it is interesting that there are Bible prophecy books from early in the 1900s which forecast the creating of a United States of Europe as the “Revived Roman Empire” - the Ten-Horned Beast of Daniel 7 & Revelation 13. Herbert W. Armstrong really took off with this during & after WWII & the creation of the European Common Market caught the attention of a lot of PreMil Bible students. Hal Lindsey popularized the concept in the early 1970s THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH. The ECM/European Economic Community started in the late 1950s with six member, then added three in 1973, then stalled until the early 1980s, so “ten” member-nations was seen as the elusive goal which needed to be reached so that the ECM could qualify as the Beast power. It’s gone a few members past ten now & has solidified beyond just an economic alliance, but it’s far from the tyrranical super-state it would need to be to fulfill the prophecy.
and yes, it’s the Europa & Zeus-Bull which the fuss is all about
I recall, back in the 1970s, there was a precher named Garner Ted Armstrong (he put out a pseudo-news magazine called the Plain Truth) making this very argument: in Armstrong’s theology, the coming reunification of Europe amounted to the restoration of the Roman Empire.
Now, there are many prophecies in the Book of Revelation relating to the Roman Empire, but since the Roman Empire collapsed a looong time ago, even most fundamentalists haven’t taken those passages literally. But Armstrong and people who think like him believe that the new E.U. is the new Rome… which means all the prophecies are still valid and still in effect.
Not only is she a harlot, but I’ll bet she’s riding the bull down to the local line dancing extravaganza.
Senility won’t stop him. He’s already managed to clone himself. Look ahead for more of the same from Iain Paisley Jr.
Texe Marrs has something on his page, i beleive, which shows this woman riding the beast supposedly making the sign of the devil with her fingers (where you put the pinkie and first one up)
Texe is funny.
I got a mailing from Texe a few months ago (I don’t know how he got my address) about the coming of Planet X & how occult Freemasonry will use it to set up the New World Order.
Texe IS funny at times, except when he’s scary! :eek:
Coined! <ba-doom, kssssh!> He’ll be here all week! Tip your waitstaff!
I seem to recall that, before the term “Euro” was decided upon by the EU to be the official name of the new currency, one of the popular proposed name for the new monetary unit was the “European Currency Unit” or ECU.
BTW, I’ve heard some bible-thumping apocalypticists claim that one of the end times predictions in Revelation is that there will be a One World Currency. However, I can’t find any passages in Revelation that talk about any kind of universal monetary unit. Is this just another “real stretch” for the whole notion of a Mark of the Beast that everyone’s going to have to have if they want to engage in business?
I had always thought that much of Tribulations was a backlash against a crazy Roman Emperor by the name of Nero, who was giving Christians a really hard time- and that perhaps Christians saw this and the eventual fall of the Roman Empire as a pseudo end-of-the-world type scenario.
If the Beast of Revelation really refers to Nero – as some have supposed, due to the fact that at least one Greek spelling of his name adds up to 666 – then Revelation could not have been written after 68 A.D., which was when Nero was condemned and committed suicide.
… which, of course, does not jive with the usual scholarly estimate of 95-100 AD for its authorship.
The 666 could still have been referring to the already-deposed Nero even if Revelation was written 3 decades after his death, I suppose, but a more likely explanation is that 7 is the “perfect” number in Christianity while 6 is imperfect, therefore three 6’s in a row would be really, really imperfect. (Although the lack of Arabic numerals, or anything like Arabic numerals, in written Greek casts doubt on this interpretation as well.)
Revelations will be fulfilled.
Doesn’t anyone think of the verse which says you won’t be able to buy or sell without the mark?
And how it is NOW possible because of microchips?
Sure, I think of the Mark of the Beast and how it could be just as easily accomplished with a tattoo or a scar as a microchip:
And then I think of the dragon that is supposed to sweep a third of the stars from the sky and the fact that the beast to which the mark pertains is supposed to erupt from the earth, and I figure that the images of apocalyptic literature were not intended as literal messages when they were written, so I am certainly not going to defile their meaning by assigning literal meanings to them, today.
There is a TV Preacher in the States named Jack Van Impe. He goes on about this every Sunday at 11:30 pm. I love watching him and his marionette of a wife named “Rexella.” And the announcer has one of the creepiest voices ever.
tracer: interesting info. The European ‘currency’ indeed used to be the Ecu, but when they were deciding on the real thing, the Ecu had gotten a bad rep because of internal struggles and because of devaluation, so they wanted a different name.
vanilla: hasn’t the prophecy been fulfilled with the barcode? At least that’s what I’ve been told.
I’ve got a couple of really neat medieval style hats, not to mention some over dresses which I bought from the woman who made them. They do not have barcodes, although I suppose one could argue barcodes were involved in purchasing their raw materials. I’m pretty sure the manufacturer I work for doesn’t barcode their materials, although we do track lot numbers by other means.
Vanilla, you know I love you, but I simply cannot buy the idea that one can know the end of the world is near. Between Christians having believed that for nearly 2000 years and Christ’s words on the subject, it simply isn’t within my mental capacity, at least not without a very large stretch!
**Vanilla, I know your style is hit-and-run, but in the small hope you’ll actually come back to this thread and read and understand people’s comments:
In the early church it was vastly understood - among people much closer to the time of Revelation’s writing than we - that the mark of the beast is a spiritual mark. It’s not something put on your body, it’s a conscious decision to reject God.
This “microchips” thing is a modern invention. 20 years ago it was bar codes everyone was worried about.
