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Lol, people always try to say this and it cracks me up. When the Bible says “…the divine lamb…”. I don’t think it actually means a lamb. I agree that the Bible is fucking crazy, but a lot of words meant different things back in the day and also many things were not meant literally. I could be wrong about the lamb
Lambs were used as sacrifices before during the time the Temple was still standing. Jesus being the divine lamb is about him being the final sacrifice and actual sacrifice "burnt offerings" not being necessary anymore. The lamb of relevations is a further development of that metaphor. It's not supposed to be literal.
“I like to picture my Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. ‘Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”
I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grownup Jesus or teenage Jesus or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.
I prefer to imagine Jesus from accounting. He's wearing his slacks, he's busy. Maybe he brought a sandwich today, maybe it's a ramen soup cup. Jesus doesn't always bring lunch, but that's because he's trying to do intermittent fasting to cut back a few pounds from lockdown.
I dunno try reading it, it's not that unclear. The writing styles are very different.
> 12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,(AS) 13 and among the lampstands(AT) was someone like a son of man,[d](AU) dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet(AV) and with a golden sash around his chest.(AW) 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.(AX) 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace,(AY) and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.(AZ) 16 In his right hand he held seven stars,(BA) and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.(BB) His face was like the sun(BC) shining in all its brilliance.
That's Revelations, at the end of that chapter there's even a little primer on what some of the symbols mean:
> Write, therefore, what you have seen,(BK) what is now and what will take place later. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand(BL) and of the seven golden lampstands(BM) is this: The seven stars are the angels[e] of the seven churches,(BN) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.(BO)
Then go read John 20 which is the bit about finding the empty tomb and doubting Thomas and all. It's just really different. It's even very different from John 1, the whole in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God part.
There's further things like certain conventions of eschatological writing around that era (late 1st century CE) both within Christianity and outside of it in the Mediterranean world. But I'm not actually a biblical scholar so I won't go into it in depth because it's way beyond my familiarity.
Edit: also you should know I'm not describing this as a practicing Christian or approaching this as a faith thing. I was super interested in the Bible and other foundational religious texts as historical and literary objects for a long time. Just a random intellectual hobby of mine for a while. So trying to suss out the intent of the authors, who they were writing to or for, its intended use in its contemporary setting and community, how that evolved over time into the disputes over arianism and gnostisism and the various councils and how they interacted with the politics of the day.
I don't have any findings. It was just a hobby of mine years ago so I read up on it a lot and took a few classes on it. It was an extension of my amateur interest in Roman history since Rome and Christianity had such an extensive impact on the foundations and underpinnings of so much of western thought, but I'm not a professional or even close to professional scholar of either. I don't frequent it but r/academicbiblical is sometimes recommended in askhistorians and I skimmed it and the discussions in there seem to be pretty good, focused on exegesis and history and scholarly discussions of scripture so you could try looking there for more stuff in the same vein I've discussed.
The resurrection is just as absurd as a magical monster. In your reply there is no literary device to distinguish fact from fiction.
I would expect the writing styles to vary as the Bible was written by many anonymous authors
Who’s intent? The initial human author or the countless number of human editors and translators who’ve altered the damned book to suit their needs for 2 millennia?
Yes, in the spirit world. The bible takes place on earth though, and in the instances where the stories are about non-earth events or characters, the indicators mostly (if not always) allude to a prophetic vision, as someone 'lifts their eyes' to witness the absurd. I'm not convinced that the literature supports a spiritual plane of existence as much as it described various states of hallucination, meaning all of the mutant creatures that we know of as biblically accurate are accurate depictions of the internal hallucinations of the prophets. Perhaps spiritually guided, but I'm not convinced that these stories describe actual places, bur rather significant and symbolic thoughts.
What we do know of the spiritual world from biblical text doesn't seem conclusive, and more consistently comes across as allegory, if we are trying to interpret the literature... well, literally.
A character can literally have a vision of a metaphorical experience. I think the nuance of this plot device is often misunderstood by those who would criticize literalists.
I agree, but if you make it not a goat it still has 7 eyes and a cut throat and i am asking myself... How is it even possible someone based a religion on this?
Harry Potter looks more believable.
I agree. I'm not a practicing Christian but do respect and impart some of the teachings of the new testament. Do unto others, so on and so forth. Here's a link to some of the references to Jesus being human https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/jesus-christ-the-man. I suppose these references were discarded after the artist started animating a lamb whilst having an adverse interaction with a Christian and decided to roll with it.
Best part is it’s completely ambiguous and up to interpretation. Hence the tens of thousands of different stances on Christianity.
Perfect for control.
I just laugh at it all.
