Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

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thrombomodulin
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Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by thrombomodulin » Sun Mar 06, 2016 9:42 am



I believe that most preterists understand the beast to be the Roman empire, however, the beast in this verse is described as existing only in the past and future. Since the Roman empire existed continuously throughout the first century, this does not seem be a feasible interpretation. How is the "is not" description of the beast understood by Preterists?

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Paidion
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by Paidion » Sun Mar 06, 2016 3:28 pm

Excellent thought, Throm!

I also wonder in what sense the Beast "was" for futurists such as myself.
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dwilkins
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by dwilkins » Sun Mar 06, 2016 4:13 pm

I have almost no time on the way out to door for work. I'll simply suggest that you get both of Duncan's books on the topic. I don't think your understanding of preterism is very sound.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Antichrist-Se ... GWQA9FM75F

thrombomodulin
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by thrombomodulin » Tue Mar 08, 2016 7:09 pm

Thank you for letting me know about the books - I will buy them. Hopefully, this summer I'll have some time to read the books.

Pete

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jaydam
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by jaydam » Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:32 pm

thrombomodulin wrote:

I believe that most preterists understand the beast to be the Roman empire, however, the beast in this verse is described as existing only in the past and future. Since the Roman empire existed continuously throughout the first century, this does not seem be a feasible interpretation. How is the "is not" description of the beast understood by Preterists?
I agree with some recent study I have done which is that the beast was Nero, and the wording surrounding the beast can relate to his death or supposed death and the superstition that he was going to come back from the dead or would come back from hiding. It was known as the Nero Redivivus Legend and it swept the empire.

To me, the wording further supports a preterist understanding of the book as even the legend is interwoven into the wording of Revelation - Nero was, did not exist for a time, and then was revived to live on in legend. He was the head that died but lived on.

Thus, the gap in time you see would relate to the understanding of the beast specifically as Nero, although there is also a greater picture given of the beast as the Roman Empire.

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Paidion
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by Paidion » Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:13 pm

Hi Jaydam,

I cannot see any justification for Nero being the "beast" or "antichrist".

One might ask whether an image of Nero was ever given breath so that it spoke, and whether any “beast” who supported Nero had everyone killed who would not worship his image—an image which both breathed and spoke. (Rev 13:15)

One might also ask whether there was a time in Nero's reign where people couldn't buy of sell unless they has a mark on their right hand or forehead (not Nero's image on the coins, as some claim). (Rev 13:17)

The supposed justification concerning the number of the beast as it is applied to Nero, is faulty.

First, consider what language John, the writer of Revelation, was using in writing that book. Clearly it was Greek.

The Greeks used the letters in their alphabet to represent numbers. I have a copy of the manuscript Papyrus 66, which contains most of John's gospel, and is believed to have been written about 150 A.D. The page numbers of the manuscript are given in Greek numerical characters that represent numbers as follows (These early documents were written all in upper-case characters); they looked a bit like this:

1 Α alpha
2 Β beta
3 Γ gamma
4 Δ delta
5 Ε epsilon
7 Ζ zeta
8 Η eta
9 Θ theta
10 Ι iota
20 Κ kappa
30 Λ lamda
40 Μ mu
50 Ν nu
60 Ξ xi
70 Ο omicron
80 Π pi
100 Ρ rho
200 Σ sigma
300 Τ tau
400 Υ upsilon
500 Φ phi
600 Χ chi
700 Ψ psi
800 Ω omega

You might wonder why 6, 90, and 900 are missing. These numbers were represented by characters outside the alphabet as follows:

6 ϝ digamma (later became C stigma)
90 ϟ qoppa
900 ϡ sampi

The earliest extant manuscript of Rev 13:18 is papyrus 113 dated in the third century (the 200s). I have a photo copy of the portion of the manuscript giving the number of the beast as XIC (616). Now I know that Irenæus writes in Against Heresies, Book 5, Chapter 30, that 616 is the incorrect number and that it was probably a copyist's error. That well may be. But the point I am making is not that the number should be 616 as in the earliest extant manuscript, but that whichever is correct WAS WRITTEN IN REVELATION as a number in Greek characters. Some manuscripts have 666, and it is written as XΞC (chi,xi,stigma).
John the writer of Revelation wrote numbers in the Greek way using Greek letters or symbols. He did not use any other language to write them.

