Book of Revelation HIDEN TRUTH - JACOB GEORGE (best books to read for success txt) 📗

into the wilderness for one thousand two hundred and sixty days (3 1/2 years). (12:5–6).

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War breaks out in heaven between Michael and the Dragon, identified as the Devil, Satan.(12:9) After a great fight, the Dragon and his angels are cast out of heaven for good, followed by praises of victory for God's kingdom. (12:7–12). The Dragon engages to persecute the Woman, but she is given aid to evade him. Her evasiveness enrages the Dragon, prompting him to wage war against the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (12:13–17)

A seven-headed leopard-like beast emerges from the sea, having one mortally wounded head that is then healed. By the Dragon, he is granted power and authority for forty-two months. (13:1–5)

The Beast of the sea blasphemes God's name, wages war against the Saints, and overcomes them. (13:6–10)

Another beast appears, but from the earth, having two horns like a lamb and speaking like a dragon. He directs people to make an image of the beast, breathing life into it, and forcing all people to bear "the mark of the Beast," "666" or in one source "616." Events leading into the Third Woe:

The Lamb stands on Mount Zion with the 144,000 "first fruits" who are redeemed from earth. (14:1–5)

The proclamations of three angels. (14:6–13)

One like the Son of Man reaps the earth. (14:14–16)

A second angel reaps "the vine of the earth" and throws it into "the great winepress of the wrath of God... and blood came out of the winepress... up to one thousand six hundred furlongs." (14:17–20)

The temple of the tabernacle, in heaven, is opened(15:1–5), beginning the "Seven Bowls" revelation.

Seven angels are given a golden bowl, from the Four Living Creatures that contains the wrath of God. (15:6–8)

 

Seven bowls are poured onto Earth:

 

First Bowl: A "foul and loathsome sore" afflicts the followers of the beast. (16:1–2)

Second Bowl: The sea turns to blood and everything within it dies. (16:3)

Third Bowl: All fresh water turns to blood. (16:4–7)

Fourth Bowl: The sun scorches the Earth with intense heat. (16:8–9)

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Fifth Bowl: There is total darkness and great pain in the Beast's kingdom. (16:10–11)

Sixth Bowl: Preparations are made for the final battle at Armageddon between the forces of good and evil. (16:12–16)

Seventh Bowl: A great earthquake: "every island fled away and the mountains were not found." (16:17–21)

 

Aftermath of Babylon the Great

 

The great harlot who sits on many waters: Babylon the Great. (17:1–18)

Babylon is destroyed. (18:1–8)

The people of the earth mourn Babylon's destruction. (18:9–19)

The permanence of Babylon's destruction. (18:20–24)

 

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

 

A great multitude praises God. (19:1–6)

The marriage supper of the Lamb. (19:7–10)

 

The Judgment of the Beast, Devil and Dead (19:11–20:15)

 

The beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. (19:11–21)

Satan is imprisoned in the bottomless pit for a thousand years. (20:1–3)

The resurrected martyrs live and reign with Christ for a thousand years. (20:4–6)

After the Thousand Years

Satan is released and makes war against the people of God, but is defeated. (20:7–9)

Satan is cast into the lake of burning sulfur. (20:10)

The Last Judgment: the wicked, along with death and Hades, are cast into the lake of fire. (20:11–15)

 

The New Heaven and Earth, and New Jerusalem

 

A new heaven and new earth replace the old. There is no more suffering or death. (21:1–8)

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God comes to dwell with humanity in the New Jerusalem. (21:2–8)

Description of the New Jerusalem. (21:9–27)

The river and tree of life appear for the healing of the nations. The curse is ended. (22:1–5)

 

Conclusion

 

Christ's reassurance that his coming is imminent. Final admonitions. (22:6–21)

 

Interpretations

 

Revelation has a wide variety of interpretations, ranging from the simple message that we should have faith that God will prevail (symbolic interpretation), to complex end time scenarios (futurist interpretation), to the views of critics who deny any spiritual value to Revelation at all.

 

Religious interpretations

 

Most of the interpretations fall into one or more of the following categories:

 

Historicist, which sees in Revelation a broad view of history;

Preterist, in which Revelation mostly refers to the events of the apostolic era (1st century), or—at the latest—the fall of the Roman Empire;

Futurist, which believes that Revelation describes future events (modern believers in this interpretation are often called "millennialists"); and

Idealist, or Symbolic, which holds that Revelation does not refer to actual people or events, but is an allegory of the spiritual path and the ongoing struggle between good and evil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Eastern Orthodox interpretation

Orthodox icon of the Apocalypse of St. John (16th century)

 

Eastern Orthodoxy treats the text as simultaneously describing contemporaneous events (events occurring at the same time) and as prophecy of events to come, for which the contemporaneous events were a form of foreshadow. It rejects attempts to determine, before the fact, if the events of Revelation are occurring by mapping them onto present-day events, taking to heart the Scriptural warning against those who proclaim "He is here!" prematurely. Instead, the book is seen as a warning to be spiritually and morally ready for the end times, whenever they may come ("as a thief in the night"), but they will come at the time of God's choosing, not something that can be precipitated nor trivially deduced by mortals. This view is also held by many Catholics, although there is a diversity of opinion about the nature of the Apocalypse within Catholicism.

 

Book of Revelation is the only book of the New Testament that is not read during services by the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Coptic Orthodox Church (which is not in communion with the Eastern Orthodox church but is liturgically similar), the whole Book of Revelation is read during Apocalypse Night or Bright Saturday (6 days after Pascha).

