The Book of Revelation is widely misunderstood.
>Judea was occupied by Rome during the advent of Christianity in the 1st century.
>Those Jews who resisted Roman rule were killed while those who gave in where spared.
>Slaves were marked on the hands and condemned men were marked on the head by Roman authorities - which is where the idea of the "Mark of the Beast (Nero)" comes from.

Nero is the Beast (Satan) of Revelation.
>When you actually look at the original text, you'll see that in this passage, the letters of 666 are actually written in Hebrew, which places a higher significance on numbers meaning words and words meaning numbers than ancient Greek. The writer was very clearly trying to tell us something.
>And sure enough, if you translate the Hebrew spelling of 666, you actually spell out Neron Kesar - the Hebrew spelling of Nero Caesar.
>Even if you take the alternative spelling of the number of the beast, which has been found in several early Biblical texts as being written 616, you can translate that out as being Nero Cesar.
It could only be a coincidence if just 666 or 616 could be translated out to Nero's name, but not both.

>>17830101 (OP)
The Book of Revelation is about the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The abomination of desolation was Jupiter's Temple established in Aelia Capitolina.
>According to Cassius Dio, Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem and erect a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish Temple was a direct catalyst for the revolt. He writes that the construction "caused a long and serious war, since the Jews objected to having gentiles settled in their city and foreign cults established there."
Hadrian's name adds up to 666 in Hebrew Gematria.
>The interpretation of the number 666 (Rev 13:18) on Hadrian was already considered by D. Voelter, [In his book published in 1885: Die Entstehung der Apokalypse] who adds the letters of the written Hebrew and on coins documented name Trajanus Hadrianus as 666: “Hadrian officially carries as emperor on coins and inscriptions the name Trajanus Hadrianus. If now these names are written in Hebrew and the individual letters are converted into the corresponding numerical value, then exactly the number 666 comes out.
It's a failed prophecy of a failed revolt.

>>17830127
>>17830101 (OP)
You know what? Fuck you, I'm hijacking your thread.
>So how does that setting fit with the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”?
>The white horse is the conquering emperor Trajan. White horses in mythology and historical triumphs were associated with conquerors in their triumphs (and with Zeus himself).
>The red horse represents the various messianic-led Jewish uprisings in the years leading up to the 130s throughout Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia.
>The black horse whose rider carries the scales represents a ruler responsible for justice (as commonly symbolized at that time by scales, emblem of the goddess Aequitas); prices are said to be extremely high but, contrary to a famine setting, land producing oil and wine was not to be touched and converted to grain production. This horse represents a governor of Asia who was forced to cope in condign ways with the results of the Jewish revolts that had reduced grain supplies from Egypt.
>The pale horse represents the fate of the Jews following the suppression of their uprisings — death, executions, famine, wolves threatening survivors in areas reduced to chaos.

>>17830101 (OP)
>>17830127
>>17830142
>Okay, so what about the measuring of the temple?
>The rebels’ programme of (re)building the Yahweh sanctuary in Jerusalem and reinstalling the priestly-dominated cult of the temple should also be understood in this context: (a) The measuring out described in Apk 11:1-2a for the purpose of rebuilding or reestablishing the temple, the θυσιαστήριον and the worshippers there presupposes that these buildings and conditions are not present or destroyed at the time of the writing of the Apk. This obviously corresponds exactly to the conditions in Jerusalem at the threshold of the Bar-Kokhba revolt, as Cassius Dio describes them, (b) The depiction in Apk 11:1-2a. according to which the apocalyptic was commissioned to measure the temple, the θυσιαστήριον and the people worshipping there for the purpose of new construction or rebuilding, but did not (or could no longer) carry out this commission, ties in with the corresponding programme described above. At the same time, however, it also reflects the apocalypticist’s assessment of the further course of the rebellion, which he had to arrive at after taking into account the various measures taken by the Romans to put down the uprising: The rebels did indeed consider Jerusalem and the sanctuary of Yahweh. Jerusalem and the Yahweh sanctuary and to reinstall the temple cult; in the end, however, the ναός τοΰ θεού and the associated θυσιαστήριον – at least according to the apocalypticist’s assessment – will not be rebuilt, for those who want to worship there and practise the Jewish worship of God, there will not be such a possibility (anymore).