Some try to figure out the name with the number 666, by doing it in English—working out a system where a=1, b=2, c=3, etc. But why would John have predicted the name with an English system centuries before the English language existed? But preterists claim the Nero's name is 666 when calculated in the Hebrew letter-numeric system. The Hebrew system existed in the days of John, but a similar question can be asked, Why would the name be calculated in Hebrew when John himself used the Greek system to express numbers? Irenæus suggested names whose number was 666 in the Greek system, and he clearly expected the “beast” whom he called “antichrist” to appear at a time future to his own time. Here are the names he suggested:

1 EYANΘAΣ (Euanthas). But Eusebius had nothing to say about this name. From the chart of Greek numerics we can see that this name works.

----E 005
----Y 400
----A 001
----N 050
----Θ 009
----A 001
----Σ 200
Total 666

2 ΛATEINOΣ (Lateinos—The Latin Man). Eusebius wrote that this is a very probable solution, being the name of the last kingdom of the four seen in the vision of Daniel, as well as the fact that the Latins were ruling in the days in which Eusebius was writing.

----Λ 030
----A 001
----T 300
----E 005
----I 010
----N 050
----O 070
----Σ 200
Total 666

3 TEITAN (Teitan). Eusebius felt that this name was rather worthy of credit. He said that this was an ancient name, but that there were no kings in his day with this name, nor idols worshipped bearing this name. However, he said that this name was considered divine, and that the Romans called the sun by this name, and that it is a name belonging to a tyrant.

And now. How do some assign 666 to Nero's name? “Nero” is a Latin name, and although numbers were written in Latin characters as “Roman Numerals”, they were limited to I, V, X, L, C, D, and M. So the Latin name “Nero” would have no numerical value in Latin.

The Greek spelling of the name is “ΝΕΡΩΝ” (NERON). The Greek numerical value of this name is 1005.

So how do Preterists and others obtain the value of 666?

First they take the GREEK name “ΝΕΡΩΝ” and put it together with the GREEK word for “Caesar” which is “ΚΑΙΣΑΡ”. Of course the total Greek numerical value will not do, since it will be greater than 1005. So they transliterate these GREEK words into Hebrew. Now Hebrew has no vowels. So they remove the vowels from
“ΝΕΡΩΝ” to get “NPN” (or “NRN” in Latin charcers). Then they remove the vowels from “ΚΑΙΣΑΡ” and so one would expect them to get “ΚΣΡ” (“KSR” in Latin characters). But no! Instead of using the latin “K”, they select a somewhat similar sounding Latin character “Q”! Why do they choose “Q” instead of “K”? Well, the HEBREW numerical value “NRN KSR” doesn't add up to 666, but the Hebrew numerical value of ““NRN QSR” does! The Hebrew letter for “K” is either “Khof” or “Kas”. But neither will work to produce “666”. However, the Hebrew letter for “Q”, namely “Qof” does work.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... ebrewc.gif

We might ask ourselves:

1. Why should the number of the beast's name be calculated with Hebrew numeric characters? After all John, the author of Revelation, used Greek characters to express “666” itself!
2. Doesn't the method used to calculate the number of “Nero Cæsar” using Hebrew characters seem rather contrived?
3. Cannot a similar method be used to calculate the number of almost ANY name to be 666?
Paidion

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jaydam
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by jaydam » Tue Mar 08, 2016 10:26 pm

There is plenty of academic level material on the Internet that can defend making Caesar Nero equal both six hundred and sixty six as well as six hundred and sixteen. I do not propose to know as much as either side in linguistic numerology.

First, I believe evidence supports an early dating of Revelation under Nero. Second, John believes his audience can decipher the name of the beast. Third, other context lends itself to seeing the beast as the Roman Empire.