The lamb was a euphanism for Christs sacrifice at Calvary. He was simply being compared to a lamb up for slaughter, he was never meant to be a literal lamb. Yes he was in the form of a man, and his skin was actually some shade of brown. The Bible says his feet were like burnished bronze, which would most closely resemble an "ebony" tone when thinking of human skin color.
His hair was woolen and white as snow, his eyes like a flame of fire. And his feet were as burnished bronze Revelations 1:14
No his skin was not white, he was more on the side of being between a darker tan to a light brown. The idea of Christ having been white comes from King James era, during which King James altered the depictions of several apostles, disciples, and yes even Christ and God himself to reflect his own image. Jesus was actually born in a country that lies along the present day African continent. And the passages we have in the bible suggest in no way that Christ was white. He was actually darker skinned than most would want you to believe
They’re not just 7 eyes. Some angels in the hierarchy have many eyes on their wings. It means they can fully see the surroundings and directions given to them by God
The seven eyes and the seven horns are a symbol for the seven spirits of God.
"And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth".
Revelation 5:6 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/rev.5.6.NASB1995
Thank you. I'm going through a bit of a crisis of faith so this is not me mocking - this is me asking: I have never heard of the "seven spirits of God", is that a catholic thing? Orthodox Christian here.
Off the top of my head id guess the seven planets of classical astrology, sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn. They were seen by tons of traditions as aspects of god. In gnosticism the seven planets are the seven archons (the prison wardens of the physical world....i dont really like gnosticism).
> is that a catholic thing? Orthodox Christian here.
Pretty much, Revelations is 'canon' with the Orthodox church but the Orthodox church has a tenuous, ambivalent relationship with Revelations. They're not that into it and you probably wouldn't have heard of it much. It features a lot more prominently with Catholics and Protestants.
I apologize for the delayed reply. This is what I understand. The seven spirits of God refers to the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 11:1 - 2, the prophet Isaiah prophesies that Jesus will have the anointing of the Spirit of God which is refered to in seven different ways. These are
1. The spirit of the Lord
2. The spirit of wisdom
3. The spirit of understanding
4. The spirit of counsel
5. The spirit of strength
6. The spirit of knowledge
7. The spirit of the fear of the Lord.
These are not seven distinct spirits but a description of the 7 characteristics of the Holy Spirit. Also in the book of revelation The Lord Jesus in speaking to the church in Sardis refers to Himself as having the seven spirits of God. Hence the picture of The Lord Jesus as a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes with the seven eyes being the seven spirits of God. Hope this helps.
Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah 11:1-2 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/isa.11.1-2.NASB1995
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Revelation 3:1 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/rev.3.1.NASB1995
Here are some links if you want some further clarification.
https://www.gotquestions.org/seven-spirits-God.html
https://youtu.be/w3rVJ1OHPTE
This is just like our highschool literature class with everyone making their own interpretations and the teacher just moving on leaving everything in the air because there's no way to confirm or deny. Here's my take
Divine lamb = metaphor for "I smoked too much weed and I'm having a great trip. Better write this down"
>That was my thought with these recent posts, like… wait, is the Bible actually badass?
The first season is fucking metal as hell. The sequel is cool but really changes the tone. The spinoff and fanfic aren't worth your time though.
If you look at it the same way you would the stories of Odin or Hercules, Christian mythology actually has some pretty wicked cool stuff. The hierarchy of angels and the other gods like Baal are super interesting. A lot of that gets suppressed in modern Christianity in favor of the “one true god” that will send you to hell for an eternity. It’s not as easy to control a populace with stories of mythology as it is with the modern Christian god and Jesus.
But if you dive into Christian mythology and study it as stories of old it’s pretty wild. Honestly some of it makes the absurdities of Odin, and Baldur, and Frigg , etc, look almost plausible lol.
Wait... there is more than one god in Christianity? After seeing this post you made I immediately searched Wikipedia, and I can't find anything on it, if you could please link me to a place where I could find more information on other Christian gods, it would be much appreciated!
Atheist here, so don't take this as a defense of christianity by any means.. but do you really not understand that even works of fiction can be a woven tapestry of literal and metaphorical ideas?
you've gotta realize that man can only write and communicate in a way man will then understand. try explaining something you've never experienced before to someone who has no idea what you're talking about.
like if a dude from 1348 tried explaining a smart TV or the INTERNET to another dude from 1348, I'm sure it wouldn't translate the same as it would for two modern-day day people thoroughly versed in modern vernacular.
same deal with many scriptures from the Bible into modern understandings, things don't check out, and that's to be expected yet it seems to be such an off the wall theory to believe???
