One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Giuseppe »

I should correct the my original argument in this sense.

We have a lacuna here, in the omissis:

8 and their dead bodies ... upon the broad-place of the great city (that is called spiritually Sodom, and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified,)

But the Christian interpolator, by introducing the interpolation:

where also our Lord was crucified

...has betrayed where he had read the verbe "crucified", i.e. in reference to the two witnesses, precisely in the omissis above.

Hence the original text was the following:


8 and their dead bodies were crucified upon the broad-place of the great city (that is called spiritually Sodom, and Egypt.

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
klewis
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by klewis »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:04 am
Revelation 11 is about the Kitos revolt. The two witnesses were Julian and Pappus, who were killed in Lod. Their kyrios was Lukuas-Andreas, who was crucified, in all probability, there as well.
This is one of thousands of interpretations. It makes the assumption that chapter 11 is talking about a single event and the author is aware of the event you are talking about as well as using the phrases needed for the connection.

It is possible that the author of Revelation is lumping several events spanning decades into the imagery we know as Revelation 11. Such as the death of Jesus, his resurrection, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The journey could go even go to the Kitos revolt, but that is driven by when one thinks that the book was published.

Revelation is also a book in which there are many quick edits to change one entity to a different entity, such as Revelation 11:11 which was changed from Satan to the beast:
the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them
These edits were part of a larger parallel formation and story line building. They are common in Revelation and may or may not be connected to a historical reality there in the book of Revelation.

Evidence supporting the change in Revelation 11:7 can be detected in how John forms a parallel that describes two stories of Satan, one is where he is victorious (the left side below) and the other where he is defeated (the right column below).

The 144,000, the Great Multitude, and the Six Trumpets (7:1-9:21) Chapter 20 with Chapter 12 Inserted
The Angel Holding Back the Four Winds (7:1-8)
  • The four angels that hold back the four winds (7:1-2).
  • So that they do not hurt the earth, sea, or trees until the 144,000 is sealed (7:3-8).
The Angel with Keys to the Abyss (20:1-4)
  • An angel sealed Satan in the abyss for 1,000 years (20:1-2).
  • So he cannot deceive the world (20:3-4).
Great Multitude is in Heaven (7:14-17)
  • They came from the great tribulation (7:14-7).
The First Resurrection (20:4-6)
  • The souls of those beheaded and those who did not worship the beast lived and reigned with Jesus for 1,000 years.


First Trumpet (8:7)
Hail and fire mixed with blood was thrown down to the earth. A third of the earth and trees burnt up and all the green grass.
The Fourth Attack by Satan (12:17)
  • The dragon grew angry with the woman, and made war against her offspring who keeps God’s commandments and holds Jesus’ testimony (12:17).
Second Trumpet (8:8-9)
The Water Absorbs the Land
  • A great burning mountain was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea became blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships destroyed.
The Third Attack by Satan (Rev 12:15-16)
The Land Absorbs the Water
The serpent spewed out water from his mouth so that the woman might be carried with it but the earth opened and swallowed up the water (12:15-16).
Third Trumpet (8:10-1)
  • A great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch (8:10).
  • Turned a third of the rivers and springs bitter and many people died from the bitter waters (8:10-1).
The Second Attack by Satan (12:7-9)
  • There was a war in heaven and the one called the Great Dragon, the Old Serpent, the Devil, and Satan was kicked out of heaven with his angels to deceive the world (12:7-9).
Fourth Trumpet (8:12)
  • A third of the sun, moon, and stars were struck. They were darkened by day and night by a third.
  • From Ezek 5:2 where a third was struck with a sword.
The First Attack by Satan (12:1-6)
  • The woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and twelve stars, then came Satan who with his tail sweeps a third of the stars from the sky (12:1-6).


