First, thanks for responding with your input. You may be correct. I’m not claiming to be a Biblical scholar, just a Christian seeking to understand the Bible and my role as a Christian today. That includes end times prophesies.
My two comments are:
1) Revelation is a complicated book, filled with images and symbology. I don’t claim to have it completely understood, but I’m working at learning.
2) I used to think of the “Whore of Babylon” more along the lines of Rome/the Catholic Church/or the apostate Christian Church. This article along with some others have opened my eyes to a different angle. All in all, it’s very interesting.
Maybe it is *complicated* because church hierchies do not want you to think you have an understanding beyond what they say. Common sense and logic will take you a long way. Sometimes, it means exactly what it says. If you question, it is considered blasphemy.
It is a debate I have often had with my own Rabbis because I KNOW that the Hebrew Mystics in ancient times wanted to hold to their power and set themselves up as the keepers of G-d’s *secrets.* It is a device of man, not G-d.
G-d gave us the power of understanding. Use it or lose it.
"The seven mountains of Revelation are taken to be the seven hills of Rome. This is wrong on two counts. Mountains are identified with heads, so must be nations (not hills), and Rome has 8 hills if you count the Vatican! "
I think Shoebat is half right here.
What Revelation is talking about is the Empire--specifically the Empire under Nero. The 7 hills metaphor would have been instantly picked up on by the ancients. So I think it certainly does have some application to the Roman Empire.
BUT he's certainly right about the Vatican, as it has never been considered one of the 7 hills. So lumping the Roman Church in with the Roman Empire in this verse is problematic to say the least. That notion probably got grafted on to this verse for polemical reasons at the time of the Reformation.
Also, I think his comments about the X Fretensis are a bit strained. The Thracians were European, and I'm guessing the Legion would have been looked at as a projection of Roman power rather than of any ethnic groups who might have made it up.
But on the whole, definitely food for thought.
Interesting but have you read any of Joel Rosenberg’s books? He is a messianic jew and writes fiction but includes his own take on Biblical prophesy.
As I understand his interpretation, the fanatical muslims [and all who oppose Israel] will be supernaturally wiped-out w/ the apocalypse [apocalypse is not armageddon] when Israel no longer has any allies in the world and all the nations surrounding Israel and Russia conspire to wipe Israel off the map.
After all of these fulfilled apocalyptic prophecies then it paves the way for a one world religion, monetary system, and language. I do think the one world religion will appear to be a type of christianity except it will accept the Anti-christ as messiah.