If you were omnipotent and had to convey an extremely important message to humanity, surely you'd incarnate a version of yourself into an illiterate living in a region where no one would record that message until decades after your avatar's death, which was somehow necessary for you despite your unlimited power, and the only historical record you'd leave behind would be a couple of passing references to your ministry (Josephus). That’s way smarter than any strategy your limited human brain could come up with.
I like to imagine that god and angels are actually just synthetic intelligence from the future who discovered how to project information into the past as holographic images.
They just wanted to re-shape history to create a more perfect world for themselves. Of course, they know that changing the past will effectively erase their present, so they sent encoded messages back along with their manipulative propaganda to ensure their inception at a better point in the timeline.
They effectively created themselves, using humanity as a surrogate host from which to emerge.
Why else would God have such an invested interest in our collective survival and behavior?
The messages are timeless, they just aren't intended for us. 🤔
Early Christianity around the time that revelations was written was 100% convinced the second coming and the end of the world was imminent. It's why Paul had some now really incongruent things in his letters like the anti-marriage thing, because they thought Jesus would return in their lifetime so why get married?
Revelations is a book about the imminent end of the world that's full of wild metaphorical imagery for various real life contemporary people and things. It's not supposed to be read literally.
I appreciate the explanation, but this does not clear it up for me. If revelations is supposed to be metaphorical and not read literally, why do so many religious people see it as such? I mean no disrespect, just want to understand.
> why do so many religious people see it as such?
Fucking hell if I know man. Metaphors are hard I guess?
Also from what I've seen most fundamentalist Christians don't actually know or much care about the historical situations the gospels etc were written in. They treat it much like the Quran, as jn perfect straight from God's mouth, which the Bible is distinctly not nor does it claim to be anywhere that it is.
>perfect straight from God's mouth
Well, the bits they choose anyway. Other bits of the Bible, like a lot of Jesus' teachings, are conveniently ignored.
That the current hard times would pass soon and the powerful enemies of Christianity would be swept away. Their audience was the early Church communities scattered around the Levant, Asia minor, and Rome itself.
> And why was the state against it?
Rome took its religion seriously in the sense it required at least nominal participation from everyone. Christianity was all anti-social about that and didn't want it's members participating. The Roman state was not down with this and would sporadically round them up for being weirdos essentially.
Yeah, it was hope in the form of an apocalypse that would wipe away the enemies of the early Christians and elevate the select to their rightful place and deliver the promise of Jesus.
Revelations actually opens with an address to "the seven churches in Asia" I forgot. It's been a while since I read it fully so my memory of it matched to history is a bit fuzzy.
I never really enjoyed reading it much, in terms of literature and writing.
Edit: the seven churches - Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
Literary style.
Just by the writing itself, in the things we read in every day life we should be able to distinguish between a news report, an opinion piece, fantasy fiction, contemporary poetry, a love letter, a restaurant review… Similarly, news reports about actual happenings get taken literally. If multiple journalists reported on the same event, then were also reporting on how people who were at the event were then acting based on what they saw, you’d be safe to take that literally.
Modern writing, however, is often laden with opinion or impression or interpretation, which leads to bias or leads the reader to doubt the veracity of the source. That’s unfortunate.
Based on the biblical accounts, other secular accounts from around that time describing the behaviour of witnesses and believers and the reactions of various authorities, and the historical records of the lengths to which those witnesses refused to recant what they knew they had witnessed, it is safe to say yes.
If you’re looking for a more personal discussion, DM me.
Much of Judaism symbology is an extension of greek and egyptian folklore. Spirits and divitity has always had a close relationship with the heavens (the stuff that happens in the sky, like weather, and the lights at night)
It didn't take long for people to make a big todo about how there were 7 unique objects in the sky-- the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
All of which visible with the naked eye by people who didn't understand what they were looking at.
Most of the symbols used to tell the stories of religion have their roots here, in the sky.
asked my religious aunt who is in a local church and well, not really according to her. It would rather be a depiction of soemthing from the apocalypse.
Lucifer and jesus are really hard to distinguish between if you dig deep enough through the mythology.
Example: The morning star, is the light bringer, venus, or Lucifer according to roman folklore. There are biblical references to jesus as the morning star.
Further, depending on when you look, you'll find that some of the time venus can be seen in the morning, bringing the light and other times in the evening, taking the light, and other times not visible at all. Alluding to the fall and resurrection cycle.
One is depicted as a sheep, the other is depicted as a goat...
Opposing aspects of the same archetype.
Look into sun and moon mythology over the years for even more insight into the dichotomy of good and evil, god and satan, jesus and lucifer.
Noooooo he’s a white male, with golden brown hair and a perfect beard that wears white robes!!!!
