Garrison Gibson: books and blog

Gary Clifford Gibson

Dec 5, 2014

A Commentary on Gentry’s ‘The Beast of the Revelation’ etc.

1. Now we know only in part

Gentry believes that the events of Revelation largely describe events during Nero’s reign leading to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Much of the prophecy concerns payback/correction to those that pierced the Lord-generally the Jewish people of that generation and especially perhaps their theocratic leaders(Rev. 1:7). More of the prophecy concerns the fate of Christians and Christian Jews experiencing persecution followed by a vision ahead to the return of Christ (perhaps in the clouds as the Holy Spirit) to build up his church of believers. That period could continue for some time-even more than a figurative 1000 years until the final or 2^nd coming of Christ.

Eusebius (260-340 A.D.) wrote quote-“But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war,to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Peres called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.”-end quote

2. New Testament authors of the gospels, and book of Acts are well aware of there political surroundings. The political environment of the times occasionally are referenced. One might expect that John’s book of Revelation would also be cognizant of the times. Certainly Kenneth Gentry believes so, yet innumerable pre-millenialists don’t.

It would be fairly remarkable if an Apostle of the Lord in exile perhaps voluntarily from the pressures of Jerusalem-an Israeli ex-pat living in Ephesus or environs was unaware or unconcerned enough about the times politically speaking that in his writing he entirely disregarded them and addressed concerns solely concerning people thousands of years ahead. It would be equally remarkable if the Apostle writing to the seven churches provided little content besides some admonishments concerning the present state of affairs of the churches and the Roman world of the day. Instead one might expect the Apostle to write with a purpose to the churches of the turmoil and tribulation of the times of Nero in which Christians were being persecuted and martyred and follow with prophesy of the near future with a general vision of resolution of things beyond.

Modern Americans think little of nor know little about the first century a.d. Roman world. Yes there are technical history experts and some television shows on the history channel for people to watch and even a film now and then like ‘Gladiator’ with a window into the elite Roman world. Even church goers and some church pastors know little enough about the ancient Roman world. It is thus reasonable that they skip over the interpretation of the book of Revelation as it would have been interpreted in the first century context as the church goers of the time would have to instead read it as if it were written in 1966 to Americans regarding the future. Perhaps it was Hegel who wrote that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Regarding the Revelation it seems that pre-tribulationist church goers are concerned about reenacting that first century apocalyptic events the Apostle John was writing about then, now.

Just tuning into my short wave radio at random the other night I heard a pre-trib talking about how near the Third World War is and that the U.S.A. is probably Babylon the Great. In the Apocalypse redux category it could as well be England, yet never mind-finding the light at the end of the thousand years that Gentry explains is just an approximate time literal meaning something like ‘a very long time’-finding the light at the end of that time tunnel to be the Lord returning at wrapping up the non-conformists to salvation through the Lord easier than one can swat a bull fly. Pre-tribs tend to misinterpret and view world political events from the point of view of passengers aboard the Titanic with a vision of its immanent doom. They are not working to set a good course through the vicissitudes of life in other words and instead with a belief in the pre-determined doom of the world and departure of themselves from the decks with rapture stare mesmerized with a thousand mile look into the night.

3. Prologue

If Gentry’s thesis that John wrote the Revelation largely to first century events and that Emperor Nero was the particular beast and Rome the general beast it doesn’t necessarily mean that Christians cannot learn spiritually from that contextual lesson of oppressive political leaders and all-powerful governments or organizations with the equivalence of government power such as global corporations in some instances. In providing early examples of the trials and tribulations of liberating the spiritually and politically oppressed seekers after God from Satanic tyranny and bondage unto Spiritual ignorance John the Apostle sounded an harmonic continuity of present and future acts from the Gospel of Jesus Christ

1. Part One

1. Accurate Interpretation of the Revelation

It is amazing to consider that so many have misinterpreted the book of Revelation (of John the Disciple of Christ). Tim LeHaye, Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach, Muhammad of Mecca and innumerable lunatics tattooed with the mark of the beast (666) as well as innumerable congregations full of saved evangelicals evidently got it wrong. The analysis and interpretation of literature-historical; prophetic literature, was probably not their strong suit. The first resurrection was that of being spiritually born again in the faith; most of the prophecies in the Revelation were fulfilled during the violent, troubling times experienced by first century Christians going through tribulation and persecution of the Roman Emperor Nero.

The Bible is a beautiful book in the sense of a beautiful mathematics or physics theory that has a wonderful structure. With the Revelation of John correctly interpreted the New Testament gospel of the Lord becomes more beautiful to in its marvelous fulfillment of prophecy and reshaping foundation for the course of mankind. With the spirit of the Acts of the Apostles John’s Revelation provides and overview and binding foundation for understanding the continuing work of the Lord and Holy Spirit in human history beyond the sufferings, persecutions, tribulation and destruction of the temple in the first century. An age of the gentiles that would be fulfilled with the evangelization of the peoples of the world. The good news of the Lord could be carried to the people of the future-even unto the farthest reaches of humanity down the road and even into space I would think. Humanity and Christians in particular are not to cower under toadstools waiting for the sky to fall and rapture to remove them from impending Armageddon and the draconian power of the beast (that in a sense inevitably coheres residually within any human collective or government I suppose original sin being what it is).

Life in the temporal realm isn’t eternal. There are fundamentally three ways of interpreting the Disciple John’s book of the Revelation regarding when the Lord Jesus Christ will return to conclude human affairs and to judge the living quick and the dead that are popular today. This field of Christian theology is incidentally named eschatology.

Pre-mill,post-mill or amill; regardless of your stand I believe a Christian is saved if the Lord is their personal Savior. One should always be ready for the return of the Lord in the Second Coming.

Catholics are I believe generally amillenialists. They regard people that die as going to heaven directly (or hell or purgatory perhaps). Not being Roman Catholic I stipulate that I am not very well informed on the issue. Evangelicals Protestants tend to be pre-millennialsts believing that the Revelation is a prophecy of events to come preponderantly. Post-millennialism is another point of view with the view that the Revelation largely described near term events that occurred in the first century A.D.

