Clivedurdle

Does Revelation speak of an hj?

When it talks of Jesus coming does it actually talk of Jesus coming again?

What is the timeline of theology about the second coming? Why did xianity get into end of the world stuff? Is it an import from elsewhere?

the_cave

I guess it depends on your interpretation of 12:5. Chapter 12 seems to be describing a heavenly vision--the woman gives birth to her son, in the heavens--the son is then taken up to God (in a higher heaven, presumably). So, technically there is no first coming in Revelation. And if Revelation was in fact first written around 70CE, then it also predates the gospels.

However...the heavenly visions are all metaphors for earthly events. The dragon is Rome, the woman presumably a representation of either Israel or of some smaller sect within Judaism...her flight to the wilderness might be the flight to Pella of the early Jerusalem community within Christianity...etc. So the question is: what is the earthly parallel of her son?

IMO, this suggests that the gospels were an attempt to answer that question. But what do I know.

Cesc

Isn't it from Zoroastrianism originally? Where the prince of light would triumph over the prince of darkness and the good souls would be saved and the bad would be punished for 3 days and then saved, or something to that effect. But that in the period that followed the Babylonian exile, this end of the world concept (eschatology) became more and more a subject of religious speculation, culminating around the time of the turn of the era with the rise of the Roman empire and its occupation of Palestine.

Roland

That's how I've always seen it as well..Judaism, then Christianity, heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism's apopcalyptic tendencies.

Cesc

Among the dss we find the typical Zoroastrian duality, "the children of light" vs. "the children of darkness" and their eschatological end-times war. Also in the NT are the Christians referred to as the "children of light" (or sons of light, cant remember). As far as Ive understood, there hardly was a religious group or sect in Palestine around the turn of the era that wasnt totally convinced that the world was soon coming to an end. I speculate that the discovery of the precession of equinoxes could also play a big role in that, since it was just about that time the sun had moved from Aries into Pisces, the fishes, and they were certainly aware it would now rise in Pisces the next perhaps 1000 years.

Infact, isn't eschatology itself the basis of Christianity? That the so-called "good news" to be spread, the Gospel, is that God had provided a means for salvation for when the world was going to an end soon?

Minimalist

Cesc, here is a page from Mary Boyce's book Zoroastrianism (or via: amazon.co.uk) that I scanned for use on another board. The phrase preceding the word "fundamental" is
"gradually many of Zoroaster's. . . " I wasn't going to scan a whole other page for that, though.

Cesc

Minimalist, thx, that was precisely what I had in mind. The whole end-times savior thing sounds abit familiar...
The concept of Satan probably also evolved out of the "evil adversary" from Zoroastrianism, I've read. And numerous other things we know from the Bible.

Clivedurdle

http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/rjohn.html

The classic xian view of history is smelling extremely fishy.

Minimalist

By the way, Cesc, it's a pretty good book and I highly recommend it. One thing though is that Zoroaster is dated to c 1500 bc and the idea of judgment after death appears in the Egyptian pyramid texts from a 1,000 years earlier. Of course, we are absolutely certain that there was trade between Egypt and Central Asia during the Old Kingdom because of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan being found in Egyptian tombs. It would be easy to argue that religious syncretism was alive and well in the Middle Bronze Age.

Cesc

Very interesting. I think the "missing link" between Revelations and classical Jewish thought is the whole school of pre-Christian Jewish gnosticism from which I believe Christianity came from.

The whole of Christianity is very fishy

Ive been meaning to read about Zoroastrianism for a long time. This seems to be a good book and I might read it so thx for the reference. Personally, I have no problem believing the Egyptian empires had at times trading contacts with Central Asia.

The whole Christian idea of "baptising for the dead" shows a clear parallel with Zoroastrianism, imo.
Btw, doesnt Paul say they should baptise for the dead so they will be resurrected and also be saved come judgement day, along with "us who are still alive"? Clearly implying that judgement day is imminent (like Jesus implies also if I remember correctly), but thats its no problem because God has formed and executed a plan with his Son taking on all the sins for everyone. If you take out the judgement day element of Christianity what have you then got left? And since the world never did come to an end that was one spectacular divine failure of a plan, n'est-ce pas? Nobody was saved and the world continued to be exactly as depraved and immoral as ever.