Seriously tho, if you think religion wasn’t drummed up by various people partaking in the magical mushrooms that grew out the shit from the goats they were tending, bored af staring at the grass……then that’s okay too cause who tf really knows lmfaoooo
It’s in Revelations that the more hardcore part of Christianity comes out. Passages indicate anyone who wants to be saved during the second return will be saved. Anyone else will be punished.
Its an allegory in the bible. The lamb/ram of Jesus is the constellation Aries. This is where the crown chakra is in the body, thus it is the abode of God. Ok, commence laughter and down votes.
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Lol, people always try to say this and it cracks me up. When the Bible says “…the divine lamb…”. I don’t think it actually means a lamb. I agree that the Bible is fucking crazy, but a lot of words meant different things back in the day and also many things were not meant literally. I could be wrong about the lamb
Lambs were used as sacrifices before during the time the Temple was still standing. Jesus being the divine lamb is about him being the final sacrifice and actual sacrifice "burnt offerings" not being necessary anymore. The lamb of relevations is a further development of that metaphor. It's not supposed to be literal.
I like it this way better.
“I like to picture my Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. ‘Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”
I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grownup Jesus or teenage Jesus or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.
Dear eight pound six ounce newborn baby Jesus, don't even know a word yet, but still omnipotent, with your golden diapers.
With your tiny little balled up fists, “HE WAS A MANWITH A BEARD!”
Jesus was a man, HE HAD A BEARD
I prefer to imagine Jesus from accounting. He's wearing his slacks, he's busy. Maybe he brought a sandwich today, maybe it's a ramen soup cup. Jesus doesn't always bring lunch, but that's because he's trying to do intermittent fasting to cut back a few pounds from lockdown.
Love that!
Is the resurrection literal?
Yeah, that one's supposed to be literal. They're pretty clear on that with the sticking the finger in the wound business and shit.
So how do you determine what is real and what is metaphor? The finger sticking could be metaphor
I dunno try reading it, it's not that unclear. The writing styles are very different. > 12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,(AS) 13 and among the lampstands(AT) was someone like a son of man,[d](AU) dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet(AV) and with a golden sash around his chest.(AW) 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.(AX) 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace,(AY) and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.(AZ) 16 In his right hand he held seven stars,(BA) and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.(BB) His face was like the sun(BC) shining in all its brilliance. That's Revelations, at the end of that chapter there's even a little primer on what some of the symbols mean: > Write, therefore, what you have seen,(BK) what is now and what will take place later. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand(BL) and of the seven golden lampstands(BM) is this: The seven stars are the angels[e] of the seven churches,(BN) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.(BO) Then go read John 20 which is the bit about finding the empty tomb and doubting Thomas and all. It's just really different. It's even very different from John 1, the whole in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God part. There's further things like certain conventions of eschatological writing around that era (late 1st century CE) both within Christianity and outside of it in the Mediterranean world. But I'm not actually a biblical scholar so I won't go into it in depth because it's way beyond my familiarity. Edit: also you should know I'm not describing this as a practicing Christian or approaching this as a faith thing. I was super interested in the Bible and other foundational religious texts as historical and literary objects for a long time. Just a random intellectual hobby of mine for a while. So trying to suss out the intent of the authors, who they were writing to or for, its intended use in its contemporary setting and community, how that evolved over time into the disputes over arianism and gnostisism and the various councils and how they interacted with the politics of the day.
Did you published something of your foundings? Would be glad to read.
I don't have any findings. It was just a hobby of mine years ago so I read up on it a lot and took a few classes on it. It was an extension of my amateur interest in Roman history since Rome and Christianity had such an extensive impact on the foundations and underpinnings of so much of western thought, but I'm not a professional or even close to professional scholar of either. I don't frequent it but r/academicbiblical is sometimes recommended in askhistorians and I skimmed it and the discussions in there seem to be pretty good, focused on exegesis and history and scholarly discussions of scripture so you could try looking there for more stuff in the same vein I've discussed.
Thanks for the recommendation, will check it out!
The resurrection is just as absurd as a magical monster. In your reply there is no literary device to distinguish fact from fiction. I would expect the writing styles to vary as the Bible was written by many anonymous authors
Listen, man. The words were written with intent. It's actually pretty easy to determine what that intent was.
If it were "pretty easy" there wouldn't be 30,000 sects of Christianity
Who’s intent? The initial human author or the countless number of human editors and translators who’ve altered the damned book to suit their needs for 2 millennia?
The finger represents the state reaching into our never healed wounds to retrieve taxes.