It does seem reasonable that John foresaw the future of the Jewish and Roman world and how it would effect Christians within the decade he was living in rather than just events about 2000 years distant. Nero began his persecutions of Christians in 64 a.d. and Christians (saints) went through a tribulation. Gentry goes over the evidence for a first century interpretative paradigm for the Revelation in detail.

If post-millennialism is correct it doesn’t mean Christianity is obsolete-instead it confirms it’s truth and prophetic accuracy. We are living in the age of the Gentiles. Instead of expect a sudden anti-Christ and Armageddon Christianity should grow and increase human peace, prosperity and knowledge of the Lord (perhaps with a priesthood of believers replacing the hierarchical priesthood). The second coming and final judgment could take an indefinite time even occurring after human settlement of Mars and distant galaxies, its hard to say for sure.

Kenneth Gentry’s book ‘The Beast of Revelation‘ identifies the Roman Emperor Nero as the particular beast referred to in John’s book of the Revelation. Besides Nero as the particular person of the beast the Roman Empire is said to be the general actualization of the beast. I think that Gentry’s analysis is quite convincing.

This is an informal commentary interacting with the ideas of Gentry’s book written for my course on eschatology. The commentary is supposed to run to thirty pages and that seems quite a lot to write for a a non-expert in the field. Rather than providing a back-seat driving analysis of Gentry’s ideas I’ll try to adumbrate points of view that are relevant to the issue of Biblical eschatology and end times inspired by Gentry’s analysis of the Revelation.

The Revelation may be viewed as a history book as well as a book of prophecy. That fact has implications for how one interprets its content. History books generally are written after the fact while prophecies are written before. If one is a secularist it might be a priori challenging to accept a date for the composition of the revelation before the events described within it as prophecy. Instead of an early date at or before the first year of Nero’s reign e.g. 63 a.d. the option of accepting the credibility of the later date of 95 a.d. might be preferred with a certain neo-realistic bias.

It is difficult to say what reason John could have had for composing the events of the book of Revelation after the events described within it, although one might offer the point of view such as pre-millenialists have that the events described do not pertain to the first century events at all, or perhaps have a dual-purpose meaning of events then and in the future.

Some have pointed out that the churches and Christians of the time might have found John’s prophecy somewhat superfluous if they did not relate to the pressing issues of the time such as the Neronic persecutions and martyrdoms of Christians by Nero or immanent dangers to Jerusalem by the Roman Army. John might have found events of the first century a kind of coincidental template for describing future events-yet if so he would have needed to view the near-term events prophetically as well as the distant future events in order to note their similarities and congruences of format. Yet it might have been the angels that provided the right coincidental data in order to make John’s Revelation insights of prophecy useful to Christians then and now. Historians with an entirely secular viewpoint would dismiss that possibility as irrelevant. I would imagine that it is easier for Christian theologians to accept a Revelation prophetic paradigm that was immediately relevant to first century Christians rather than a later date that requires a more convoluted explanation. If John’s Revelation was written before the events that were rather near-term with such accuracy it would be difficult not to accept the fact that it was genuine prophecy rather than coincidence or dead-reckoning political analysis of the highest quality and accuracy.

Political predictions of future events of from one to 17 years distant generally involving the highest levels of an imperial government and the existence of the Jewish nation were just not easy in the first century. Few think tanks had such access to the highest levels of the Roman Government, or would have if such had existed. There were additional accurate predictions regarding the success and growth rate of the Christian faith would have been unlikely in the first century. The Delphic Oracle did not provide such accuracy.

I have looked ahead to Gentry’s other book ‘He Shall Have Dominion’ and learned a More of Gentry’s agenda. The present work seems to be the opening Movement of a grand post-Millennial symphony of eschatology. After checking out that post-Millennial symphony I must say that I like its sound. The interpretation has the beauty of the General Theory of Relativity or Wegener’s Theory of Plate Tectonics and continental drift to explain why the shoreline littorals of West Africa and Eastern South America seem to match up with a yin-yang aspect.

Natural philosophies such as continental drift, Buddhism,Taoism and evolution are in some respects compatible with Christianity yet are fundamentally irrelevant. Christianity is More like supernatural philosophy revealed by God. I ought to note that the 6^th heresy of Buddhism is belief in God. I believe that is an historical anachronism originating in an era when all of the nations of the world besides Israel were pagan. The Buddha hadn’t a supernatural revelation and instead adumbrated a Natural philosophy somewhat like the Universe is a holograph produced by higher dimensions and hence illusory. Keeping his focus on the natural belief in God was proscribed. A Modern scientific Buddhist Might be able to acknowledge that if a superior civilization of the future or from higher dimensions could create particle entanglement or an Event horizon with an apparent Universe sheltering sentient beings in it, why not God?

Alternatively the evidence Gentry presents though convincing reminds me of the televised O.J. Simpson trial were using basically the same evidence two different camps presented two different versions of what occurred. That is a routine occurrence in criminal and civil trials in a democratic society with an adversarial legal system. A juror would need to examine each point of view and decide for themselves what if anything is true.

In the case of cosmology theories there are numerous conflicting as well as complementary points of view about given physical phenomena used as evidence to support a given trendy hypothesis. These days theories of everything that were popular in the 70s and 80s seem to have fallen out of fashion as the frontiers of cosmology through astrophysics and theory roll back the frontiers of the observable and the possible. In some respects like Socrates who decided that he knew that he knew nothing-a kind of precursor antipode of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum-cosmological theorists realize that they likely will never have absolute certainty about physical reality that may be embedded in higher dimensions and just one of an infinite number of Universes or how it could be sustained by superior civilizations or God. A certain measure of faith is required to select a given theory as the best of all available models knowing that it is incomplete and something of a process philosophy or process cosmology of a temporary nature likely to be surpassed. Christians too must select the better interpretation of the Revelation available knowing that it may be only partly accurate hopefully to a large extent.

