Ep 119: Problematic Prophecy

00:00The trains that are derailing, that reminds me of revelation where you have the horses

00:06and they have the tails like scorpions and all this and...

00:10Can we just not?

00:11Can we please stop doing that?

00:13Just relax everybody, so you're gonna be okay.

00:17Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:23And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:24And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:29the academic study of the Bible and religion.

00:31And we combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:35How are things today, Dan?

00:37Things are good.

00:38We are both now officially back from our travels.

00:42Yes.

00:43And...

00:44For now.

00:45Per...

00:46At least for the immediate future where we're stateside and live in life.

00:53We got a fun show coming up.

00:55I'm pretty excited about it.

00:57Yeah.

00:58The old...

00:59Well, okay.

01:00Let me just say, a miracle has happened.

01:05And that miracle is, we mentioned a thing on a previous episode and then we remembered

01:12to talk about it on this episode.

01:14You mean we followed through on something?

01:17On anything.

01:18It's a miracle.

01:19We literally were able to do it with the help of our listeners who they literally heard

01:23me say, "Hey, I hope somebody will help me remember to do this."

01:27And they came out of the woodwork and helped me remember to do this.

01:30So we're talking about predarism, which I think is awesome.

01:33And I also did not know what that was.

01:36So I'm very glad that we get a chance to talk through it.

01:43That's going to be our first...

01:45What is that?

01:46That's going to be our first segment.

01:48And then in the latter half of the show, we're going eschatological.

01:54But not... or rather, we're talking about an eschatology, the Book of Revelation.

02:01Or as Marjorie Taylor Greene says, the Book of Revelations.

02:05And we're going to talk about that.

02:08And whether or not, we're going to talk about who thinks and doesn't think it should be

02:15in the canon.

02:16Yeah.

02:17It was...

02:18A lot of people don't know its canonicity, its authenticity, its inspiration was challenged

02:23by an awful lot of early Christians.

02:25So we'll talk about that.

02:26I personally would vote it off the island, but we'll get to that.

02:30We'll figure it out.

02:31That's...

02:32In a lot of interviews, I get asked what book I would omit from the Bible.

02:36And I make a point of answering Revelation before they even get the question fully out.

02:43And I think we probably saw that on our book signing tour, I think that happened a couple

02:48of times.

02:49Yeah, yeah.

02:50I think, anyway, yes, and the island we will vote it off of apparently is Patmos.

02:54But we'll get to that in the lighter half of the show.

02:59But for now, let's dive in with what is that?

03:05And the what is that that we are discussing is, as I said, "preterism."

03:11Okay, so let's just start with, what is that?

03:16What is the word name?

03:18It's an unusual word, but if you're familiar with linguistics, you might have heard the

03:22term "preterate."

03:24A "preterate" is a past tense thing.

03:27And "preterism" comes from the Latin "preter," which means "past."

03:32And so the idea is that this is talking about things that happened in the past.

03:37And that's not very detailed.

03:39That's not giving you an awful lot of information.

03:41We're building to something here.

03:43We're making it.

03:44We've got to go brick by brick.

03:47Yeah, exactly.

03:48The idea of "preterism" is that the prophecies about the end times in the New Testament and

03:54even in the Hebrew Bible have already been fulfilled, either in part or in full.

04:01So generally you divide "preterism" into partial "preterism" or full "preterism."

04:07Wow.

04:08And you got, yeah, what you're usually one or the other, or neither, if you don't accept

04:12"preterism" at all, I get accused of being a "preterist" frequently, and we'll talk

04:17about why that doesn't really work.

04:18Okay.

04:19Well, I was going to say, I would almost accuse you of being a "preterist" based on a few

04:23things that you've said.

04:24But let's not get the cart before the horse here.

04:28Let's dive in and figure out what we're talking about.

04:31Because we have, you know, when we hear people on social media today talk about the fulfillment

04:37of end times prophecies, there are a handful of places they'll turn to.

04:42And two popular ones are Daniel and Revelation.

04:46Daniel talks about, you know, the abomination of desolation and all this kind of stuff.

04:54And you got the 70 weeks, and every time somebody's about to make some kind of peace treaty associated

05:01with Israel, suddenly it's about this piece that is going to last for a week, a.k.a.

05:07seven years, and then all this, all this stuff.

05:11This is in Daniel 9.

05:12And then we also have Revelation, we've got a lot of stuff about what's going to happen

05:16before the end times.

05:18And also in the in the Gospels, we have in Mark, we have in Matthew and particularly Matthew,

05:28that's I think probably the most famous example of these prophecies about the coming of the

05:34son of man where, you know, the son will be blackened and the moon will turn to blood

05:39and all this kind of stuff.

05:40This is the Olivet Discourse.

05:42The Olivet Discourse, right.

05:45And we've talked in the past about how the Olivet Discourse makes it sound like the second

05:50coming is going to happen immediately after the events that are being described.

05:54And the events that are being described sound an awful lot like what happened around the

05:58year 70 CE when Rome had been laying siege to Judea for a while and destroyed Jerusalem,

06:06destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, ran off the Jewish rebels.

06:12So it sounds like that already happened.

06:16Yeah.

06:17And so according to Praterism, if you're a partial Praterist, you would say, okay, so

06:22that part of the Olivet Discourse has already been fulfilled.

