How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

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klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

I would disagree, with your assessment on the parallels and the writing. Many tools are available in the modern age that auto corrects many of the grammar problems found in Revelation. We have all received emails in which have heavy edits and rushed to send having many of the problems you speak of. I would argue that the literacy rate is higher today than back then. The tools at our disposal is better today than back then, and when you have no punctuation or spacing, that adds complication. Unless you are saying that in that no College educated, English speaker has ever made those mistakes in an email or a writing. I can tell you I have made many of these kinds of mistakes and so has many.

Please note that has been edited numerous times.


Things that cannot be determined that would affect the quality of the writing:
  • How long did the entire process took John. This assumes the shorter the process the more problematic the grammar would be
  • The environment for the writing. This assumes the more interruptions the worse the writing would be.
  • The time of the writing. If John is given short periods of time, such as an hour every evening then the writing. If he had longer periods to write then it would be easier for him to keep track of all the parallels
  • We don't know how lazy John was. I theorize that he used wax tablets to do his writing. Rewriting the text would mean erasing and putting new text in the blank area. If the changes could not fit in the space than the entire wax tablet would have to be rewritten. Now he would have overage problem where there would be a tablet that is largely blank. That might have been a problem in the cost of the publishing (I am assuming that they counted wax tablets and multiplied it by the lines to produce the price). Anyway, adding text to a wax tablet is not like adding text to a word processer or even paper today.
We know that John read in Greek and the he used the LXX. We also know that on short texts such as the seven Beatitudes, they are written in proper grammar. So that at least gives us a basis to work with.


I work in the IT world and you should read some of the emails and documentation from Native English speakers.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

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klewis wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:17 amMany tools are available in the modern age that auto corrects many of the grammar problems found in Revelation.
I do not use such tools. :) They annoy me, and I turn them off first chance I get in any new program or device.

A literary work written with the care with which (at least vast portions of) the Apocalypse of John was written is not even close to the same thing as a hastily typed email. R. H. Charles wisely warns against comparing it directly even with the receipts and notes, scribbled on papyrus in the same dialect of the same language, found in the trash dumps of Egypt. To assume that a native author would take such care to get the parallels and elaborate symbolism correct, yet that somehow that care did not motivate him to write like a native, is just... wrong.
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klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:31 am
klewis wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:17 amMany tools are available in the modern age that auto corrects many of the grammar problems found in Revelation.
I do not use such tools. :) They annoy me, and I turn them off first chance I get in any new program or device.

A literary work written with the care with which (at least vast portions of) the Apocalypse of John was written is not even close to the same thing as a hastily typed email. R. H. Charles wisely warns against comparing it directly even with the receipts and notes, scribbled on papyrus in the same dialect of the same language, found in the trash dumps of Egypt. To assume that a native author would take such care to get the parallels and elaborate symbolism correct, yet that somehow that care did not motivate him to write like a native, is just... wrong.
Good point made. In fact, you have used the entirety of my book to shoot my argument down. I really want to thank you for your comments.

In the book, I was more worried about the actual mechanics involved in the writing.
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

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klewis wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:50 amThe Lamb, synonym to Jesus, which came into the book of Revelation during the Deuteronomy-Joshua draft (DJD). John used the Lamb instead of Joshua, everyplace that he incorporated the DJD and where Jesus is mentioned. As you know Joshua and Jesus are the same word in Greek and Hebrew.
However, "Lamb" is not the same word in Hebrew compared with the Greek.

" אמּר " is "Lamb" but also "The 16th Mishmarot Group" from 1 Chronicles 24 ( https://studybible.info/strongs/H563 and https://studybible.info/strongs/H564 . Note especially the lack of diacriticals, which was a later invention.). This use of "Lamb" is in Ezra and elsewhere and is given in Strong's.