Fifth Trumpet (9:1-12)
  • An angel opens the keys to the abyss (9:1-2).
  • Their king is the angel from the king of the abyss (9:11).
Satan Released From His Prison (20:7)
  • He is released from the abyss (see 20:3, 7).
A Huge Army Is Assembled (9:13-9)
  • The four angels were freed to kill a third of mankind (9:15).
  • Their army was 200,000,000 (9:16).
  • The army used fire from their mouths to destroy and their tails to do damage (9:17-9).
Satan Gathers a Huge Army (20:7-10)
  • They are from the four corners of the earth (20:7).
  • Their numbers are like the sands of the sea (20:8).
  • They surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city (20:9).
  • Fire came down from heaven and destroyed them (20:9).
They Did Not Repent of Their Deeds (9:20-21)
  • The rest of humanity did not repent from their evil deeds (9:20-1).
The Great White Throne Judgment (20:11-5)
  • The dead were judged according to their works--these are the unbelievers and are thrown in the lake of fire.

The beast is not part of the parallel so we can conclude that it was changed from Satan to the beast at one point in time.
Giuseppe
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Giuseppe »

Please Klevis and Joseph D.L., the topic of this thread (= a set of posts) has to be this (as per the title), not your different matters:
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 9:41 am I should correct the my original argument in this sense.

We have a lacuna here, in the omissis:

8 and their dead bodies ... upon the broad-place of the great city (that is called spiritually Sodom, and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified,)

But the Christian interpolator, by introducing the interpolation:

where also our Lord was crucified

...has betrayed where he had read the verbe "crucified", i.e. in reference to the two witnesses, precisely in the omissis above.

Hence the original text was the following:


8 and their dead bodies were crucified upon the broad-place of the great city (that is called spiritually Sodom, and Egypt.

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Giuseppe »

Insofar one of the two witnesses is called Joshua (as Klewis seems to agree), we have another surprising "coincidence" to be added to the list of the "coincidences" listed by dr Carrier between the Christian Jesus and the Joshua of Zecharia identified with the Logos by Philo.

The crucifixion.

ADDENDA: The process by which the precursor (Joshua of Zechariah, crucified per the original Rev 11:8) will become the Messiah himself is the same process by which the spiritual Messiah replaces the earthly Messiah.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
klewis
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by klewis »

The author of Revelation depicted the destruction of Jerusalem, as depicted in Revelation, akin to the destruction of Jericho by Joshua. The seven seals, represent the seven days walking around Jericho (see See DJ7). The seven trumpets represent the seven marches around Jericho on the seventh day (see DJ8). The imagery of the destruction of Jerusalem is the same found in Joshua 6:11-27 (see DJ9).

Image

This is one aspect in which Jesus is depicted as Joshua the son of Nun. This does not exclude the author of Revelation from depicting both, or one, of the two prophets as Jesus. It merely represents one aspect of the writing process. Sometimes, two separate source persons will be assigned to the same person. For example, the commander of the Lord's army (Josh 5:13-15; see DJ6) is not Joshua, but in Revelation Jesus is depicted as both of them (Rev 5:9-14; see DJ6).
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Joseph D. L. »

klewis wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 10:00 am
Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:04 am
Revelation 11 is about the Kitos revolt. The two witnesses were Julian and Pappus, who were killed in Lod. Their kyrios was Lukuas-Andreas, who was crucified, in all probability, there as well.
This is one of thousands of interpretations. It makes the assumption that chapter 11 is talking about a single event and the author is aware of the event you are talking about as well as using the phrases needed for the connection.
My very first post was an exegesis on chapter 11: http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... tos#p77953

The chapter is not talking about Jesus Christ proper, and everything points to it being the Kito revolt. (The earthquake and the trumpets, which are the same thing, is a big give away.)

Also, I don't understand your objection. Obviously if my interpretation is correct then the author would be talking about that event, would be aware of it, and would use the proper phrases to make the allusion. Your argument is needlessly skewed and one sided.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 10:23 am Please Klevis and Joseph D.L., the topic of this thread (= a set of posts) has to be this (as per the title), not your different matters:
My post was directly about the verse that you were discussing.

