liberties with the translation you offered. Regardless, similarity does not mean plagiarism. What's more is that this could also be taken as proof of a universal revelation of the Word of YHVH. This Christian website seems to think so: www.bibleclassesonline.com... Salvation is of the Jews according to the Gospel, but that doesn't mean all people were ignorant of YHVH. The Canaanites worshiped El in their Pantheon, the Samaritans accepted part of Jewish scripture, and there were monotheistic movements in Egypt and Greece.

Now don’t tell me this is all news to you – and if so, you are going to be in for a very rude awakening, my friend, over the next couple of weeks when more of this hard evidence is thrust (or more politely ‘presented for closer inspection’) under your nose !

What is it about persons who style themselves ‘Christians’ to-day who insist on deluding themselves (like modern Jews still do about their own borrowed post Exilic theological underpinnings ! ) that their own ‘religion’ is somehow unique or divine or fell down from heaven in one whole cloth, without any substantial stealing…er…borrowings from other older more sophisticated and much larger cultural neighbours? (in this case the HINDUS of all ancient peoples !)

(Disregarding the insufferable arrogance of the above comment) While there was definitely Buddhist influence in the Mediterranean at that time, there wasn't much Hindu influence and there certainly wasn't a Greek or Hebrew translation of the Rigveda at that time. This makes the similarities even more interesting, kind of like the flood story that permeates so many diverse cultures. Rather than claiming that these similarities are plagiarism it could be asserted that the similarities are due to a common source (such as there actually being a flood and Patriarchs who lived for centuries).

There is no specifically Alexandrian ‘LOGOS’ doctrine expressed in the ‘Book of Revelation’ – and nothing specifically ‘Elder Johnish’ about ideas like the Aleph and the Tav (i.e. the Urrim ve Thummim (beginning with the letters ALEPH and TAV) which represented the sacred pre-Jewish oracular Lots of Canaan for ‘Condemnation’ and ‘Release’ – and linguistically linked to Isaiah chapter 48:12, 41:4, 44:6 etc.)


There is not LOGOS idea in the image of the Bar Enasha (‘son of Man’ of Aramaic Daniel chapter 7:13 ff) holding the 7 Stars of Heaven in his Right Hand with a Dangling Sword with which he will exterminate all the Gentiles and Smash them all to Pieces like a Potter’s Vessel –

Orly?

Revelation 19:13 American Standard Version (ASV) 13 And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

There is nothing LOGOS like about the ‘Daviddic Messiah - Bar Enasha Figure’ glowing brightly like something taken from a hot furnace (literally stolen from Theodotion’s own weird Vorlage textual underlay to the Hebrew consonantal version of Daniel 10:6-8) or about his Metatron like Temple Accolyte function, or about the Bar Enasha’s holding of the ‘Keys to David’s Kingdom whose doors when opened no son of man may shut’…

Nor is there anything particularly 'LOGOS-like' about the Book of Revelation’s Seer’s stealing of poetic images from the earlier Danielic, Hezekielite & Henochite visions of the 4 Chayyot (‘living creatures’) or of his evident use of the ‘Merkhava’ Throne-Chariot Literature (akin to the Dead sea Scrolls in places) throughout his ‘Book of Revelation’…

And clearly, most of the inserted textual references to ‘the Ram’ in all the 2nd temple imagery which make heavy and direct ‘steals’ of older Jewish Creation Hymns found in the ‘book of Revelation’ are clearly inserted ‘Christian marginalia’ into an earlier more Jewish (non Elder-Johanine) text which uses SINGULAR verbs in their praises in the mangled Greek copies most of the time and SINGULAR direct objects when referring to the divine presence e.g. ‘El Elyon, even the Eternal One sititing upon the Throne’ - nearly always expressed as a SINGULAR and not a DUAL Entity (e.g. ‘glory to the one who sits upon his throne’ (sg) [margin: yea, and also to the Lamb] etc.

And I certainly see nothing LOGOS-like about a Warrior Messiah mounting a White Horse and Slaying the Gentiles with the breath of his mouth, with his Followers dressed in white, causing the blood of the goyim to rise to the bridles of the horses, do you?

The doctrine of the Johannine LOGOS is that the LOGOS became flesh. Here in Revelations 19 the LOGOS is again personified as Christ. What is not LOGOS about that? However, instead of being involved in creation, here He is involved in Judgment. It's an extension of the idea, just like the LOGOS in John 1:1 is an extension of a doctrine already known: the LOGOS involvement in creation.