When the Transvaluation has been made and the translation has been given from Hebrew to Greek, "Lamb" does become indeed a synonym for "Jesus". Before this Transvaluation, however, "Lamb" and "The 16th Mishmarot Group" are exact matches. The Story is even placed in context of the Mishmarot Groups:

Mark 1: 7 (RSV):

[7] And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

John 1: 15, 26 - 27, 29 - 30, 35 - 36 (RSV):

[15] (John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'")
,,,
[26] John answered them, "I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know,
[27] even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."
...
[29] The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
[30] This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.'
...
[35] The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;
[36] and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"

Note the Word-Play: "After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me". Bilgah is the 15th Mishmarot Group and it was deprecated in the eyes of the Priesthood. Immer follows Bilgah and is "...after me..." but Immer "...ranks before me..." since Bilgah has committed a transgression against the Mishmarot Priesthood.

John is of Bilgah, the created "Jesus" character is of Immer. In support of your position, there has to be a transition from the Hebrew Story to the Greek and some "Hebrew Thinker" plausibly could have made a rough translation and passed the results on to someone who has been commissioned to provide the Greek Structure to support the coming savior/god stories. The wretched grammar may be an artifact of this process. When did the very cynical process become "Holy Scripture"?

I cannot state with certainty that you are wrong. It was certainly a "Process". Existence, however, is not a predicate. To state that "Lamb is a synonym for Jesus" is to posit a Jesus that existed, at least in a limited grammatical/logical sense. The Book of John takes this and runs with it, turning a Story of a Passover Slaughter into the story of a savior/god who was the Passover Lamb.

Thus was Human Sacrifice reinstated, something a "Hebrew Thinker" would never allow - unless he was a "Contract Writer" or an observer of the Culture. All, of course, after the Destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and the Nation of Judea.

Best,

CW
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

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klewis wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:37 amGood point made. In fact, you have used the entirety of my book to shoot my argument down. I really want to thank you for your comments.

In the book, I was more worried about the actual mechanics involved in the writing.
This is very open-minded of you. :cheers:
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klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:39 am
klewis wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:37 amGood point made. In fact, you have used the entirety of my book to shoot my argument down. I really want to thank you for your comments.

In the book, I was more worried about the actual mechanics involved in the writing.
This is very open-minded of you. :cheers:
A good example of what you are saying can be found in the common material between Jude and 2 Peter. The common content is written in better Greek than found in 2 Peter, but consistent found in Jude. Therefore, the majority of scholars see 2 Peter copying from Jude. In that case, we know that when the author of 2 Peter wrote on his own, his lack of Greek is shown.
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rakovsky
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

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klewis wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 3:02 pm
rakovsky wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:09 am I respect the careful research that you put into this. Robert Price wrote, as quoted earlier:
All careful readers know that Revelation is not simply an eyewitness account of a series of mind-blasting visions.
How can one prove definitively that this text was solely like a Christmas Carol, a carefully thought out and composed allegory of visions, and not an expansion of ideas that came in a dream-state, hallucination or trance like Crazy Horse's Dreams on his vision quest or shamanic vision stories?
There are two assumptions that I will make. First, if John uses a process to create Revelation than he is not on drugs or having a vision. The process may be the vision but the vision is derived from the process. Second, if he in the later stages created complex parallels then they are not a product of a vision.

To understand the answer to this question you need to understand how Hebrew Poetry works, and its purpose. I have provided in my book an example of Hebrew Poetry Please note, the term Complex Parallel is what I use, the real term is Chiasmus or an Inverted Parallel (Google it if you want to learn more or see examples).
K.Lewis,
It sounds like you carefully studied this, and can see how there is Hebrew poetry, chiasms, and citations and references to Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other Christian and Jewish concepts in Revelation.

A bicyclist once wrote of how he was so severely sleep deprived and overexerted on a long biking trek through the desert in the Rockies that his mind lucidly interpreted his assistance team talking to him and their van to be aliens and a UFO. There are also a great number of people in modern times who claim seemingly with sincerity to have had vivid meetings and conversations with Jesus, angels, or other religious figures in modern times, sometimes during waking moments when the mind is not in a fully cognizant state. In the case of someone like John, who was supposedly in exile on an island in a cave, and who was also steeped in OT, NT, and Jewish religious imagery, isn't it reasonable to think that such a person could have had similar visions and then arranged and added to them in the form of Hebrew poetry?