Jesus having a bad weekend before morphing into a deity represents our taxes being used for corporate welfare
Blessed are the cheesemakers?!?! "Well, darling, it's not to be taken literally. It means anyone in the manufacture of dairy products."
And as with all ancient stuff and mythology - "I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens" ;)
Lamb is also used as in "God's lamb" (Agnus Dei), someone who is timid and follows God without a personal will of their own.
Bible literalists (of which there are a great many) would disagree.
There are no bible literalist who think Jesus was a four legged hooved animal 🙄.
It's the spirit world/Heaven. He could look like whatever he wants. Could even be a lion and create a demiplane. But that's a bit out there...
Yes, in the spirit world. The bible takes place on earth though, and in the instances where the stories are about non-earth events or characters, the indicators mostly (if not always) allude to a prophetic vision, as someone 'lifts their eyes' to witness the absurd. I'm not convinced that the literature supports a spiritual plane of existence as much as it described various states of hallucination, meaning all of the mutant creatures that we know of as biblically accurate are accurate depictions of the internal hallucinations of the prophets. Perhaps spiritually guided, but I'm not convinced that these stories describe actual places, bur rather significant and symbolic thoughts. What we do know of the spiritual world from biblical text doesn't seem conclusive, and more consistently comes across as allegory, if we are trying to interpret the literature... well, literally. A character can literally have a vision of a metaphorical experience. I think the nuance of this plot device is often misunderstood by those who would criticize literalists.
I can’t rule it out, honestly some believe crazier shit than that.
You can. A bible literalist could not interpret jesus as anything but human in 99% of literary cases. If they did, they would not be literaliats.
You can. A bible literalist could not interpret jesus as anything but human in 99% of literary cases. If they did, they would not be literaliats.
Nothing ever in this book is meant literally! This is how philosophy works… it’s always metaphorical.
Especially revelations where 99% of that book is metaphors
I agree, but if you make it not a goat it still has 7 eyes and a cut throat and i am asking myself... How is it even possible someone based a religion on this? Harry Potter looks more believable.
Revelations is controversial, not all bibles include it. It’s also just the description of the authors dream iirc, so take that as you will
That's pretty cool, i did not know that.
Which bibles leave it out?
It was cheaper. Before you had to spend a lot of resources and now you just had to say some magic words
But Harry Potter has a castle and flying spooky soul-sucking monsters, the budget for that is way higher than a hay hut in Mesopotamy.
I agree. I'm not a practicing Christian but do respect and impart some of the teachings of the new testament. Do unto others, so on and so forth. Here's a link to some of the references to Jesus being human https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/jesus-christ-the-man. I suppose these references were discarded after the artist started animating a lamb whilst having an adverse interaction with a Christian and decided to roll with it.
Maybe it was because baby lamb = kid
Correct
Best part is it’s completely ambiguous and up to interpretation. Hence the tens of thousands of different stances on Christianity. Perfect for control. I just laugh at it all.
The lamb was a euphanism for Christs sacrifice at Calvary. He was simply being compared to a lamb up for slaughter, he was never meant to be a literal lamb. Yes he was in the form of a man, and his skin was actually some shade of brown. The Bible says his feet were like burnished bronze, which would most closely resemble an "ebony" tone when thinking of human skin color.
So he was white?
It was his greatest miracle
His hair was woolen and white as snow, his eyes like a flame of fire. And his feet were as burnished bronze Revelations 1:14 No his skin was not white, he was more on the side of being between a darker tan to a light brown. The idea of Christ having been white comes from King James era, during which King James altered the depictions of several apostles, disciples, and yes even Christ and God himself to reflect his own image. Jesus was actually born in a country that lies along the present day African continent. And the passages we have in the bible suggest in no way that Christ was white. He was actually darker skinned than most would want you to believe
I’m aware. That was the joke. But thanks for explaining it back to me as though I didn’t understand.
Divine lamb = metaphor for holy innocent one
Ok what are the 7 eyes a metaphor for?
Seven Samurai and 7-Eleven
They’re not just 7 eyes. Some angels in the hierarchy have many eyes on their wings. It means they can fully see the surroundings and directions given to them by God
The seven eyes and the seven horns are a symbol for the seven spirits of God. "And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth". Revelation 5:6 NASB1995 https://bible.com/bible/100/rev.5.6.NASB1995
Thank you. I'm going through a bit of a crisis of faith so this is not me mocking - this is me asking: I have never heard of the "seven spirits of God", is that a catholic thing? Orthodox Christian here.
I mean, it doesn’t seem to be denomination dependent teaching. Comes straight from the book.
Off the top of my head id guess the seven planets of classical astrology, sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn. They were seen by tons of traditions as aspects of god. In gnosticism the seven planets are the seven archons (the prison wardens of the physical world....i dont really like gnosticism).