06:25The rest of it, where the son of man comes and clouds of great glory and all that kind

06:30of stuff hasn't been fulfilled yet.

06:33We're still waiting on that.

06:35God is slow playing their hand regarding the fulfillment of the next part.

06:40If you're a full Praterist, then you say, no, it was all the second coming, the resurrection,

06:46it was all fulfilled by 70 CE and we're just in some kind of post, I won't say coital,

06:55but some kind of post apocalyptic waiting period, I guess.

07:02There are a bunch of different ways that it's rationalized, but it all stems from the fact

07:06that the book of Revelation, the Gospels, even Daniel, a lot of the way, the most likely

07:16ways to interpret that is the events that happened in 70 CE.

07:20And so a lot of this requires that revelation be written prior to 70 CE, if these are all

07:26prophecies about what's going to happen in the idea.

07:28Right.

07:29I mean, this is assuming that this is not someone writing after the fact as though they're writing

07:34before the fact to give credence to their revelatory power or whatever.

07:41Right.

07:42And the folks who argue that, funny enough, will argue that the beast is supposed to be

07:47Nero.

07:48Right.

07:49They will say 666 is Gomatria.

07:51It's a reference to Nero and it already all happened and it's already all been fulfilled

07:56by 70 CE.

07:57It was done and dusted and scholars, the overwhelming, I don't know about the overwhelming, but the

08:03majority of scholars date Revelation too well after that.

08:08But yeah, like you said, it raises an important interpretive question.

08:13What's more likely that somebody was writing shortly after 70 CE and they were writing

08:20as if they were coming prior to that time period and we're trying to include all these

08:26things that they knew were going to happen leading up to what they hoped would happen

08:31in their own immediate future?

08:32It does make prophesying a lot easier if the stuff's already happened.

08:36Yeah.

08:37And you know, we have the same issue with Daniel because we have, as you get from the sixth

08:43century BCE, which is when Daniel was supposed to have been written, as you get closer to

08:47the 160s BCE, the history gets one more accurate, two more detailed up until you have Antiochus,

08:57the fourth epiphanies, laying siege and threatening to do all this stuff, abomination that makes

09:02desolation or however you want to translate that.

09:05And then right then is when God is supposed to show up and God is supposed to rout the

09:12invading army.

09:13God is supposed to save their people.

09:16And so it gets, it's more and more accurate right up to the point where God intervenes.

09:20And then everything after that is totally inaccurate.

09:24And you know, the most likely interpretation of, of that trajectory is, okay, this was

09:29all written right at the point where God intervenes by somebody who was living that experience

09:35and probably writing this in the hope that it would, that they would manifest somehow

09:40these events or they would give people hope that, that these things were going to happen.

09:46And the same is, is almost certainly true of the Olivet Discourse as recorded in Mark,

09:50which was, you know, scholars are like, it might have been like a couple of months before

09:55the destruction of the temple or it might have been a couple of months after the destruction

09:59of the temple.

10:00Like they're, they're very granular about this is either immediately before or very shortly

10:05after.

10:06And so it'd be the same thing because in the Olivet Discourse, all this stuff is going

10:09to happen.

10:10And then what does that bring about?

10:12Suddenly Son of Man and, and he's there to set things straight.

10:16Only that doesn't happen.

10:18Right. And so from, from a critical point of view, that makes the most sense of these

10:23texts and what's going on that this is, this is somebody writing in view of these events

10:29who is kind of hoping that what happens next will be the intervention of God.

10:34But the further away you get from that composition of the text, the less and less that really

10:39fits the treatment of these things as inspired.

10:44And so you have to negotiate.

10:47You have to figure out a way. Okay.

10:48So it didn't happen right after all the events that they said were going to happen.

10:52We're still waiting on this to happen.

10:54It's been 2,000 years, it's been a minute.

11:00Yeah.

11:01So we're going to create this notion of predarism that well, it wasn't, it wasn't created very

11:07recently.

11:08It's actually quite old.

11:09You, this goes back to the first few centuries on CE.

11:14You have early Christians who are like, this kind of seems like it just happened.

11:18So you have the seeds of predarism already being planted pretty early on, but it's not

11:25until, you know, the late medieval period or reformation period that you begin to get

11:31formal articulations of this doctrine of predarism.

11:37And I think one of the interesting things about the early articulation of, of predarism

11:42is that a, it was, a lot of it was criticized for its, uh, heliism.

11:49Have you heard that word before?

11:52It, I don't know that I have.

11:55Does it, does it have to do with helios?

11:57No, it's C A C H I I A S M. And this is based on the Greek word for thousand.

12:06Oh, okay.

12:07So it's millennialism, basically.

12:09Oh, oh, okay.

12:11And because a lot of, uh, a lot of what predarism was about was this notion that there would

12:15be a thousand years of, of peace is when Jesus, uh, rained.

12:20And so you have some folks who, um, who suggested that this was going on following 70 CE or

12:28that this was about to happen.

12:29And a lot of early Christians did not like heli, heliism because it was one, it was associated

12:35with some people who were dismissed as as heretics, but it, it kind of, uh, it undermined the,

12:42the hope in the imminent return of Jesus.

12:45Sure.

