the whore city was Jerusalem of 70 AD
ook closely at what happened before the "the end is not yet"
- Matthew:
- Many will come in my name and will seduce many
- you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars
- Luke
- for many will come in my name, saying, I am he; and the time is at hand: go ye not therefore after them
- And when you shall hear of wars and seditions, be not terrified
And what comes AFTER that?
- Mark
- nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
- there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places:
- Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake
- And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another.
- And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many
- When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.
- Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains
- For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be
And Luke pretty much the same.
But what are the signs?
- False messiahs
- The fact is that up to the Jewish-Roman war in 67-70 AD there were several supposed messiahs in Judea who collected armies to fight the Romans. Josephus mentions them
"Imposters and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness, and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs that should be performed by the providence of God. And manyt hat were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly - Josephus, Jewish antiquities XX, 8:6
St. Jerome also wrote about them in the 4th century: At the time of the Jewish captivitiy, there were many leaders who declared themselves to be Christs, So that while the Romans were actually besieging them, there were three factions within -- this is a reference to the armies of Simon and John who fought each other as well as fought the Sanhedrin's followers INSIDE Jerusalem (yes, the Jews had a civil war right in the middle of their war with the Romans!)
- Wars
- In 60 AD you have Boudicca's uprising in Britain that destroyed legions then
- Civil war in Rome - the beast (upon which the whore that is the harlot city of Jerusalem rides and the beast (legions) later consume her (Jerusalem)) with Nero's suicide, then Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian -- the beast was presumed dead, but came back to life and everyone marvelled at it
- Josephus rights that Already the civil warS were coming upon them, nay, that the very government was in danger
- Famines and Earthquakes
St. Paul wrote about the famine that plagued the Jews in Jerusalem - 2 Cor 8 For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: - and Eusebius wrote about it as under Claudius the world was visited with a famine, which writers that are entire strangers to our religion have recorded in their histories
- But there were EARTHQUAKES as well - the city of Colossae was totally destroyed in the 50s AD -- yes, the letter to the Colossians
Then Pompeii was hit with n earthquake in 63 AD
- Persecution
- The persecution started early with the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees persecuting the Jesus-movement-Jews in the synagogues (Matt 10:17-21 is a prediction)
- Mark 13:9 and Luke 21:12 point out that the Jesus followers were brought before secular authorities
- So the Jesus-movement-followers, the Christians were persecuted BOTH by the all-powerful government AND by the all-powerful religious authorities (Sanhedrin) AND ALSO by the Pharisees. This was the great tribulation - from 64 AD to 67 AD
- Apostasy - we find this in the letters to the 7 churches by John and the letter to the HEbrews. yet Matt 24:13 He who endures tot eh end will be saved
- And This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come Matt 24:14 --> tie this to Romans 1:8 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. --> Paul KNEW that the gospel was spoken through what he thought of as 'the whole world' --> this is true also in the writings of Clement of Rome who wrote in 70 AD that Peter and Paul had been martyred but not before they taught righteousness to the whole world and came to the extreme limit of the west and Justin Marty in the 2nd century
From jerusalem they went out into the world,... by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God
Eusebius "the teaching of the new covenant was borne to all nations and at once the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed it and the temple.
The olivet discourse uses the Greek word oikoumene which means "the civilized word namely the Roman Empire. The Olivet discourse does not use kosmos which means the entire earth. Kosmos is used in Matt 24:21 "from the beginning of the world until now" -- since kosmos and oikumene are both used, it is clear that "to the whole CIVILIZED world the Gospel was preached"
- the desolating sacrilege as Daniel spoke about
- Key phrase "let the reader understand" - this was in Matthew and Mark - both addressed to people from a Jewish background. This would be obvious to a Jesus-movement Jew of the first century that this is a reference to Daniel 8 to 12.
- Luke is more specific as he write When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near Luke 21:20
The Christians listened to Christ and fled to the mountains --> remember there was only a short window when there was a time for the Christians in Jerusalem to escape and Jesus wrote about that "Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house..."Remember that Jesus told them something counter-intuitive - people fled to a fortified city like Jerusalem for protection, but the Christians fled OUT of Jerusalem -- what idiots the locals must have thought.
Eusebius recorded that the Christians fled in 68 AD because of the prophecy of Jesus
The whole body, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, entrusted to men fo approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella
“the whore city was Jerusalem of 70 AD”
With all of your writing you never offered any proof of you fallacy, every Scripture you offered is just so generalized that it means nothing in relation to the city of seven hills or Revelation 17:9
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Historically since a millennium before Christ Rome was known as the city of seven hills. Man has called Rome the eternal city again since at least a thousand years before Christ. Revelation 17:9 clearly states the description and there is absolutely no history that Jerusalem was called that now and especially in 1st century Judea. Even the false church of Rome admits to the fact that the city is Rome.
The Catholic Encyclopedia states: “It is within the city of Rome, called the city of seven hills, that the entire area of Vatican State proper is now confined” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Nelson, 1976, s.v. “Rome”)