The Apostle John was a prisoner for a time on an island near Ephesus. It is believed that he wrote the Revelation while at that island. At least he received the Revelation while at the isle of Patmos although perhaps he had scribes write it down after release or possible before release via intermediaries. That is rather difficult to say at this point in time. Julius Caesar had a lieutenant write the second half of his book on the Roman Civil war and the Spanish war yet the exact details of the composition for even such a famous figure are rather or entirely vague today and so it may be for John and his school of followers at Ephesus.

When John wrote the Revelation is a subject of more contention among scholars. There are early and late dates two of which seem possible. There are other dates speculating that John did not actually write the book at all but followers did later in the second century that I will dismiss. Irenaeus and others commented on the Revelation as early as the early second century at that supports the idea of an earlier writing construction. Of course there are more scholarly points available to support the first century construction of the Revelation. I will not cite those points in this paper presently. Berkhof’s ‘Introduction to the New Testament’ has a chapter on John that points out elements of the time and place of composition fir example.

Personally I prefer the early construction date that Gentry advocates too rather than the later circa 95 a.d. composition paradigm. I would think that Peter and John would have been young men-perhaps 20 or so when Jesus introduced himself around 30 a.d. for the momentous three year mission, and John in the year 60 a.d. would have been 50 years old-quite a ripe time for writing a creative, challenging, prophetic book like the revelation. Thirty-five years later in 95 a.d. John would have been 85 more or less and found the production of such a work more challenging I would think. His intellectual energy might not have been as great as at age 50 either.

A baptist minister once told me that John’s Revelation was like a newspaper in its day. Gentry believes the messages are coded necessarily because of the element of actual persecution by the Imperial Roman authorities. Like today in the U.S.A. there can be immediate repercussions for calling a state governor or the President the anti-Christ in print-though for Jews and other first-century Christians the act of seeming to rebel against Nero brought more severe retribution.

The Apostle John must have known the ecclesiastical state of affairs of the church in relation to the Roman imperial opinion rather well. The Apostle Paul had been imprisoned and released before a second arrest and Peter had moved to Rome and experienced the problems encountered by Christians from Jewish and Roman persecution first-hand. John moved to Ephesus from Judea at some point before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. and may have encountered immediate difficulties from Jewish and pagan authorities. Nero and preceding Roman emperors of the Julian line were worshiped as god’s by state decree. The Lord Jesus Christ’s appearance as the actual Son of God contravened that silly, superfluous and vain direction emulated today a little by the very rich and broadcast media and select performance artists that would like to erase the presence of the real God from the minds of humanity with atheist propaganda and elevate themselves to a position of practical socially empowered deification. The Roman state and Jews seeking to suppress Christian church increase may have sought to imprison or execute John immediately upon his arrival in Ephesus.

Thus it is reasonable to suppose that John reaching Ephesus and starting the process of edification of his fellow Christians and recoding his ideas with scribal help along with missiological activity perhaps with additional letters to churches and meetings with Christians may have simultaneously experienced an increasing effort to repress his ministry of the word of God and the evangelization of Eurasia with the good new of Jesus Christ. Eventually that surge to repress the word of God provided through the ministry of the Apostle John enhanced with the three and a half year Neronic perseucti9o of Christians in the 7^th decade of the first century would have developed to such a point as to send the Apostle into prison exile at Patmos.

Gentry’s thesis on the Revelation is basically partial preterism. Many of the events written of in the Revelation have already occurred. I am taking much time reading Gentry’s book because it cold in an unheated Alaskan hut and there aren’t power lines or a road in to town with a difficult trail through forest and slippery logging slash and a four mile walk on a non-maintained sometimes snow-covered access road to a town and a library where I can recharge batteries for reading and writing (the alpha smart works well to conserve battery power for writing in sub-freezing temperatures).

I believe that John may have left Judea as early as the 50s and become well established in Ephesus before the 60s. One might wonder when or why Peter left Jerusalem where he led the church. He journeyed to Rome eventually. The Lord’s brother James was thrown from the Temple Mount and martyred. Though not fleeing martyrdom at some point peter may have found Rome a better place to organize and increase the development of the mission of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like John Peter may have sensed the coming destruction of Jerusalem by Roman authority. Caiaphas the head of the Jewish religious authority that sought the execution of Jesus mentioned the sacrifice of the Lord as being better than sacrificing the entire nation to the imperial authority. A rival king-even with a kingdom not of this world was too much of a vulnerability as a potential avenue Rome might rubblize Jerusalem for the religious high command to tolerate.

Gentry considers in some detail the issue of the role and presence of Christians that were Jews attending synagogue in Jerusalem in order to date the composition of the Revelation that has a certain Hebraic tone to it that seemed to disappear after the destruction of Jerusalem. It is important to Gentry’s position that the Revelation was written prior to the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70. It is notable that many today still wonder about the role of Jews in the present and future or who the real Jews are. The Revelation and the epistles of Paul each address that point at least in a context that is appropriate for the more specific character of a post-mill paradigm for the writing of the Revelation.

Jesus of course said that he would have gathered the Jews and tended them as well as a mother hen tends her chicks yet realized that they were not to be saved by the Lord and would instead be destroyed eventually by the Roman authority. Well, it would have been nice to take the Jewish Mosaic established temple priesthood into the era of the New Covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord was spiritually willing than none be lost yet it was not meant to be.

God doesn’t like divorce and wouldn’t do that Himself. I prefer the better presentation that God has evolved the relationship to include Jews and Christians of faith as the bride of Christ. The Jews were the necessary ground for growth or emergence of the Christian church in a secondary kind of way after Christ of course. They would not just be jettisoned as soon as they gave birth to Christianity like a spent baby mama so the new chick could hop in the sack.

Paul (Romans 2:17-29) and John (i.e. Revelation 7:4-8) speak of Christians as the spiritually true Jews. Instead of a purely material, racial Jewish identity were Christians. The Lord once replied to a statement that his mother and brothers were waiting outside to him asked ‘who are my mother and brothers’ rhetorically. He explained that those who new him as savior and followed him are his mother and brothers.

