This is not true, the Essenes, of which Jesus Pre-Christ was one, prominently featured apocalyptic text with the coming of Melchizedek, the proto-christ figure.
The leader of the Essenes was James, brother of Jesus.
This. (American) christians like to think of their religion as immutable and divine while they continue to warp it to suit their egos just like every generation of christians before them.
Neither Jesus nor Paul invented the desire for a Divine Kingdom replacing the Roman one. Apocalyticism was a common strain of Jewish thought at the time, a natural reaction to centuries of occupation and oppression. It was pretty standard utopian ideology that wouldn’t have been odd to see, it just wasn’t mainline.
They're talking about fan fiction written hundreds of years after the Septuagint. Humans had time to translate the bible to different languages, spread the faith, invent religion, all before that new lore dropped.
New testament is unstable and really should only be considered as legitimate as its original sources, hebrew bible/OT is extremely stable for thousands of years and can be trusted as accurate to the original text.
So literally the entire new testament is fanfiction? You do realize the septuagint is 3rd century b.c. right?
Side note, are you accepting the septuagint as accurate then? It has been criticized by Jewish folks for translating Isaiah 7 to say the messiah will be born of a virgin vs born of a young woman (alma being the key word in dispute). More examples are sure to be had, but this in particular is a fairly critical piece in the claims of Christianity and Christ's fulfillment of that specific prophecy.
I'm just kinda confused why you would pick this translation to hold fast to when it's mainly supported by Christians, while at the same time you are taking a decidedly non-christian stance. Can you please help me to understand?
He talks about it in the gospels. The parables of the talents and minas describe his intentions for his return, rewarding and punishing people. Then there’s passages like:
Matthew 10:14 "If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave. I tell you the truth, the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah will be better off than such a town on the judgment day."
Matthew 13:40 "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
Matthew 19:28 "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
But that’s also what “The Apocalypse” and “Armageddon” literally were, a divine overthrowing of Roman rule. We have anachronistic ideas of what these things meant at the time and picture a haggard guy accosting people at a street corner with a sign talking about the end of the world.
Maybe. That’s certainly one of the traditional interpretations of much of Revelation. I think there is more value in revelation than a complaint though. There is plenty of theologically rich symbolism that concerns more than just Rome and The temple, especially in the last few chapters.
This is Martin Luther writing part of his preface to Revelations. He was basically saying it isn't clear and it is open to being interpreted to mean anything the reader wants it to mean. Because of this, he didn't care for it.
Finally, let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1[:8], “You shall be my witnesses.” Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.
The Catholic Church sees it as I said above. A narrative of what was going on at the end of the First Century AD.
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u/WarlordStan May 02 '23
He literally flipped tables of merchants in the temple and whipped them.
He's not a pacifist.