Book of Revelation: A REAL Vision' or a FAKE Prophecy' PatchedTogether from Scraps of 'Old" Test

All ancient prophecy has come and happened.
. Its the interpretation that never seems to be understood. Until too late

Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by Sigismundus

 

I agree with you, as with everything been passed down, written and talk about as in the bible is all man made and bias, the stories in the bible, including the "revelation" are nothing but the imagination of many authors.

But don't tell that to the bible believers because they will never do the research to find the truth as long as is not part of the bible itself.

The most ignorant thing I read today. Some nobody in the middle of who cares has an opinion.... thats all.

Originally posted by Jordan River
All ancient prophecy has come and happened.
. Its the interpretation that never seems to be understood. Until too late

Luke wrote that prophecy ended with John the Baptist...

"The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached," (Luke 16:16)

So The Revelation is not essentially prophecy but the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom...
...as it was setup in Jesus as Christ...
...Revelation is therefore Old Testament reflection on Jesus messiahship...
...and the proclamation of His soveriegnty over all world powers (secular and religious).

Revelation is primarily triumphalistic not predictive.

reply to post by troubleshooter

Hi Troubleshooter--

You Wrote: 'The Koine Greek of John in Revelation is like that in John's Gospel...'

Absolutely No Thing can be FURTHER from the Truth than your statement above: it is a Lie - oft repeated by 'persons of blind-faith' who have no Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew under their belt themselves, to calm their 'bible believing' sheeple into thinking (without evidence !) that there is some unity of theology between the anti Gentile, Torah-abiding, Nazorean Messianic rhetoric expressed in the Book of Revelation and other 'books' which later were voted into the New Testament Canon in the West.

In fact (and if you knew any Koine Greek at all yourself you'd know this to be true...) the comparatively smooth Koine Greek of the 4th canonical gospel ('according to Yohanon', (=John) whoever he was) is fairly grammatical (and deceptively simple as well as retaining a certain level of grammatical Greek nuance) whereas the Messy Baby often-Untranslatable Koine Greek found in all the mangled Greek manuscript copies of the so-called 'Book of Revelation' (e.g. P.Oxy VI 4499, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephraemi Palimsest, Codex Sinaiticus and p44 etc.) is positively the WORST (ungrammatical) Greek in the entire New Testament ('full of the most outrageous Greek Grammatical Howlers' - C.K. Barrett, 1979) only partially overshadowed by the childish Greek of the 2nd Gospel ('according to Mark' whoever he was)...

Obviously it is an amateur (read: bad) 'Translation' of an Aramaic/Hebrew Ur-Text (original MS) since almost all of the bad Greek constructions in the Book of Revelation are 'Aramaisms' taken over literally (i.e. a literal translation of Aramaic words and phrases, as opposed to a smoother 'translation' of ideas expressed in the original Aramaic Ur-Text, which by the way, shows every indication of Qinah Lament Metre Poetry, not prose...)

PLEASE do not quote half-baked and erroneous notions from agenda-laden 'persons of Faith' (some of whom actually have the nerve to call themselves 'scholars' !) who are not familiar even with the basic linguistic facts of the Greek texts of the Book of Revelation - unless you have fully investigated them for yourself - which by your ignorant assumptions regarding authorhsip quoted above shows me to be the case...

And....take a Basic Koine Greek class - so you can compare the actual language expressions of the 4th canonical Greek Gospel ('John') with the mangy Greek of the Book of Revelation..

How could you even THINK about saying what you did, and post it on this thread.... much less believe it to be true ?

reply to post by troubleshooter

Hi Troubleshooter -

You Wrote: The book of Revelation begins with the words... "The Revelation of Jesus Christ... (Revelation 1:1)

Actually, in fact, the so-called 'Book of Revelation' circulated originally without a title (like the canonical Greek gospels originally almost certainly circulated for the first hundred years or so without any title or authorship-attributioin, but 'anonymously' ), and many of the earliest manuscript hand written copies of the 'Book of Revelation' do NOT contain the words 'of Iesous Christ' in the incipit at all...