And as we have already pointed out, there is absolutely nothing LOGOS like about the TWO MARTYRS, i.e. the TWO MESSIAHS i.e. the TWO OLIVE TREES which stand before the Throne of EL in his Heavenly Temple and who are BOTH martyred and who BOTH ‘rise from the dead’ after 3 ½ days and ‘ascend into Heaven’

That's because they aren't messiahs

And I see nothing LOGOS-like in images such as the Conquored Gentile Nations all being marched captive into the New Jerusalem, with all of their gold and silver and wealth literally pouring into the City before them for the sole use of the (ahem) ‘victorious’ Elect of Yisro’el, like the 12 Fruits of the Tree of Life in the City Centre (‘one for each of the 12 Tribes of the Sons of Yisro’el) with all the battle-conquored ‘gentile-goyim survivors’ ’ gasping for mercy, bathing their ‘battle scars and wounds in the leaves of the Tree of Life’ – do you?

Certainly took liberties with the text there didn't you?

These ideas are NOT Elder-John theology (which tends towards the Universal and ‘anti Judaean’) whereas this is proZionist and ANTI-Gentile in the extreme if you look at each phrase closely.

Salvation is of the Jews. He writes of the restoration of Israel of which the nations who accept Christ have a part in.

As for the Evionim, it will require a separate post I am afraid. Suffice it to say, the author of the ‘book of Revelation’ was against all those who preached a salvation by faith alone (i.e. the Pauline ‘heretics’) and clearly supported a Salvation by Works (Heb: ma’aseh ha Torah) i.e. obedience to the Torah of Moses as defining ritual purity –

The writer of Revelation's hatred of Shaoul of Tarsus is obvious (‘Behold I know the Blasphemies of those of the Synagogue of Satan who claim to be Jews but are not Jews at all…I will force them to come to you on bended knee & worship at your feet ! see Rev 2: 9 or even earlier in the text, e.g. ‘I know your actions.. how you have weighed ‘the hearts of those who call themselves ‘APOSTOLOI ‘but are not APOSTOLOI but are Liars’ (Rev 2:2) clearly a swipe at Shao’ul of Tarsus (aka Paul) who addressed himself in this peculiar fashion, even though he never ‘met Iesous in the Flesh’ but only ‘in dreams and visions’ like my Gardner.

As I pointed out earlier; the idea of sola fide is totally absent from even the most Gentile Christians for over a millennia. Furthermore there is nothing to indicate that the false apostles were Pauline, rather they were the Gnostic Nicolaitans as the text says (2:6). Paul also warns the Ephesians of false apostles who would ravage the Church in Acts 20:29. But now I have to address the end of this bit:

Shao’ul of Tarsus (aka Paul) who addressed himself in this peculiar fashion, even though he never ‘met Iesous in the Flesh’ but only ‘in dreams and visions’ like my Gardner

This is clearly a disgusting swipe at Roman Catholic Mexicans. Being Hispanic myself I take offense at this you arrogant pig. Now that that is out of the way: you are operating on the presupposition that supernatural events are impossible and that the apostles weren't capable of testing the veracity of Paul's claim to meeting the Master THEY LIVED WITH.

Pretty much sums up the Seer Yohanon-author of Revelation’s contempt for Paul’s ‘salvation by faith alone’ theology which drew in so many of the hated Gentiles into the Movement – see also Paul’s obscene ‘begging act’ when he ‘was summoned to Jerusalem’ to explain himself in front of the Ebionite ‘James the Just’ who was not even one of the 12 Disciples ! – yet this Torah Abiding James the Just still (by his Ebionite blood line) took over the Daviddic Messianic Kingdom ‘ministry’ of his brother (‘Iesous’) after his execution –
See the specific Greek words used in Acts chapter 15 and the vile contempt ‘Saul’ (i.e. Paul) held the Torah Abidiing Ebionites in Jerusalem when he spoke of them in his own words in ‘Galatians’ chapter 2 - especially if you read HIS Greek words very closely ‘those so called Pillars’ … and ref: Kephah ‘I called him an Hypocrite to his face !) – clearly they were at each other’s throats and separated after a major theological (and personal) quarrel (end of Acts 15 – ‘then Kephah took John Mark with him and left in a huff…’)

