Leave us the fuck out of this, OK? We’ve got enough problems.
The Christian school I attended had an answer for this one, albeit a flimsy one.
You see, before Adam & Eve’s Dinner O’ Sin, God intended man to be immortal. Thus, with all of these immortal beings breeding, we’d need to move to another planet. In His infinate wisdom, God had already covered that base by creating the entire universe for us to expand to. Had we played by the rules in the Garden, we’d be on Mars right now. (This claim was bolstered, in their opinion, by scientific papers which say that Mars once had liquid seas. God abandoned the project after the Fall of Man, and the place just went to hell. Real estate values plunged as the seas dried up without God’s maintenance.) God would have told us all about the secrets of space travel had we not ticked him off for eternity.
**Diogenes the Cynic, ** I’ve had the same vision. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when Jerry Falwell encounters Anubis?
I like this idea a whole lot, and have more to say some other thread.
Aside from that, I am wondering on the subject of the Rapture as well. There is no use of the word in scripture, the original Greek was… er… rapai…hoopee…rap something… sorry. But it means swept up or caught in the air. Not “na na na boo boo, we’re going up to Jesus and yooouuu areee noooott…” whilst the saddened non-saved stare upward. Is The End coming, yes, is it here? It easily could be. I dunno, but I really dug on what Seige had to say up there… if He’s coming, I better make sure I have my lamp ready and have oil to spare.
I have the unique position of being a recently born-again believer working in a Pentecostal television ministry. We are on DTV, DISH… and we now go into the 1040 window as well. Russia, Iraq… all over that Enemy Territory… and I don’t mean Saddam. Anyhoo, we air a guy called Perry Stone that is an end times scholar, his stuff is pretty chock ful’ o’ factoids, but the man himself is hard to follow at times. He just gets so excited, as many of us do. Especially on this, because it is a cornerstone tenet of the Charismatic movement, right up there with Holy Spirit baptism and the Power of Prayer. I myself am not in a “spirit filled” fellowship by (narrow) definition, but I do know the Presence when it comes down, and my Pastor has got it goin on. He does NOT teach the Rapture, and will occasionally make cracks about the tv preacher that says "God can’t cash a check, so make it out to me… " heh heh heh. So I get both sides of the same paper, we all love Jesus, but it’s weird to sit the fence between two spokes of the same wheel… the Baptists and the Pentecostals. OK>. so anyway… I have gotten an insight lately that makes me look at the issue again. Repeatedly we are told that WE, the Saints and Children Of God, are His Church and His temple. So what if the third and final Temple that needs rebuilding was not an actual building, but a strength in number of the Body of Christ? “In a twinkling we will be like Him”
A bright guy that I know is fascinated with this subject, one of our Producers, and he is so earnest and scripturally backed it’s hard not to give thought to the thousand year reign as not all that far away. It’s thrilling, really.
Here’s a funny thing, my husband rented “Left Behind” last night and we have not watched it yet. Starring Kirk Cameron, the Only Recognizable Christian Actor. I’ll let you know what I learn, Nomad. ps… I grew up in Minnesota… howzit goin, eh?
This is completely understandable. It does seem that there is a product offer with most televangelists, the same way that PBS does during their bi-monthly gimmebreaks. The difference is the subject matter and the motivation behind it. I love PBS, but it’s monthly pledge bait is pretty high considering how often they beg and how humongous they are… OH and don’t forget the Pfizer and Acura ads on between Caillou and Sesame Street. PBS is getting a little loose in the stocking and needs to be more discrimanate in it’s bed partners…IMHO. Sorry, I can’t spell this late at night. It’s bait, that’s all, but at least it will do your starved mind some good, scriuptural based ANYTHING is better than a goopy diet of worldy nonsense like McDonalds is Food and You Need A New Car. Watch them talk, listen to what they are saying once in a while, you don’t have to buy the book any more than that Elmo for a one time gift of 75.00.
I am entrenched in a Christian TV Network, and I believe in our mission as charged to us by the Master Himself- to spread the Gospel to all four corners of the world until every soul has had the chance to retain to refuse His Salvation. BUT… and hear me now… as a past Wiccan, practicing in coven and solitary, and a practical Saul… I still sniff the air for artifice and guile around the dark corners of that place. I never catch a whiff.
The word “rapture” does not appear in English in the Bible. It is derived from this verse in Thessalonians:
1 Thessalonians 4:17 “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
The phrase that I bolded, “caught up together,” is one word harpagesometha (literally “caught up together”) in the original Greek.
