How to deal with the Book of Revelation

Double negatives make my head hurt.

Short answer, it is a future event and it isn’t angles. Everything from Chapter 4 to the end are future events.

The 616 is in the oldest fragment, Papyrus 115, as Greek. So I don’t understand what the Latin connection would be.

Bill, you without doubt know more than I. Here’s a quote from Bruce Metzger, though: (quoted by Christopher Smith in a blog I hadn’t heard of!) Is there any historical evidence that early Christians understood 666 to mean Nero Caesar? – Good Question

"Here’s what likely happened. As Bruce Metzger suggests in his Textual Commentary on the New Testament, “Perhaps the change was intentional, seeing that the Greek form Neron Caesar written in Hebrew characters is equivalent to 666, while the Latin form Nero Caesar is equivalent to 616.” (The difference is the Hebrew letter Nun, which has a value of 50.) Whatever copyist first introduced the change was thinking of Nero’s name in Latin rather than Greek, and so wrote in 616.

That was an incredibly good point; I’m not sure what it meant, to have that 616 in a Greek manuscript–I think I saw that Greek should be 888. However, the post said also that it might have been someone who used 616 as a way to make things add up who was having trouble. Thanks for that question and probing thought!

While this was the position I took when I was Dispensational Premillennialist but I have now taken a view close to Historical Premillennialism now at this point and I have made up my mind in seeing when the future portion of Scripture takes place and its at Rev. 13. the stuff of Rev. 8 thru 11 (I treat Rev. 12 as another intermission) and while I can easily take a Historicist view of Rev. 8-11 I need to pinpoint when these event’s have taken place. Revelation 10-11 I can easily see being the Protestant Reformation but Rev.8-9 I’ll need to look at the symbolism that is being used and what event’s in history they can relate too.

While the Idealist view is tempting I cannot ignore the outright prophetic tone Revelation has, it seems too concreate for it to just be a message about spiritual stuff and all that, when I read it I see something that is prophetic, historical and tangible. While I don’t deny that there are spiritual symbolisms within Revelation as it’s laid heavy with them, I doubt it end’s just there and that there is a deeper prophetic tone and message in it.

From what I have read, the P 115 fragment would be the oldest number and possibly the original as that is the number in Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus. But in textual criticism oldest is not always the best. Thus ends my knowledge of textual criticism. If you want to put it down to scribal error does it really matter which came first?

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I found this video from the Bible Project an interesting summary of Revelation. I haven’t had time yet to study it further.

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Besides Rev 4 as previously mentioned, the work is killed with words that, for me, can only be explained as spiritual. For example:

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. (Rev 6:8)”

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Rev 12:9)

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Rev 12:4)

It may seem easy to try to match these words with events on Earth, but again, they are words that should be meditated upon. The two witnesses could not have meant the three reformists Calvin, Luther and Zwingli. None of them were brutally killed by agents of Satan (Rev 11:7), but all of the prophets of the OT were. Consider also that John the Baptist was dressed in sackcloth and prophesied for three years and was killed. I suggest a more open-minded approach to this work, rather than trying to fit it into some sequential history.

@Edward_T_Babinski posted that it could be Caligula with 616, based on this early document you refer to, which would make sense if that was the correct original number. Caligula was kind of crazy and lived from 37 to 41 CE. Biblical Errancy: Is the Number of the Beast 666 or 616?

I just found something interesting about the error question. Apparently, Greek script used letters for each number–alpha =1, beta= 2, etc. The difference between the Greek for the 6 and the 1 was very little, and so it could be just an error, too, I guess. http://www.thebeggarsblog.com/blog/2016/7/8/666-the-number-of-the-beast-or-is-it-616

Anyway, the point of Revelation appears to be that Christians should stand steadfast and whether they die or not, Christ will win.

Thanks for the discussion.

Except Revelation is normally dated to around 90 AD which would mean a coded reference to Caligula was not needed.

Actually you are talking about the difference between Iota and Xi and to my untrained, and non-Greek speaking, eye they look totally different. One is a straight line and the other is a curly line, but copyists did make mistakes that weren’t caught when the copy was proofed.

You’re right on the date of writing for John–I think that elsewhere he said that it could be sort of a representative of all the emperors. But that does make it less likely. It is pretty neat that the sample was so close to AD 90.