A good way to learn about these things is to check the criticus apparatus in the Greek New Testament collections (Mssrs. Aland and Nestle etal. normally provide this feature - at least to a degree - in their constantly-being-revised editions of their reconstructions of what they believed the Greek NT to be originally - based on 5446 contradictory Greek mss - a sometimes highly arbitrary pursuit ! )

So in the future, try to be more careful of your textual facts before you post anything more like it on this thread... Otherwise, you'll only be exposed for your ignorance on this subject....yet again, I'm afraid...

Originally posted by Sigismundus
reply to post by troubleshooter

Hi Troubleshooter--

You Wrote: 'The Koine Greek of John in Revelation is like that in John's Gospel...'

Absolutely No Thing can be FURTHER from the Truth than your statement above: it is a Lie - oft repeated by 'persons of blind-faith' who have no Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew under their belt themselves, to calm their 'bible believing' sheeple into thinking (without evidence !) that there is some unity of theology between the anti Gentile, Torah-abiding, Nazorean Messianic rhetoric expressed in the Book of Revelation and other 'books' which later were voted into the New Testament Canon in the West.

In fact (and if you knew any Koine Greek at all yourself you'd know this to be true...) the comparatively smooth Koine Greek of the 4th canonical gospel ('according to Yohanon', (=John) whoever he was) is fairly grammatical (and deceptively simple as well as retaining a certain level of grammatical Greek nuance) whereas the Messy Baby often-Untranslatable Koine Greek found in all the mangled Greek manuscript copies of the so-called 'Book of Revelation' (e.g. P.Oxy VI 4499, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephraemi Palimsest, Codex Sinaiticus and p44 etc.) is positively the WORST (ungrammatical) Greek in the entire New Testament ('full of the most outrageous Greek Grammatical Howlers' - C.K. Barrett, 1979) only partially overshadowed by the childish Greek of the 2nd Gospel ('according to Mark' whoever he was)...

Obviously it is an amateur (read: bad) 'Translation' of an Aramaic/Hebrew Ur-Text (original MS) since almost all of the bad Greek constructions in the Book of Revelation are 'Aramaisms' taken over literally (i.e. a literal translation of Aramaic words and phrases, as opposed to a smoother 'translation' of ideas expressed in the original Aramaic Ur-Text, which by the way, shows every indication of Qinah Lament Metre Poetry, not prose...)

PLEASE do not quote half-baked and erroneous notions from agenda-laden 'persons of Faith' (some of whom actually have the nerve to call themselves 'scholars' !) who are not familiar even with the basic linguistic facts of the Greek texts of the Book of Revelation - unless you have fully investigated them for yourself - which by your ignorant assumptions regarding authorhsip quoted above shows me to be the case...

And....take a Basic Koine Greek class - so you can compare the actual language expressions of the 4th canonical Greek Gospel ('John') with the mangy Greek of the Book of Revelation..

How could you even THINK about saying what you did, and post it on this thread.... much less believe it to be true ?

I studied Koine Greek for two years as a graduate...
...and have worked with translation for over twenty years.

What are your credentials?

Originally posted by Sigismundus
reply to post by troubleshooter

Hi Troubleshooter -

You Wrote: The book of Revelation begins with the words... "The Revelation of Jesus Christ... (Revelation 1:1)

Actually, in fact, the so-called 'Book of Revelation' circulated originally without a title (like the canonical Greek gospels originally almost certainly circulated for the first hundred years or so without any title or authorship-attributioin, but 'anonymously' ), and many of the earliest manuscript hand written copies of the 'Book of Revelation' do NOT contain the words 'of Iesous Christ' in the incipit at all...

A good way to learn about these things is to check the criticus apparatus in the Greek New Testament collections (Mssrs. Aland and Nestle etal. normally provide this feature - at least to a degree - in their constantly-being-revised editions of their reconstructions of what they believed the Greek NT to be originally - based on 5446 contradictory Greek mss - a sometimes highly arbitrary pursuit ! )

So in the future, try to be more careful of your textual facts before you post anything more like it on this thread... Otherwise, you'll only be exposed for your ignorance on this subject....yet again, I'm afraid...

I never mentioned the book had a title...
...but what I said still stands...
...the book of Revelation begins with the words... "The Revelation of Jesus Christ... (Revelation 1:1)

If you can't get this much correct...
...then you have totally missed John's purpose in writing the work.