12:46So you had a, a lot of conflicts with, uh, with the idea of predarism and it was something

12:52that I think I'm, if I recall correctly, um, an awful lot of Protestants, uh, didn't like

13:00it, uh, this was something that was more, uh, common among, uh, Catholic and, and other

13:07theologians and writers and things like that, but, but it's somewhat began to be accepted

13:12by Protestants.

13:13And these days there are an awful lot of, uh, Protestants who are partial predarists.

13:19Full predarism is still a minority view and particularly among Protestants, but you see

13:24more and more evangelicals who are partial predarists. And, and this is where the accusation

13:31that I'm a predatorist, uh, comes in because when I talk about the Olivette discourse,

13:36when I talk about revelation, I'm like, no, this, this is all talking about things that,

13:41uh, we're just then happening, uh, with the siege of Jerusalem on the part of Rome and

13:47people like, ah, you're a predatorist.

13:49It's like, no, no, I don't think that any of this is real prophecy.

13:54Okay. There's the distinction.

13:56Yeah. So like, predarism is, uh, and, and this is where I, I, I see this a lot. There are

14:02a lot of folks who cannot fathom the existence of a critical study of the Bible. Like every

14:09button, not everybody, an awful lot of people think that I am studying the Bible for religious

14:16reasons. And, and you know, it's not just the people who say I'm a theologian. Uh, it's

14:21not, I, I don't know how many times people will say, I love your channel, but I'm an

14:25atheist.

14:26Right. You don't have to qualify this. So it's not like you don't, you're not allowed

14:31to be here.

14:32If you're, if you're an atheist, it's, I don't expect anything, uh, related to theological

14:38belief to consume my content. But a lot of people think that if you study the Bible,

14:43it's for religious reasons. Um, and, and I don't know if that's what leads people to

14:48think, oh, you're, you're arguing that that, you know, the, um, the Olivet Discourse was

14:53all about the 70 CE. You must be a predatorist. No, I don't think anything else is on the

15:00way. I don't think that, and, and I don't think these were prophecies that were actually

15:04fulfilled. Um, the data don't support that at all. The data indicate that these were

15:09things that writers looking back on these events put into the narratives that they were

15:14crafting as if they came from an earlier time period, which is what happens in Daniel, which

15:19is what happens in, um, well, Revelation is, is, is kind of a contemporary with its composition,

15:26but, but yeah, I'm not a predatorist or at least I wouldn't identify as a predatorist.

15:31If someone wants to define it as anybody who thinks the Olivet Discourse was about the

15:36events of, uh, the Siege of Jerusalem. Fine. But, um, but if it has anything to do with

15:43the notion that anything is actually prophecy that is was or, uh, has yet to be fulfilled

15:49than, than no, I am not a predatorist. So not, not to put too quiet, find a point

15:54on it, but just so that I understand, okay. I guess what you're saying is that predarism

16:00is a theological contention that these were real prophecies and, and the differences just

16:09that they believe that these prophecies were already fulfilled. Yes. The, the idea is that

16:15the, these things are actual inspired prophecies and that the, uh, that ancient Israel's continuation

16:23is, is manifested in, in the Christian church. Uh, and you know, the pivot took place in 70

16:29CE when, when everything went down with, uh, with Roman Jerusalem. And, and so yeah, it

16:35interprets things as, um, as prophetic, but as aimed at a specific set of events that

16:41took place in the past. So I would distinguish it, uh, pretty sharply from a critical academic

16:47approach, which right understands it all as, as a product of human industry and, and

16:53propaganda and, um, things like that. And renegotiation with the scriptures of, uh, of

16:59earlier Judaism and things like that. Yeah. So the, so, so yeah, predators are not people

17:05who believe that these, uh, the, as you do that, that it's possible that these were written

17:13before the, the events that they're pretending to, uh, to prophesy about, they're saying that

17:19these were written whenever they purported to be written, they were about future events,

17:25those future events and came to pass. Yeah. And okay. Particularly folks who want to

17:30put revelation prior to 70 CE because if, if it's written in 90, but about the events

17:35of 70 CE, well, well, that kind of undermines the notion that it is prophetic, that undermines

17:42the notion that, uh, this is actual prophecy, which is why you, you won't, you won't see

17:48many predators say that revelation comes from the 90s CE, but is about, uh, you know, is about,

17:56uh, Nero and the events of 70 CE, but in a prophetic sense and a true, inspired sense.

18:05So in, in that sense, I, I reject that, um, that categorization, but yeah, once, um,

18:12like 18th century is when predatorism becomes more, uh, more widespread, you get some books

18:18that are written that advocate for a predatorist view. And the other views, by the way, are futurism,

18:23which is that all of this is still off in the future. This is, this still has yet to come to pass.

18:30You got historicism, which if I remember correctly is, is the view that,

18:35well, the, is the historicization of all of this, which is probably closer to what I'm doing,

18:41where I'm saying, no, this is not prophecy. When we look at the history, it just,

18:44you know, these texts are describing things that, that were happening then or had just happened,

18:49and, you know, they're hoping for, for things to happen in the future. Uh, but there's,

18:55there are categories for the different approaches to this. And then, yeah, uh,

19:00millennialism fits into all that. And then you got, when we've talked about millennialism,

19:05we've got a millennialism, we've got pre-trib, we've got post-trib, we got all the different types

19:09of, uh, millennialism as well. Right. It all fits into the, uh, that whole framework of

19:17how we understand this to be true. Right. And this is one of the main reasons I, I, um,

19:23object to the label, uh, Preterist is because in, in my view, it presupposes the truth of

19:31everything that's going on here, the inspiration, the inerrancy, the prophetic origins of all of this.