 

Paschal liturgical interpretation

 

This interpretation, which has found expression among both Catholic and Protestant theologians, considers the liturgical worship, particularly the Easter rites, of early Christianity as background and context for understanding the Book of Revelation's structure and significance.

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This perspective is explained in The Paschal Liturgy and the Apocalypse (new edition, 2004) by Massey H. Shepherd, an Episcopal scholar, and in Scott Hahn's The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth (1999), in which he states that Revelation in form is structured after creation, fall, judgment and redemption. Those who hold this view say that the Temple's destruction (70 AD) had a profound effect on the Jewish people, not only in Jerusalem but among the Greek-speaking Jews of the Mediterranean. They believe The Book of Revelation provides insight into the early Eucharist, saying that it is the new Temple worship in the New Heaven and Earth. The idea of the Eucharist as a foretaste of the heavenly banquet is also explored by British Methodist Geoffrey Wainwright in his book Eucharist and Eschatology (Oxford University Press, 1980). According to Pope Benedict XVI some of the images of Revelation should be understood in the context of the dramatic suffering and persecution of the churches of Asia in the 1st century.

 

Accordingly, the Book of Revelation should not be read as an enigmatic warning, but as an encouraging vision of Christ's definitive victory over evil.

 

Seventh-day Adventist interpretation

 

Main article: Historicism (Christianity) Seventh-day Adventists

Adventists maintain a historicist interpretation of the Bible's predictions of the apocalypse.

 

Bahai Faith interpretation

 

'Abdu'l-Baha has given some interpretations about the 11th and 12th chapters of Revelation. The 1260 days spoken of in different forms refers to the 1260 years of Islam that lasted until the beginning of the Revelation of the Bab in 1260 AH or 1844 AD. The "two witnesses" spoken of are Muhammad and 'Ali. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads." The seven heads and seven crowns are the seven countries and dominions that the Umayyads had control over, while the ten horns were the ten names of the Umayyad leaders. A more detailed explanation can be found in the references.

 

 

 

 

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Radical discipleship interpretation

 

The radical discipleship interpretation asserts that the Book of Revelation is best understood as a handbook for radical discipleship; i. e., how to remain faithful to the spirit and teachings of Jesus and avoid simply assimilating to surrounding society. In this interpretation, the primary agenda of the book is to expose as impostors the worldly powers that seek to oppose the ways of God and God's Kingdom. The chief temptation for Christians in the 1st century, and today, is to fail to hold fast to the non-violent teachings and example of Jesus and instead be lured into unquestioning adoption and assimilation of worldly, national or cultural values – imperialism, nationalism, and civil religion being the most dangerous and insidious. This perspective (closely related to liberation theology) draws on the approach of Bible scholars such as Ched Myers, William Stringfellow, Richard Horsley, Daniel Berrigan, Wes Howard-Brook, and Joerg Rieger. Various Christian anarchists, such as Jacques Ellul, have identified the State and political power as the Beast.

 

Aesthetic and literary interpretations

 

Many literary writers and theorists have contributed to a wide range of theories about the origins and purpose of the Book of Revelation. Some of these writers have no connection with established Christian faiths but, nevertheless, found in Revelation a source of inspiration. Revelation has been approached from Hindu philosophy and Jewish Midrash. Others have pointed to aspects of composition which have been ignored such as the similarities of prophetic inspiration to modern poetic inspiration, or the parallels with Greek drama. In recent years, theories have arisen which concentrate upon how readers and texts interact to create meaning and which are less interested in what the original author intended.

 

Charles Cutler Torrey taught Semitic languages at Yale. His lasting contribution has been to show how much more meaningful prophets, such as the scribe of Revelation, are when treated as poets first and foremost. He thought this was a point often lost sight of because most English bibles render everything in prose. Poetry was also the reason John never directly quoted the older prophets. Had he done so, he would have had to use their (Hebrew) poetry whereas he wanted to write his own. Torrey insisted Revelation had originally been written in Aramaic. This was why the surviving Greek translation was written in such a strange idiom. It was a literal translation that had to comply with the warning at Revelation 22:18 that the text must not be corrupted in any way.

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According to Torrey, the story is that "The Fourth Gospel was brought to Ephesus by a Christian fugitive from Palestine soon after the middle of the first century. It was written in Aramaic." Later, the Ephesians claimed this fugitive had actually been the beloved disciple himself. Subsequently, this John was banished by Nero and died on Patmos after writing Revelation. Torrey argued that until 80 AD, when Christians were expelled from the synagogues, the Christian message was always first heard in the synagogue and, for cultural reasons, the evangelist would have spoken in Aramaic, else "he would have had no hearing." Torrey showed how the three major songs in Revelation (the new song, the song of Moses and the Lamb and the chorus at 19: 6–8) each fall naturally into four regular metrical lines plus a coda. Other dramatic moments in Revelation, such as 6: 16 where the terrified people cry out to be hidden, behave in a similar way.

 

Academic interpretations

 

Modern biblical scholarship attempts to understand Revelation in its 1st century historical context within the genre of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. This approach considers the text as an address to seven historical communities in Asia Minor. Under this interpretation, assertions that "the time is near" are to be taken literally by those communities. Consequently, the work is viewed as a warning to not conform to contemporary Greco-Roman society which John "unveils" as beastly, demonic, and subject to divine judgment. There is further information on these topics in the entries on higher criticism and apocalyptic literature.

Although the acceptance of Revelation into the canon has from the beginning been controversial, it has been essentially similar to the career of other texts. The eventual exclusion of other contemporary apocalyptic literature from