Magdalene's Lost Legacy by margaret starbird

Author:margaret starbird
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF JOHN’S APOCALYPSE

Puzzling passages of the Apocalypse of John have defied interpretation for centuries. The book recounts a journey by its narrator under the guidance of a spirit or angelic companion. He is taken to the throne of God where he witnesses eschatological events that vindicate the righteous elect and punish their oppressors. In the work, Jesus, the Lamb, is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, reigning with God over the final events of the age. The throne of the Almighty ( P antokrator) is surrounded by the 144 thousands of the “elect”—the chosen servants of God—and the angelic hosts who sing praise to God and to his faithful servant, the Lamb.

The Apocalypse is a Judaic-Christian work, both poetic and prophetic; it contains mythological beasts and bizarre cataclysms—disasters orchestrated by a wrathful Deity to punish the wicked—elements the Book of Revelation holds in common with other apocalyptic writings of the era. Its powerful and disturbing images affect us, stirring deep emotions. The Apocalypse of John is a book of prophecy, and scholars agree that the book does not give accurate details of church or world history, nor does it prophesy a calendar of precise future events. With its bizarre imagery and enigmatic symbolism, it confounds simple interpretation; attempts to pin down its symbolic images to specific historical or geographical details have proved speculative and inconclusive. But thanks to modern scholarship and calculators, some of its hidden meaning has recently been unlocked using the key of gematria.

It is best to try to understand this book in the context of its own era. Comparison with other works of the period—Jewish apocalyptic texts, letters of the Christian patriarchs, and contemporary historical evidence—yields the consensus that the Apocalypse was written toward the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian ( A.D.81–96), probably in about 95. Paul’s teaching had led the first generation of Christians to believe that Christ’s return to rescue them and usher them into his kingdom was imminent. When their expectations of this par ousia were not met, they gradually revised their teachings to emphasize a beautiful and blessed life-after-life united with their Lord in God’s heavenly realm. Subsequent generations, faced with brutal persecution and even martyrdom, derived considerable strength and comfort from these doctrines. But in the first century the Christian message was not yet cast in stone, nothing was doctrinal, and tradition had not yet been established. During this period, Christian communities were expelled from the Jewish synagogues of the Diaspora and were no longer protected by the special privileges allowed to the Jewish communities since the time of Herod the Great, who had negotiated privileges allowing the Jews to practice their own religion without having to participate in the civil religion and the cult of emperor worship practiced throughout the Roman Empire. Instead of being seen as a branch or sect of Judaism, the Christian believers were ultimately alienated from their Jewish roots during the decades at the end of the century and forced to set out on their own to form independent communities.

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