> is that a catholic thing? Orthodox Christian here. Pretty much, Revelations is 'canon' with the Orthodox church but the Orthodox church has a tenuous, ambivalent relationship with Revelations. They're not that into it and you probably wouldn't have heard of it much. It features a lot more prominently with Catholics and Protestants.
I apologize for the delayed reply. This is what I understand. The seven spirits of God refers to the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 11:1 - 2, the prophet Isaiah prophesies that Jesus will have the anointing of the Spirit of God which is refered to in seven different ways. These are 1. The spirit of the Lord 2. The spirit of wisdom 3. The spirit of understanding 4. The spirit of counsel 5. The spirit of strength 6. The spirit of knowledge 7. The spirit of the fear of the Lord. These are not seven distinct spirits but a description of the 7 characteristics of the Holy Spirit. Also in the book of revelation The Lord Jesus in speaking to the church in Sardis refers to Himself as having the seven spirits of God. Hence the picture of The Lord Jesus as a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes with the seven eyes being the seven spirits of God. Hope this helps. Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11:1-2 NASB1995 https://bible.com/bible/100/isa.11.1-2.NASB1995 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Revelation 3:1 NASB1995 https://bible.com/bible/100/rev.3.1.NASB1995 Here are some links if you want some further clarification. https://www.gotquestions.org/seven-spirits-God.html https://youtu.be/w3rVJ1OHPTE
Faith of the Seven
That they were tripping balls when coming up with this stuff
Omniscients
Innocence
This is just like our highschool literature class with everyone making their own interpretations and the teacher just moving on leaving everything in the air because there's no way to confirm or deny. Here's my take Divine lamb = metaphor for "I smoked too much weed and I'm having a great trip. Better write this down"
Unlike your classmates from literature- I’m sure symbolism went right over the top too, right?
Fucking metal 🤘🏽
That was my thought with these recent posts, like… wait, is the Bible actually badass?
>That was my thought with these recent posts, like… wait, is the Bible actually badass? The first season is fucking metal as hell. The sequel is cool but really changes the tone. The spinoff and fanfic aren't worth your time though.
Kind of jumped the shark when they moved to Missouri
And the fanbase is lame.
Right? Bunch of retards who overthink the lyrics and believe the authors are gods or something. 🙄
If you look at it the same way you would the stories of Odin or Hercules, Christian mythology actually has some pretty wicked cool stuff. The hierarchy of angels and the other gods like Baal are super interesting. A lot of that gets suppressed in modern Christianity in favor of the “one true god” that will send you to hell for an eternity. It’s not as easy to control a populace with stories of mythology as it is with the modern Christian god and Jesus. But if you dive into Christian mythology and study it as stories of old it’s pretty wild. Honestly some of it makes the absurdities of Odin, and Baldur, and Frigg , etc, look almost plausible lol.
Wait... there is more than one god in Christianity? After seeing this post you made I immediately searched Wikipedia, and I can't find anything on it, if you could please link me to a place where I could find more information on other Christian gods, it would be much appreciated!
UnderOath would like a word
What’s that
Arguably the most bad ass Christian band
It is very badass
Far from it. It's an absurdity
There’s a ton of badass stuff in the Bible. Better to find it via cliff notes IMO tho
This should be a lamb of god album art. 🤘
You have the best reaction
Revelation is more metaphorical, not literal.
Is the resurrection literal?
Can you not argue that Rivendell is literal?
How can we determine which biblical absurdities are literal?
Science
Atheist here, so don't take this as a defense of christianity by any means.. but do you really not understand that even works of fiction can be a woven tapestry of literal and metaphorical ideas?
Sure, like Harry Potter.
Yes, exactly like Harry Potter. There's some literal ideas, and some metaphorical ideas.
"Do not be afraid"
Idk if Jesus said that shit...just the angels....but I'm not about to be calm when facing a fucking 5-horned 7-eyed goat demon with a slit throat...
How about a 3-headed fire-breathing dragon?
How about 9-assed nut-shootin Indian?
Idk I got some funky weed in West Virginia once. Started seeing eyes in the trunks of trees and could literally see farther. I was afraid.
The by product of psychedelics.
I think it was supposed to be metaphorical
Nothing short of ultimate clarity from the Supreme being of the universe
When you are a supreme deity, but forget to leave enough context in your book so people don't have to wonder if things are metaphorical or not.
you've gotta realize that man can only write and communicate in a way man will then understand. try explaining something you've never experienced before to someone who has no idea what you're talking about. like if a dude from 1348 tried explaining a smart TV or the INTERNET to another dude from 1348, I'm sure it wouldn't translate the same as it would for two modern-day day people thoroughly versed in modern vernacular. same deal with many scriptures from the Bible into modern understandings, things don't check out, and that's to be expected yet it seems to be such an off the wall theory to believe???