19:37Um, and so I would have, uh, described my approach as more critical.

19:41You touched on it briefly, but one of the things that I'm curious about is sort of the theological

19:51consequence of Preterism, meaning, uh, if theologically, we assume that essentially John's

19:59apocalypse happened and, uh, you know, the, the, the predictions of Daniel and, and Jesus at

20:07Olivet, uh, have all come to pass. Mm hmm. What does that mean for now? Because I mean,

20:14I understood when I was a believer, I understood that these were all, I guess I was raised to be a

20:20futurist, uh, about these ideas. Mm hmm. So I understand what it means if you are a futurist,

20:28I understand that it means that there's a whole bunch of stuff that's coming down the pikes at

20:32some point and we all need to prep for it and we all need to be ready for it. And when it happens,

20:36Oh, this is all the stuff that's going to happen. But like, I guess I, I've never put myself in

20:44the shoes of, of someone who doesn't come from that perspective. So I don't know. So I don't know

20:51what it means. What, like what, you know, I see all of these, uh, these right wing preachers talking

20:59about, it's coming any day. Oh, this me, you know, look at this. Look at what's happening in Israel.

21:03This proves that it's going to, that it's right around the corner, blah, blah, blah, I guess, I

21:10guess that perpetual anticipation, that perpetual, like we've got to be on guard, which goes back

21:19all the way to when these books were written. I mean, I remember I've read about, I've read

21:24historical accounts about, you know, the Great London Fire in 1666. And like, everybody's just

21:31like, there it is. It's happening. We got it. And so it's, this is not a new phenomenon. But

21:37without that, it does seem like it's a very different approach to theology and to, to how one lives

21:45one's life. Yeah. And I think most folks these days, most Christians these days have spent all

21:52their time swimming in the waters of an expectation of a second coming. If not the rapture, at least

21:59resurrection, all this kind of stuff. And that's rather undermined, at least by full

22:03predarism, I think partial predarism basically says, eh, that happened. We're still looking forward

22:09to Jesus's second coming. We're still looking forward to the rapture. We're still looking forward

22:13to a resurrection from the dead. But with full predarism, you've got to kind of reshuffle the

22:18deck and you've got to figure out a way to, to understand how the last, you know, 1900 years

22:25have carried on following all of those things as if Jesus has already come and the resurrection

22:32of the dead has already taken place, which is why a lot of folks would argue that full

22:37predarism requires that the resurrection be something more symbolic, something more metaphorical,

22:45that it not be the literal resurrection from the dead. And you know, there are groups that

22:50understand it that way, that, that this is not about, you know, everybody coming back from the

22:56dead, but it is something else, whether related to the spirit or something like that there.

23:04It's a very different way of, of understanding Christian history and Christian eschatology.

23:11And yeah, you can find, you know, in the, in the book of Matthew, it says, uh, when Jesus died,

23:19you know, a bunch of people came back from the dead and appeared to their loved ones and things

23:23like that. And so people say, ah, there's the, there's the resurrection. It, it happened right

23:27there. And so now we, um, we've had a resurrection. We need no more resurrection. Uh, and I guess,

23:34I, it, it ruins phrases like the end of days or any of that sort of thing, but it does kind of, it,

23:42it kind of frees you from this, uh, the, from the anxiety that, uh, that a coming apocalypse

23:50somewhere looming on the horizon has given. I mean, there are, I, I can't tell you how many

23:56people I've talked to who had or, or still have intense apocalyptic anxiety. Oh yeah, big time.

24:04And then there's just, I guess you're just left with sort of a different anxiety,

24:09which is just like, what do we do now? I don't know, I guess we just live our lives well or something.

24:14Yeah. Oh, I was listening to a video. I was in my kitchen and I was on, um, TikTok listening to a

24:21video on my wife walked by. And the, and the person was like, all those people who say that these are

24:26actual were not in the end times, you know, they had to deal with the same thing back when first

24:31Peter was written. And my wife was like, and it didn't happen then. Like it's been 2000 years.

24:38They were right. Yeah. Well, back then when they criticized the notion that they were, uh,

24:45in the end times and, and yeah, there are a lot of folks who would still consider themselves

24:50Bible believers and Christians looking forward to something, but not what the majority of Christians

24:56these days are looking forward to. I don't think they anticipate, you know, that, uh, that Iran

25:02and Turkey and Russia are going to form a coalition and then attack Israel from the north and from

25:06the south. And then that's going to bring on Armageddon and that, and you know, uh, the, the

25:11people who see this as some kind of paint by number where you're trying to divine, you know, what's

25:17happening in the future. Uh, like it makes for a puzzle to be solved and I get that that is meaningful.