Jesus wanted to save Jerusalem yet as they were a religious-led national Israel failing to adapt to the presence of the Lord and straying too far from the heart of God with formalism and legalism the correction given was to evolve beyond legalism to personalism and personal relationship to God as The Son of Man whom everyone could know personally. That wasn’t a divorce; it was a consummation spiritually speaking of the relationship between mankind and God. It was always probably necessary for God to include all of humanity in the realm of His personal acquaintance through the Lord Jesus Christ-not simply via the introductory period of Jews in a nation following His laws amidst a planet full of pagan lunatics and killers in hot pursuit of capital.

As one of the reasons given in support of a first century context for interpreting the Revelation Gentry gives the information that the futurist, dispensationalist way of interpreting the Revelation creates a persistent Christian despair about the present accompanied by a rationalization that this world is doomed and given over to the deus a machina of wickedness under the dark powers of Evil and that Christians can look forward to the rapture taking them out of the society of despond.. Of course one does not require a Christian eschatology that interprets the Revelation within a dispensationalist, futurist paradigm in order to have a pessimistic outlook on world events and life in general. In fact atheists continuously cite the evil and wickedness in the world as reasons against the existence of God. For many atheists any possible Universe created by God must be as Sugar Mountain with barkers and colored balloons but no sort of accidens (not to misuse that Aristotelian term but the error works rather well in this context).

R.A. Torrey was a dispensationalist and well-meaning Christian writer. Gentry is another and thus it seems evident that it is possible to have different ideas about what the book of Revelation means and when it was written. I believe that the fact that there are consequences to taking one of the two positions mentioned here are significant though.

Gentry thinks that Christians with a gloomy dispensationalist viewpoint awaiting a skyhook from Jesus to extract them out of the turmoils and persecutions of the world become socially indolent or disengaged from social constructive actions to a certain extent. That is they fail to live up to their potential and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy making improvements to the world. One wonders what the position of the Puritans was on dispensationalism and futurism versus convenantalism and preterism?

Apparently the realistic immanentalism of John’s prophecies written to the churches of the day (the seven churches and other Christians in the Revelation was lost to those living past the time of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem and slaughter by a Roman legion of as many as half a million Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem circa 70 a.d.. That is by the second century the real context for interpretation of the Revelation was lost preponderantly. Maybe Martin Luther’s observation that the Revelation ‘had a lot of straw’ (as in too much for making good bricks) was a sort of accurate insight in regard to making the Revelation a futurist book out of a prophecy largely intended, or immediately purposed to warn and correct, exhort, comfort and explain to very challenging Christians soon to undergo extreme persecutions what their status was and what the outcome would be. Even so the Revelation does not implicitly exclude within Gentry’s paradigm a dual-purpose futurist paradigm of inaugurated eschatology. There is difficulty in making certain uncertain terms with uncertain contexts of initial use.

Mohammedan eschatology seems founded in a futurist sort of misunderstanding of the Revelation. Mohammad’s father had been keeper of the Spirit House-Kaaba-at Mecca with its vast assembly representing pagan religions. When he was made an orphan and cast out of the good graces of the pagan shrine in time he developed a revolutionary syncretistic monotheism to take back his heritage and of course make the Kaaba a shrine for one God with Mohammad as his exclusive prophet. Mohammad must have surveyed the available religious material as best as he could from Jewish and Christian sources and with the help of his older wife hashed out a revolutionary personal monotheism different enough that it could not be construed as representing the oppressive Byzantine Orthodox variety of Christianity that had dominated much of the ancient world in the day as a theocratic device. For Mohammad the Revelation was futurist and the Jews were Christ killers as they were to many of those of the dark and middle ages in Europe. Thus in Mohammedan eschatology Jesus will return to wreak vengeance upon the Jews and Muslims will help in a Holy Jihad against Jews comprising Armageddon. It is interesting how wrong interpretation of literature can have lasting consequences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiyamah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Times#Sunni_Islam

Jesus didn’t hold a grudge against the Jews not only because he was himself Jewish-although Bobby Fischer seemed to hate the Jews though his mother was evidently a full bloodied tribal Jew. Jesus advocated forgiveness-even seven times seventy times forgiveness and is an improbable choice to portray as returning to wreak vengeance on the Jews. At the last judgment in fact all that one needs to do to be saved is to have had faith in Jesus as Lord and to accept his grace and atonement for one’s sin. Then a kind of default choice lets a de facto self-judgment by the lost correct the lost with eternal punishment. Since Jesus is the only way-the soul bridge to God and eternal life with the Lord, any other course leaves one in the wilderness of perdition and doom in any possible Universe-a tough choice to make.

Gentry’s book seems to focus very much on the identity of the beast and providing support for a first century interpretation of the Revelation. That’s fine yet it is a little limiting on vision for what the Revelation is an means to post-temple era Christians.

Some Christians have a natural antipathy toward a partial preterist interpretation of the Revelation inasmuch as accepting its veracity would tend to indicate that even though the prophecy was 100% accurate more or less, its fulfillment means that a greater error occurred in Christian teleology/prophecy such that though everything else happened Jesus Christ didn’t return and thus the prophecy of the Lord were falsified. Such a logically unnecessary proposition depends on interpreting John’s writing in such a way that the meaning of the return and ‘coming in the clouds’ have particular meaning-values too. On the latter point Gentry provides evidence for supporting a meaning of ‘coming in the clouds’ within a Biblical context as meaning a time of social uncertainty when God intervenes to change things. I think it likely that the use of modern definitions for ancient ideas have sometimes made inaccuracy in understanding by Biblical interpreters occur. Gentry points out there are five meanings of the Greek word he or ‘ge’ used in the Revelation 80 times and two used prevalently means ‘land’ interchangeably with ‘Earth’. That has implications for the interpretation of certain cosmological inferences and construction of interpretive paradigms for cosmology by modern expositors.

Even so it is incumbent upon interpreters of the Revelation to sort through and determine what elements of the book might have futurist relevance post-Temple destruction and to the present and/or future.