Support for all three points has been given many times in various threads I believe, so I don't need to fill the post with it.

All of this lends itself, before involving numerology, that the beast is at least the Romans and its head would then logically be the leader at the time, Nero.

Adding the legend of Nero's death or fake death even more fits within the prophetic idea that a head appears dead but still lives on. If you read about the legend of Nero, even very early Christians grabbed onto this tie between the legend and John's prophecy. Later, St. Augustine even wrote that Nero yet lived through the legend.

So, when one finally gets to the numerology, in the face of a split decision I believe the weight of other evidence tips it in favor of the understanding that it is Nero.

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Paidion
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by Paidion » Wed Mar 09, 2016 2:33 pm

First, I believe evidence supports an early dating of Revelation under Nero.
Please provide that evidence. No need for a lengthy reply—just highlight the main ideas.

All the historic evidence that I have encountered points to a later date (after 70 A.D.)

And why wouldn't some writer in the second century be aware of the earlier date? Why would Irenæus (120-202 A.D.), for example, believe that John "beheld the apocalyptic vision" toward the end of Domitian's reign (After 90 A.D.)? (Against Heresies Book 5, Chapter 30, at the end of Section 3.)
Paidion

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jaydam
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by jaydam » Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:31 pm

Paidion wrote:
First, I believe evidence supports an early dating of Revelation under Nero.
Please provide that evidence. No need for a lengthy reply—just highlight the main ideas.

All the historic evidence that I have encountered points to a later date (after 70 A.D.)

And why wouldn't some writer in the second century be aware of the earlier date? Why would Irenæus (120-202 A.D.), for example, believe that John "beheld the apocalyptic vision" toward the end of Domitian's reign (After 90 A.D.)? (Against Heresies Book 5, Chapter 30, at the end of Section 3.)
I do not have my notes right now, but I will very briefly lay out some of the major dating considerations which I can remember off the top of my head:

External evidence/support for an early date:

- The Aramaic NT - the Peshitta - originally written in the 500's was rewritten in the 600's and the title page (I believe of the revision) to Revelation places John's time on Patmos as being under Nero, thus pre-68 sometime.

- The Muratorian fragment has Paul imitating John in writing to 7 churches, which would seem to reference the letters to the 7 churches which open the book of Revelation, thus placing the writing of Revelation before several of the letters of Paul.

- Syriac manuscripts which date back to the 400's I believe place John on Patmos during the reign of Nero.

- Tertullian in the early 200's linked the banishment of John to Patmos to the timing of the persecution of Paul and Peter under Nero. (I think it was Jerome who supported this understanding)

- Additional external evidence can be found in several accounts which place even John's death pre-70.

Internal evidence/support for an early date:

- Many concepts of Revelation can be found in earlier writings. If one considers that John's revelation was revelatory relating to these key items, then it provided the basis upon which other NT writings pulled.

- It can be taken that Jerusalem is still standing in the book of Revelation.

Check out John A. T. Robinson's book "Redating the New Testament" - he is an interesting case who set out to prove that Revelation had to have been written post-70, but ended up convincing himself that the entire NT was written pre-70. He lays out some great cases, and his book is old enough now that it can be found online as a free PDF.

There is plenty of issue taken with the interpretation of Irenaeus' statement. Additionally, Revelation was not entirely accepted by the church as a whole in the early centuries, so many would not have concerned themselves with the dating of a book they did not accept anyway.

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Paidion
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Re: Rev 17:8 - The beast who is not

Post by Paidion » Wed Mar 09, 2016 10:09 pm

Hi Jaydam,
Thank you for your response. Can you provide a reference to the part of Tertullian's writings in which he linked the banishment of John to Patmos to the timing of the persecution of Paul and Peter under Nero?

I will examine some of the other points you made. Meanwhile you might want to consider this pdf file of Hitchcock's dissertation supporting the late date. It may take a few minutes to load. True, it comes from a pre-trib site. I am not pretrib. Notwithstanding, I think Hitchcock's reasoning regarding the later date, is sound.
Hitchcock's Dissertation
Paidion

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