25:26I get that that has value to folks. Um, but it's so ridiculous. The notion that this is, this is a

25:36Ouija board and we're trying to divine the future and we're keeping a lookout for, for all the signs

25:43because they, you know, there's every generation over the last 2000 years has had the ability to

25:49point to stuff and say, it's the sign of the times and the, but not every generation, I think

25:56understood the Bible to be pointing them in that direction. I think there are a lot of

25:59generations that didn't worry about that. And, and I'm sure like in the fourth century when

26:04Christianity takes over the Roman Empire, uh, I'm sure there were an awful lot of people who are

26:09like, cool. I guess we're set. We don't need to, uh, worry about, uh, all of this bad stuff that's,

26:15that's going to be happened when we talked with Bartirman about his book, Armageddon. He talked

26:20in that book about how there were a lot of readings of revelation that were very popular, um,

26:25throughout history that didn't understand it as, as about some future apocalyptic,

26:30um, chaos that, uh, read it in, in very different ways. And, and it is, it is kind of bizarre to

26:37think about Christians in other time periods and other places being like, no, none of that's going

26:43to happen. We're all right. We're cool. Yeah, because it's fine. So that's, uh, that's,

26:48I think I probably have some holy envy for, uh, the generations of Christians who did not have to

26:54deal with, with these ridiculous people out there going, the, the trains that are derailing,

27:00and that reminds me of revelation where you have the, the horses and they have the tales like

27:05scorpions and all this. And can we just not, can we please please stop doing that?

27:12Just relax everybody. Yeah. So you're going to be okay. Well, since we were just talking about,

27:18you know, Christians in history and the book of revelation, why don't we jump into our next

27:24segment taking issue? The issue that we are going to take is with the idea that revelation

27:34itself is a, uh, is, is, is good? No, no, that's not the issue. Is, is, is actually like,

27:44was always meant to be in the canon. Yes. Uh, of, of Christian books of the New Testament. Yes.

27:52We're going to, we're going to talk about the Christians who challenged that.

27:55Okay. A lot of people don't know this, but the, it's not like the earliest Christians were like,

28:02ah, we're Christians now. And here is our collection of books that everybody agrees on.

28:06Like, no, it took not only did it take a long time for these books to be written. And most

28:12critical scholars would say there are multiple books of the New Testament, perhaps even at least

28:17one of the gospels that weren't even written until probably the beginning of the second century CE.

28:22So it's probably over a century after Jesus's death that the final books are being,

28:30uh, wound up being completed. So it's taking a long time to do that. And then you have these,

28:36you know, you, you couldn't just get on Amazon and order a book and be like, I have to wait until

28:41five in the morning to get this book. Um, these, these things had to be copied by hand, which meant

28:47they didn't just immediately go and, and get out there. They, they, um, you know, they had a

28:53biography. These things had to be passed along and somebody would have multiple copies made by hand.

29:00And then they would pass the original copy on it. And so different congregations had different

29:04sets of books and the canon came together slowly. And it was not that people sat around a desk and

29:11went, I vote for this one in the canon and this one out. What happened is, is mainly people

29:16went around and found out what books were being read in the services, what books were being

29:22considered authoritative and inspired and which were not. And so a lot of the early discussions of

29:27canon would say, well, these are the books that the majority of churches treat as authoritative,

29:34as inspired, as, um, doctrinally binding. These are the books that they read, but they don't really

29:41consider doctrinally binding. These are the spurious books. These are the ones that we know

29:46were not written by the people they claim to have been written by and all that. So you had different

29:49levels of, of, um, proximity to this notion of canon and, and ultimately it was, it was basically

29:57a boundary firmed up around the books that the majority of people were using. And then they

30:03came up with rationalizations for why it's those books that are in and any, everything else is out.

30:09Now, um, I objection. I don't get any, any overruled. No, okay. No, you're correct.

30:16It does seem, uh, that is a very human way of doing things. Yeah. You, you, you figure out what

30:22you like and then you prove why it's good. Why it's, why it's real or why everyone else should

30:28care about it or whatever. 100% that is, is how it works. And, and you know, this is how it works.

30:35Even, even today when, you know, a politician gets up there and says something, the person

30:41intuitively decides whether they like it or not and then goes about rationalizing why

30:47their feelings are correct. And you know, it's, it's the same for the development of the canon. It

30:53was, you know, just kind of worked its way into, okay, these are the things that everybody likes.

30:57Now let's come up with criteria for why they were right all along. Right. And, um, you know,

31:04you had things like apostolic authorship or some kind of connection to, uh, an apostolic source.

31:10You had the, the authority of the text within early Christian churches and all these things.

31:16And so all the criteria are, are basically like, well, that's because that's what everybody thinks.

31:22Right. Look at how many people are reading it.

31:26Yeah. All those guys can't be wrong. Yeah. Um, and the book of Revelation for quite some time

31:34was not really that popular. It was something that was dismissed as a rather grotesque misrepresentation

31:40of Christian sensitivities and ideologies. Uh, there's a, there's a guy named Dionysus of Alexandria.

31:47He was a bishop and a scholar and he died, uh, the middle of the third century around

31:51260s CE. And he argued that, and, and his argument was, but it was really the consensus view for a

32:02long time within early Christianity that whatever the nature of the book of Revelation, it was not

32:08written by the author of the gospel of John. It was written by somebody else. And, and this

32:13kind of complicates the relationship of the book of Revelation to any kind of apostolic authority.

