the most up to date interpretations of the bible encompass what is known
what is not known is what God knows
and you cant know it
till you know it
its all guesswork
have you prayed today
will you need to pray tomorrow once you have collected some more ‘knowledge’?
—Couldn’t this be God’s validation of the modern theory of the Universe’ contracting and expanding?—
Sure. And next week, when we have an entirely new theory of universe, I’m sure it’ll validate that too.
Current thinking is that the universe won’t contract at all: it’ll keep expanding. There is no “cetner” for a black hole to form: everywhere in the universe is the “center” just like there is no “center” on the surface of a sphere, or in our proposed case, a saddle-shaped thingie.
I’ve read several of Hal Lindsey’s books also but it was many years ago in my first years of being a Chrisitan, IIRC. I don’t remember finding anything I disagreed with in his books but I’d have to read them again to be sure. It’s entirely probably if most of you guys disagree with it, I’ll probably agree. 
**0rbytal wrote:
Couldn’t this be God’s validation of the modern theory of the Universe’ contracting and expanding?**
Try reading Isaac Asimov’s short essay, The Right Answer.
Here’s a quote from the end:
Don’t tell me, then, that those clever Eastern (Celtic, African, Greek, or even Biblical) sages have spoken of something that sounds like the big bang or like endless expansion. That’s idle speculation.
Show me where those sages worked out the isotropic radio wave background, or the red-shifts in the galatic spectra, which alone support those conclusions on anything more than mere assertion.
You can’t. Science stands alone!
(copyright, 1996 Nightfall, Inc.)
If so, boy, I feel for him. I had a spastic exegesis once. Couldn’t sit down for weeks.
Revelation is based on the ramblings of one man who had been exiled. It is silly that the story he told has been taken seriously for centuries by so many otherwise sensible people.
Revelations-and the Beast-was mostly about Rome at that time.
The Beast or the Antichrist or the 666 guy was Nero.
What I can’t understand is why Revelation was included in the Canon. The other books I can understand, but Revelation just doesn’t fit. What kind of crack were they smoking when they decided to declare it official?
The rest of the NT is pretty much happy-happy joy-joy. To draw the PG-13/R audience, they did a quick edit at The End.
Now, realize that for this board, I’m one of the raving, lunatic evangelicals. However, the quoted statement is, IMO, being kind to Hal.
His4ever, be sure of what and whom you support in the name of God.
Hal has made an entire career out of predicting Jesus’ imminent return (like within ten years or so from whenever he happens to be publishing a certain book). I also personally remember him making a huge deal out of the 1991 coup against Gorbachev. He was saying things on TV like, “Well, any serious student of biblical prophecy knows that it requires a militarily strong Russia.” Well, now, what happened, then?
I’d love to link to a web page with a certain interview from The Door (it’s a magazine: “The World’s Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine”). The Door is the magazine that gave Prime Time Live and other TV magazine shows the info to nail Robert Tilton, the scum at the bottom of the TV preacher barrel. Dave McPherson details not only his claim that pre-Trib (ask your local flaming evangelical) theology appeared only in the last 150 years (I think), but that Hal has violated publishing ethics by reprinting pages of his books in other books, essentially selling much of his material under a different name, with no notification to the buyer. I can’t find a link. Trust me on this. I have the issue personally.
Hal has been so specific about the meanings of Revelations that he has implied to some people that there is no question about the meaning. A woman told me a story once. Now, this is a very bright person, who with her husband has done some stellar work in debunking things like the “There’s a Satanist on every block” legend that was so prevalent in the 80s and 90s in the American church. Anyway, when she became a Christian (and was ignorant) she heard Hal speak, and when her Bible didn’t have helicopters and such in the text at the back, she tried to return it to the bookstore as defective.
I personally have a huge suspicion that Hal is profiting off the church, and will have a LOT to answer for.
Just out of curiousity how does 666 relate to Nero?
In ancient numerology (or gematria), the letters of the alphabet–the Hebrew alphabet, say–were assigned specific number values. If you added up the numbers for the letters in someone’s name, the resulting number was believing to have all sorts of deep cosmic significance. (I suspect there was a fair amount of working the formula backwards as well–“Well, John Smith doesn’t add up to anything very impressive, but if we include his middle initial, John Q. Smith adds up to 144, which is 12 times 12 and a Significant Number”.) Anyway, using one apparently well-known system, you can get 666 out of the letters for Nero’s name in Hebrew. (I believe the name used was actually a Hebrew transliteration of “Neron Caesar”, “Neron” being the rather dorky-sounding Greek version of “Nero”.) Furthermore, the Hebrew values of a variant of the name–“Nero Caesar”, using the Latin spelling–adds up to “616”, and some early manuscripts of Revelation actually have 616 and not 666.
I have also seen more involved discussions indicating that the time periods and so on aren’t really right for Nero, and that the Emperor Domitian, who ruled about a dozen years after Nero, is a better fit in various respects. However, there was apparently also a belief in some circles that Domitian was in fact Nero reborn, so that could fit, too. This sort of writing was often deliberately obscure for political reasons–coming right out and saying “Down with the Emperor! He’s an evil tyrant!” was not particularly good for one’s health–and trying to figure it out is a bit like watching political satire in another country whose political figures you aren’t actually that familiar with.
Probably the same crack that got Daniel included in the Old Testament. Same basic ideas, after all.
Without arguing the :eek:merits:eek: of Revelations, there’s a fundamental deficiency in the post’s question when he states
There’s no definitive answer to the state of the universe, whether it’s currently expanding, flat or collapsing. Best bets so far are that it’s right on the edge between flat and expanding. There’s masses of stuff to read before assuming the OP’s theory, and it’s way more interesting than Revelations.
Here’s a good place to start
http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/IUP/Big_Bang_Primer.html
Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it, Christians contempory to Jesus thought that the end of the world would come “at the end of their generation” or something to that effect.
Revelations may have been thrown in to add a little more mystery to the whole equation.
I’m sure it wasn’t crack either, but rather some delightfully twisted pyschedelic drug.
I’m reading an excelent new book right now about Biblical views of the End Times and how Christians should interpret them. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m currently studying under the author, Craig Hill, at Wesley Seminary, where he’s Professor of New Testament. His book, In God’s Time, tries to chart a middle course between “the uncritical embrace and the unqualified rejection” of prophetic visions of the future. His message in a nutshell (as I read it) is that belief in God’s ultimate victory is fundamental to Christianity, but that Biblical images of that victory are necessarily culture-bound, and must be read critically. Lot’s of interesting stuff. His website, www.ingodstime.com has lengthy exerpts and other info.
Note to Mods: The above website (www.ingodstime.com) has links to vendors (like Amazon) but does not sell the book directly. It could concievably be construed as advertizing, but contains lots of good info (like several pages of exerpts from the book). Do whatever you think is best. 