/alt/ - Anomalous

Thoughts on the Apocalypse of Urmom?

>>123
Urmom's gay

>>122
im at luke right now, ill answer in a month.

>>125
I'll be waiting! Make sure to enjoy the epistles!

>>126
Thank's bro, i think i will.

>>127
Have you got a status report for me, bro?

>>128
Yea… I'm way too slow at reading to go from Luke to Apocalypse within a month, so i finished Luke, skipped the in between for now, and am reading apocalypse. I am getting there…
Stay put!

>>129
I probably can't match expectations after all this anticipation, but I'll try.
I thought it was quite interesting… I now know that a lot of bits that I heard before in the context of some media have the origin in revelations (i guess). The horsemen I obviously knew about before, i'm talking about for example the sea of blood or the swarms of locusts.
Probably the most interesting part about it is that the apocalypse is described as happening over years, like a war, as opposed to a catastrophe of some kind that lasts a week or two like I imagined.
Also you'd think that in such an environment most people would consider the faith, any type of faith, but even in the face of apocalypse people are described as denying the more and more obvious becoming truth.

>>130
I remember that when I was an atheist, that one of the strongest arguments to me was "Even if their was a God, he can't expect people to believe if there is not enough evidence" (I think Christopher Hitchens made it). Revelations, but also other parts of the bible suggest, that even if there was concrete proof, many would not accept it anyway. A quite popular argument I heard back in the day was "Even if Christianity was true, I would not follow Gods command because I think the Bible is immoral" and things similar to that. There are also a lot of people consciously holding absurd believes, but say that they aren't "able" to believe what the Bible says, or who say that the churches have done too much evil etc, while holding sympathies with ideologies or political parties that have much grimmer pasts.
I watched a debate/discussion the other day about the existence of God, and the atheist was so laughably uncharitable from the beginning, making arguments so weak, that I think his stance is not based on lack of intelligence, but rather a deeper character flaw or even a conscious decision of being "against God", which lead him to that position. I was certainly there myself, though I was a teenager.
Anyway I would be interested what your main thoughts on it are.

>>130
>>131

I'll briefly give you my main thoughts on what I thought when I first read The Apocalypse of John when I had only read the New Testament, and then again when I read it a year later after having read The Old Testament and some Apocrypha.

On my first reading of it, I was very stunned by the ingenuity and bizarreness of not just the symbolism, but the manner is which the symbolism was presented. Symbolism was nothing new to me, of course, but the imagery and method of conveying the imagery was very disorienting.

For example, I found Revelation 13:3 to be a particularly striking moment. Revelation 13:1-2: "The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority." This is already a Surreal enough scene, so heavily steeped in obscure metaphor that to imagine it literally is like a fevered dream, but then 13:3 reads: " One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast."

What does this mean? It's so utterly bizarre and specific. It's no doubt a very pointed metaphor by the author, but it in and of itself is so strange. A monster raises itself from the sea? Okay. Nothing too weird, even if it's a weird monster, but then there's such an unexplained little detail like that? That really takes it to another level for me.

>>132

I had frequently heard Revelation described as "an acid trip" to me beforehand, but when I finally read it for the first time in a single sitting, I really felt like I was on something. This was my reading while I was still largely ignorant of the Old Testament and really Jewish religion to start with. I knew only what was contained in the New Testament and random things I had picked up culturally like Moses and the Red Sea.

About a year after that, I finally read the whole Old Testament, which was not quick. It was at that point that I was exposed to the apocalyptic books of the Torah that directly inspired and informed Revelation. When you only have the New Testament, the only apocalyptic book is Revelation. Every other book is either an epistle or a history. But the Old Testament has an exceedingly robust amount of differing genres and no lack of apocalyptic visions, both metaphorical and literal. Ezekiel, Isaiah, and especially Daniel are of the same genre as Revelation. And of course, the writer of Revelation was intimately familiar with these books, and other apocalyptic books like in the minor prophets.

So, when I read these books, I started to actually understand the library of metaphors and symbolism that served as the vocabulary for John, or however you would like to call the actual author of Revelation. Daniel in particular helped because of very specific metaphors. It also helped because it's a apocalypse that still hasn't happened or perhaps would be better said to be ongoing, just like Revelation.

>>133
After reading these books - all in the KVJ translation - about a year later, I re-read the New Testament with a full knowledge of the Old Testament. I had also by this time read the complete works of Josephus to get a rounder overall view of both Jewish antiquity and the time of Christ. This time, I read Richmond Lattimore's translation. Of course at once I better understood Christ's teachings because now I truly understood the Old Covenant and David and etc.

When it came time to re-read Revelation, again in one sitting, I was impressed by the fact that this time I wasn't impressed. My first time, my mind was completely blown - not strictly in a religious capacity, but in the totality of effect of the artistic skill behind the writing. But on my second go through, I had a much greater understanding of what I was actually reading and many of the metaphors and images didn't seem so completely foreign to me anymore.

I'm not going to say that I understand huge sections of Revelation. Nobody does. You mentioned the Four Horsemen in your post. Look, for example, at the huge controversy about the identity of just the first Horsemen. It is a complicated book to say the least. I personally do not hold the various apocalypses as having much legitimate theological value. I consider them largely as a form of catharsis for oppressed peoples. You know, there are the types that are looking forward to the Judgement less for being saved and more that the sinners will be punished. But that's just my own view on the genre of apocalyptic literature.

Anyways, I kind of rambled on for a bit, but I just thought I would share that, given my two contrasting readings of the Apocalypse of John.

Frederick Engels wrote a polemic on the book of revelation in 1883, that might interest you.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/book-revelations.htm
>>132
>Irenaeus, in the second century, knew still that by the head which was wounded and healed, the Emperor Nero was meant. He had been the first great persecutor of the Christians. At his death a rumour spread, especially through Achaia and Asia, that he was not dead, but only wounded, and that he would one day reappear and spread terror throughout the world (Tacitus, Ann. VI, 22).

>>122
schizophrenic.