32:21Right. But Dionysus writes, uh, he's kind of describing opinions about the book of revelation,

32:28middle of the third century. Some before us have set aside and rejected the book altogether,

32:33criticizing it chapter by chapter and pronouncing it without sense or argument and maintaining

32:38the title as fraudulent. And this was a big deal. Is this actually a revelation or not?

32:44For they say that it is not the work of John, nor is it a revelation because it is covered

32:50thickly and densely by a veil of obscurity. You know, the God is not an author, the author of

32:56confusion kind of approach. If, if all of this is, and it is a confusing book, it is a, it is a very,

33:03mystifying bit of writing. Yeah. Apocalypsis revelation. It means an uncovering a revealing.

33:12And it's like, if all this stuff is being smuggled in in all this complex and frequently grotesque

33:18imagery, there's nothing revealing about her. So it's not, it's, it can't be that. It should

33:23be called the obfuscation of John. Yeah, the obfuscation of John. And, and he goes on and they

33:28affirm that none of the apostles and none of the saints nor anyone in the church is its author.

33:34And so, and, and Dionysus is not endorsing that position. He's not rejecting the book of

33:43revelation. He says he, he thinks it is authoritative, but doesn't think that it was written by the

33:52author of the gospel of John. And when you compare the Greek of John and revelation,

33:57it's night and day. Like the author of, of the gospel of John knew what he was doing. It's

34:02coin a Greek, you know, he's, he's not a classical Greek lyricist. It's coin a Greek, but it is far

34:10more sophisticated and educated than the Greek of the book of revelation, which tends to be rather

34:15choppy and, and rather rough in style. And there are things that, that a lot of Greek romerians would

34:22call just nonstandard or even grammatically incorrect Greek in there. So that, that was the

34:29main concern. Readers would be like, this is not the same style kind of Greek as we have in the

34:35gospel of John. Right. You had folks who said, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's fun. You

34:42see bees of Caesarea in his a text ecclesiastical history. And if you want, like ecclesiastical

34:48history, I don't know if you've ever read any part of that, but you see BSC was, he was a friend of,

34:53of Constantine's, he put together this ecclesiastical history. And that's one of the primary sources

34:59for, for a lot of the history of the early church. But it's a, it's a great thing to read if you

35:03haven't read it. He called it a disputed book saying that there was a lot of uncertainty about any

35:10kind of apostolic origin. And he referenced Dionysus's discussion about the, the concerns with it.

35:20And I think UCB has probably also said it's probably wasn't written by the author of

35:26the gospel of John. Does does, sorry, my memory is fails me on this. Does the book of revelation

35:34claim to be written by the gospel of, by, by John, the apostle? No. It's just John. It says I am

35:42John. Yeah. But it doesn't say John the apostle. Yeah. Call me John. Right. And then moves on. And

35:49the first person to actually say this could be the same author as the author of gospel, John,

35:56is Justin Martyr, around 150 CE. And, and he was a defender of the authenticity of the book of

36:04Revelation. But prior to that, nobody had identified that John as the same John as the gospel of John.

36:11And then Justin Martyr is like, put them together and they're the same John. And, and that, and a

36:16bunch of other people were like, you're joking, right? But, but that would, that would ultimately

36:22carry the day. And then we have this guy named Gaius of Rome, who's a presbyter from the early

36:29third century CE. So even before Dionysus of Alexandria. And he actually said that it is a

36:37heretical book. And he attributed it to a Gnostic heretic named Serenthus. And so he went out of his

36:46way to, to say, no, this is a bad book. This is heretical. This should not be included in the canon.

36:53And he was, and, and mainly because of its Heliasm, its millennialism, he was fiercely opposed to

37:03this. So, and then Marcian of Cinepe was the heretic. Nobody Christians today really hate Marcian,

37:13but he was also one who rejected the authenticity and the inspired nature of the book of Revelation.

37:22And excluded it from his canon, along with a ton of other stuff.

37:25What were some of the objections? I mean, were they, were they textual objections

37:35or were theological objections? Like, what are we talking about here?

37:38Well, you, there were a few different objections. We, we talked a little bit about the authorship

37:42thing that, that this just does not read like the author of the gospel of John. We talked about

37:47the fact that there is nothing that seems to be revealing about this. It is all shrouded in,

37:52in a lot of mysterious apocalyptic imagery. There are folks who thought it sounded to Jewish.

37:58It was Jewish apocalyptic imagery that was not becoming of, you know, good Christian literature.

38:07There were, there were folks who said that wasn't, that was not really what we're doing anymore.

38:12There were folks who said that the, the ideologies in the book were very exclusionary,

38:20exclusivistic, but also very materialistic. We're going to get everything that the bad guys have.

38:27We're going to, and we talked about this, we've talked about this a couple of times in the past,

38:32where the, the author of the sermon on the Mount would have wildly disagreed with the book of

38:39Revelation's vision of a future where we're just swimming in wine. And everybody has all the riches

38:47in the world. And, and we're all gludding ourselves on all of the, you know, just the bounty of the

38:56cool loot that we get. Yes, yes. And so for a lot of people, this vision of the future

39:04just clashed with the asceticism of early Christianity. And, you know, a Jesus who was like, deny

39:11everything, you know, make yourself a eunuch, we're going to live in and basically abject poverty.

39:20And then along comes John the revelator, like one for everybody.

