Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

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Giuseppe
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Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Rev 11:
Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Come and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2 but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months. 3 And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing sackcloth.”

4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner. 6 They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.

7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb; 10 and the inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth.

11 But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and those who saw them were terrified. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them. 13 At that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

14 The second woe has passed. The third woe is coming very soon.

Thomas Witulski has argued that the two witnesses are two figures from the Bar Kokhba revolt, namely, Bar Kokhba himself and the priest Eleazar.

If these two figures were Zealots, then it becomes more easy to explain why Jesus is crucified between two Lesthai in the first gospel. The two witnesses become the two thieves crucified with Jesus.


But then the pro-Roman simpathy of the Gospels is a reaction against the anti-Roman spirit of Revelation. In this sense the first Gospel is also a theodicy for the dramatic effects of the War (paricularly: the pure HATE against the winner, Roma).

But this scenario is possible only if the Revelation and the first Gospel were written after the Bar-Kokhba revolt.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
davidbrainerd
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by davidbrainerd »

I find this suggestion intriguing. But what to make of the measuring of the temple in verses 1-3 seeing the temple was already destroyed before Bar Kochba's time? Not saying this is a deal breaker, but I'm curious what that could be about. Also, does the 42 months have any significance regarding the Bar Kochba rebellion? And the 42 months vs the 41.42461 months?
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arnoldo
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by arnoldo »

That bit could've been based on oral tradition/social memory (#literary anachronism) which was subsequently transcribed after the gospels, no?
Giuseppe
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Are you meaning that the two thieves were historical people crucified with the HJ and then remembered by the evangelists?
I don't like that hypothesis and I prefer to suppose an ironical point behind that Gospel detail.

Now, if "the great city where also the Lord was crucified" of Rev 11:8 is Rome and not Jerusalem, then "Golgotha" may mean "capitolium" ("place of the skull" Caput in Latin) i.e. one of the 7 hills in Rome. The case of a Gospel dependence on Rev would become so stronger.

Unfortunately, I don't know the Witulski's view about what would symbolize the "Great city".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Stuart »

Just a comment on 42 months versus 1260 days. These are in fact the same time frame. The writer is speaking in terms of the ideal Mesopotamian calendar of twelve 30-day months. This tells us the writing is symbolic, as we'd expect in this dreamscape like book.

An example of the use of such a calendar is found in the Qumran texts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_calendrical_texts), where to every quarter of three 30 day months a day is added at the equinox. Thus every three months is a perfect 13 weeks of 7 days. But for Revelation the imperfection of the equinoxes, as well as the 365th day, are ignored. Hence the missing 17-18 days -- depending upon a missing leap day or not.

Approximate dates for 42 months work for both the siege of Betar (Bar Kokhba) and the length of the Bella Iudaica up to the fall of Jerusalem. So I don't think that is decisive. I also don't think that if the reference is to the Jewish War that it rules out a 2nd century authorship, as with the Gospels we are dealing with genre literature where a time period is accepted. Also the events may well be a conflation of the two insurrections.

I tend to think the event depicted is the Jewish War because of the pause of a year to bury the dead. This explains verses 13:16-17, where the coin is placed over the eyes or in the hand to pay the ferryman to cross the river Styx. Verse 13:17 makes it clear the mark is a coin. So you are buried withe a mark of Caesar, his image on the coin, or with an image of Israel, which would have been from a coin of the rebels. That practice would have applied to both revolts, but the pause to bury the dead occurred only in the first War because Vespasian went to Rome to claim the throne.

Whatever it's Revelation and it's a weird book with lots of astrology in it.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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Ged
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Ged »

Stuart wrote:Just a comment on 42 months versus 1260 days. These are in fact the same time frame. The writer is speaking in terms of the ideal Mesopotamian calendar of twelve 30-day months. This tells us the writing is symbolic, as we'd expect in this dreamscape like book.

An example of the use of such a calendar is found in the Qumran texts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_calendrical_texts), where to every quarter of three 30 day months a day is added at the equinox. Thus every three months is a perfect 13 weeks of 7 days. But for Revelation the imperfection of the equinoxes, as well as the 365th day, are ignored. Hence the missing 17-18 days -- depending upon a missing leap day or not.
For your interest on the Jewish History forum. A better way of understanding the 1260 days and its original Hebrew calendar.
The science of arranging time in periods and ascertaining the dates and historical order of past events.
Stuart
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Stuart »

Ged,

My basic point is it's idealized with all months of 30 days. It's not a practical calendar and not one in use by either the Romans or the Jews at that time. But employed in Revelation. I am pretty sure the author was not introducing a new calendar to the world. And no specific date is there. Three and a half is used for both years and then days. That is the symbolism. Trying to find a calendar that matches is a red herring.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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Ged
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by Ged »

When used in prophetic scripture, the 1260 days, 42 months, and 3 1/2 years refers symbolically to the completion of a set period of time. I think the imagery is drawn from an ancient calendar formula which always completed the last half of a heptad of years with a count of 1260 or 1290 days.
The science of arranging time in periods and ascertaining the dates and historical order of past events.
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arnoldo
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Re: Was Revelation before the first Gospel?

Post by arnoldo »

Stephen Huller suggests, due to small incoherencies in the craftwork, the throne predates the validity of Book of Revelation in Christian canon, which would mean it was created during or before the fourth century when the Book of
Revelation was not widely recognised. Huller goes on to claim that the throne, in fact, is responsible for
the shape of the Book of Revelation, rather than the other way around. The imagery on the throne contains
a lot of Jewish references and Hebrew inscriptions, albeit the inscription may have been a later addition,
but the carvings are undoubtedly Egyptian in nature.
https://www.academia.edu/23039917/Lions ... Kells_2014_
Also of interest is the association of Mark with boukolos
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