Q & A

o that's my take on uh the book of the apocalypse and um how it could be read if we looked at a little differently let me get a glass of water as landro is giving me um these uh your questions so I want to thank um Y2K vaporware uh who it says would love to see uh lectures from you on Eastern Orthodoxy and traditions of the Eastern Orthodox okay that's interesting U it's

(1:23:00) a good thing to explore darl Scott said uh thank you and thank you uh to Vineyard worker and thank you also for your support uh Dan Howard Brian Lane asks um do we know much about the reasoning for including uh Revelation in the early Canon so I think at a certain point um um some of the church fathers did think that it's written by uh John the Apostle and so I think that because of that you know there so I'm saying that there's disputes about it and some of the some of them are suggesting that it wasn't um

(1:23:40) they're saying that because other people think it is and so uh I think that that's the reason probably that it makes it in so it is early um it's written in the first century so earlier texts usually get more priority um and it's also um it also had the potential of being um Apostolic and so those two things um helped get you in and so because uh the latter of that which was in question it did make it in just like the way the U epistle to the Hebrews made it in not because it claims to be by Paul but

(1:24:17) because some people thought it was by Paul or argued that it was by Paul even though uh it's not uh Winston Barz says um what areas in the Book of Revelation are influenced by intertestamental literature so it's very influenced by it um we can see you know like as I was starting to even read some of those um descriptions of the throne I was also reading a little of the descriptions of Jerusalem and we're talking about it being um you they're talking about like like being like of Amber and all of

(1:24:51) these different jewels and and and fire and all of the all all those kind of things if you remember um descriptions I read out of the books of Enoch you know this kind of um glittery uh gemstone like fiery like you know that kind of imagery for Heavenly stuff is is very much like all the rest of those kind of Visions in intertestamental literature um same thing um U being taken up in the spirit and shown these Visions by angels and being able to ask questions of the Angels we also saw that in in other inter testamental books like Enoch so

(1:25:29) it's it's very much um influenced by those that that genre of which it is um fully a part and so that genre had existed for centuries before um John's apocalypse John is simply just a very good example of one of these apocalypses um Raymond Ortiz says was Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism an a literalist apocalyptic literalist and did he believe the world would end in his lifetime yes so um especially early on when um Joseph Smith was founding the restoration tradition the latterday saint tradition um um one of

(1:26:09) the reasons why it's called Latter-Day Saints is that they are the Saints like we were talking about uh that John the Revelator here is calling the early Christians the Saints but these are now the saints that are in the latter days right before the end of the world and so um the Latter-Day Saints um initially believed that uh that the end of the world is going to happen in the 1830s um and they want to know where the New Jerusalem is going to be and they decide it's going to be in Missouri and so they um want to move and make a

(1:26:44) settlement and start building the New Jerusalem the city of Zion um in Independence Missouri although um they don't get along with their neighbors is there and they get kicked out and so they don't get to stay there but uh but that's what they're trying to do and they and they think uh very much that it's going to happen just within a few years and then later as it doesn't happen um Joseph Smith extends out the time he thinks well it's still going to happen you know very soon but maybe

(1:27:14) maybe in 20 30 years from now um and so from some of his pronouncements um people in the Mormon Church especially believed that uh that the end of the world would have to happen by like 1891 and so that's um because they were at that point facing U very serious persecution by the US federal government that was trying to eliminate the illegal practice of polygamy um uh the president of the Mormon church at the time Wilfred Woodruff issued a declaration where he pretended that they were giving it up he told everybody and we're not doing it

(1:27:50) anymore but that was a in fact a lie but he did that to um uh he did that to put the pressure off because he knew the world was going to end within a year or so so it didn't matter they just needed to get rid of that pressure for a little bit of time because the world was right about to end and of course it didn't so Kerman uh Wingfield says why not destroy Shan Satan and get it over with knowing how much uh turmoil he would cause in the future yeah so um so yeah there is like a you know that there are lot kinds of

(1:28:24) um reasons why uh the cosmic answer you know to the um the of the of of a to the problem of evil this um this dualism of having a cosmic Satan that where it's necessary to uh eventually fight him off so that we can get finally to the just world that has has no uh in Injustice um why why does that why do we have to wait so long for that that that would be a you know again one of the counterarguments to why um that answer to the problem of evil doesn't always satisfying um so there would have to be you know somebody have to make if if