"Great" and "that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt" has to be looked on as the interpolation because it doesn't add anything to the meaning of what the text is describing and sounds like later Christian hyperbole. Could it also be "where they were crucified?" possibly.
klewis
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by klewis »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:11 pm
klewis wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 10:00 am
Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:04 am
Revelation 11 is about the Kitos revolt. The two witnesses were Julian and Pappus, who were killed in Lod. Their kyrios was Lukuas-Andreas, who was crucified, in all probability, there as well.
This is one of thousands of interpretations. It makes the assumption that chapter 11 is talking about a single event and the author is aware of the event you are talking about as well as using the phrases needed for the connection.
My very first post was an exegesis on chapter 11: http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... tos#p77953

The chapter is not talking about Jesus Christ proper, and everything points to it being the Kito revolt. (The earthquake and the trumpets, which are the same thing, is a big give away.)

Also, I don't understand your objection. Obviously if my interpretation is correct then the author would be talking about that event, would be aware of it, and would use the proper phrases to make the allusion. Your argument is needlessly skewed and one sided.
I look at the construction of Revelation completely different from anyone on the planet. The process I used is to reverse engineer the book of Revelation based up the simple idea when Hebrew Poetry is formed, it is formed perfectly, and when it is malformed, something caused it to be malformed. The book of Revelation also uses the techniques of Hebrew Poetry to copy from the Hebrew Scriptures. With this process, I call Genetic Literary Reconstruction (GLR), I have produced logical drafts of the book of Revelation.

The beauty of GLR is that you get to see how the author creates its work and how it was developed draft by draft.

For example, chapter 12 of Revelation, originally came from Isaiah chapter 6 to 9. The source material is consistent to what any Christian would use at the time of the writing of Revelation and to this day as proof texts for Jesus. We also get the source of the "tenth of the city destroyed" found in Revelation 11.

Image

The author of Revelation wrapped up chapter 11 and 12 as a single entity within the 42 month, 1260 day, 3 1/2 day parallel. The origin of the parallel came from the book of Ezekiel used to depict how long the siege of Jerusalem would take.

Image

When John added Zechariah into the book of Revelation we get Joshua and Zerubabel, and Satan makes his debut into the book of Revelation.

Image
Image

When John added Joshua and Deuteronomy into the book of Revelation, chapter 11 grew as well. It is where we get the trumpets and the earthquake and the ark of the covenant.
Image

The addition of Deuteronomy-Joshua material created the imagery of Joshua marching on Jericho. Since Jericho was depicted as an evil city and the Hebrews came from Egypt. It is not much of a stretch to the author to use Egypt and Sodom in the description.

Image

There are more I can go into in this literary journey. Obviously, I did in my book. However, I think I covered enough material to show that I did study this passage. Much of the symbols that you mentioned were added from the source material provided in the order that they were added. There are places where he diverges from the source material and that divergence tells us he is adapting it for the reality of the day. For example, the calculations from Ezekiel on how long the siege would last (in Ezekiel 4) was change to last how long the war against the Jews lasted. Another example is the four chariots found in Zechariah 6:1-8 was changed to the four horsemen found in Revelation 6:1-8 -- yes they are the same chapter in verse. The reason, being is is that horsemen were used for warfare in John's time and chariots were used in Zechariah's time.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by Joseph D. L. »

What does any of this mean to me? Why should I take your interpretation into consideration? Who are you? Because you wrote a book suddenly makes you the expert on it?

I'm not interested in textual mutation in Revelation, or if the author(s) just copied whole clothe from other sources. My interest is in gauging when certain portions of the text were written, and by understanding the when I can understand the why.

Revelation 6 was written in 59 as a witness to the eclipse over Jerusalem
Revelation 11 is a witness to the Kitos uprising
Revelation 12 is a witness to the eclipse of 71, following the defeat of Jerusalem
Revelation 14 is a witness to Hadrian's vineyard recorded in the Talmud and bar Kochba's ascension to power
Revelation 15 was written ca. 175 as a witness to the Antonine plague

And so forth.

What you call Revelation is the final result of over a century's worth of skulduggery with over a dozen different texts, written for different reasons, and finally sewn together at the beginning of the third century.

Your analysis doesn't do anything but compare words and terms together. My interest is history.