Seemingly the seven hills of Rome representing the generic rather than particularization of the beast could represent worldly government in general in a sort of City of God versus City of Man context. Humanity seems to pursue a developed social abstraction of a generalized human being as a kind of social goal. In the U.S.A. under the corrupting sway of an anti-democracy elitist broadcast media owned by a corporate plutocratic invisible empire the pragmatic ideal of a brainwashed mass-man without anti-corporatist or individual private interests seems to be the actualization in reduced form of the political goal of Thomas Hobbes philosophical treatise on the ideal (British) government of the absolute dictator personifying the will of the people. I suppose the idea of Nero and Rome as the beast of Revelation might be the first formal expression of that ideal evil empire in writing, although some might regard Plato’s Republic and its triumvirate of philosopher-kings as a fascist precursor of the Great Satan mirroring the condition of the abstract will of the people that the people are in return conditioned to be (at the will of the dictator. The late dictator Saddam Hussein was a more recent example of the form as are/is the string of post-second world war North Korean Communist dictators).

Karl Barth in his ‘History of Christian Thought’ noted what the philosopher Ortega y Gasset later described as ‘the revolt of the masses’ against elite rule in Europe. Barth was applying the concept to an earlier period of transition leading to the French Revolution wherein the ordinary became rulers inverting the concept of elite rule. Karl Marx of course envisioned the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact in modern America within the paradigm of atheist led scientism with anti-Christian values and even creeping purges of Christianity from the U.S.A. along with national economic sovereignty the modern media is a mooning colony conditioner of mass social identity toward the revolutionary transition of Hobbes’ all in one absolute dictator to one Satanic presence in all subjects rather than citizens). It is believed I would think that off-market economic interests have antipathetic potential toward the collective financial networks of globalism in which all must play or be marginalized. The house always wins in Las Vegas and the same situation prevails with preferred networks of concentrated wealth and power.

If John’s Revelation was fulfilled entirely in it’s day of the first century with the Neronic persecutions and the following destruction of the Temple it is important not to dismiss the book capriciously from future meaning or lasting examples of human conduct and ways of being that can be learned and avoided or corrected.

Just as one ought to learn the ethics of the Lord it is worth drawing additional inferences from the life and times of the Lord and Apostles about things not to do such as stoning adulterers or crucifying persons critical of government incompetence and the corruption of politicians and other officials of interest.

It could be that I should have taken an aphoristic structural approach in this paper being rather inexpert on the primary subject.

It is interesting that Jesus called himself the son of man with metaphysical accuracy more or less while Octavian as Emperor called himself the son of god(page 169 Gentry thou huios). History recognizes Jesus as The Son of God and Augustus as a dead human. Jesus was able to use the humility that one without need of enhancing his status can.

The date of composition of the Revelation seems more easily supported with evidence reinforcing an early date. From a general point of view though regarding the general characteristics of writers the exile to Patmos where John worked in mines would have seemed to encourage the emergence of memories and speculations about what would happen to estranged Christians on the mainland within a year or two of the start of the exile.

A writer and active Christian educator and organizer suddenly removed from his friends and fellow Christians and given over unto the extreme poverty of penal servitude at hard labor would after living through the immediate shock, stress and adjustment to the new environment gradually begin to think about and imagine consciously and subconsciously scenarios extrapolating what might occur to the people of the mainland world-especially Christians. The Revelation could be the result of the concentration and emergence from Johns subconscious of what he knew and foresaw of the events ahead. In this regard the Revelation has a better contemporary history logical induction and reason for being even if the teleos of the establishment of the church and exile of John to Patmos were pre-destined. Predeterminism is a relation existing for people and other contingent beings with sentient reflections if the latter exist. For God there is only freedom and never the experience of subjective predetermism except of course that Jesus experienced it and commented on that with recalcitrance about the destiny of Calvary-

Mark”32 And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.

33 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;

34 And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

35 And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

36 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

2. Part Two

Gentry considers two main points thematically; who is or was the beast (therion in Greek) and when was the Revelation written. Following is the T.O.C. of Gentry’s book. I intend to comment upon some of the ideas a little. I am rather limited in electrical access and that changes the manner of presentation necessarily. The hut where I stay is about 5 miles from town and electricity to recharge computer batteries. The way walking over hills, logging slash,ice and snow can be seasonally tough though I hope to try using cross country skis. I shall proceed as allowed by energy conservation and the grace of God.

Gentry’s order of content…

“-WHO IS THE BEAST?

A-l. The Identity of the Beast

B-2. The Relevance of the Beast

C-3. The Number of the Beast

D-4. The Character of the Beast

E-5. The War of the Beast . .

F-6. The Worship of the Beast

G-7. The Revival of the Beast

-WHEN WAS REVELATION WRITTEN?

H-8. The Importance of the Date of Revelation

I- 9. The Thematic Evidence

J-10. The Political Evidence

K-11. The Architectural Evidence

L-12. The Ecclesiastical Evidence

M-13. The Historical Evidence (1)

N-14. The Historical Evidence (2)

O-15. Objections to the Early Date”

The beginning of the Revelation definitely seems consistent with Gentry’s thesis. John says that he is also experiencing the tribulation and his letters are plainly addressed to existing churches. Yet when one gets to chapter six the eschatology seems structured for an actual cosmological end-time or at least that of some sort of impact of a comet snowball upon the earth. John then returns to what could be taken as being consistent with a first century time line.

I suppose the content of chapter six could appear with an out of time continuity insight into the distant future. If someone is receiving a prophetic vision it might like a dream have some unusual or paranormal space-time characteristics such that visions might be juxtaposed or appear in parallel time-lines some of which could run ahead of the other before returning to move back into a single narrative. Dreams ironically embody elementary examples of special relativity. Einstein incidentally got some insight into special relativity concerning time, location and motion in a dream about cows in a Swiss alp pasture.

I am not saying that John’s prophetic vision occurred while he was asleep-he said I believe that it occurred on the Lord’s day while he was in the spirit. I simply thought to note that an actual divine-inspired vision could have several purposes not all of which were understood by the Apostle then.