(1:29:04) asked they'd have to make up an apologetic answer to why that would be uh Mr Randy Thor thank you for your support um we'll get to your question shortly um darl Scott uh

[[[ how did Rapture the idea of the Rapture becomes so widespread so quickly so um um the the guy who was credited with inventing it was also popularized um kind of a new type of millennialism or apocalypticism uh that was about dispensationalism and so by breaking um Biblical history to our own present day Christian history into various dispensations that became a very

(1:29:47) just a very popular idea and it became um adopted into especially Evangel vcal Christianity where it just you know has spread to the present and so I think that um I mean I think the reason why uh that it's uh the the Left Behind series you know had such a big audience is because that that's just the general Evangelical understanding for um interpreting Revelation so it um it it was a it was connected with an apocalyptic calculations and fervor at the time um and there was a lot of apocalyptic further I mentioned the Mormons there's

(1:30:28) other there were other groups that were um uh doing the calculations and thinking that the end of the world was going to happen uh also in the 1840s the millerites that ultimately uh you know gave birth to the uh Jehovah's Witnesses the Adventists and so forth so these these in it just became popular during that round of um of the apocalypticism and when that and then when the next people calculated it again they continue to um use those ideas uh Leon Berg what are the one or two top most simple responses uh to express that Revelation

(1:31:10) should not be used to refer to the last days or a second uh coming yet to come um well so my my you know my simplest one is that the author clearly believed that it would happen in his own time uh because he's talking about um you know All the Troubles in his own day it's it's entirely he's talking to the people in his own time the seven churches and he's talking about uh the oppressor of his time Rome um and it's not I mean that the simple that would be one way of saying it and the second way

(1:31:51) is that all all apocalyptic prophets are always talking about their own time they're they're not talking about uh a far future time and so that's just consistent when you look at all of these apocalypses they're referring to um the time period when uh when the author himself is writing and we did a I I didn't go through the calculations here but we have a lecture on on the Book of Daniel as Pious fraud where we go through how the author of Daniel is re is really expecting um the end of the

(1:32:25) world to happen within just a few years uh of of Antiochus the fourth Epiphany Reign um and yet obviously uh it gets recalculated again and again so I guess those would be my my two simplest it's still maybe not simple enough um part of the problem with the nuanced way we approach scripture is you have to it doesn't it doesn't isn't just about simple black and white readings and that kind of thing it's uh requires a lot of um you know background and context uh K Tempest Bradford asks do you have a sense of why the idea of

(1:33:02) symbology or understanding of symbols waned in the west and thus the way people read like books like Revelation changed so I think that the u sense of this the reason for it is is kind of twofold so um it happens with um the democratization ironically I think of of literacy and writing and especially of the Bible and so uh in Antiquity and the Middle Ages scripture was primarily the province of you know a highly trained scribal class the the clerics um who were also you often having to read in a language different from the language

(1:33:51) they spoke they might have been speaking uh you know medieval French medieval Middle English or something like that and then they're reading and writing in Latin or you know and so it is a highly technical thing to do and so then you're also trained um in The Fairly sophisticated um um medieval and ancient uh interpretation of texts however when um when the printing press gets invented uh simultaneously there is a um a rupture in Western Christianity where uh the Reformation um insists that uh the Bible

(1:34:33) has to be the first focus of the religion and simultaneously it's translated into the vernacular languages that people actually speak and it's uh printed in mass and then given to people directly so um just regular people now have it without any intermediary a text now they have in front of themselves a text uh that is very ancient very alien uh they are not equipped at all to interpret and they read it um quite naturally very literally uh and and very erroneously and so I think that that's a huge part of it and then um on top of

(1:35:10) that uh the um West really develops the modern academic discipline of history and so um and and starts to fetishize history and starts to think of uh of history as true when they say is that a true story they mean did that historically happen as opposed to um truth being equated with something meaningful is that a true story does it tell a lesson that's true maybe it would be another way we phrase it um but we we by default when we ask is that a true story we're talking about historicity did it actually happen so I think that

