Youre confusing the coming of his kingdom and his return to earth. The kingdom is where God’s reign happens. That started with Jesus’ ministry (hence his healing, casting out demons etc), and particularly with a very visible manifestation during the transfiguration which some of his disciples were allowed to witness. Then the cross when the enemy was effectively defeated, then his resurrection and ascension (which Daniel refers to, the coming on the clouds TO the Ancient of Days), then the birth of the church at Pentecost when the Spirit of God comes on his followers. This in sum is the manifestation of the kingdom come to earth. It has still to be consummated in full, but it is very much already here.
You also shouldnt presume every time Jesus referred to ‘coming’, he meant his physical return to earth. In Revelation, for example, he warns at least one of the 7 churches that he would ‘come’ to them, but that referred to a judgement then because of their sin, not his return.
Per the Atlantic Council - 'the vast majority of international traffic traversing the Internet each day, from video calls to banking transactions to military secrets, travels over undersea cables. It is estimated that upwards of 95 percent of intercontinental Internet traffic is carried over these cables. Without them, the Internet would not exist as it does today. ’
IIRC the Book of Aristeas has an instance in the account of the oath taken by the scholars who translated the LXX.
I can’t find anything online except references to several scholars who point out that such warnings were common. One explained that given the ancient penchant for plagiarism such a warning was meant to discourage any such activity. I remember looking at examples in Greek, Hebrew, and Egyptian in grad school, but I don’t even know if I kept my notes from whichever course that was.
Matthew 24:30-31, “Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
What does this sound like to you? Loud trumpet call, gathering his elect from the four winds? The fact is that terms are being redefined here to make things theologically fit so it looks like the prophecy came true.
What does the rest of the Bible say about the trumpet?
1 Thessalonians 4:16, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
1 Corinthians 15:52, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”
Moreover where did Paul get this idea of a trumpet being blasted? From the Olivet Discourse.
Especially given that Revelation was often appended to John’s Gospel and his epistles in ancient times – that didn’t put it at the end!
I especially liked the point about the difference between “chronos” and “kairos”. I’ve noted before that even the word “time” does not translate straight across!
Interestingly, given the traditional dates for John being on Patmos, it was Domitian who was emperor at the time. Domitian was widely considered a second Nero.
re your comment to mine, it still could have been written in the 80’s or 90’s. It’s not as if past events are irrelevant to the present time (in the 80’s or 90’s). But as you know there is little actual confidence in the dating of any of the writings of the NT with the exception of some of Paul’s letters. But what I am convinced of is that his beast of 666 fame was indeed Nero. Those reading the text would have understood that, just as the copying scribes did.
666 would refer to Nero, but since Nero was dead well before John got sent to Patmos their thoughts would have immediately gone to emperor Domitian since he was considered a second Nero. Everyone would have known it meant the current emperor while on the surface it seemed to point to a past one. Thus the current emperor was declared to be evil but indirectly enough that it couldn’t be proven.
Fascinatingly enough there was a belief among Christians that even led to a secret arcane teaching that Nero would return from the dead at the end of time as the antichrist because of Revelation. It would all depend on who the, “one who is” was in the list of seven kings that the beasts heads represent.
It wasn’t just among Christians. I’ve never really delved into it, though I should given that it seems strange that regular Romans would think of Nero returning – well, strange to me, anyway; it obviously wasn’t to some folks back then.
Perhaps, but your argument is based on Revelation definitely being written in the 80s/90s so you have to argue that Domitian is actually being referred to in an indirect way by using 666. Why did John just not calculate what Domitian’s name would be using gematria? Non-Hebrew readers still couldnt have worked it out. It makes more sense to me that John was really referring to the actual Nero, whose number was 666.
I can turn my own name into 666 without much trouble. Just transliterating it (including middle name) into Greek and using isopsephy gives 666.
So does Gladstone, thus the claim from some contemporary of his that he was the antichrist and performed the Jack the Ripper murders in response to an unfavorable vote in parliament.
They got the Hebrew wrong: “n” (nun) is 50, “r” (resh) is 200, “o” (waw as a vowel) is 6, and the final “n” is again 50, for 306. I don’t know where that site is getting its values since none of them correspond to the actual arithmetic values of Hebrew letters.
One aspect of prophecy is told in 1 Corinthians 14:3:
“But the one who prophesies speaks to people for edification, exhortion and consolation”
NT prophecy is mainly not telling about future events, although prophesies may include elements that reveal something about the future. I could claim that Revelation is not a prophecy, it is an apocalypsis (revelation).
Edit:
Although telling about future events is not the main point in NT prophecy, revealing future events is sometimes part of what the Holy Spirit tells or shows to the prophets, even in NT and our times. For example, Acts 11:27-28 tells how a prophet called Agapos told about a great famine that was coming and others listened and apparently acted according to it. I have heard of and experienced cases where prophecies have revealed accurate details about the future of a person, even when the person listening to the prophecy has not believed what was said. In this sense, the borderline between a prophecy and an apocalypsis is not clear.
The Greek for ‘beast’ is therion. In Hebrew letters, this also calculates to 666. It seems to me therefore an inevitable conclusion is that John is using gematria, using the Greek name, transliterating it into Hebrew, then calculating the value of the Hebrew letters. As I said this comes to 666 for Neron Caesar or 616 for Nero Caesar, the alternative spelling at the time. That to me is excellent evidence as to how we are supposed to understand to whom John was referring.
Christians in the 1st century with a Jewish background who understood both Greek and Hebrew would have got it. No doubt just using the Greek name would have opened it up to just about anyone outside the church understanding who John meant, thus exposing those who read Revelation to unnecessary persecution, as in how dare you claim one of our esteemed Emperors, who many believed was a ‘god’, was in reality a beast.
As for early church fathers, I never presume they always got it right. After all they disagreed with each other on various issues.
I agree. Essentially ‘prophecy’ is about what is God saying in any particular situation. That is what the OT prophets did, they relayed God’s thoughts and words. As God is not limited by time, sometimes those words can be about the future.
As for history lesson, according to Acts Stephen gave his hearers a whole history lesson, going back centuries!
If Revelation was written in the 80s or 90s, then Nero was around 20-25 years earlier. That’s nothing. It would be like you talking about a prominent figure in the 2000’s. But of course that’s assuming it was written then. We dont actually know for sure.