39:24And I can see how each of those approaches would have, would have their supporters. Yeah,

39:32those approaches both have their supporters now. Yeah, you can imagine some early Christians,

39:37you know, sitting in the, the Colosseum going, but I kind of like what they have over here.

39:42Right. And they're like, no, that, and just tried having a bunch of money in wine,

39:46because I like it. I enjoy that. You pretend to enjoy celibacy, but everybody knows you're just

39:57so I think that was a big part of it as well. And, and yeah, just just the fact that it doesn't

40:02seem to follow in the trend of Christian writings from the time period. It's just, and even, even

40:09people today who read it, Revelation is an outlier, linguistically, literally.

40:14It does. I mean, you can see it. You don't have to be well versed in, in, you know,

40:23in almost any of the studies, the academic studies, to be it to read that and see it as very different

40:30from what comes before. Yeah. And then I, there are a few things that contributed to

40:38the book of Revelation's inclusion in the canon. One, you know, because it was debated, it had

40:48widespread circulation. And so you did have fans of the book of Revelation, Papius,

40:56who we've talked about before, who is one of our witnesses to a couple of the, the gospels.

41:03He identifies a gospel by Mark and by Matthew, which may or may not be related to what we have

41:10now as the gospel of Mark and Matthew. Obviously Justin Martyr, who was the first one to say,

41:14they're the same John. He was a fan of it. These were very influential folks.

41:19And so this kind of, the objectors were not as influential in a lot of ways, but it was still a

41:27debated text. And I would say probably was on its way out of the canon until Athanasius of Alexandria.

41:36Scunt-a-dun-dun. To whom I shake my fist. Athanasius. He was, and what, like this guy just led,

41:47what must have been the most bizarre and stressful life. Like he was exiled, I think seven or eight

41:55times in his life. Like they were like, we just can't get rid of you. And mainly because he was,

42:04he was like the fiercest anti-Aryan that was around. I mean, I'm sure you had other Christians

42:09who were like, Athanasius needs to pull it back. Talk about anti-Aryan because I don't think

42:15people are going to know what that is. Okay. So Athanasius was around in 325 CE when we had the

42:22Council of Nicaea, which was there to try to resolve the Aryan controversy, which is where

42:28this presbyter Arius was saying that Jesus was a subordinate being, which was not that controversial

42:34in the early church. But he also was saying there was a time when Jesus was not, when he did not exist.

42:41He was a creation of God the Father. And that is what set, I think, the most people off. But

42:47at Nicaea, they came up with the Nicene Creed. They came up with the idea that Jesus was

42:53consubstantial with the Father and with the Holy Ghost. And we have the beginnings of formal

42:59articulated Trinitarianism. And, but that didn't seal the deal. Like that didn't fix the problem.

43:07There would be another century of back and forth between Arianism and anti-Aryanism.

43:13And you even had an Aryan emperor. One of the Roman emperors was an Aryan and Constantine was

43:20even somewhat sympathetic to the plight of the Arians, but Athanasius was one of the torchbearers

43:28for the anti-Aryan bent. And one of the things that he did was appeal to the book of Revelation

43:38as a way not to distinguish Christians from non-Christians and not as a way to circle the

43:45wagons around the followers of Jesus, but as a way to root out inadequately faithful Christians

43:53who are in the church. So he took the book of Revelation and he pointed it back at the other

43:59Christians and said, you're not good enough. You're an enemy. You're a wolf in sheep's clothing.

44:05And this would have been aimed at not only Arians, but anybody who challenged the power

44:12structures that served his interests and that he was trying to advance. And I think we've talked

44:16about this before. For instance, you had the monasteries at the time. They were not under the

44:22wing of the institutional church. They were the rebels out in the desert living like hippies,

44:28though in peace and love and Gnostic literature man and Athanasius wanted to stop to that and wanted

44:38to bring the monasteries under the control of the institutional church and had his ways of going

44:43about doing that. But one of the things that he did was include the book of Revelation and in his

44:50canon and his list, his canon list from I think it was 367. This was his 39th

45:00Festal letter. And if you don't know what that means, this was kind of the letter celebrating, I think,

45:07Easter, that went out in the year 367. And in that letter, he lays out the canon, which becomes

45:18more or less the first like formal articulation of the canon as it exists now. Prior to that,

45:24yeah, prior to that, there were debates and you had some people going, yeah, these are,

45:28these are in these are out, but it hadn't firmed up until Athanasius's letter. And he was the first

45:34one who said Revelation is in. That's the last book he includes. And then he goes on in the next

45:42paragraph. These are the fountains of salvation that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the

45:48living words they contain. And these alone, the teaching of godliness is proclaimed. Let no one

45:54add to these. Let nothing be taken away from them. Now it readers of the Bible will recognize this.

46:02May no one add to this or take away from this. You see this in Deuteronomy. You see this in

46:08the book of Revelation. Yeah. And so, and so Athanasius is basically quoting his, his favored text as a

46:17means of doing what Revelation was trying to do. Kind of authorize and tie off and authoritatively

46:24seal up his message. And his message as book of Revelation is, is canon. And a lot of people will,

46:32you don't really have an authoritative canon list that that matches closely what we have today

46:38prior to this letter. Some people will point to the meritorian fragment. Have we done a show on

46:44the meritorian fragment? Is that sound familiar? Okay, we got to do it. I might have to check,

46:50but I don't remember anything about that. Yeah, we'll have to do a show on that because

46:54most people today will say the meritorian fragment is from like the second century.