(1:35:48) um uh the ironically good thing of democratizing literacy and script scripture led to um a collapse in uh responsible use of scripture and then two um a fetishizing of History um made people uh think you know think that texts were literally historic when they are not or have historicity when they don't uh Mr Randy Thor asks uh does the multiple mentions of the 12 tribes suggests that the book of or Revelations was originally a Jewish apocalyptic text that was then redacted by the author um I don't think so although um

(1:36:36) although the author is presumably steeped in lots of apocalypses that go before it that are um that are Jewish you know and so certainly um John the Revelator is very aware of the Apocalypse that I mention mentioned uh from the Hebrew Bible The Book of Daniel which uh has lots of the same kind of uh visions and things like that and then some of those are even updated and brought into Revelation so um the fact that uh that there is already um in the Jesus movement very early on this idea um that Jesus symbolically calls 12 of the

(1:37:22) Apostles uh to group make this group of 12 who symbolically represent kind of a new Israel um you know the because that's so early intertwined um talking a lot about the 12 tribes of Israel I think is very very natural in early Christianity because they're already symbolically equating um Christianity as kind of a new Israel symbolically led by 12 Apostles in the same way that there had been an ancient Israel that um maybe was led by 12 Elders of 12 tribes so I don't think it is a Jewish text that was redacted into

(1:38:02) becoming a Christian text although that does happen as well there are other texts we have that have have Jewish sources that become christianized and then we also have cases where um there are regular Pagan philosophical sources that Christians rewrite as if um as if Jesus had said those and so on uh melang says

Question: why are Revelation and similar books written in Visions riddles and codes

what why are Revelation and similar books written in Visions riddles and codes and not explained uh directly were they seen as poetry were they uh avoiding censorship or something else um so so so they're definitely (1:38:44) there's poetry there and so much of the uh so a lot of times especially when we're getting around the Thrones and uh and Elders or angels are people are singing that those are actually composed in um uh as as kind of a poem uh I I identified for you you know two places where there are riddles and in in both of those cases the author of Revelation John says hey now this is going to take some wisdom which is his s is uh his idea that you need to put your your um thinking cap on and decode uh the number number for the name (1:39:25) 666 so you're going to have to do the math on that one to figure out what he means and same thing here here think about it here I'm calling Babylon the of Babylon uh here's wisdom now I'm giving you a code she's actually sitting on Seven Hills who am I talking about you know so it's a riddle but it's not really a um it's not a hard riddle anyway or code um in those cases you know there may be an idea that um you don't want Roman authorities to have additional um fuel as they're (1:40:02) persecuting Christians uh you don't want them to say oh here here the Christians have as one of their main holy texts uh a book that is absolutely directly um calling the city of Rome you know the great uh calling the one of the past Emperors uh an ant you know he doesn't say Antichrist but anyway one of the the one of the agents calling him an agent of uh of the devil um so maybe you don't want to have that so maybe it is avoiding um a a direct um direct fuel to fuel the persecution um in terms of uh wanting to (1:40:43) have it in symbols and Visions um I think that there's in this time period in the whole second temple period there is this um um growing sense of awe and the Divine and imagining um the Eternal realm as being very um unimaginable and very otherworldly and so it's just um visioned in these kinds of you know very very highly symbolic ways and um I feel like that that is also U Just Happening uh also in you know in contemporary um you know contemporary Pagan thoughts I mean I know that um uh Plato sometimes is describing uh (1:41:34) describing Cosmic operations by by creating myths and Parables and things like that as well in order to in order to get you to think and so um um in part uh the author of Revelation you know John Patmos here is not in any sense creating this genre um it's something it's a genre that has been growing for many centuries and kind of building on it and so once the ball sort of gets rolling they become more and more elaborated it becomes a um U becomes an established genre

