THE MOST EMBARRASSING BOOK IN THE BIBLE - UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF REVELATION
In a short 36 minute video, Andrew Corbett discusses an alternative view of the Bible book of Revelation. His position is interesting as it attempts to place much of the subject matter of the book in a first century context with Rome as the Seven-headed Wild Beast and Jerusalem as the Great Harlot. I assume the author believes, as some others do, that the popular dating for the book is wrong. Note, Charles Taze Russell and the WTS even get a mention.
http://vimeo.com/8546487
"The Most Embarrassing Book in the Bible - Understanding the Book of Revelation"
by JWB 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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JWB
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WTWizard
The whole book is a hell (or death) threat. Either believe the LIE-ble, or else suffer damnation.
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Fernando
Some also believe as Karl Barth said: "The [theme of the] REVELATION of God is the abolition of RELIGION [by means of the GOSPEL about Jesus]":
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strymeckirules
i look at the book with hope for the human race, as at the end EVERYTHING works out and EVERYONE is finally happy and well.
and that is what is SUPPOSED to happen.
the bad gets what is coming for them and the good get their reward. JUSTICE.
i don't see a problem with that.
so since that stuff hasn't happened yet, maybe revelation hasn't happened yet.
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OldGenerationDude
In mainstream theology, there are five schools of thought regarding interpretation of Revelation:
- Critical: held by many scholars today, tends to read the book as a reflection of the struggle between Church and the State at the end of the first century. In this light the book's "prophecies" or "visiona" are seen to teach that God will inevitably triumph over Rome and eventually every human institution which opposes God and uses its power for evil.
- Preterist: seen, like the critical view, to be discussing the world and events contemporary with its author, except that the visions are proclaiming Christianity as the grand fulfillment of all Old Testament hopes, with the "end" being that of the Jewish worship system associated with the Temple. The dawning of the Christian era heralds the end of the world in general as well under this view.
- Historicist: the visions offer a panoama of the Church's life as to be experienced throughout history, with each vision or prophecy a successive stage of the Church's "pilgrimage" in the world; however the book does not focus on a particular point in literal history, according to this school of thought, but rather on "salvation history."
- Idealist: some who hold to this view allow that events in the book may indeed be references to actual history contemporary with the author's life, but that as a whole the book typifies the never-ending struggle between good and evil, on a world scale as well as personal one. A timeless message is seen, rather than a "temporal" one, such as held by the Jehovah's Witnesses.
- Futurist: Similar to the Jehovah's Witness view, except that it can apply just in part, with some of the other views mentioned above playing a part in the book's understanding. Also differing from the JW view is that understanding is rarely seen as an "earmark" of belonging to the "one true religion," as dogmatically proclaimed by the Watchtower. Instead the book is not closed, but opened, a warning and prophecy for all, the Church and world included.
Common to all these views, and curiously absent to the Jehovah's Witness theology on a whole, is the attention the book gives to the first advent of Christ, with the themes of Christ's passion and resurrection as the central theological basis for everything that plays out. Characters in the visions often experience death, resurrection, or both, often reflective of the suffering, death, and rising of Christ himself, until eventually all the dead rise, and God comes to "dwell with humanity" as did Jesus in the first century.
Curiously the Governing Body sees these events as parallel to the events of their own history, marking their experiences as "unque," but without noting the striking Christo-centric references implied. Regardless if on this end of the Watchtower we embrace a theistic or atheistic view, we cannot miss this point. Such a self-serving interpretation is insulting, even if the book is seen as fable. Why? Because it is like saying that this Aesop fable is only about the Governing Body, and that this Native American tale is also only about the Governing Body, as likewise all the myths of the Greeks and Romans and other ancients foretell how central identifying them is to human survival.
Myths some may call all of them, but they are expressions of the human mind and heart. To degrade them all to "Magic 8 -ball" status that can be wielded only in the palm of the Governing Body to interpret as their whim dictates to "prove to the world" that they are "God's sole channel of communication" is repulsive. It's an insult to any kind of writing, fiction or not.
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metatron
I think Nietzsche (sp) said Revelation convinced him that God spoke bad Greek. It's a whole lot of sentence fragments hooked together with "and". Once you know that, it's hard to take it seriously (because you keep seeing the 'ands').
Revelation 20 bothered me for decades because I recognized that it had the potential to destroy all of the Bible's meaning. If you can explain away something as blatant as 'tormented day and night, forever and ever', I don't see that anything good promised means anything.
metatron
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Joliette
Revelations is stupid. Just plain stupid.
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rory-ks
"The bible book of Revelation contains the fully remembered dreams of a distressed psyche. Peter and Paul had both died the glorious deaths of martyrs some forty years earlier. His own brother, James, martyred a decade or so before that. Here was John, still alive at 100 years of age, left alone on a tiny island. For an extravert like John, being left alone on an isolated island, cut off from human contact, was in itself the stuff of nightmares. John needed people to validate his life. Without people and their approval his life would begin to disintegrate.
If you can't search for your inner voice and have a peaceful and calm internal dialogue about what is going on, then your inner voice is going to come looking for you."The Book of Revelation - The vivid dreams of a tormented soul
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mP
revelation is simply the rants of an angry jew about nero. 666=nero literally.. look it up on wiki. everything in the book is about nero in code of course but w/ a little knowledge its obvious. the 7 headed beast was nero because he was the sixth caesar. the tenth caesar was also thought by some tto be nero retunred and we see similar ideas in rev.
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steve2
I'm sure committed apologists could make a typical bad dream appear portentous and divinely significant. The fact that so many "learned" men continue to devote large portions of their dreary lives to raking over the psychotic ramblings of a long-dead religious nutter simply shows that in this day and age, emperors with no clothes on are a dime a dozen.