You really take liberties with the text. The council of Jerusalem conceded to Paul's point. THEY WERE NOT EBIONITES. Nazarenes maybe but NOT Ebionites. Nothing in Acts 15 suggests a theological quarrel between Paul and BARNABAS (not Cephas a.k.a Peter)

36And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us return and visit(BY) the brothers(BZ) in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are." 37Now Barnabas wanted to take with them(CA) John called Mark. 38But Paul thought best not to take with them one(CB) who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39And there arose(CC) a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.(CD) Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40but Paul chose Silas and departed,(CE) having been commended by(CF) the brothers to(CG) the grace of the Lord. 41And he went through Syria and Cilicia,(CH) strengthening the churches.

Contention yes, but nothing that suggests theological issues.

I'm sure you were looking forward to spew more disinformation and present more theories as fact by taking liberties with scripture. However, I'm done, my curiosity is satisfied, and I am not impressed by your presentation. Don't think me a radical defender of the book. I don't need every accepted book to be inspired because I don't hold to sola scriptura. If Revelations was proved to be psuedepigraphia it wouldn't effect my faith in the slightest. There are plenty of excellent Church Fathers who didn't hold it in very high regard such as St. John Chrysostom. I however, stand with the decisions and traditions of the Church to keep the book and make no dogmatic claims on it. Far from proving the book to be spurious, you have betrayed shoddy scholarship and a disgusting contempt and arrogance toward people who don't agree with you. This has proven that I will glean no useful info from you, only straw grasping and polemics which contributes to much of the truth decay on this site. I've made my case for anyone who might come across this thread and be compelled by your theories.

Good day sir

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi again, Kallisti –

I’ll divert a little off topic for this one Post, just for fun, since it is the weekend - but in future we will need to stay on topic moving forward---

Ref: imported theological notions & Philosophies into Alexandria where John the Elder may have gotten wind of them one way or another :

You might be very surprised to learn how far some ‘foreign, imported’ texts and their concomitant philosophical-theological-political ideas were able to travel about in ancient times, especially when whople Armies take over entire countries & giant regions (such as what happened in the Levant between BCE 1000 and AD 400 with Assyria, Persia, Babylon, Greece, Rome etc.) furthered along in its flow of imports along some very ancient trade routes…

The ‘key’ to understand the mechanics of the direct and indirect importation of pre-Socratic philosophical notions (e.g. poems from the Rg Veda and their commentaries) flowing into the Mediterranean from the Indo-European lands between BCE 1000 and AAD 100 is of course ‘Persia’ –

In view of its physical position standing as it does on the cross roads between the Indian Subcontinent and all the busy& ancient Arabic Levantine trade Routes which by the 5tyh century BCE had introduced so many Indo-Persian ideas directly in their conquest of parts of ancient Greece - and also the introduction of Persian-Zorastrian ideas (which included Vedic gods such as Agni and Indra, but also ideas of Resurrection, Dualism of Light-Dark, Death-Life,Heaven-Hell, Judgment Day, Good-Evil, Good God v. Bad God, Sin v. Righteous, Punishment-reward etc.) which flowed into Palestine after 531 BCE when the Persian Armies occupied it.

YOU WROTE:

QUOTE

‘While there was definitely Buddhist influence in the Mediterranean at that time, there wasn't much Hindu influence and there certainly wasn't a Greek or Hebrew translation of the RgVeda at that time.

This makes the similarities even more interesting, kind of like the flood story that permeates so many diverse cultures.

Rather than claiming that these similarities are plagiarism it could be asserted that the similarities are due to a common source (such as there actually being a flood and Patriarchs who lived for centuries)’

Well, we were briefly touching upon the possible literary influences of John the Elder within the wider world of Hellenistic Greek Speaking Diaspora Judaeism (via the Alexandrian Hellenistic Platonic-LOGOS Schools and their influence upon Diaspora Jews such as Philo of Alexandria who spilled a lot of ink trying to make Genesis and Proverbs chapter 8 explain how e.g. Creation Philosophy within 1st century Diaspora Judaeism could also be seen as a serious and viable philosophy that could speak the same language as the Greeks…)

And my point was that preSocratic Literature and Vedas-Like Philosophical Ideas (often being imported into places like Egypt and Athens and Babylon etc. from the Hindu Lands of India and Zoroastrian-Northern Persia) did not completely disappear with Plato, but still existed by the time John the Elder began to set pen to paper in the canoncal 4th Greek Gospel.

