# Revelations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247 "2003-06-07T04:06:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/21 "2003-06-09T13:40:00Z")
The prophecies of revelation were not to be easily understood UNTIL the time of the end. There weren’t a ton of books (as there are now) about the tribulation long ago, the fact that there are Now means it Is the time of the end. Daniel 12, I think, says the wicked will not udnerstand, which explains your non belief guys! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/22 "2003-06-09T13:55:33Z")
Revelation was understood quite easily when it as written. Daniel was about the 2nd century BCE and has nothing to do with our time. Modern millenialism has conflated, distorted and misinterpreted both Hebrew and Christian scripture in order to fabricate its elaborate “end times” scenario. When each book is read on its own and understood in its proper literary and historical context it’s actually pretty clear what they’re about. Among serious Biblical scholars the whole Hal Lindsey/ Left Behind drama is basically snickered at. ---
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/23 "2003-06-09T14:05:19Z")
What then, could the not buy or sell mark mean back then? NOW we have the technology to do exactly this. Coincidence? Sure… ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/24 "2003-06-09T14:10:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*The prophecies of revelation were not to be easily understood UNTIL the time of the end. > There weren’t a ton of books (as there are now) about the tribulation long ago, the fact that there are Now means it Is the time of the end. > Daniel 12, I think, says the wicked will not udnerstand, which explains your non belief guys! \*\* Yet another instance of a Biblical verse ripped out of context to prop up a ridiculous argument. Daniel’s author, living under the Seleucid empire, used anachronistic references to Persian rulers to make veiled condemnations of the Seleucid Empire’s oppression of the Jews. He was not making any reference to 21st century Straight Dopers’ disbelief in simple-minded Biblical exegesis. No, \*\*Equal[/n], these are not the End Times, so stop buying those stupid Jenkins/LaHaye books. You people pulled that “Y2K is the sign of the Rapture” nonsense three years ago, testifying that the world was going to fall into chaos in which the ungodly would be destroyed and the Faithful would be saved. It didn’t happen. You will live your life, grow old, and die without ever seeing the Rapture or the Tribulation (depending if you’re a pre-, mid-, or post-Trib subscriber) because Jesus is never, ever coming back. ---
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/25 "2003-06-09T14:11:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\* > > Among serious Biblical scholars the whole Hal Lindsey/ Left Behind drama is basically snickered at. \*\* Cite please? ---
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/26 "2003-06-09T14:13:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gobear \* > \*\* > > You will live your life, grow old, and die without ever seeing the Rapture or the Tribulation (depending if you’re a pre-, mid-, or post-Trib subscriber) because Jesus is never, ever coming back. \*\* First of all, I’ve never read any Left Behind books. I’ve read many by Lindsey, Hagee, Jeffries, Van Impe etc. So…when He does come back (and He will) will I get an apology? ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/27 "2003-06-09T14:17:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*First of all, I’ve never read any Left Behind books. > I’ve read many by Lindsey, Hagee, Jeffries, Van Impe etc. > > So…when He does come back (and He will) will I get an apology? \*\* Absolutely, as long as I get one from you when you lie on your deathbed because there was no Rapture. ---
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/28 "2003-06-09T14:18:34Z")
right, except the rapture could happen right after I die, and I could die tomorrow, no one knows.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/29 "2003-06-09T15:09:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*What then, could the not buy or sell mark mean back then? \*\* The Romans during the Empire had mandatory military conscription. In order to prevent desertion, new lower class recruits were tattooed with their Legion number and year of service. For early pacifist Christians, this mandatory conscription was seen as evil, and many refused it. However, not having a military tattoo could make daily life difficult, because it was a pretty definite sign you had “dodged the draft”. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/30 "2003-06-09T15:18:24Z")
The Catholic interpretation is that the “mark of the Beast” was the coin with the emperor’s face on it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/31 "2003-06-09T15:30:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*Cite please? \*\* Take my word for it. I’ve talked to them. I’ve heard them snicker. I’ve seen them roll their eyes. The “Left behind” thing is a product of poorly understood scripture mixed with lively imagination. It’s not a very scholarly exegesis and it doesn’t hold up to educated scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/32 "2003-06-09T15:31:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*What then, could the not buy or sell mark mean back then? > NOW we have the technology to do exactly this. > Coincidence? Sure… \*\* Well, you couldn’t buy or sell the Mark back then because it hadn’t been created yet. Now we have the technology to buy or sell the Mark, but we can’t because it’s been replaced by the Euro. Coincidence? Sure… ---