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

rakovsky wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 6:10 am
klewis wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 3:02 pm
rakovsky wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:09 am
It sounds like you carefully studied this, and can see how there is Hebrew poetry, chiasms, and citations and references to Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other Christian and Jewish concepts in Revelation.

A bicyclist once wrote of how he was so severely sleep deprived and overexerted on a long biking trek through the desert in the Rockies that his mind lucidly interpreted his assistance team talking to him and their van to be aliens and a UFO. There are also a great number of people in modern times who claim seemingly with sincerity to have had vivid meetings and conversations with Jesus, angels, or other religious figures in modern times, sometimes during waking moments when the mind is not in a fully cognizant state. In the case of someone like John, who was supposedly in exile on an island in a cave, and who was also steeped in OT, NT, and Jewish religious imagery, isn't it reasonable to think that such a person could have had similar visions and then arranged and added to them in the form of Hebrew poetry?

Several things are in play in the development of Revelation. There is the mechanical process, in which I document extensively in my book. The other part of the equation is that the writers of these works saw reality as reflected in Hebrew Poetry. Just as Genesis begins where Exodus ends, and Genesis ends where Exodus begins so does life. The process of adding the texts into Revelation and the manner that it came into it has its own vision that is produced. Think of it as the means to usher in a Pesher interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

This way of writing brings forth its own revelation that was probably never understood until the task was completed.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

rakovsky,

Each of the drafts of Revelation told a particular story of Jesus.

The Isaiah portion of the Ezekiel-Isaiah draft was all about integrating Jesus into the book of Revelation.
The Zechariah draft, see chapter 1 in the first post, had Zechariah 12:9-10 -- whom they have pierced, as its starting point of the draft.
The Deuteronomy-Joshua Draft showed that Jesus was the new Joshua.
The Daniel Draft add many details about Jesus into Revelation.
klewis
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Re: How John Wrote the Book of Revelation Chapter 1

Post by klewis »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 10:09 am Interesting, thanks. You argue that 13:8 is based on 2:8 :
“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.

Do you think that:
"The First and the Last, who died and came to life again
" is to be meant as saying:

Jesus is the First (implicit: Man or Entity) to be killed and to be risen, so he was killed and was risen even before the Fall of Adam. In other terms, he was killed "from the foundation of the world" (just as the Book of Life was written also from that time), as it is possible to interpret 13:8 per Couchoud. Read here at least only the first post of this thread:
viewtopic.php?t=3419#p74003
Giuseppe,

Oops, I need to read my book. I found where the "First and the Last" came into Revelation.

Context of the Material:
Basically, the Deuteronomy Draft began with a warning against idol worshiping (see page 9 in https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QLNLgG ... dz-3v/view).

The Stuff You Are Interested In:
The links have images of my pages that explain how the first and the last got into Revelation. On page 157 you can see how the parallel elements got into the seven churches.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X6yHtO ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oKDSEI ... sp=sharing

The Epilogue and Prologue form a parallel with each other. In a later step, the prologue formed a parallel with the seven churches https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qknqWt ... sp=sharing.

Later Edits to illustrate the point of the post:
Ezekiel exiled (Ezek 1:1) John exiled (Rev 1:9)
On a certain day the Lord appeared to Ezekiel (Ezek 1:2-3) On the Lord's day, the Spirit came to John (Rev 1:10)
Ezekiel before the throne of God (Ezek 1:5-28) John before God -- story told backwards (Rev 4:1-11).
Ezekiel eats a scroll (Ezek 2:9 - 3:3) John at a scroll (Rev 10:2, 9-11).
Ezekiel's account of heaven where he is taken away on a high mountain (Ezek 40:2 - 40:5) John's account similar to Ezekiel (Rev 21:10-15)

Ezekiel is in Exile (Exekiel 1:1)

Let me know if you have any other questions
Last edited by klewis on Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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