Actually, the City of Alexandria was quite a ‘literary melting pot’ of imported religious & esoteric philosophical Books and Schools (along with Alchemical / Astrological/ Magic / Medicinal manuals) which accompanied a wide variety of religious ideas in the 1st century CE (where the John the Elder seems to have been based and where he wrote most of his material)

Examination of ancient Tombs in Egypt reveal the presence of Indigo, Tamarind Wood and such other Indian subcontinent imported materials showing that India’s commercial intercourse with Egypt was of long standing e.g. between 1000 BCE and 100 CE

Ditto with imported Indian material and Art Objects that have been found in digs in Babylon and Assyria – e.g. the Obelisks of Shalmeneser III, bearing figures of Indian Elephants with Apes, which show clear proof of ancient trade connections between India and the Near East…

The temple of the moon at Mugheir (the "Ur of the Chaldees") and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, belonging to the sixth century B.C. contain a number of pillars and beams, made of teak wood, a native product of India, and confirm that the trade in teak wood flourished between India and Barygaza and Euphrates, in the early days etc.

Alexandria had not only a large Greek Speaking Jewish population (witness the writings of Philo of Alexandria who spoke Greek as his native tongue) but also being a major port city had laws actually mandating the Copying of ALL books that flowed into it from every ship that passed by her port– so it would not be impossigble by any stretch that an older rendition of one of the many Vedic Hymns to VAC (‘by whom all things were created’) along with many other pre-Socratic philosophical variant LOGOS philosophical underpinnings certainly were to be found in the remnants of the often- burned Libraries at Alexandria & other temple Libraries in Egypt) just as copies of the LXX Seputaginta Greek Jewish Texts of the ‘OT’ was made and placed in the stacks there in the 2nd century BCE

[Also: why the weird distinction about Buddhism being present in Egypt at the time here? Perhaps you did not know that ‘The Buddha’ was born a ‘Hindu’? (the later concepts of ‘Buddhism’ have their origins from the older forms of ‘Hinduism’ - just 1st century Christianity sprang from 2nd Temple Messianic Apocalyptic Judaeism in Palestine and was to spread to Asia Minor, N. Africa and Europe etc. ) – or that Distinctly Vedic like (‘pre-Socratic’) philosophical material was being imported into Greece and Persia between 1200 BCE and 500 BCE, and that after Persia conquered Babylon in 531 BCE it then occupied Palestine and brought with their armies a lot of Persian-Zorastrian- as well as other related northern Indian ‘imported theologies’ during the periods of their 200 year occupation c. BCE 531-331) until the Syrian Greeks wrested it from them c. 330 BCE?]

Either way, not to put too fine a point on it, the Alexandrian LOGOS creation idea is a Theological element of John the Elder in the 4 books within the Johanine Literature (4th Gospel & 1, 2,3 John) , but NOT for the other John (‘John the Seer’) who was responsible for the non-Johanine content, Greek and Weltanschauung of the so-called ‘Book of Revelation’ – so try to keep ALL these ancient 1st century Johns separate if you can

e.g. John the Baptist was NOT the same as the Disciple John, a Son of Thunder - the Son of Zebedee - who was NOT the same as the John, the Father of Simeon ‘Peter’ (‘bar-Jonah’) - who was NOT the same as the John the Presbuteros / Elder (whom we should perhaps call ‘John of Alexandria’ who was said to have lived into his mid 90s) - who was NOT the same as the John-Mark, who accompanied Simon ‘Peter’ on his missionary journeys as an interpreter, and who was NOT the same as the John the Seer (‘Yohanon’ sometimes called The Diviner) who was responsible for the Book of Revelation…

Like the problem of the Many Yakkov / Jameses in the early Churches – it is easy to confuse these many originally separate John persons, and the early church may have tried to consolidate some of these disparate Johns into fewer people on purpose to give them ‘more authority’

By the way, -- I must point out also that :

YOU ALSO WROTE:

QUOTE
‘Salvation is of the Jews’ according to the Gospel, but that doesn't mean all people were ignorant of YHVH…”

UNQUOTE

Presumably you are referring to the 4th gospel’s misquotation, who at times has placed some weird and wonderful Greek ideas into his Greek Speaking ‘Iesous’ (especially when these words are closely compared to Style of Utterance in the 3 Synoptic Gospels’ Logia – which the first three gospel writers place into the mouth of their own Greek Speaking Iesous

See e.g. sayings of Iesous in the 1st Canonical Gospel (‘according to Matthew’ whoever he was) or ‘Mark’ (whoever he was) or ‘according to Luke’ (whoever he was) and then compare those with the longer discourses placed into the mouth of the 4th Gospel’s Greek speaking ‘Iesous’ etc.

