The Revelations were written in the 1st Century by a hermit living

[Homer Wells]

on the Greek island of Patmos. The view of the world at that time was quite limited, I would imagine. Events such as the Great Flood of the Old Testament spoke of the whole world as being flooded by God. There is some evidence that there was a great flooding in the Middle East at some remote period of history.
This Armageddon prophecy may well occur, but perhaps only in the Biblical lands. A great nuclear war may well happen there, eliminating a great deal of life, and sending whole bunches of folk up into the sky (read DEAD).
I wonder what the Fundies would think if a rapture was given and they weren't invited?


:sarcasm: :smoke:
(I posted this as a reply on different thread yesterday, but I still think the question is appropriate)

[Canuckistanian]

1. A 1st century Hermit? You'll have to be a lot more specific

The 1st century was infested with hermits.

[REP]

2. It's The Revelation of St John The Divine, not RevelationS

He was starving to death on Patmos and hallucinating ... which is rather obvious to anyone who's ever read it.

[Homer Wells]

3. I stand Corrected

and I imagine it was either starvation or a bad mushroom.

[NoSheep]

11. bad mushroom. i perish the thought.

[Recursion]

4. *shrug* Not religious, but I think it's a beautiful book

"John" or whatever his name really was had an incredible talent at reaching way deep down into the id and pulling out images that hit you about 3 or 4 levels below your conscious mind. "Daniel" was good at it too. People have been reading both those books ever since they were written to "predict" the end of the world within their lifetimes, which to me just speaks to their effectiveness at finding universally-applicable images.

Personally, my read of both books is that they are highly metaphorical descriptions of the individual moment of conversion, so both books "happen" every day.

[REP]

7. James's Translators Did a Marvelous Job

The KJV translation is a wonderful piece of literature and poetry, and should be read for those reasons. As for the religion ... well, not so much.

[cynatnite]

6. Some aren't even sure if he did write it...

least that's what I've read and heard.

Whoever wrote it was on some shit.

[REP]

8. The Correct Name is What I Stated

As for who wrote what, much is still debated.

[Recursion]

9. It was untitled

"Revelation" is a rough translation of the first word in the Greek, "apokalupsis" (whence "apocalypse"), most literally "uncovering-from", but "revelations" is just as good.

As another point of Classical book title trivia, Aristotle's book "Physics" was called that because it concerned motion ("physis"), while the more famous "Metaphysics" was called that because it sat on the shelf after ("meta") the physics.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. "The Rapture" is an invention of 19th Century Dispensationalists.

The author of Revelation has nothing to do with it.

[The Sushi Bandit]

10. Got a link to that??

I want to know more

[Recursion]

12. Oh geez...

...a history of the "Rapture" theory? There are tons out there, but here's a start:

http://www.nccg.org/nccm/history-rapture.html
http://www.economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3490697
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
http://www.rusearching.com/leftbehind/leftrapturehistory.htm

Also, some more wiki goodness, the fight here is between dispensationalists and suppressionists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism

Within the dispensationlists, there is also a fairly vigorous debate on whether the rapture occurs before or after the tribulation. The "post-trib" faction are the really crazy Randy Weaver Christian Identity survivalist types.

As a final branch of Christian eschatology, there's my favorite, preterism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterism

(To the extent that I have any opinion on Christian eschatology, I'm a preterist)

[The Sushi Bandit]

19. Thank you for the great links!

[nashville_brook]

13. that's going to really piss me off if rapture happens and

i still have to be around all those nutbags.

[demigoddess]

15. I'm torn between wanting to see the disappointment on their faces

when they get 'left behind' and wanting to enjoy some peace and quiet in the world once the religious leave and let us heathens live in a peaceful loving world.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. The ending of the last Ice Age

Several cultures have myths of old floods, because so many continents experienced great floods. Facinating.



A "great nuclear war" would end most life on Earth. A small nuclear war may kill fewer of us, maybe.

:(



oh yea, do fundies 'think'? :evilgrin:

[opihimoimoi]

16. Them Fudies is gonna get their panties in a wad when the Rapture

comes and the only JWs get to go....

[Ms. Clio]

17. It had nothing to do with our future; he was talking about the Romans

it was never about us, although I know that's impossible for all the narcissistic Rapturemaniacs to grasp.

[deutsey]

18. My concern is that Bush Inc. is determined to make Revelation come true

It's very unsettling to think that these ideological fanatics have the means and the will to make the so-called prophecies come true.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. 1st century?

I thought it was later than that.