The verse appears in the Latin Vulgate as thus (with the relevant phrase bolded):
“deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus”
The word rapiemur, above, is a future tense form of the Latin verb rapere, which means “to seize, grab, carry away.” The future perfect tense of the word is rapturus. The term, “rapture,” therefore, is derived from the Latin.
Whether Paul intended for this phrase to be taken literally is a whole other kettle of worms.
The whole rapture theory was largely the fever dream of a nineteenth century preacher named John Nelson Darby. Darby conflated the verse from thessalonians with this from Revelation:
*Revelation 3:10 “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep from you the hour of trial that is going to come to the whole world to test those who live on the Earth.” *
and this one:
Revelation 20:5,6 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
From those three verses, Darby got the notion in his head that the good people were going to get raptured (“first resurrection”)and the bad people would have a whole heap of tribulations for a thousand years before the final day of reckoning and the “second resurrection.”
This was a new theory, as formulated by Darby, and was really never really a part of any Christian doctrine before him. It is still not accepted by most Christian churches. It’s really sort of peculiar to American fundamentalists.
I think the Rapture is appealing to some people because it plays to a fantasy of being able to hang out safely and comfortably in Heaven and watch smugly as the ones who weren’t as good as you get knocked around and punished on Earth.
Lissa,
One logical problem I see with the explanation that God mad the Universe for all those immortal humans to expand to and then had to abort that whole project is this:
God is omniscient, so he would have to have knowm that A and E would feck up and eat the apple. If he knew they woulf “fall” then why did he bother to start a project that he knew he would have to abandon? (Not that I think that you bought this story, it’s just the question that sprang to my mind)
…sigh I am not sure what I think, I know that my finite human mind cannot grasp a lot of things in this world. One such thing is Gods plan for the “end times”. I do not feel bad about this because I can find comfort in the verses:
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Also
Mat 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Also
Rev 3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
These verses give me comfort in that no one knows the hour that our Lord will come.
I could post many scriptures and different people’s commentaries on them and my thoughts along those lines. But as long as the 2Pet 3:10, Mat 24:42, Rev 3:3’s are still there I don’t think it’s possible with our human intellect to calculate when Jesus will return for us. It’s the same thing as trying to comprehend infinity. This may come to a shock to some people that humans are not all knowing and all powerful but it’s true. We are finite. So are our minds. I do take courage in verses such as:
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
This is so because it tells me to be on my toes about life. There are two sides to this battle, both are vying for a soul, I just try to be vigilant and do God’s will in my life.
Have you got a cite for that? As an unmarried Jewish man, I’m very interested.
Re-The OP
IMHO unless a person is fluent in the language of the original text, all their interpretations are suspect. When a passage uses poetry or symbolism, things get much worse. And never forget, the Torah has no vowels.
The prophetic section of Daniel is written in a different language and style than the rest. It may all read the same in English, but imagine an author changing from casual Italian to formal Spanish.
Son of man=Ben Adam=Ben Adamah=Son of dirt. Possibly the Messiah will be a good ol' boy farmer.
After hearing that the Messiah would arrive on a white horse, I asked a rabbi if this was strictly literal or if we should keep an eye on anybody in a Ford Bronco or Mustang.
Freyr
Do you think we’re in the end times? There are plenty of nukes big enough to produce Fimbulvetr. Massive deforestation would slice at the roots of Ygdrasil and massive polution would weaken it. Thus, would the children of Askr aid Nidhug in his gnawing. Will global warming melt the ice caps enough to rouse Jormundgandr from his sleep? Will Fenrir snap Glepnir and devour Odin within our lifetimes?
It’s not so much that it directly says, “Go young man, and hump thy brains out,” it’s just that it never explicitly forbids premarital sex for men. It forbids adultery, and it forbids premarital sex for women, it just never addresses the issue of unattached men. Jewish traditions about premarital sex (as it pertains to men) come from the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch, not the Torah.
Drat! I was hoping I’d missed a passage. Y’know, something like
Ah, c’mon DocCathode, you can do better than that. First you say:
And then ask if I would accept a near literal interpretation of the Eddas, at least regarding Ragnarok?
We don’t know what the Eddas meant for the people of that time. Were they simply stories? Poetry? Prophecy? They were finally written down nearly 200 years after the last Pagans in northern europe were converted. Would the prophecy of Daniel mean the same thing for a Jewish man in New York City in 2003 as it would for a Jewish man in Palestine when it was originally written? Are the Eddas suppose to mean the same thing to contemporary Pagans as they would to midieval Pagans?