At any rate, quoting ‘Iesous’ Greek LOGIA from the 4th gospel can be dangerous business if you do not know what you are doing.

For example, in the quote you referenced above, it seems that you did even not know that the 4th canonical gospel writer (Yohanon the Presbyter/ i.e. John the Elder etal.) was grossly MIS-quoting (or if deliberately, DIS-quoting if he really knew the late Hebrew original text) an infamous Dead Sea Scroll passage, specifically taken from the larger and once-canonical book ‘The Scroll of the Book of The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, being the Sons of Yakkov, to All the Sons of Light in the Last Days’ , specifically the 8th chapter, viz. ‘The Testament of Naphtali, being the Eight Son of Yakkov & Bilhah’… chapter 8:1ff (it was still regarded as ‘Holy Scripture’ by Ethiopic Ebionite ‘Christians’ as late as the 17th century CE in Ethiopia, and was treated as ‘divine’ holy inspired ‘defiling the hands’ scripture by the Dead Sea Scroll Covenanters at Qumran as late as 68 CE when their caves were sealed up with their writings)

The Scroll of the Book of the Testament of NAPHTALI, being the Eighth Son of Yakkov & Bilhah (Chapter 8 from ‘The Scroll of the Book of the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, being the Sons of Yakkov to All the Sons of Light in the Last Days’)

8 : 1-13 Behold, my sons, I have shown unto you the Secret Things of YHWH that are to take place in the Last Days upon the land of Yisro’el –

Therefore, my sons, charge your children that they remain joined to Levi but also to Judah, FOR THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL SHALL COME FROM THE JUDEANS and by these two Tribes shall all the Sons of Yakkov be blessed.

And through these two Tribes shall the Two Messiahs of YHWH come to visit the Land of Yisro’el in the Last Days, in order to re-gather the Exiled Righteous Remnant of the House of Yisro’el scattered amongst the Gentiles.

And if you obey the Torah in Truth, my children, both the sons of men and the sons of EL shall bless you – and YHWH shall be glorified among the Gentiles through your Good Works, and all the Sons of Belial shall flee from your face[s], and even the poisonous creatures of the Land will avoid you, and the wild Beasts of the deserts shall fear you and flee from your face[s], but YHWH shall love you and the Angels shall fight alongside you from Heaven…&tc.

This is a perfect (albeit very small) example of how a Greek thinking and writing evangelist-author (e.g. John the Elder, who writes with an Alexandrian-Greek accent along with a Hellenistic-Diaspora-Judaistic Worldview) can take an original late-Hebrew original text and change the text to suit his own peculilar ‘more universalist’ theology, in this case by removing the words ‘of Israel’ –

(Notice how in the canonical Greek gospel ‘according to John’ chapter 4:19 mis-quotes this text of the Testament of Naphtali Chapter 8 of the Testaments of the 12 when he confronts a Samaritan hooker at the well when he says (according to the 4th gospel !) For: Salvation is from the Judaeans

[John the Elder omits: ‘THE’] “Salvation [John the Elder omits ‘OF ISRAEL’ ] is from the Judaeans.”
Here is the context: The woman said to him, Teacher, I see you are a prophet: In that case, [tell me this]: our Fathers used to worship here on this Mountain [i.e. from the beginning] , but why do you Judaeans always tell us that we [Samaritim] must never worship here, but that we must rather go up to Jerusalem to worship…? “
And, Iesous said to her, ‘Lady, you Samaritim worship without [a Binah] whereas we Judaeans worship with our Binah still intact, for it is written:
‘[John the Elder omits: THE] Salvation [John the Elder omits OF ISRAEL] is [instead of ‘SHALL COME’] from the Judaeans…’