Regarding the letters–
Ohhh…I need to make big apologies here. I misread the author, very sloppily. Here’s his thought on the mistake potential:

"But how could such a variation arrive? It could be a slip of the pen. For example, in English numbers can be designated in multiple ways. For example, someone could use numerals to indicate the number (i.e. 666) or they could write it out with words (i.e., six-hundred-sixty-six). So it is with Greek. They could write out the number with words, or they could indicate the number using numerals. Except, in Greek, they didn’t use Arabic numerals like we do in English, they used letters of the Greek alphabet, and each letter was assigned a value (e.g., α = 1, β = 2, γ = 3, etc.). Thus, the Greek copyist could write χξϛ (with a horizontal line over all the letters indicating that they are to be reckoned as numbers) to indicate the number 666, or by changing the ξ with an ι they would have χιϛ or 616 (as is found in P115). A slip of the pen between a ξ and an ι is not unreasonable thing to imagine to have happened. So…this is one way in which the variation could have occurred. " (same reference at beggars blog above)

Again, sorry I was sloppy. Thanks for the point.

Good point. I’m obviously way out of my depth here, and happy to observe as you and Randy have continued clarifying. I didn’t intend to make a big issue of it (my prior sarcasm not withstanding), but just mentioned it as an aside I had recently noticed and was curious about.

A post was merged into an existing topic: The exact date when the noah flood happened. // la fecha exacta cuando ocurrió el diluvio de noé

A few suggestions:

In comparative study, allow portions of Scripture which are not as obviously symbolic to guide interpretation of those which clearly have more figurative elments. Too often the opposite approach is taken (in dispensationalism, for example) and the tail ends up wagging the dog.

Don’t assume that one of the neat categories of interpretation (preterist, futurist, etc.) is going to be correct. Apocalyptic visionary symbolism is a fluid, dreamlike means of communication that resists formulaic approaches.

Assemble relevant material from elsewhere in Scripture and historical knowledge generally, then work it like an actual jigsaw puzzle. Try fitting the pieces together in different ways, and be satisfied if enough pieces fit to provide some general outline even if all the details cannot be filled in.

In Revelation, be prepared to see depictions as types of events and entities rather than singular, once-and-done instances.

For example, in Revelation chapters 11 and 12 we see parallel symbolic dramas, first concerning two prophetic witnesses and then a woman who gives birth.

The figure of a wife, bride or betrothed woman is a frequent biblical figure for the people of God (eg. Isa 62:4-5; Jer 2:2; 2 Cor 11:2). The people of God are also called his witnesses, but unlike the singular term servant, “witnesses” must occur in the plural, as two or more, because of the principle that facts must be established by “two or three” (Isa 43:10; cf. Deut 17:6). This suggests the possiblity that in Rev 11 and 12 we are seeing parallel representations of the people of God as a whole, which extends from the faithful remnant of Israel to the body of Christ’s true disciples during the gospel age.

The killing of the two witnesses by the beast in the great city cannot but evoke the martyrdoms of the two greatest apostolic witnesses of the early church, Peter and Paul, in Rome during the horrific persecution under Nero, who had beastlike qualities. Jesus can be thought of as being killed in Rome to the extent that the crucifixion took place under Roman authority.

Both Peter and Paul had made pronouncements implying divine judgment on unrepentant persecutors (Acts 4:29; 23:2-3). Herod, the guards who detained Peter, High Priest Ananias, and finally the entire priestly system of Jerusalem experienced premature or violent deaths in the years leading up to the destruction of AD 70. This can be interpreted as fire figuratively coming out of the mouths of Peter and Paul to destroy their attackers (cf. Hosea 6:5).

Still, Peter and Paul are idealized here to stand for the church as a whole. The faithful church down through history declares God’s judgments as an exercise of spiritual power, experiences persecution which in its extreme form becomes martyrdom, and finally is vindicated at the end of history in the eyes of its attackers (Luke 13:28; Col 3:4; 1 Thes 4:16-17; Rev 1:7).

Nero points to certain Greco-Roman rulers as types of great enemies of the gospel who use governmental power to attack the faithful. Antiochus Epiphanes famously defiled the temple in the second century BC, but a generation later the Most Holy was invaded and defiled by the Roman general Pompey. Several emperors persecuted Christians, but the emperor Constantine, I believe, attacked the church as a pretended friend by inviting the church to form an unholy alliance with the state—a temptation that has reemerged frequently ever since.

I could provide many more details but have already exceeded reasonable length.

The main point is to look at Revelation’s strange visions from as many different angles as possible and keep the strong symbolic dimension in mind.

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I wanted to comment that the nearly universal assumption that Revelation was written around 90 is not based on very strong evidence. You can read my thoughts (derived from the works of others) on a possible earlier date (~64) in this post. (Moderator: If too much of a bleg, please delete.)

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