Chapter 6 Verse:

“12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”

Gentry wrote this about the 6^th seal on page 146; “According to A. R. Fausset, Arethas, who wrote a commentary on Revelation in the sixth century, “applies the sixth seal to the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.), adding that the Apocalypse
was written before that event.””

One can readily understand that the language could apply to the destruction of Jerusalem with perhaps more than a half million dead. It could equally well if taken out of context in Chapter 6 be interpreted in ore of a cosmological sense. Maybe the revelation has dual time lines and representational meaning-values not. I think that quite a few modern readers would take a future cosmological meaning instead of first century meaning.

Consider then these verses of Chapter 7…

”1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.

6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.

7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.

8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

L-2Gentry regards the twelve tribes as being Christians and very likely Jewish Christians who exit Jerusalem before the immanent destruction. Gentry observed that in the beginning of the church the majority of Christians were Jewish converts. This point is entirely plausible especially with the New Covenant of the Lord changing the identity of Jews as bride of Christ in the right relationship to God from that a racial, legalistic context to that of a spiritual foundation. Instead of Jews being divorced by God from a right relationship as Gentry says in his conclusion and Christians taking their place, God has upgraded the meaning of Jewishness to a spiritual paradigm such that the true Jews are those saved by the Lord. Many Jews recognized that-perhaps not innumerable though-just from the twelve old tribes transformed spiritually into the new.

H-1 The controversy between a late data and an early date for the writing of the Revelation presents a few issues that I can think of concerning the intention of the author. If John had written before Nero’s reign and persecutions the Revelation is a book of prophecy if it concerns the next few years leading to the destruction of the Temple. It may be the case that John wrote before the persecutions of Nero yet intended to entirely disregard that and write of events a couple of thousand years down the road primarily-however that seems unlikely.

Even more unlikely is the idea that John wrote before the reign of Nero intending to prophesy of events or prophesying events 2000 years of more ahead generally and while ignoring the short-term events made the prophecy appear as if it concerned near-term events. That kind of double-coding of a prophetic message would be within God’s capacity yet would be a rather uncharacteristic approach Biblically speaking. Jeremiah for instance made prophetic communiques with actual not too distant fulfillment with a high percentage of double encoding with a distant future application too.

If John wrote the Revelation in his 80’s or 90’s about future events perhaps 2000 years or more distant then he would have been aware of history and would have had no reason at all to write the prophesy such that it seemed to refer to events perhaps 30 years past too. Why would John pick a name that in Hebrew numbering was 666 (Nero) from the past if the prophecy was about the future? Why would John write ‘let him with wisdom understand; as if it was a wink, wink meaning that this prophecy of the future is reappraise of the past and is of largely silliness…John was far too serious of a Christian to try to make himself look like a fraud of some sort. The Apostle was put in a barrel of boiling oil to no harm and later perhaps after being released from Patmos decapitated like Paul. John was not a cleverly encoding the past into a future prophetic message kind of kidder.

M-13 Historical Evidence

Gentry considered the historical evidence in support of an early date-before 70 a.d. in the first of two chapters with evidence for a a later date of the composition of the Revelation (e.g. 95 a.d.) in the second. Of course there exist internal and external evidence and it is largely external evidence-dating the revelation in relation to other writers that knew about it closer to the first century that is considered in this chapter of Gentry’s book.

Sources with positive references (direct or indirect) to the early date…

Shepard of Hermas

Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius,

Jerome

Tertullian

Codex Sinaiticus

Muratorian Canon (A.D. 170-200)

A.D. 90 Clement was appointed Bishop of Rome-Shepard was sent to hiM before then when he was a kind of church secretary for mail forwarding to others

Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (A.D. 60-130)

Epiphanies Bishop of Salamis (A.D. 315-403)

Arethas

Theophylact(d.1107)

The Syriac work entitled History of John, Son of Zebedee

–quote Gentry-“Zebedee makes reference to John’s banishment under Nero: “After these things, when the Gospel was increasing by the hands of the Apostles, Nero, the unclean and impure and wicked king, heard all that had happened at Ephesus. And he sent [and] took all that the procurator had, and imprisoned him; and laid hold of S. John and drove him into exile; and passed sentence on the city that he should be laid waste.”25”25. William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Amsterdam Philo, [1871] 1968)

2:55-57”

A-1 The Identity of the Beast

Gentry structures this chapter to examine criteria that would identify the beast wearing the 666 evil union label. John believes that since John wrote that the beast would soon appear (the time is at hand) it would need to be someone then living in the 6^th decade of the first century a.d. ( “the time is at hand” (Rev. 1:1, 3, 19; 22:6ff).

Gentry describes the characteristics or attributes of the man-beast and the attributes coincide quite well with what history provides about Nero-the last of the line of emperors beginning with the remarkable career of Julius Caesar followed by the equally remarkable and aptly named Augustus (Octavian). Nero was as required “Evil, idolotrous and blasphemous”. Gentry find John noting those qualifications to be the Beast in the Revelation Chapter 13 especially verses 4 through 7..

Nero also had great political authority as required (Rev 13:2,7).. Emperor Nero had the power of an absolute dictator or king those his reign was rather short-lived, the people hated him except for precariously positioned sycophants and flatterers I would guess and even so he was chased by a mob eventually down the Appian Way to Three taverns were he had a servant stab him to death in the neck to avoid worse from the mob. Gentry points out that the suicide fulfills the ‘he shall die by the sword’.

Nero died on June 8 in the year 68, ending a period of persecution of Christians and terror for many Romans that started 13 October in the year 54 after the death of Emperor Claudius. Nero, Gentry reports, even plotted the murder of his mother. Nero’s tutors. Nero poisoned his brother Britannicus to eliminate a rival and compelled Seneca-a tutor and famous Roman legislator and philosopher to commit suicide. Nero excelled at base and depraved practices though he was a fair operatic style singer and officiated some wrestling matches.

The historian Suetonius in his biographical sketches of the lives of the emperors of Rome describes the depraved character and activities of Nero rather well. His writing is as good as that of Procopius and his Secret History (of the reign of Justinian and Theodora of the Byzantine Empire centuries later).. Famously Nero dressed up bound Christians in animal skins and with claws and skin himself attacked their private parts as if he were a beast. Since Nero is identified as a beast by Gentry that is rather helpful.