Unfortunately we do not possess autographs from ‘John the Elder’ for the gospel that later circulated under his name, so we do not know how much of the mis-quote (disquote?) was the work of the Lying Pens of the Scribes that copied out the text of the 4th gospel over the centuries in various places (the book has some textual issues in places, e.g. the Woman caught in Adultery periscope which is missing from several major codices and placed in weird locations in the book elsewhere at times – etc.
I’ll get back to some of your other mis-steps tomorrow, stay tuned

reply to post by kallisti36

Hi again, Kallisti

Here (below) is another of your several unfortunate pre-conceptions and theological mis-understandings from material in your earlier posts on this thread– which I will have to spread out over a few responses since they require fuller treatment to be understood apparently…

e.g. QUOTE

The doctrine of the Johannine LOGOS is that the LOGOS became flesh. Here in Revelations 19 the LOGOS is again personified as Christ.

What is not LOGOS about that?

However, instead of being involved in creation, here He is involved in Judgment.

It's an extension of the idea, just like the LOGOS in John 1:1 is an extension of a doctrine already known: the LOGOS involvement in creation

UNQUOTE

Let me cross examine you a little on the above LOGOS identification with the Warrior Messiah in Rev chapter 19

First, take a look at the text of Rev. 19 in modern English

From the 'Book of Revelation' Chapter 19

"After this I heard something like a loud Roar
Even of a great multitude in heaven shouting: "Hallelujah!
Salvation and Glory & Power belong to our clan-god,
True and just are his Judgments.
For lo, he has condemned the great Whore
Even she who corrupted the Land of Yisroel by her Adulteries .
And has avenged the Blood of his Servants in her Blood !
And again they shouted: "Hallelujah!
And lo, I saw that the Smoke of her Burning ascended to Heaven continually.
Then the 24 Elders and the 4 Chayyot fell down
And they began to worship the EL sitting on the Throne
And lo, they all began to chant together, "Amen, Hallelujah!"

Then a voice came from the throne, saying:
"Give Praise to our clan-god all you his servants,
Even all you who fear him, both small and great!"
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude,
Even like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder,
Shouting: "Hallelujah! YHWH- El Elyon, our clan god reigns as King
Therefore Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb is here, his Bride is dressed !
And I looked, and lo, Fine bright white Linen was being given to her
[in the margin: Now fine linen refers to the Righteousness of the Holy Ones]
Then the angel said to me, "Take an Inkorn and Write !
“Blessed are those who are invited to the Bridal Feast of the Lamb”
To which he told me: "And these are the true Oracles of EL”


At this I fell at his feet to worship him.
But he said to me, "Rise, Do not do that !
For I am merely a fellow servant with you and your brothers
And all those who cling to the Words of the Testimony
Therefore Worship YHWH alone !
[in the margin: That is, of Iesous - for the Testimony of Iesous is the Spirit of Prophecy]


Then behold I saw the Heavens laid open and lo, a White Stallion,
And the One who Sat Upon IT was called ‘Faithful’ and ‘True’
In that he shall Judges and Wage War against the Gentiles in Justice
And lo, his eyes are like blazing fire, & upon his head are set the Multiple Crown
And he had a Secret Name given to him known to no man but himself.
And lo, his Robe is dipped in blood with the Name Debir-EL (‘the Oracle of EL’)
And lo, The Heavenly Armies were following behind him into Battle.
And behold, they also were all riding on White Stallions
And each was dressed in ritually-pure, Fine White Linen
Out of his mouth grew The Sharp Double Edged Sword
With which he will use to wipe out all the Goyim Nations
When he rules over them with an iron scepter.

The same shall tread the Winepress of the Indignation of the Wrath of EL Elyon .
And on his Robe he has the name engraved, KING OF KINGS
And upon his Thigh he has the name written LORD OF LORDS.
And I saw an angel standing in the Sun, crying in a loud voice
Even to all the Flying Birds of the Air chanting
"Come, gather together for the great supper of YHWH
That you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men,
And glut yourselves of Horses and their Riders
And also upon all the Flesh of the Gentiles and Peoples
Both free and slave, and small and great."
Then I saw the Beast and the kings of the earth
And their armies attached to them were even gathered together.