Originally posted by Sigismundus

And more often than not, these are not literallly quoted in the form of the MT (Masoretic Text of the Old Testament) read by moderhn Rabinnic Jews and Protestants to-day

edit on 27-5-2011 by Sigismundus because: Re-titled slightly...

That's because the Masoretic text wasn't around back then! In fact the Masoretic wouldn't be written for another 900 years.

As for the key words and imagery from the OT; there are a ton of references to previous prophecies even within the OT. If John's description of the Cherubim wasn't like Ezekiel's there would be an issue of discrepency. There isn't. If he didn't make allusions to prophecies of the Son of Man there would be discrepencies. There aren't.

That is not to say that Revelations wasn't a contested book; it was excluded from the canon at Laodicea. However, some of the greatest and earliest Church Fathers stood up for the book. Most opposition comes from legalistic scholastic types as opposed to the true paragons of the faith we all remember.

In the end, I think this all runs down to whether you trust God or not. Do you think he would have allowed his scripture to be corrupted? Unless of course you don't believe in God, in which case it's just a fairy tale to you and you're just being divisive... and annoying.

reply to post by Sigismundus


Polycarp of Smyrna (69 – 155) was a disciple of John and sources him as the author of Revelations. Secondhand sources yes, but that's better than you've provided. Just novel sensationalism which I get quite enough of at Barnes and Noble. Seems you can't write about Biblical history nowadays and get it to sell unless it's scandalous and titillating. I kind of take offense at people claiming to know the shocking truth about Biblical texts several thousand years removed from the fact. This by itself isn't so bad, because it isn't unique to the field of Biblical study. However, these particular claims come with the implication that the Church Fathers, who studied at the feet of the apostles, were pants-on-head inept and that you know better two thousand years later.

reply to post by kallisti36


Spoken by someone also thousands of years removed from the facts.

The texts speak for themselves and if these contradict each other then just accept it.

reply to post by Sigismundus


As for the "Greek grammatical howlers" and barbarisms, bear in mind that John was an uneducated Galilean who spoke Aramaic. Several books of the NT supposedly written by the same people such as 1st and 2nd Peter have differences in style and articulacy. The Church Fathers who were *immersed* in Koine Greek understood and recognized these differences, but knew, having only been one or several generations removed from the apostles by succession, that they used secretaries. Call it a cop-out or blind faith if you want, but it makes a lot of sense. John is recorded as being uneducated scholastically, which if he used a secretary would explain why the Greek of his Gospel and Letters are flawless, but simple in wording (unlike Luke's Gospel which is a masterpiece of Ancient Greek in grammar and style, backing up the tradition that he was a gentile physician). On Patmos however, John would not have had a secretary and would have had to write Revelations alone. Now the evidence in the wording shows that John of Patmos was not Greek (John the Apostle was Galilean) and was uneducated.

Furthermore, the Church has always been wary of the book and much of the early manuscripts were hand copied and distributed by the laity which would add more barbarisms and grammatical issues. To this day, the Eastern Orthodox do not read Revelations in the Liturgy (though much of our Liturgy contains elements taken from Revelation, such as the Cherubic hymn and a number of other things) and make no dogmatic claims on it's prophecies due to its subjective nature. I think this is the best approach to Revelations: take from it the intended message (be vigilant in the face of tribulation and martyrdom) and recognize that the prophecies will be dead clear when they come true. I see much of the validity in your points, to be fair, but bear in mind how many spurious texts were rejected left and right by the early Church, how many questions were raised against Revelations, and the councils that rejected it. There were other books just as popular floating around, like the Shepard of Hermas, but every last one of them was weeded out of the Canon and yet the Revelation of John remains despite everything. I ask again, do you believe in divine providence?

Originally posted by kallisti36
There were other books just as popular floating around, like the Shepard of Hermas, but every last one of them was weeded out of the Canon and yet the Revelation of John remains despite everything. I ask again, do you believe in divine providence?

I believe that the church knew this would scare the populace into obedience. In the words of George Carlin "spooky language".

