History Of The Apocalypse
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Apocalyptic writings are those which claim to reveal the future by means of divine revelations. According to modern Biblical scholars, the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible is the original apocalyptic scripture. Profesor Tabor of the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina informs us that (www.mille.org, 2005): “The Book of Daniel is the apocalyptic book of the Hebrew bible. Its sister book would be the Book of Revelation. And in fact the Book of Revelation is largely a Christian interpretation of the Book of Daniel.” Daniel’s fifth dream, or revelation, appears in chapter 11 of this apocalyptic book, and constitutes the longest prophecy in the Bible. It gives details of what will happen at the end of times, and the signs leading up to the end. The prophecies contained in this book are the most specific of all Biblical predictions.
The Biblical story of Daniel takes place in the ancient city of Babylon. The king of that city, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem with his armies in 586 B.C. At this time, many Hebrews were taken captive and brought to Babylon where they were forced to live for many years. Among these captives was Daniel. Today certain religious groups such as the Rastafarians draw a parallel between the captivity of the ancient Hebrews and the enslavement of Africans who were brought to the Americas as captives. For this reason, the United States has earned the metaphorical title of “Babylon” in modern times.
The destruction of Jersusalem by the Babylonians had a profound effect on Hebrew theology. The people of Isreal had been conquered, the temple of Soloman destroyed by the invaders. Why did God allow this to happen, the Hebrews wondered? They concluded that their own sins must have been the cause of this traumatic event. The apocalyptic idea of divine wrath being delivered on a day of judgement thus stems from the destruction of the first Hebrew temple and of the holy city of Jerusalem. This idea persisted throughout all later forms of Jewish and Christian theology. After this first defeat and enslavement of the Hebrews, Jerusalem and Babylon became symbols of opposing forces in the struggle between the chosen people of God and their enemies, or between good and evil. But opposing the evil without is not enough, obviously, since the forces of good can be defeated if they fall from God’s grace. As Professor Tabor explains (www.mille.org, 2005), “If we don't live up to our end of the bargain, if we don't remain faithful to God, God will allow us to be punished.” This idea has come to be known as covenant theology, and closely parallels the New Age conception of karma.
The Apocalypse of John, or Book of Revelations in the New Testament, is only one of many apocalyptic books written close to the period of time when Christ was supposed to have lived. The plot and characters of the book can be recognized in thirty or forty other versions of the same basic story, all of which comprise the genre of writing known as apocalyptic literature.The Apocalypse of John tells of a future time when God’s wrath will be visited upon the poeple of the world. Professor Tabor summarizes the Book rather succinctly (www.mille.org, 2005): “If you open the Book of Revelation and simply begin reading it as an unfolding scenario, it goes something like this. There will be wars and famines and disease epidemics and heavenly signs that will alert the world to some sort of crisis. Then will come an Antichrist as he's called, or a political ruler, that will establish control over the whole earth. He'll be backed up with a religious ruler, who's called the false prophet. They together establish a unified social, economic and religious system that dominates the world. The only thing opposing them are the people of God and these two prophets, they're called the two witnesses, who appear in Jerusalem, and begin to speak against this power. The rest of the book, really the last half of the book is about the overthrow of this system. The beast, the false prophet, who has the number 666, the Antichrist, is overthrown with judgments and plagues. Most of them are very cosmic. Asteroids hitting the earth. The water turning to blood and that sort of thing, until finally, Jesus Christ returns as a warrior on a white horse and sets up the kingdom of God.” Here we have the essential elements and characters commonly associated with the Apocalypse: wars and famines, the Beast 666 who is associated with or sometimes equated to the Antichrist, the two prophets or witnesses, cosmic disasters, and finally the Saviour himself. However, the Book of Revelations does not actually mention by name all of the events and people commonly associated with the end of time.
Classics Professor White of the University of Texas at Austin avers that the elements of the end times prophecies are actually drawn from several Biblical texts and pieced together, and that in the Apocalypse of John (www.mille.org, 2005), “Notably there's no reference whatsoever to the Antichrist. That terminology only shows up in two places in the entire New Testament. One time in First John and one time in the Second John, but not in the Book of Revelation itself. The other terminology that [is] sometimes thought to be in Revelation is the Rapture, that is, the snatching away of Christians just at the last moment before the Tribulation occurs. That, likewise, is not actually in the Book of Revelation itself, that actually comes from a passage in First Thessalonians. And so what we have to realize is that in some interpretations of the Book of Revelation―in fact most of them―the interpretation is created by bringing things into the Book of Revelation, into its scheme, that are not actually there and reading them as a kind of a jigsaw puzzle of eschatology and last judgement.” In other words, the prophecies have been slightly embellished by interpreters in order to make a more convincing picture of the Apocalypse. This kind of fudging wouldn’t be necessary if prophetic texts were seen as allegories or metaphors rather than as literal predictions.
