Fresh New Interpretation of Revelation

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb 16, 2009 -
There are five major themes in my book:  The first shows that, contrary to the popular opinion that Revelation predicts events future to us, it actually predicted many events leading to the destruction of the Judean nation that tried to defeat the mission of Jesus.  It seems strange to me that a revelation that begins with the words "which must happen very soon" and ends with the words "has sent his angel to show his servants what must happen very soon" should be considered still unfulfilled twenty centuries later.

The second theme shows that the Judean nation was defeated by two major wars against Rome.  The first well-known war occurred in A. D 66-70 when Titus defeated the Judeans and destroyed Jerusalem and The Temple.  The second war, less well known, occurred in A.D. 131-5 when Severus utterly destroyed the Judean nation and deported the survivors out of Palestine.

The third theme describes the career of Bar Kochba who led a unified Judean rebellion against Rome in A.D. 131-5.  Bar Kochba organized a 400,000-man army, defeated three Roman armies and liberated all of Palestine.  He became prince of The First Jewish Commonwealth.  It was under his leadership that Severus destroyed the Judean nation.  I provide more information about Bar Kochba than any other commentary on Revelation.  Very few commentaries mention Bar Kochba and the destruction of the Judean nation and the dispersal of most of its inhabitants in A.D. 135.  This, I think, would be the fulfillment of Rev. 16: 17 when the angel pours the last vial, and a great voice says, “It is done!”  Judea ceased to exist as a nation.  Its inhabitants were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire.  Other peoples were moved in.  So thorough was this dispersal that, seventeen centuries later, in 1856, only 10,500 Jews resided in their ancestral homeland.  Revelation indicates that similar harsh treatment will be experience by the Gentile nations if they try to defeat Christ when he returns in the end days, but that does not diminish the observation that it happened to Judea first.  Nobody before me tied the history of Judea with the visions in the first half of Revelation the way I do.

The forth theme focuses on Rev 20:2-3 that predicted the release of Satan after one thousand years to seduce the nations.  Approximately one thousand years after Christianity became accepted and safe within the Roman Empire, something happened in Europe that split Christians into many warring nations and the thousands of conflicting Christian sects we have today. This certainly looks like the nations being deceived.  Who else but Satan would tempt clerics to betray their vows and ordinary Christians to react to that betrayal by dismantling the Church?  Christianity splintered into thousands of conflicting sects, each opposing and refuting the claims of rival sects.  As a result, almost every Christian teaching that was once revered by our ancestors is, today, refuted by some Christian sect.  This rivalry and argumentation has, I think, neutralized the effectiveness of all Christian groups to bring the Gospel to non-Christian nations, a big victory for Satan!  These same previously Christian nations today tell us we are in the post-Christian era.  Worse than that, some of these formally Christian nations have adopted many non-Christian and occult practices, not just Nazism and Communism, but bizarre aberrations of what were once the Christian message. I describe this thoroughly in my book.

The fifth theme describes modern apparitions of Christ's mother at Fatima and at other famous sites like Medjugorje and Rwanda appealing to humans to be more faithful to her son.  At Fatima she warned about another world war and the rise of an atheistic government in Russia.  She added requests that could have prevented the war and convert Russia back to Christ.  Had people complied with the request made at Fatima, World War II and the rise of the Communist Empire might have been averted.  There were similar apparitions and warnings made at Medjugorje and Rwanda.  Had those warnings been taken seriously, the Bosnian-Serbian wars and the Rwanda genocide might have been averted.

“Revelation: Fall of Judea, Rise of the Church” gets its initial inspiration from the work of J. Massyngberde Ford who proposed that the early visions in Revelation were preached by John the Baptist and were meant for the Judean people.  John the Evangelist, a disciple of the Baptist, was very familiar with the Baptist’s ministry and incorporated those visions into the Evangelist’s own Book of Revelation.  If this is correct, it provides a significant key to interpreting the early visions in Revelation.  There’s no real reason to doubt it.  The Baptist certainly had much to say announcing Christ, but very little of what he said has been passed down in history.  It makes sense that the Evangelist would have known what the Baptist preached.  Ford cites other Biblical scholars, who also think the early visions were first preached by the Baptist.

I wrote “Revelation: Fall of Judea, Rise of the Church” for the average reader.  I state my case in plain, non-technical English so my readers can easily follow my thinking.  I quote long sections from Revelation and long quotations from Josephus, Suetonius, and Tacitus for events leading to the fall of Judea.  I also quote other sources including The Internet.  I included many long quotes so my readers need not consult other reference works to verify what I say as they read my book.  I quote sufficient text to show the quotes in context.  I hope you decide to read my book.  I hope you find it interesting and informative.”

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