>>17830143
>>17830142
>>17830127
>>17830101 (OP)
>The historical reference of Apk 11:1-2a to the first phase of the Bar Kokhba revolt becomes even more conclusive if it is assumed that the decision to (re)found Jerusalem as the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina and, in connection with this, the decision to erect a pagan sanctuary there can be dated to the time immediately before the military escalation, i.e. around 130 AD. Then the statements of Apk 11:1-2a could be referred to these decisions of Hadrian without any problems: The apocalypticist is supposed to measure the temple, the θυσιοοτήριον and the people worshipping there for the purpose of rebuilding or reconstruction.
>The two witnesses?
>Bar Kochba and the priest Eleazar, the political and religious leaders of Israel who were dedicated to the liberation of Judea from the Romans.
>The beast and his false prophet?
>Hadrian and his advisor, propagandist and rhetor Antonius Polemon.
>The author expected Hadrian to kill the Bar Kochba and the priest Eleazar and that the whole world would rejoice in the destruction of those it held responsible for war.

>>17830101 (OP)
>>17830127
>>17830142
It isn't a misunderstanding. It is the nature of symbolic revelation that it has dozens of parallels. That's why there are about 200 theories of how Jesus' life is "just" an analogy to astrology, physiology, history, philosophy etc. The more profound a symbol is, the wider area it covers and the more material things and events express it.

>>17830142
>You know what? Fuck you, I'm hijacking your thread.
By all means, your posts have been very interesting

>>17830101 (OP)
>>17830127
>>17830142
>>17830143
>>17830148
>We have seen how emperor worship directed towards Hadrian in Greece and the Roman province of Asia surpassed anything before known: Emperor Worship and the Book of Revelation. The “advent” and “presence” of an emperor, a divine figure, meant salvation for all in the region. As Horace wrote of Augustus:
>Reading Revelation through the perspective of these years, one of the first details we notice relates to the first beast arising from the sea and the second from the land:
>Hadrian arrived in Asia from the sea; the Sibylline Oracle (V, 47) even announced that he bore the name of the sea, the Adriatic.
>Hadrian’s confidant and propagandist, the orator and priest Antonius Philemon, was native to Asia, born in Laodicea and with official standing in Smyrna.
>Again recall from our earlier post that Hadrian was worshiped as one who was assimilated into Zeus. The dragon or serpent as Zeus and Hadrian were worshiped as a merged divinity.
>The writer of Revelation declared in amazement: Who is able to make war with the beast? (Rev 13:4). Hadrian was renowned for his peaceful reign, with but one exception. Details of Pausanias’s account of the times of Hadrian were taken from an inscription dedicated to the emperor on the Pantheon:
>. . . and within my own time the emperor Hadrian, who was extremely religious in the respect he paid to the deity and contributed very much to the happiness of his various subjects. He never voluntarily entered upon a war, but he reduced the Hebrews beyond Syria, who had rebelled. As for the sanctuaries of the gods that in some cases he built from the beginning, in others adorned with offerings and furniture, and the bounties he gave to Greek cities, and sometimes even to foreigners who asked him, all these acts are inscribed in his honor in the sanctuary at Athens common to all the gods.

>>17830160
>The rule of Hadrian witnessed a flourishing of Jewish apocalyptic writings, including the identification of Hadrian with Nero redivivus.
>(The author) was writing in the early second century, a refugee, from a later wave of persecutions, and using the events of 64 to 69 in Rome as a cloak for his views of his own times. … To the author of Revelation the cheap and nasty legend of the risen Nero would seem the perfect legend for the anti-Christ, ever opposed to the truly and gloriously Risen Lord of his own faith. (John Bishop, Nero: The Man and Legend, p. 174)
>All three conditions apply to Nero. But as time went on and Nero didn’t return the hopes took a new twist: Nero was going to come back from the dead and return! As history and reality faded, myth took their place.
>Non-Jews had hoped for Nero’s return. Jews, on the other hand, not so much. The idea of his return was good fodder for end-time prophecies such as those in the Sibylline Oracles, however. The Jewish oracles accordingly turned Nero into an end-time enemy of God.
>After all, Nero had brought savage punishment upon the Jews; so had the Flavians (Vespasian and Titus) who succeeded him. The oracle laments the existence of all these rulers. Then came the aged Nerva followed by Trajan. The oracle does not totally condemn those rulers: they had not caused trouble. And Hadrian, at least for now, seemed benign enough, but the past record of emperors still cast its shadow of traumatic memories. So the oracle wrote of Hadrian (5:46-50)
>After him another will reign, a silver-headed man. He will have the name of a sea. He will also be a most excellent man and he will consider everything. And in your time, most excellent, outstanding, dark-haired one, and in the days of your descendants, all these days will come to pass.

>>17830170
>The role of Bar Kochba and Eleazar as the two witnesses is more apparent if one is familiar with the Old Testament.
>While many later Christian writers had argued that the two witnesses were Elijah and Moses or Enoch and Elijah, the reference in the Apocalypse of John "They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.” is an allusion to the Book of Zechariah.
>"And a second time I answered and said to him, “What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?” He said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth (Zechariah 4:12-14).
>It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”’

>>17830101 (OP)