The most influential passage from the Book of Revelations may be Chapter 13, verse 17, which mentions the mark of the Beast and its number, 666. Here is the text of this verse and the passages immediately preceding it (www.mille.org, 2005): “13:12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed. ...14 and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived; 15 and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 17 so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is 666.” (Rev. 13.13-17). This prophecy has been “fulfilled,” according to different interpreters, several times in history.
History Professor Boyer at the University of Wisconsin tells us that (www.mille.org, 2005), “There are fascinating continuities here when you stop and think about it, because in the 1760’s, the colonists saw the Stamp Act, the requirement of the stamp on legal documents, as possibly the mark of the Beast. In the 1930’s, in the Depression era, some writers said it's the union label that's beginning to be put on products. It's the NRA blue eagle. In the contemporary context, it's the consumer product code. So there's a real continuity here of efforts to find a kind of literal representation of this account in the Book of Revelation of the mark of the Beast, the mark of the Evil One.” Thus, in a metaphorical sense, the “mark of the Beast” prophecy has come true several times in the last 250 years. The Stamp Act’s association with this prophecy was powerful enough to help spark the American Revolution. The next fulfilment of Revelation 13:17’s prophecy may occur in the form of mandatory microchip implants in human beings. These microchips are already available as a form of credit verification and for medical and security purposes, on a voluntary basis up until now. If such implants are made obligatory, for example as part of a National Security program in the U.S., the “mark of the Beast” metaphor might again be applied to this event with even more devastating effects than were seen in the case of the Stamp Act.
In summary, the Book of Revelations provides religious groups with a host of ready-made prophecies that can be fitted to any set of future historical events by means of a little imaginative interpretation. On the other hand, it also gives true seekers of Wisdom a powerful set of metaphors that can be used to maintain integrity and faith in the face of oppression. Unfortunately, the former path of literalist scare mongering has been followed more than the latter path of allegorical application. Professor Collins of the University of Chicago Divinity School illustrates this trend (www.mille.org, 2005): “As soon as the Book of Revelation is written it makes a synthetic whole of apocalyptic ideas available to readers. It accumulates bits and pieces and puts them into an accessible sequence of events. Then the question becomes simply to match up its admittedly vague utterances with historical events. When it doesn't seem to accurately predict the end at its time of writing, it gets taken up again in the second century by people like the Montanists. It gets taken up in the Middle Ages by all kinds of people, and it gets taken up very prominently in the contemporary period by Protestant Evangelicals like Hal Lindsey, whose book The Late Great Planet Earth, is one of the best selling religious books ever, if not the best selling religious book. So it essentially offers an arsenal of apocalyptic images and predictions that can be used to target any specific time as the apocalyptic moment.”
Since this apocalyptic moment actually exists outside of time, in the realm of the spirit, it can “occur” at any time. Those of us who can see beyond the literal interpretations of Biblical prophecy can gain insight into both outer world and inner world events by means of prophetic writings. With luck and conscious effort, we can bring the light of reason to bear on the masses who might be deceived and who may unwittingly fall victim to misinterpretations of prophecies designed to advance an agenda of war against a supposed “Antichrist” in some other nation, or to gain converts to a particular religious sect. As the Bible itself states in 1 John 2:22, the antichrist does not represent one particular person or one nation, but instead stands for anyone who denies that the teachings of Jesus come from a divine source (www.mille.org): “22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist―he denies the Father and the Son.”This verse shows that even famous apocalyptic characters such as the antichrist are meant to be understood as allegories rather than as literal and singular individuals.
Much of our apocalypse history can be found in the apocalyptic literature of the bible and covenant theology reference books. Biblical prediction and biblical prophecy can be found in the book of revelation. The 666 mark of the beast, or beast 666, is part of the antichrist prophecy. Apocalypse John has been taken as evidence in support for the apocalypse 2012, or Armageddon 2012. Babylon and the Thessalonians are interpreted metaphorically in support of apocalyptic predictions.