You know, on reading KGS’s further posts in this thread, I think maybe I’ve been sort of ultra-whooshed.
Me. I know for sure. It doesn’t have anything to do with 9/11.
The line that you’re fixated on is not a prediction of a historical event, it’s a metaphor for two witnesses of God who will supposedly be martyred. As always with examing Bible verses, it’s best to actually read it in context. Take a look:
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. 11:2And the court which is without the temple leave without, and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. 11:3And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. 11:4[These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth. 11:5And if any man desireth to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man shall desire to hurt them, in this manner must he be killed. 11:6These have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire. 11:7And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them. 11:8And their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. 11:9And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. 11:10And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and make merry; and they shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. 11:11And after the three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them that beheld them. 11:12And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in the cloud; and their enemies beheld them. 11:13And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons: and the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. (Rev. 11:1-13, ASV)
I colored the relevant verse in red. As you can see, in the previous verse, the author is shown a vision of the Temple, the altar and the courtyard, then he is shown the two “witnesses,” who God likens to the olive trees which held the lamps in front of the altar. It’s not a prediction of a future event, it’s a metaphor comparing these two witnesses to the lampstands in the Temple. They will “illuminate” the Lord. It doesn’t say that these witnesses (or “olive trees”) will be destroyed by people but by the Beast. It says that if any person tries to hurt them, fire will come out of the witnesses’ mouths and burn them up.
It also says that these two “olive trees” will have the power to “…shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire.” Did the WTC have the power to stop the rain. smite the earth with plague and turn the waters into blood even in any figurative sense?
I think you’re getting too caught up with one rather insignificant image — a comparison of two human beings to a couple of Temple lampstands – and you’re reading way too much into it. Take a step back. It just isn’t there.
The context of the passage makes it clear that the author was talking about two people, not two buildings and that he wasn’t predicting their fiery destruction but was claiming that THEY would be spreading the fire and the plagues and the droughts (at least until the Beast killed them…which might not be such a bad thing, considering…).
It isn’t. It’s just an unusual genre.
Of course not. In Biblical times, a typical “building” was no more than two or three stories tall. Larger structures like the Temple of Solomon were squat-shaped, NOT extremely thin like the WTC was. So ANY steel-framed skyscraper (which we 21st humans take for granted) would appear as anything BUT a building to ANY Israeli living 2,000 years ago, not just John.
It’s all about frame of reference. Why is that so hard a concept to understand?
Because it’s absolutely silly in this case. I’ve never seen a cockroach large enough to eat New York, but I’m perfectly capable of recognizing the concept of “giant cockroach”. And the Biblical authors were perfectly capable of recognizing the concept of “really tall building”. No one had to use olive trees or candlesticks to talk about the Tower of Babel.
Not that any of it matters, given that the reference in the passage is to men and not to buildings, as Diogenes, and your own link, pointed out.
If John described the metaphor as “two beanbag chairs”, yeah, I’d agree with you – the two events don’t match.
However, I contend that the entire vision about The Two Witnesses is, in itself, a metaphor.
Beast = Anti-Christ, right? Or at least a servant of the Anti-Christ? Isn’t al-Qaeda inherently anti-Christian? I don’t see any discrepancy with that passage (unless you believe in one of those wild 9/11 conspiracy theories…which I don’t.)
Well, someone tried to hurt the towers, and fire came out of them, all right. 
I have the documentaries to prove it.
The entire Bible is filled with gobbledygook like this (including events that supposedly happened, like the 10 Egyptian plagues.) But if I were forced to wrap a metaphor around it, I’d interpret the passage as the WTC being a symbol of the Corporate, Capitalist World and its effect on the environment (global warming, etc.)
Yeah, no one in Biblical times could have even conceived of a tower whose top reached up to the very heavens. Why such a thing would have confounded their very language!
Nicely put with the last line, MEBuckner, but it’s no use. I already tried subtlety in post #99 and directness in post #104.
Let me try one more time. In the passage, God says, this is the Temple. These are my two witnesss. My witnesses are like the two olive trees which hold the candles in front of the altar. If anyone tries to hurt my witnesses, the witnesses will kill them with fire. The witnesses will hav the power to stop the rain, bring plagues and change the oceans into blood. The Beast will eventually make war on them and kill them.
The “witnesses” are PEOPLE, not buildings.
