for all you nitwits out there that didnt understand... what leo said was "No, there were hallucinating prophets long before John the Beloved, he was just following the pattern"
Am I right Leo? 
Book of Revelation =By John. Was he just on drugs!!
by Witness 007 35 Replies latest watchtower bible
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IP_SEC
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Leolaia
Yeah, except it is not necessary to assume that they were "hallucinating" at all. Maybe there were, but it is sufficient just to recognize that they were using a literary convention.
I would just add that how the book reads to us today is not the same as how the original readers would have understood it, who lived in that culture, who recognized the contemporary things that the author was alluding to. The description of "Babylon the Great" in ch. 17. is a perfect example of this. It would not have been hard for the average reader in Asia Minor to figure out which goddess the author was lampooning here. Her image was on their money, her temples were in their cities, and government officials were beginning to demand that Christians not abstain from her cult. It was no mystery to them. But to us today, who has ever heard of Dea Roma? We are not living in that time and culture, so modern-day readers would automatically miss what the author was trying to convey.
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juni
As far as I'm concerned, the book of Revelation contains the reflections of a madman.. of the imprisoned/solitary confined, aged man John. It should be a book of compassion for a man who suffered ... not using that book's words as divinely inspired prophecy.
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Hortensia
This is such an interesting thread. Thanks everyone! The simple answer is probably the true one, exactly what Leolaia says in her posts. But the drug theory is enticing. Look at what they found out about the persecution of witches (Salem and all that) - some sort of toxic fungus on the rye grain.
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IP_SEC
some sort of toxic fungus on the rye grain
LOL that would be called, LSD lol
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Witness 007
Like Paul going to "the 3rd level of heaven' in a vision....Peter was told in vision that they weren't under Jewish law by being shown unclean animals and told to eat???? Jesus was show visions by Satan of all the kingdoms....couldn't he have distracted Jesus by running interference visions.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
All John's writings were done very late in his life. I would guess that the first century congregation was getting weary of waiting, and John himself was disoriented by so many years passing. I wonder if he wasn't trying to increase the mysticism in the Christian congregation to try to keep it alive, in expectation, and exciting. Revelation incorporating other popular writings, gospel introducing new events in Jesus life...
Or maybe it was just moldy bread. Was there a brewery on Patmos?
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Black Sheep
45 miles southeast of Patmos, in the same island chain, is Kos.
Kos has very nice magic mushrooms.
I see no reason why they would not grow on Patmos as well.
Cheers
Chris
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lrkr
What always astounded me about the interpretations of Revelation, Isaiah and Daniel by the WTBTS was the way everything eventually applies to the imprisonment and subsequent publications of JF Rutherford.
This is probably one of the key doctrinal problems I had with the org.
If you buy into the teaching that the bible was divinely inspired, protected and translated so that it could be faithfully transmitted 2000 years to us today- why did God spend all of that energy to protect a prophecy about 9 guys going to jail for a few months??? And all of this rich, figurative language in Revelation is actually about a tract campaign that no one remembers today or cared about at the time!!??? Oh and a few conventions of a few thousand people where the main event was a prophecy about 1925 that never came true??!!!
I thought the Revelation book was bad. But the Isaiah books are even worse. Every bit of vivid prophetic language is all about JFRs trip to jail!!!!
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kurtbethel
45 miles southeast of Patmos, in the same island chain, is Kos.
Kos has very nice magic mushrooms.
I see no reason why they would not grow on Patmos as well.
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Oh so THAT'S what the Daily Kos is all about. I was wondering what the buzz was about.