Gentry also points out the dual nature of the identity of the beast however. That is Nero is the particular expression of the beast while Rome itself-the city situated on seven hills-is a general expression of the beast. In a sense a particular expression of worldly political power in a completely corrupt character like Nero must occur within a network of political power that can support the particular beast. The Leviathan as Thomas Hobbes put it may produce a particular king of absolute power able to be the expressive essence of the state and people. Nero just went way to far.

Suetonius wrote that Nero ”castrated the boy Sporus and actually tried to make a woman of him,and he married him with all the usual ceremonies . . . and treated him as his wife.”

Today with the pervasive godless atheistic traits of the evolutionary biology inspired upper classes of the plutonomy seeking to concentrate power for-themselves in the possession of the vast majority of the world’s wealth there is a kind of mindless blob political evolution with certain characteristics that could be personified in the famous Blob of the late 1950s scieince fiction movie classic. The Blob has no morality and its wealth is concentrated in organelles. The brains of the blob are the billionaires or trillionaires seeking to absorb all life into itself in crass Blobbery. Well, enough of that comparison of the power of Nero as decadent and corrupt Roman Emperor briefly to The Leviathan of Hobbes and the present incarnation as The Blob-I think that worldly expression of corrupt power perhaps forever will precipitate into social reality now and then no with the ability to assume absolute power in a lasting way until shortly before the second coming of Christ.

It seems plain that john was writing to Actual living Christians of His day. Of course he was also aware of his role as an Apostle and consequently, posterity.

Gentry writes in chapter 6; ““And they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “W%o is like the beast,and who is able to wage war with him?” (Rev. 13:4).”

If Nero is indeed the personal incarnation of the Beast of

Revelation, as I have been demonstrating, then it must be that he

was worshiped. This is necessary in that a number of references

in Revelation speak of the worship of the Beast. These are found

in scattered places: Revelation 13:4, 8, 12, 15; 14:9, 11; 16:2; 19:20;20:4.”-Gentry end quote

The particular and universal expressions of the beast and of the Roman authority were terrible indeed. For Christians a time of great tribulation arose as they were martyred and even made to burn light candles at night on stipes or some sort of stick (covered with oil probably).

The dual nature of the beast of Revelation also present an illustration of the classical logical relation formalized first I think by Aristotle of the logical classes of the particular and the Universal. The beast has particular and Universal forms as might mankind and a particular man. Jesus Christ of course transcend even that example insomuch-as he was an expression not only of mankind as a universal and a particular man, but also of the Universal God as a particular and a particular who was a man-and necessarily a particular one. Interestingly though, as Jesus expressed in his prayer to the father at the last supper, individual Christian would transcend the particular expression in-themselves as men and become part of the absolute Universal as particular (God) through the Son. It is all rather interesting logically to consider.

“John himself tells us that he wrote Revelation to seven historical

churches in Asia Minor (Rev. 1:4, 11). These churches existed in

an age of great trouble (Rev. 1:9; 2:10; 3:10). Moreover, John exhorted these churches to read, hear, and heed the book (Rev.

1:3; 2:7; 2:11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 22:7)”-Gentry

“And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and

blasphemes; and authority to act for forty-two months was given to

him. . . . And it was given to him to make war with the saints and

to overcome than; and authority over every~ tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him” (Rev. 13:5, 7).

Tribes sometimes refer to the twelve tribes of Israel in John. Nero of course ruled over Judah too. This is a good description in brief of Nero’s period of persecution of Christians.

Jesus on the End Times-Gentry wants to show that much of the Revelation occurred in the first century and that there isn’t a ‘discontinuity’ in history until the end time. Taking as an example the statements of the Lord in the select verses of Matthew following, Gentry indicates that the Lord taught a parable and then followed up with an explanation of the parable when the Apostles failed to comprehend it. The parable in a sense applies to human history after the tribulation until the second coming some time yet in the human future…

Matthew13:14-30”24Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Matthew 13:36-43”36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.

37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;

38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.

40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;

42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

C-3 The Number of the Beast = Nero in Hebrew (Talmud) of the Day beast.

“Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number

of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty six (Rev. 13:18).”

Gentry makes a careful investigation of the number of the beast in its alphabetic equivalent. He writes that ‘in ancient times’ before development of Arabic numerals letters also served as numerals i.e. Roman numerals. Hebrew letters did as well.

Nrwn Qsr was a Hebrew name for Nero meaning Nero Caesar. John used a cryptogram to partly conceal the name for security purposes. Gentry uses a lexicon of the Talmud by Jastrow to arrive at 666.16…

image credit Gentry TBOTR

Gentry points out that the Latin equivalent of the Greek form of Neron Caesar from Hebrew has the numerical value of 616 and that in some early manuscripts of the Revelation in Latin that is the number used to identify the beast-616.

Gentry also considers arguments against the use of a Hebrew cryptographic meaning or riddle for the name of the beast as Nero.

Select End Times Comments From the Gospels

All the things that Jesus mentioned apparently were fulfilled before that generation passed away-for John at least was still living. Some of course want to interpret ‘this generation’ to mean ‘age of the gentiles’ more or less yet of course it fits better with the destruction of the Temple by the Gentile Romans and the age of the gentiles being fulfilled perhaps as Western Civilization and even world civilization as Toynbee regarded it in its modern form.

Gentry also commented on the meaning of ‘coming on the clouds’ in the Bible. I think modern readers tend to interpret that as ‘riding atop a cloud’ rather than as the power of God emerging from cloud or mist changing the time of turmoil or tribulation into something new and better. Jesus said that when he returned to not chase about after rumors of his appearance for it would be as a lightening bolt across the sky-hard to miss. Maybe that refers to the second coming after the age of the Gentiles

The former interpretation befits the growth of the Christian Church emerging from chaos and tribulation and even destruction of the Temple. The Holy Spirit is the glory too I think and the Holy Spirit did lead that age of church growth.