And they set themselves to make war against the Rider
Even upon Him who sat upon the Stallion & his Army.
But lo, the Beast was captured in the fray
And was taken along with the False prophet
Even he who performed the miraculous signs on his behalf.
With these signs he had deluded the many
Even those who had received the mark of the Beast
And who had worshiped his image.
And behold, both were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
And lo, the rest of them were killed with the sword
Even that which came out of the mouth of the rider on the Stallion
And I looked, lo, the Birds had gorged themselves on their corpses."


I cannot see any ‘extension’ of the Johanine Creator-LOGOS in v. 19 or any conceptual reference to a DIVINE pre-existent Creator helper-god-LOGOS idea at all in the Book of Revelation, - and nothing in chapter 19 or elsewhere in Revelation that can be construed to represent any kind of literary or theological ‘proof’ that the Elder-Johanine (4th Gospel writer) had anything to do at all with the anti-Gentile Levitical Holy War Ideas expressed in the ‘Book of Revelation’ – if anything the writer of the 4th gospel goes out of his way to include gentiles, not issues angelic-visionary orders of their utter extermination and genocide in a final Jewish Holy War…

The only mention of LOGOS in relation to the Rider on the White Stallion in Rev. chapter 19 can only relate to the IDEA of the DEBIR (‘oracle’) which is sometimes translated ‘LOGOS’ in Greek (‘word’ as in ‘word of the Lord’) depending on context – but here is used in the context of HOLY WAR LANGUAGE (paralleling the SPECIFIC War Scroll ‘Holy War’ Language of the Dead Sea Scroll corpus = 1QM)

In Rev 19:13 there is an image of a Figure mounted upon a White Stallion and whose Robe is Dipped in Blood & the Banner of the Rider on the White Stallion marching out to the Final Holy War against the Gentiles has the words DEBIR-EL (The Oracle of God, or Word of God) which is a direct Image taken from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and not used the same way as the writer of the 4th Gospel understands the Creator LOGOS

See The War Scroll (1QM – Qumran Cave 1- Milkhama) – Column xii

“A copy of the Rule of the Banners for All the Yahad of Israel according to their Formations on the Battle Field when the Sons of Light shall rise up against all the Sons of Darkness in the Last Days”

…On the grand Banner, which is at the head of all the People you shall write: PEOPLE of EL and the Names ISRAEL and AARON and the NAMES of 12 TRIBES of the SONS OF YISRO’EL…

On the Banners of the Heads of the Camps of Yisro’el you shall write THE SPIRIT OF EL...and when they go out to Battle, they shall write on their Banners, The TRUTH OF EL, and THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF EL, and THE GLORY OF EL and the JUSTICE OF EL…

And they shall write their names in full in order, and when they draw near to Battle the sons of Belial and their Armies, they shall write on their Banners : THE BATTLE OF EL, THE CAUSE OF EL, THE RETRIBUTION OF EL, THE EXTERMINATION OF EL of all the GENTILE NATIONS OF IDOLATRY..."


And even if you really really are desperate to use WORD for ‘Debir’ and want desperately to link it to the Greek Word 'LOGOS' you should be able to see that this particular use and understanding of the term LOGOS – (translated out of the Hebrew word : DEBIR, 'oracle' or 'burden' ) is not used in any way, shape or form, in the same specifically theological way the Johnanon the Elder uses his own understanding of the Philo-like Alexandrian Creation LOGOS in the 4 documents said to be penned by him.

e.g. see his Philo of Alexandria-like LOGOS Prologue to the 4th canonical Greek Gospel

(‘In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was a god…and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made’)

Which is a semi-midrashic (and 'Diaspora-Judeo-Neo-Platonic-Creationist') expansion of Gen 1:1 and Proverbs 8:22-30 – John 'the Elder's specific use of LOGOS is NOT the same as the Image of Revelation's 'Holy War' Warrior Messiah on a White Horse with ‘a Sharp Two Edged Sword Dangling from his Lips with which he will slay all the Goyim [in the Last Days] and Crush them under foot into shards like a Potter’s Vessel’ - but rather an idea related to a philosophical platonic Alexandrian pre-Existent extension of the Divine Mind in Creation of the Physical Universe aligned with Philo of Alexandria’s understanding of the concept in all those Platonic-Jewish Greek LOGOS writings he penned in Alexandria for philosophically imbued Diaspora Jews (Philo wrote c. 30 CE – much earlier than John the Elder’s 4th Greek Gospel - which did not begin to circulate until c. 90 CE)