Question: which came (1:42:15) first the resurrection story or the conception story

um uh 322 messenger says which came (1:42:15) first the resurrection story or the conception story um so in in Christianity the resurrection of Jesus story uh is older than the story of Jesus Immaculate Conception so um Christians already very early after Jesus death um have testimonies that Jesus has been raised and is at the right hand of God um and there's also ideas um early testimonies that um first the disciples have seen Jesus in visions and then and then there's claims that they've seen him resurrected and that's also happening very very early uh the (1:43:00) idea that um that does not immediately mean that all of these early Christians see Jesus as God uh in any way and so many of them will have an idea that Jesus is um an adoptionist idea that Jesus uh was a a great prophet who has been uh through his um sacrifice his perfect life and sacrifice he has been perfected and adopted as the Son of God so they're adoptionist and so that would have been very present and so um a concept the conception story that um that Jesus uh uh that Mary conceived you know by the (1:43:43) Holy Spirit comes much later than that and it's an apologetic answer to people who let's say are adoptionist this is the um the Proto Orthodox way of saying no uh Jesus is um is fully Divine in addition to being fully human so um

Question: I heard uh about a big Cube building in Jerusalem where all the people on Earth were living

John Phelps I heard uh about a big Cube building in Jerusalem where all the people on Earth were living do you know anything that concept where that comes from so that is the um that is the apocalypse that's in the Book of Ezekiel so that is another even earlier apocalypse so Ezekiel is is actually a (1:44:24) um a prophet that is around the time of the Babylonian captivity who is envisioning um a New Jerusalem in a new Temple and there's a big Cube um Temple and so that's that's where that is coming from so that's a very early Apocalypse in the Book of Ezekiel

Question: Deuteronomy uh 1810 through 2 speaks about interpreting Omens

um WM Consulting Service uh says Deuteronomy uh 1810 through2 speaks about interpreting Omens does the Book of Revelation or any Vision fall under the categories of omen so we want to read in uh Deuteronomy it says no one shall be found among you who

(1:45:04) makes a son or a daughter pass through fire practices divination or is a souser or an augur or a sorcerer or one who casts spells or consults with ghosts or visions or seeks oracles from the dead whoever does these things is abhorent to the Lord okay so so that is um those are you know different uh spiritual practices that for example are common in Roman traditional religion or Canaanite traditional religion so um before the Romans would go into battle they would you do auguy through Reading entrails of uh of of geese or watching birds fly

(1:45:43) there's all kinds of different kinds of augury uh casting spells Consulting Spirits you know seances that kind of thing this doesn't count as that no so having a um having a revelation where an angel of the Lord um takes you up in the spirit and shows you a vision of something that's not an omen this is allowed and so the um all of the apocalyptic prophets of second temple Judaism and early Christianity um are are having these kind of visionary experiences that um are also a spiritual practice that uh (1:46:20) doesn't count as Omens and under the deuteronomic uh prohibition

Question: how do um Christian fundamentalists explain uh the unrealized prophecies in Daniel

Tyson how do um Christian fundamentalists explain uh the unrealized prophecies in Daniel so they say that that's not what it's referring to at all so they'll say you you're saying that this very clearly when I decode it that this is referring to Antiochus I 4th epiphanies um they prefer to you know re jiggle the whole thing so that so that the prophecies are relating if possible you know to the present day and not to um certainly not

(1:46:58) anyway to uh the makabe period so um Everybody apocalyptic always um always simply reinterpret the failed apocalyptic Pro prophecies um

Question: do you think John is just pulling from Old Testament prophecies and older Mesopotamian myths

Ari writer says do you think John is just pulling from Old Testament prophecies and older Mesopotamian myths so so John is updating Bunches of Visions from earlier prophecies including from the Old Testament from Daniel so some of these things are are there and again Daniel's prophecies didn't didn't work you know and so apocalyptic you know Continue to update those things there's other (1:47:43) um uh there's other Christian attempts to do the same thing uh the prophecy of the son of man appearing in the clouds that occurs in the little apocalypse from from the gospel of Mark is also an update of Daniel trying to um trying to make it so that what Daniel's prophecy was about was not about something that happened in pseudo Daniel's Day In the makabe period instead it's happening right now in when the go the author of Mark is writing right when the Romans are destroying Jerusalem uh and so in (1:48:14) that same way um you know it's been another couple decades um Jerusalem's long destroyed now there's a pers persecution of the Christians John the Revelator is now also drawing upon um kind of those uh Old Testament prophecies and there may be um other imagery that is floating around that could have come from you know other Canaanite or or Mesopotamian sources okay well that's it ready to close don't forget to like and share the video subscribe to the channel if you're able we appreciate ations we appreciate

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