I should also mention that Nero evidently planned to have his own statue placed within the Temple before his death.

-from the King James version…

“Matthew 24:15-22 : “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand).

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

Mark 13:14-20: “But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.

Luke 21:20-33 “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.

And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.””

Conclusion–

Miracles and Cosmology

With quantum mechanics and uncertainty technically anything is possible including those configurations of quanta that seem miraculous. I think the word ‘miracle’ as a middle term or indirect referent object applicable in theory to a structured genre of event-processes is somewhat confusing and perhaps a source of doubt. Reason either inductive, deductive or a posteriori probably is skeptical about anomalous events, and miracles may not be all of one sort of causal structure anyway-God of course hasn’t a context whereby He is subjective being or causality. One can understand how faithless people have existential doubts yet Christians too are not certain about a schedule of uncertainty either…simply believers in God’s preeminence over the entangled field quanta that appear to be mass-Universe.

One might want a consistent Universe. Too many supernatural events to experience would make a strange place of the Universe. Covenants and consistency reinforce the principles of reasoning and development of experience. However not all is pre-determined and machine like. John could experience a Revelatory prophecy while humans could ponder its meaning. I will conclude with something about miracles. With God’s power to predetermine everything yet allowing people to experience free will as in-the-garden one wonders about the physics and metaphysics of matter and energy in what is conventional called the Universe.

Miracles in some respects seem to be synonymous with the nature of God in respect of freedom to control and manipulate anything as quanta in any kind of configuration. What the Universe is is also something to consider in relation to its capacity to be a stage of quanta to appear in a form that seems to be matter.

The physical cosmologist and mathematician of note Stephen Hawking developed the idea of Hawking radiation as a way for matter trapped within an event horizon of a black hole to escape that gravitational well through quantum uncertainty. At the edge of the event horizon entangled particle pairs would sometimes quantum tunnel or jump just outside the event horizon from within at thus eventually escape. Hawking optimistically thought that over time the matter within a black hole would leak out. If that were possible then quanta would need to have no mass at that level I would think in order not to be re-attracted by the extreme power of gravity.

The nature of mass is difficult to understand for non-physicists including myself. Mass is convertible to energy consistent with the 2^nd law of thermodynamics so E=MC2.. Quanta entangled aren’t subject to the normal laws of the observable Universe and can travel faster than light. Perhaps quanta escaping from a black hole may go so far away that they have no possibility of returning inside.. One wonders why gravity would hold certain quanta such as light inside to start with, yet the physics of mass going inside a black hole are largely unknown,

Quarks-a basic component of matter, are held together with other quarks by a strong force. Quarks in turn may be made up of strings, loops or some other smaller element-perhaps a denouement of energy in as few as one dimensional membranes. Quantum cosmology is a large field for research today with telescope and string theorists searching for gravitons, strings, and what might have happened before time-equal zero at the start of the expansion of the Universe as it is considered to have done today.

Hawking’s radiation indicated that some quanta aren’t subject to gravity or basically any other physical law of the Universe of mass and energy. The black hole is often compared to the singularity at the beginning of the Universe-one scenario from which it grew like a mustard seed into a vast tree where life could exist in a fraction of a second expanding trillions of miles. The Universe today as measured seems to have originated 13.3 billion years ago. I think that not very long ago at all when not judged from a human point of view and experience of time as evolving physical movement within the parameters of the 2^nd law of thermodynamics..

In a real sense there is no Universe. Instead there is a contiguous clump of mass as ‘frozen energy’ that is evolving along the lines of the 2^nd law. That phenomenal clump contains all living things, mass and energy and is evidently made up of quanta entangled in larger clumps. Quanta however have uncertainty about position or momentum inherently. Overall though the physical expansion of the clump of matter seems deterministic and that is a paradox.

How can a cloud of uncertainty in nothingness that is in-itself a sort of energy field emit virtual particles that become entangled with other virtual particles to form larger and larger clumps that can then collapse under gravity to a point or singularity and then explode outward with a singularity field anisotropy or imbalance into an inflating Universe-like clump of matter?

Time and distance in the primordial virtual field-Universe would not exist since time is a function of matter and energy in evolution or process. Either the virtual particles would all burp out at once from the void producing a near-instant singularity or the entire virtual Universe void would have been a singularity without void and that is a paradox. In the beginning there was s singularity that became an expanding Universe 13 billion some years ago and before that the void and nothing existed—not even a singularity until it was burped from a void all-at-once.

It is remarkable that the nature of quantization of energy yet allow all of the composite forces of larger levels of assembly of particles to be transcended by quantum uncertainty. The Cloud of Unknowing seems to be an essential attribute of the existence of anything (except for the One of Plotinus or the triune form of the One God of us Christians). If the basic construction of matter allows transcendence of aggregate physical laws it would be wrong to postulate that God couldn’t perform miracles or transcend the nature of his physical creation for-Himself. In fact there seems to be some sort of very attractive direction of contemplation that the void in which virtual energy appears because of uncertainty is itself transcend by a spiritual principle allowing the formation of mass in accordance with the will of God at any point.

The Universe is such an unusual place that an infinite number of ‘Universes’ could exist within it and not occupy more space in the void than on the head of a pin. Instead of asking how many angels fit on the head of a pin, or on a pinhead one might ask how many universe would fit.

Hawking’s contemplation of quantum escapement from the event horizon of a black hole reminds me of a frozen-in-the ice Viking ship up north with a crew betting on what day the freeze would occur. Someone would want to be ‘when the ice melts’. Being free from the ice or from the bonds of matter may allow freedom of motion and spirit that sometimes is curtailed in-the-world. God though is able to transcend any level of the quanta presented through his spirit and of course the relative space-time loci within any continua of matter or energy.

I think this is a reason why the kingdom of God concept is so valuable. It is a trans-temporal realm for-itself coincident for Christians with their existence in-the-world. Even though a second resurrection will occur for Christians already born again in-the-spirit space-time phenomena and time values of-a-world are subjectively experienced as a kind of dual contingent being. Christians have God as their primary and transcending time-value, and God is eternal though matter is fleeting.