**Author:** ![JerseyDiamond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JerseyDiamond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerseyDiamond)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/33 "2003-06-09T15:32:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\* \ > Rejected by [Catholicism](http://www.catholic.com/library/Rapture.asp) > Rejected by [Lutherans](http://www.lcms.org/cic/rapture.html) > Rejected by [Eastern Orthodoxy](http://www.orthodoxonline.com/leftbehind.htm) > Rejected by [Episcopalians/Anglicans](http://www.trinitycathedral.org/cccStump_the_Canon.htm#RAPTURE) > Rejected by [Presbyterians](http://www.pcusa.org/pcusa/cmd/cfl/millennia.htm) \ > \*\* Did you read those cites? **Oohh, I get it…** > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by JD, 8/23/03_ > Guy 1: “Help, I got bitten!” > Guy 2: “By what?” > Guy 1: “A long reptile with fangs and no legs that slithers around and bites people!” > Guy 2: “Aha! A snake!” > Guy 3: “Oh no it’s not! He didn’t say snake! He never said the word snake!” I keep forgetting. Second coming is totally different. :rolleyes: Not everyone is going to say the exact same thing. It’s the general idea, or knowing that Christ will return to bring His children home. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/34 "2003-06-09T15:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JerseyDiamond \* > \*\*Not everyone is going to say the exact same thing. It’s the general idea, or knowing that Christ will return to bring His children home. \*\* Well, yeah, most Christian groups believe Jesus will come again and set up a perfect Christian society, but most Christian groups don’t believe the whole thing with the antichrist, and the locusts with the head of women. and the battle of Armegeddon. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/35 "2003-06-09T15:41:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Not everyone is going to say the exact same thing. It’s the general idea, or knowing that Christ will return to bring His children home. This is, at best, disingenuous, and it borders on dishonesty. Christian theology does, indeed, include eschatological references that look to a return of Jesus and a Final Judgment. The sites to which **Diogenes** linked will certainly make reference to that theology. The specific point of the discussion, however, is whether the strange series of specific events cobbled together by Darby and his oddball spiritual descendents that claims that some odd mish-mash of verses taken erratically from Daniel, Paul to the Thessalonians, Luke, and the Revelation of John actually portray a _literal_ series of events that are predicted to occur in a specific way. They do not. To claim that Darby and LaHaye are saying the same thing as the mainstream Christianity simply because each refers _somewhere_ to an echatological event is nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/36 "2003-06-09T16:09:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JerseyDiamond \* > \*\*Did you read those cites? > > **Oohh, I get it…** > > I keep forgetting. Second coming is totally different. :rolleyes: > > Not everyone is going to say the exact same thing. It’s the general idea, or knowing that Christ will return to bring His children home. \*\* **Captain Amazing** and **tomndebb** handles this pretty well already but let me just add this: I was not contending that mainstream Christian have no eschatological expectations at all, or that they don’t believe in a second coming. I’m saying they don’t believe in a preliminary “rapture” before the final judgement and that they don’t believe in the series of events involving an “antichrist” etc. prior to the parousia. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/37 "2003-06-09T16:51:03Z")
tracer- Grant Jeffreys is the champion of the Ephraem of Syria “Rapture” quote- however, first, the writer is not considered by any Patristics expert to be the actual Ephraem but a later writer using his name; second, in context, the passage said to be referring to a pre-Trib Rapture is more likely about spiritually drawing near to Christ or about gathering to a place of protection on the earth. [http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet\_2000/timeline/ephraem.html](http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet_2000/timeline/ephraem.html) On the other hand, Diogenes, the 1830 barrier has actually been broken- a preTrib Rapture teaching predating Darby, Edward Irving & Margaret MacDonald HAS been found. In the 1740s, while a student at Bristol College in England, Welsh-born Morgan Edwards wrote a treatise for a class project on the End Times in which he proposed that as the Papal & Ottoman AntiChrist powers collapsed, a final AntiChrist would emerge, the Rapture would occur & the last AC would reign 3 1/2 years as the Two Witnesses withstood him (ME suggested the Two would be Elijah & the Apostle John). At the killing & raising of the Two, God’s Wrath would be outpoured, the AC & all nations would gather for Armageddon & Christ would return to inaugurate the Millenial Kingdom. Edwards later became a Baptist pastor in Pennsylvania & published his treatise in 1788. Also, while teaching that the catching up of the Saints would occur simultaneously with the Return of Jesus, British Baptist pastor John Gill in the early 1700s apparently coined the term “Rapture” for that event. [http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet\_2000/timeline/morgan.html](http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet_2000/timeline/morgan.html) [http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet\_2000/timeline/johnson.html](http://www.geocities.com/lasttrumpet_2000/timeline/johnson.html) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/38 "2003-06-09T17:11:38Z")
There may have been some precursory elements that influenced Darby, however, none of it was a part of any mainstream Christian doctrine and it’s still bad exegesis. ---
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/39 "2003-06-09T20:54:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JerseyDiamond \* > \*\* > > I keep forgetting. Second coming is totally different. :rolleyes: > > Not everyone is going to say the exact same thing. It’s the general idea, or knowing that Christ will return to bring His children home. \*\* Girl, don’t you get it? The Straight Dope is the font of all knowledge. If they say christian beliefs are one certain way, thats what they HAVE to be. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247/40 "2003-06-09T20:57:51Z")
**Jersey** , consider that Biblical literalism is also a fairly recent school of thought. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revelations/180247.md?page=3)