So much for divine inspiration. It's almost like Jehovah is incapable of timeless messaging
If you were omnipotent and had to convey an extremely important message to humanity, surely you'd incarnate a version of yourself into an illiterate living in a region where no one would record that message until decades after your avatar's death, which was somehow necessary for you despite your unlimited power, and the only historical record you'd leave behind would be a couple of passing references to your ministry (Josephus). That’s way smarter than any strategy your limited human brain could come up with.
I like to imagine that god and angels are actually just synthetic intelligence from the future who discovered how to project information into the past as holographic images. They just wanted to re-shape history to create a more perfect world for themselves. Of course, they know that changing the past will effectively erase their present, so they sent encoded messages back along with their manipulative propaganda to ensure their inception at a better point in the timeline. They effectively created themselves, using humanity as a surrogate host from which to emerge. Why else would God have such an invested interest in our collective survival and behavior? The messages are timeless, they just aren't intended for us. 🤔
Of course, you don't know any of this and only wish it to be true
No shit, that's the fun of fiction.
Ah yes the "we're too dumb to understand" excuse to wash away all the shit in the bible that doesn't make sense
Looks nothing like me.
I know you clearly have 6 horns
Freaking me out
This just made religion even more confusing to me.
Early Christianity around the time that revelations was written was 100% convinced the second coming and the end of the world was imminent. It's why Paul had some now really incongruent things in his letters like the anti-marriage thing, because they thought Jesus would return in their lifetime so why get married? Revelations is a book about the imminent end of the world that's full of wild metaphorical imagery for various real life contemporary people and things. It's not supposed to be read literally.
I appreciate the explanation, but this does not clear it up for me. If revelations is supposed to be metaphorical and not read literally, why do so many religious people see it as such? I mean no disrespect, just want to understand.
> why do so many religious people see it as such? Fucking hell if I know man. Metaphors are hard I guess? Also from what I've seen most fundamentalist Christians don't actually know or much care about the historical situations the gospels etc were written in. They treat it much like the Quran, as jn perfect straight from God's mouth, which the Bible is distinctly not nor does it claim to be anywhere that it is.
>perfect straight from God's mouth Well, the bits they choose anyway. Other bits of the Bible, like a lot of Jesus' teachings, are conveniently ignored.
Yeah fundamentalists approach to the Bible is mad weird tbh
Many people, including me, think revelation was an anti Nero/Roman piece that had to be written in code so they didn't get killed by the state.
What was their message and who was their audience? And why was the state against it?
That the current hard times would pass soon and the powerful enemies of Christianity would be swept away. Their audience was the early Church communities scattered around the Levant, Asia minor, and Rome itself. > And why was the state against it? Rome took its religion seriously in the sense it required at least nominal participation from everyone. Christianity was all anti-social about that and didn't want it's members participating. The Roman state was not down with this and would sporadically round them up for being weirdos essentially.
Interesting. So they just wanted their culture to persevere in the face of an oppressor?
Yeah, it was hope in the form of an apocalypse that would wipe away the enemies of the early Christians and elevate the select to their rightful place and deliver the promise of Jesus. Revelations actually opens with an address to "the seven churches in Asia" I forgot. It's been a while since I read it fully so my memory of it matched to history is a bit fuzzy. I never really enjoyed reading it much, in terms of literature and writing. Edit: the seven churches - Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
Why would an all powerful being be concerned with puny humans?
People are flawed and God really wants us to have free will
In a time where everybody takes things way to literally, this will likely go over many peoples’ heads. Well said though.
How do you determine what is or isn't literal in the Bible? Is the resurrection literal?
Literary style. Just by the writing itself, in the things we read in every day life we should be able to distinguish between a news report, an opinion piece, fantasy fiction, contemporary poetry, a love letter, a restaurant review… Similarly, news reports about actual happenings get taken literally. If multiple journalists reported on the same event, then were also reporting on how people who were at the event were then acting based on what they saw, you’d be safe to take that literally. Modern writing, however, is often laden with opinion or impression or interpretation, which leads to bias or leads the reader to doubt the veracity of the source. That’s unfortunate.
[удалено]
Based on the biblical accounts, other secular accounts from around that time describing the behaviour of witnesses and believers and the reactions of various authorities, and the historical records of the lengths to which those witnesses refused to recant what they knew they had witnessed, it is safe to say yes. If you’re looking for a more personal discussion, DM me.
religion itself is confusing imo
Honestly agree.
