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07-17-2012, 06:56 AM | #1 |
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Liberal commentators on the Rev. 20 millennium
By "liberals" I just mean folks outside of conservative Christianity. I'm interested in modern commentators, but also stuff from the past would be fine.
A literal earthly kingdom? Something else? |
07-17-2012, 02:35 PM | #2 | ||
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There seem to be four basic views among those who think the Bible is some sort of authority -
You can read about them at the link. I find it hard to take any seriously. If you want a real liberal, Elaine Pagels has written a book Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (or via: amazon.co.uk) which was the subject of several reviews (e.g. in the New Yorker Quote:
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07-18-2012, 10:23 AM | #3 |
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07-26-2012, 07:51 AM | #5 |
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What Pagels is saying is not that "liberal." That's pretty much the mainstream view and is essentially the same reading as the Catholic Church. I do like her analogy to political cartoons. I think that's very apt.
The millenial/rapture stuff really only arose in the 19th Century, is not really Biblically based (there is neither a "rapture" event or "antichrist" as a futuristic supervillain in the Bible). That's as a much a product of pop culture nonsense like The Late Great Planet Earth (which said the world was going to end in the 1980's), and The Omen, which is completely inaccurate in every way. Here's a few quick thumbnails for some of the common images, by the way. The "whore" is Rome ("sits on 7 mountains" = the 7 hills of Rome). The Beast is the Roman Emperor, the heads are different ones, the wounded and re-healed head is Domitian, who was viewed by many as a reincarnation of Nero during his reign. The number of the Beast is a numerical anagram for KAISAR NERON The brand on the hands and foreheads are slave brands (that's where Romans conventionally branded or tattooed their slaves to mark them as their property). This was the author's way of saying that being forced to use Roman currency, with the graven face of the Emperor, "enslaved" Christians to the Emperor. Revelation may not have originally even been Christian. A good argument can be made that it was modified from what was originally a Jewish apocalypse. |
08-12-2012, 12:46 PM | #6 | |
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However, "millennial stuff" of some kind and "antichrist" go back to early Christianity. |
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