If you’re going to use the Eddas as prophecy, you ought to consider them in their entirity. Before any of the events you list happen, there is a general moral decay that happens in society, where “men rise up against their fathers” etc. (sorry, I don’t have my copy of Hollanders immediately available). Most of the people I know who do read and understand the Eddas generally agree that the social order collapses before the big events like Fimbulvetr or the release of Fenris. Again, it’s all a matter of interpretation, which supposes that Ragnarok is a prophecy in the first place.
The thing is, before Israel was established as a nation, people believed they were living in the end times; before we had nuclear weapons, people believed they were living in the end times; before Europeans had gunpowder, people thought they were living in the end times. People in Christ’s day thought they were living in the end times (see Matthew 24 above); people in AD 999 thought they were living in the end times; people in AD 1999 thought they were living in the end times. Why should the people who think they’re in the end times in 2003 be any more right than the people 4 years ago or 1004 years ago? In one of the earlier versions of this debate, someone replied, in effect, “but my beliefs are right!” The thing is, that can be said of most other people who thought they lived in the end times. People convinced themselves they had very strong reasons for thinking the world would end in 1999. This morning’s sunrise is covered in overcast, but it looks like it’s still ticking along.
By the way badchad, I don’t accept Matthew 24:34 as a “bad prophecy”; I regard it as something which I don’t understand. Quite frankly, I prefer Matthew 24:35: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. " I.e., something in this shifting world is permanent. As for my faith being shaken, I’m not a Biblical literalist and never will be. My faith, my Christianity, is unshakeable for intensly personal reasons. This, despite my habits of hanging out in GD, relaxing in hot tubs with Wiccans, and discussing theology with Fundamentalist Christians.
Ablaze, thanks for the compliment.
CJ
I had the same question, and recieved a very vague answer for it. They told me that while God * can * see the future, he often doesn’t, for some reason. They pointed to the verse before Noah’s flood in which God states that he regretted he had ever made man.
Of course, this opens a huge can of theological worms. Why would God do something that he knew he would later be sorry for? Why didn’t he take a peek into the future and see what a big mess that humans would create? I didn’t get this one answered. My continuing questions eventually earned me a detention for being “difficult.”
Personally, I can’t make sense from it, but then again, it’s religion: it’s not supposed to be logical.
**
Let’s hope that I can
**
OTOMH, I’d say the Prose Edda is not poetry. The Poetic Edda clearly is, whether it’s more is open to debate.
A man reading the prophetic portion of Daniel when it was written might have accepted it as a true prophecy. These days, it seems to be a predated prophecy written to rally the Jews.
Re-Dates
Hmm, I’d have to check the dates in my books for the date the Norsemen were blackmailed into converting.
Naglfari-
This is the event I’m most inclined to accept as symbolic. The hordes of evil riding in a ship made from the nails of the dead. Can you share any insight on what this means?
You are correct about tithing, which comes from the Old Testament - Leviticus 27:32, Numbers 18:26, Deuteronomy 14:22, Deuteronomy 26:12 - but wrong about premarital sex.
Mark 7:21 and Matthew 15:19. The Greek word is porneoia, usually translated as “fornication”. This includes all kinds of sexual immorality, including premarital sex.
Regards,
Shodan
[symbol]porneia[/symbol] (porneia)was used in general sense for sexual immorality as it was defined by the Torah. The Torah did not explicitly condemn premarital sex for men. porneia was also used metaphorically to refer to the “promiscuous” worship of idols.
I still say it’s sophist to extropolate a specific condemnation of premarital sex from a general condemnation of sexual immorality. We have no reason to suppose that ancient Jews thought that unmarried sex for males was immoral (as long as it wasnt with ritual prostitutes).
So now instead he sends robots to protect us from those secrets? 
But back to the (serious) topic at hand - I think Freyr got it in one when he said
The problem with this as it relates to conservative Christians and their eschatology, is that they don’t believe Daniel to have been written in 200 BCE, or Revelation to be about the first century Roman Empire, as Diogenes has suggested. So reading the books “in context” for CC’s means interpreting them through the lens of modern “biblical innerancy” - and that produces an entirely different set of conclusions about their nature and the End Of The World.
The end of the World will most definitely be on May 33, 2004.
My name is Bob the Baptist and I know more about the book of revelations than any man on earth , including the author.
You want to know when the end will be!
That’s an easy one , the end will be when the ozone layer is totaly depleted .
Revelation 16
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire.
That just may be true Mr. Bob
Okay, Bob the Baptist, in all seriousness, please explain how you can know more about the Book of Revelation than its author.