And don't give yourself too much credit. There's nothing unique about your examination.
klewis
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Re: One of the two witnesses of Revelation was called Jesus/Joshua

Post by klewis »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 6:37 pm What does any of this mean to me? Why should I take your interpretation into consideration? Who are you? Because you wrote a book suddenly makes you the expert on it?

I'm not interested in textual mutation in Revelation, or if the author(s) just copied whole clothe from other sources. My interest is in gauging when certain portions of the text were written, and by understanding the when I can understand the why.

Revelation 6 was written in 59 as a witness to the eclipse over Jerusalem
Revelation 11 is a witness to the Kitos uprising
Revelation 12 is a witness to the eclipse of 71, following the defeat of Jerusalem
Revelation 14 is a witness to Hadrian's vineyard recorded in the Talmud and bar Kochba's ascension to power
Revelation 15 was written ca. 175 as a witness to the Antonine plague

And so forth.

What you call Revelation is the final result of over a century's worth of skulduggery with over a dozen different texts, written for different reasons, and finally sewn together at the beginning of the third century.

Your analysis doesn't do anything but compare words and terms together. My interest is history.

And don't give yourself too much credit. There's nothing unique about your examination.
I must disagree with your assessment. Dr. Robert Price (https://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/), the editor of Journal of Higher Criticism, decades of teaching critical studies in the New Testament, and author of many books. The man is well read and I had the honor of him reviewing my book on Amazon (amazon.com/How-John-Wrote-Book-Revelati ... 129&sr=8-1).

Kim Mark Lewis’s book How John Wrote the Book of Revelation: From Concept to Publication is itself a revelation! How nobody else ever came up with this I don’t know. It seems so obvious once he points it out! The author frames a new approach, a new methodology, enabling us to discern distinct stages of composition in the Apocalypse of John. Sure, the late, great Raymond E. Brown outlined a series of stages in the composition of John’s Gospel, but that’s not what’s new and compelling here. Essentially it’s this: All careful readers know that Revelation is not simply an eyewitness account of a series of mind-blasting visions. That is a fictive premise. That doesn’t mean it’s some kind of fraud; that’s just part of the literary genre of an apocalypse, of which there are many, both ancient (e.g., Daniel, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse of Peter) and modern (e.g., Dante’s Divine Comedy and Dickens’s A Christmas Carol). Revelation is instead a fantastically elaborate tapestry woven with threads borrowed from many biblical books, especially Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel. Yes, that quickly becomes evident to the serious reader. What Kim has done is to distinguish broken patterns in the text. That is, he zeroes in on all the allusions/quotations from any single Old Testament source text and is able to show how these verses look as if they were used by the author to create, e.g., a chiasm, a ABC-C’B’A’ pattern, an initial sequence of words and ideas counting down, then counting back up again. (This is a common stylistic device in the New Testament.) But it only works in Revelation once you isolate the relevant verses. And the fact that it does work implies it is no coincidence, and that the intervening material must have been a subsequent addition by the same author, expanding his book. He was willing to sacrifice his original structural flourishes to accommodate new Old Testament material appropriate to the context. This material, too, may have been laid out in new patterns. In a still subsequent stage of revision, the author will have again felt free to obscure his previous structures in favor of the intended content.

This would have been much easier if John of Patmos had had access to a computer! But he didn’t. He couldn’t even have flipped back and forth between Old Testament passages to compare them, since there weren’t yet bound collections of biblical books like our modern Bibles. So how on earth did he manage it? Lewis explains how ancient writers often employed reusable wax writing tablets, placing them side by side. These would have contained earlier drafts of Revelation, simplifying his redactional task.

The technique Lewis sets forth enables us not only to track the progress of the Revelator’s work; by doing so, he is also able to demonstrate the evolution of major themes in the book. We do this all the time in redaction criticism of the gospels, comparing Mark’s text with Matthew’s and Luke’s rewrites of it. In this way, e.g., we can trace the progress of Christology from one gospel to another. Lewis enables us to make such comparisons between editions of a single work by a single author. The analytical tool he has fashioned in this book may prove to be of great value in reconstructing the composition history of other biblical writings as well. I can’t wait to see the results of that!
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