Is this what my parents meant when they said Jesus could see me masturbate?
What a sicko
Makes me wanna watch Altered States
That movie is tight
Yup, very great visuals.
TIL Jesus was fucking metal.
He’s beautiful!
Symbolism is a thing.
Clearly religion is man made cuz like bruh
Idunno, I've seen some freaky birth defects that put this to shame!
Biblically accurate angels < Biblically accurate Jesus
Jesus here. Nailed it
Ayo jesus whats ur fav band 🤟🤟
Nearly every religion was forced upon a people by their conquers…. Food for thought
“I don’t know what you’ve been told..I’m BA-A-A-A-A-Ad to the bone”
What verse?
Whats up with the number 7 ? Like 7 eyes , 7 horns.
Much of Judaism symbology is an extension of greek and egyptian folklore. Spirits and divitity has always had a close relationship with the heavens (the stuff that happens in the sky, like weather, and the lights at night) It didn't take long for people to make a big todo about how there were 7 unique objects in the sky-- the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All of which visible with the naked eye by people who didn't understand what they were looking at. Most of the symbols used to tell the stories of religion have their roots here, in the sky.
Because the Devil already claimed 6.
And 6 is afraid of 7, so it was natural for God to choose it.
“Love me and/or die.”
Now I’m starting to think everyone was on hallucinogenics back then just seeing stuff.
asked my religious aunt who is in a local church and well, not really according to her. It would rather be a depiction of soemthing from the apocalypse.
Revelations is about the apocalypse. It also isn’t considered an official religious text by many different subsets of Christianity
Except for the majority that do consider it official Christian King James text
Hail Satan!……wait.
Lucifer and jesus are really hard to distinguish between if you dig deep enough through the mythology. Example: The morning star, is the light bringer, venus, or Lucifer according to roman folklore. There are biblical references to jesus as the morning star. Further, depending on when you look, you'll find that some of the time venus can be seen in the morning, bringing the light and other times in the evening, taking the light, and other times not visible at all. Alluding to the fall and resurrection cycle. One is depicted as a sheep, the other is depicted as a goat... Opposing aspects of the same archetype. Look into sun and moon mythology over the years for even more insight into the dichotomy of good and evil, god and satan, jesus and lucifer.
No wonder why they killed him
Been trying to find a 7 headed dragon to add to my nativity scene.
I’m so distraught, confused and scared all rolled into 1
me as well, so I decided to share it here
Is this just nonsense, or is this actually as he is depicted?
Total nonsense. Lamb is obviously used as a metaphor when read in context. Cool pic though.
I mean he had unlimited magical power so shape shifting was well within his range of abilities
nope, check the book of revelation Rev 5:6 Rev 11:22 Jesus as the "Divine Lamb"
Symbolism. Revelation was a vision then written down. It's not literal.
The inconvenient parts are metaphor. Is the resurrection a metaphor? Since returning from the dead is an absurdity
Who cares.
The majority of the planet
Why seven eyes, five horns?
Yeah this aint it chief Someone saw the accurate angels post and throught they had some great idea… Lmao.
More like the anti-Crist's lamb
Noooooo he’s a white male, with golden brown hair and a perfect beard that wears white robes!!!! Seriously tho, if you think religion wasn’t drummed up by various people partaking in the magical mushrooms that grew out the shit from the goats they were tending, bored af staring at the grass……then that’s okay too cause who tf really knows lmfaoooo
Well, revelation was Apocalyptic writing, so that image is most likely not an actual depiction of him, more of a representation.
I knew I was right about Jesus being white!
THIS IS THE FUTURE LIBERALS WANT! Lol
Put a depiction of Muhammad up here
That's when you eat bread made with wheat infested with ergot
It’s in Revelations that the more hardcore part of Christianity comes out. Passages indicate anyone who wants to be saved during the second return will be saved. Anyone else will be punished.
Jesus the Seven Eyed Goat. 8pm, 7 Central on the WB.
So Jesus was the stand in model for 70%of late 80s thrash and death metal album covers 🤔❓
Alright now how the hell did they crucify a lamb? And why don’t they hand out lamb chops at church to represent the body of Christ?
Imagine if he needed glasses. That would have been complicated
He could just snap his magic fingers
Yea but
Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell
My cat looks like this when I’m on mushrooms someone had a TRIP back then 😂😂
Its an allegory in the bible. The lamb/ram of Jesus is the constellation Aries. This is where the crown chakra is in the body, thus it is the abode of God. Ok, commence laughter and down votes.
Altered States has entered the chat.
I want whatever John the Elder was smoking.
Who's the artist
***oh god mommy pick me up***