47:00Like it's a very early canon list. However, the canon that it lists is more like late

47:08fourth century. And it refers to some groups that weren't around when it was supposed to be

47:16have been written in the second century. So while historically it has, it has been the consensus

47:21view is that it comes from the second century. Within the last decade or so, I think you've had

47:26a lot of scholars pushing hard in the other direction saying no, meritorian fragment is

47:30probably from the late fourth century CE. So after Athanasius's letter, and it is only trying to

47:37sound very early. So, but that's another one that includes the book of Revelation. If the

47:42meritorian fragment is late fourth century, you don't really have a canon as we know it today until

47:49Athanasius's letter from 367 CE. So the the the canon firms up toward the the second half

47:57of the fourth century CE and Revelation isn't really formally a part of it until then either.

48:03Yeah, I was noticing when I was sort of poking around on this that the council of

48:09you're going to have to tell me loud to see you loud to see it omitted revelation. That was

48:16363. That was pretty late in the game. Yes. And they were like, nah.

48:20Yeah. This was this was something that that was established pretty late and primarily because

48:31of rhetorical utility to Athanasius for for his attempt to try to engage in boundary maintenance.

48:38Who's a good Christian? Who's a bad Christian? And and also for the churches. So I think you have

48:43toward the end, the Council of Hippo 393 CE, the Council of Carthage 397 CE, those are

48:51reaffirmations basically of more or less the canon that Athanasius asserted. And I want to I

48:58want to say there are one or two places where Athanasius might diverge. Yeah, so he says

49:06Isaiah one book Jeremiah with Baruch. So that would be what is now considered an apocryphal book.

49:12Lamentations and the epistle, which is probably a reference to the epistle of Jeremiah, another

49:18apocryphal book, if I recall correctly. And when he talks about like Daniel, whether or not he's

49:25referencing the additions to Daniel, which are now included in the apocrypha, I'm not positive

49:30about that. But so they're there. You're saying like Bell and the dragon.

49:34Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. So I would have to go and see what the scholars have said about

49:39that. I don't recall. But so there are some squishy edges to to Athanasius's canon as compared to

49:45today. But what some people think it was it was more or less in place, like even you even have

49:51people who think it was more or less in place at the end of the first century, beginning of the

49:54second century CE. You have apologists who will argue that. And the reality is that that's just

49:59not the case. It was something that was a lot more amorphous for a lot longer than a lot of people

50:06went to acknowledge and revelation was one of the one of the Johnny come lately's

50:11in the fourth century that. And again, in my opinion, it probably would not be there if not for

50:18Athanasius of Alexandria, to whom I once again shake my fist. Yes, you there's a lot of fish

50:27shaking on this on this particular episode. Did you say fish? Well, you should be want to. I'm

50:34meant to say fist if if fish is what came out, then I don't know. I probably just didn't hear.

50:39Should we just shake our fishes also at Athanasius? Let's just shake whatever we got.

50:44Yeah, shake. You got them. Yeah, shake. What's your mama gave you?

50:47Like a Polaroid picture as the great poet grew tired of saying what I understand.

50:57So yeah, revelation probably would not be included in the canon if you went with the consensus view

51:06of the first century of followers of Jesus and probably even more probably into the third and

51:12maybe even the fourth century of Christians. So not a great text and particularly when

51:19overwhelmingly it is leveraged today in order to try to scare people into thinking that there is

51:26some apocalyptic end times that is in the post and that that authorizes the nation of Israel to do

51:36whatever it needs to do to less powerful groups that reside by and in it. So I think it causes

51:45more harm than good. And that's without even referencing the untold trauma that has been

51:52experienced by people raised under, you know, and to quote another great poet under his watchful

51:59eyes. Is that what the shoot? Is that what the handmaid's tail thing is under his eye or something

52:07like that? I don't know the handmaid's tail. Oh, I'm so I'm pretty sure it's under his eye.

52:12Yeah, that was the phrase under under his eye. I think is what it is. Yeah, but I think a lot of

52:19people have had very traumatic childhoods because of this notion that this is something that is

52:26right around the corner. And we're all going to be experiencing some nightmarish apocalyptic

52:31hellscape. Right. That we're supposed to be excited about. Yeah, I'm real thrilled about it.

52:36Because because and I like I didn't grow up in in that kind of environment, but I can't imagine

52:43having parents who would be like, here's all the awful stuff that's going to happen. And you need

52:48to be excited about it. Right. If you're not excited about it, that means you don't have enough faith.

52:54And you're going to be one of the ones who's going to be, you know, have their skin worn like

52:59a helmet or something. Yeah. Like, I can't imagine what it must be like trying to rationalize that.

53:07Trying to wrap your head around. Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess, I guess it's a bunch of bad things,

53:12but I'll be okay. Because I'm as long as I don't sin. Oh, no. Yeah. It's a very scary, scary thing.

53:20Yeah. And people are like, you can't sin. You're going to everybody. Nobody has a choice, but you're

53:26not but you shouldn't sin. Yeah. And oh gosh, it's a catch 22 or a catch 666.

53:37I like it. So I like it. All right, friends. Well, that's it for today. If you would like to be a

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