No. The “Beast” was a coded allegory for the Emperor of Rome. There is no “antichrist” in Revelation. Antichrists (plural) are referred to only in the Epistles of John and they refer to apostate Christians (namely Gnostics). The conflation of the word “antichrist” with the Beast of Revelation is a modern, pop culture phenomenon with no real Biblical basis.
No, al Qaeda is inherently anti-west.
No, actually, fire did not come out of the buildings. The fire came out of airplanes that hit them.
It’s fun to make stuff up, but forunately the author tells us straight up what the olive trees are a metaphor for so we don’t have to speculate.
There is no direct archaeological evidence that the Tower of Babel even existed. Certainly, there were no photographs for people like John to look at – they would have to imagine what the ToB looked like, assuming they considered that myth important at all.
Well, if you insist on a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, obviously we aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this.
In which case, let me ask you this…who are the Two Witnesses? Has this prophecy already come to pass, or are we still waiting for them to appear?
Did I say the olive trees should be taken literally? No. I said they’re metaphors. It’s a long passage about two people who the author says will be martyred and them raised up to heaven after three days. Read it. That’s what it says. Your interpretation is baseless even if you insist on making the equally baseless claim that the witnesses themselves are metaphors. Nothing in these passages matches anything about 9/11 execept that there are two of something.
Also (although it shouldn’t have to be said) it can’t be about 9/11 because it would have been impossible for the author to predict that.
You’d have to dig up the author and ask him that. No one really knows. It’s probably a reference to Zechariah 4 (Where the author sees a vision of two olive trees on either side of a golden menorah which an angel tells him are “two anointed ones which will stand by the Lord”) but Moses and Joshua are also suggested by some.
Of course not.
Yeah, you’re pretty much entirely missing the point, there. People, even back in 0 AD, knew what a tower was. They did have them, even back then. The story of the tower of Babel shows that they were capable of imagining the concept of a tower that was bigger than anything they’d ever seen before. So if John really had a vision of the WTC, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t have immediately made the connection between what he was “seeing,” and the story of the tower of Babel, with which he was doubtlessly familiar. See, people two thousand years ago weren’t stupid. Even though they’d never seen a skyscraper before, if you showed them a picture, they’d recognize it as an artificial structure. It’s clearly made out of stone, it’s covered in windows, there are doors in it. Pretty much all the familiar characteristics of a building, except larger than any they had seen before. I mean, they’d seen things like Roman aqueducts, and were familiar with famous structures like the great lighthouse of Alexandria, or the massive pillars that were popular as war memorials, or the great obelisks of the ancient Egyptians. The concept of a tall, narrow structure was hardly outside the realm of their experience. There’s absolutely no reason they’d be unable to comprehend an image of the WTC as an extremely tall building.
It seems the only person here having any trouble understanding the frame of reference of is yourself. The inhabitants of the middle East of 2000 years ago were a cosmopolitan people with a fairly advanced knowledge of architecture. You seem to have them confused with these gentlemen. They were, in fact, considerably more advanced.
Pardon the bump, but I just found this thread and wanted to mention something about towers.
The entrance to Herod the Great’s palace in Jerusalem was flanked by two great towers that he named after his brother and his (second) wife, Phasael and Mariamne. Not only would they have understood towers at the time, they would have understood “twin towers” (triplet even, for there was a third tower farther away called Hippicus Tower after a friend who saved Herod’s life in battle). Since the structure was razed by the Romans, they even would have been familiar with the notion of Twin Towers falling due to an act of war.
Herod’s Temple was part of a massive structure that had it been built during the life of Antipater of Sidon would easily have made the 7 Wonders of the World- it was a masterpiece of engineering that would have made the most arrogant Roman stand impressed- and it had towers throughout while the temple itself was 100 cubits high (that’s about 150 feet or 15 stories by the most conservative measurement), and every Jew who lived in Israel and was able bodied would have seen the Temple while those who hadn’t would likely had have seen depictions of it.
HALLELUJAH!!!
Now start tithing 20% of your salary to the church so we can begin construction on that new $20 million dollar tax free building.
Not to ignore the fact that an olive tree looks nothing like the WTC. Had he been going for a tree that was tall and straight he’d’ve used the cedar of Lebanon, like every other person in the Bible who was using a tree as a metaphor for tall and straight.