As an exercise, go ahead and re-Read the text of Revelation 19 once again, then re-read the 3 Johnanine Epistles over (and extracts from the 4th canonical Greek Gospel) - by doing so, you should be able to see the linguistic/theolgoical/stylistic differences between them, along with all the major Differences in Overall Feel, presence of Hapax Legomena, specifically 'favoured' Grammatical constructions, individual Vocabulary, Sentence Length, Weltanschauung, Syntax, Content, Theology, 'Greek Style of Utterance' etc. which even a layman untrained in Koine Greek can pick up in all the various & sundry English translations in the wild- the writer of the material contained in the mangy Greek of the 'Book of Revelation' and the material contained in the 4th Gospel and the Epistles of 1,2 and 3 'Yohanon' are not the same persons at all - so let's move on to other matters if we can....

a reply to: Sigismundus

I wrote QUOTE

"And clearly, most of the inserted textual references to ‘the Ram’ in all the 2nd temple imagery which make heavy and direct ‘steals’ of older Jewish Creation Hymns found in the ‘book of Revelation’ are clearly inserted ‘Christian marginalia’ into an earlier more Jewish (non Elder-Johanine) text which uses SINGULAR verbs in their praises in the mangled Greek copies most of the time and SINGULAR direct objects when referring to the divine presence e.g. ‘El Elyon, even the Eternal One sititing upon the Throne’ - nearly always expressed as a SINGULAR and not a DUAL Entity (e.g. ‘glory to the one who sits upon his throne’ (sg) [margin: yea, and also to the Lamb] etc." UNQUOTE

This is dealt with specifically in another thread "Is there a Jewish UrText buried in the Book of Revelation that was later doctored by Christians?" from 16 Jan 2016

a reply to: [post=20269344]/post]

What seems to have been the modus operandi of the writer(s) of the Apocalypse of Yohanon ("Book of Revelation') is that since the times of the Prophets had ceased by 69 CE, it was only natural any new 'prophet' would make Midrashic (hermeneutic expansionist) use of older established (and well-known) prophecies from the 3 major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah & Hezekiel) as well as the Scroll of the 12 Minor Prophets (Amos through Malachi) including Joel and large chunks of the book of Zechariah (4 horsemen, the Heavenly Menorah representing the 7 spirits of EL etc.) as well as the Plagues of Egypt (hail, boils, frogs, darkness, locusts etc.), the book of Daniel (i.e. the golden idol and the beasts) and the Psalms (mostly the Daily Tamid Psalms of the 2nd Temple Liturgy Nos. 24, 48, 82, 94, 81, 93, and 92 and Psalm 2 and the Song of Moses in Deut. 32) etc.

A close reading of the text reveals that the Literary Sources of the Apocalypse of Yohanon run the gamut of the Biblical Dead Sea Scroll material as well, including a working-knowledge of the world view expressed by the more sectarian Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls such as the War Scroll 1QM and the Temple Scroll 11QTempleScroll.

The Jewish alphabet attributed numbers to letters and vice versa. "6" is "w". 666 = www. The mark of the beast is the cell phone, www is its number (the medium by which it works). It is the most idolized device since ever.

Cell phone is mark of the beast

Did John plagiarize the internet and the idea of a cell phone all in one prophetic book? Was Al Gore really not the progenitor of the internet?

a reply to: cooperton

You wrote: QUOTE The Jewish alphabet attributed numbers to letters and vice versa. "6" is "w". 666 = www. The mark of the beast is the cell phone, www is its number (the medium by which it works). It is the most idolized device since ever... UNQUOTE

The 6th letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Beth is VAV [ו] - which has nothing to do with www / the world wide web.

The letter VAV means literally 'hook' and as symbolic of the number 6 is said to signify physical space in our world. Every self-contained object in our universe has six dimensions: right, left, front, back, up and down. It is said that the six days of creation also relate to these six directions. In the Torah, the first VAV occurs as the 22nd letter counting from the beginning and is said to be able to join all the 22 letters of the Hebrew Aleph-Beth as well as 'heaven and earth' together.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

In it's most simple terms, one can look for all sorts of different
ways not to believe something/anything really. The truth seems
to cast it's own shadow of doubt in every case. Did John have
a vision, did we put a man on the moon? I've noticed that the
farther the truth gets from it's origins, the longer the shadow
it does cast. The truth is, there is a Creator and he will be
answered to by all of us.