Divine providence would have all the true texts in prestine conditions and in the hands of righteous men that would have done things in the open while the lies written by men had turned to dust. Reality has old worn texts with missing pieces and rife with inconsistencies.

reply to post by kallisti36


hi Kallisti

I think you are confusing two separate people here (i.e. two Johns - not related to each other) - the first John one of the 12 (i.e.Yohanon bar Zavdai (one of the 2 Benei Regesh ('sons of Thunder') one of the 12 from the Galilee - and also one of the so-called Pillars of the Church) and the second was 'Yohanon ha Zeqen, i.e. 'the Presbuteros' i.e. the 'Elder') the latter of whom is assocciated with the city of Ephesus, and who according to Polycarp lived to an advanced age, possibly c. 96 years old).

Apparently Yohanon (or even Yonah) was a common first name in the 1st century among Diaspora and Palestinian Jews (Shimeon bar Yonah, haKephah was 'Simon Peter, son of Yonah i.e. 'son of the Dove') - so it is easy to get Yohanons mixed up - there might have been several of these Yohanons in the early Christian Nazorean Ebionite movement running around after the execution for 'armed sedition against Rome' of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir in 36 AD ('during The Insurrection' (see the ccanonical Greek gospel of 'Mark' - whoever he was - chapter 15:7-8 and also 'Luke' 's account of the arming of the Disciples with real swords in chapter 22:30-35) at the 100th anniversary of the Invasion of the Roman Army into Palestine by General Pompey...)

As for the author of the so-called 'Book of Revelation', absolutely NO THING is known about him except according to parts of the mangled Greek texts, he went by the common name 'Yohano'n (no father is listed to establish a firmer identity for him) and that he was trained in priestly matters to an extraordinary degree (or his literary source was, if this 'Yohanon' person was an editor for someone else's work...) - if he was not a 2nd temple Priest on active duty during the 1st failed Jewish War Against Rome ( fought between 66-72 CE ), then he may well have been onee of the 'Sons of Zadok' at Qumran - the persons responsible for the so-called Dead Sea Scroll fragmentary material locked up in sealed Cave Time Capsules in 68 CE (during the height o the War) and rediscovered beginning c. Nov 1946

'John the Elder' (whoever he really was...) apparently 'really met' Polycarp c. 85 AD (i.e. the later Bishop of Smyrna - who was said to have been then around age 15) 'in the flesh' when the Elder John was c. 95 years old and had to be carried into the Ephesian synagogue 'on a stretcher' (his few words at the time of his appearance in Ephsesus according to Polycarp was a single phrase - 'Little children...Love one another...' but it was widely believed at the time that the 'Ephesian John the Elder' had at least met R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. Iesous) in the flesh wwhich made the oldd man kind of a celebrity c. 85 AD (unlike the gentile loving Saul of Tarsus aka 'Paul' who never did meet 'Iesous' in the actual flesh, but only in dreams and visions, like my gardner) =

Perhaps this John the Elder (who might have been responsible for a good chunk of material tha lay behind the text of the Greek epistles of 1, 2 and 3 John as well as the 4th gospel in parts) might have been 'one of the 70' apostoloi sent out by R. Yehoshua himself to preach to the 'lost sheep of the House of Israel scattered among the goyim-gentiles' i.e. two-by-two recorded in the 3rd canonical Greek Gospel ('acccording to Luke' whoever he was).

We do not know anything more substantial than that - there was an early tradition in the Nazorean Ebionite community that the Galilean disciple 'R. Yohanon bar Zavdai' was put to death by Herod Agrippa some time in the mid 40s CE along with his bother James (R. Yakkov bar Zavdai, the other 'son of thunder') - we have some words placed into the Greek Speaking Iesous in the canonical Greek gospels which betray such a dual martyrdom traddition see the gospel of 'Mark'

Mark 10:35-45

Then 'James and John', the two sons of Zebedee (recte: Zavdai) , came to him saying,“Rabbi' “we want you to do a Mitzvah for us... And Iesous answered saying, “What would you have the Son of Man (bar-Enasha) do for you?” and they replied saying,

“Let us each of us sit at your side, one on the right and one on the left hand side you assume the Throne of Glory and possess the Kingdom of the Father...'”

And Iesous answered them saying, Do you know what you are asking? Are you able to drink the cup that the bar Enasha (i.e. Son of Man) must drink, or be baptised into the same Baptism that the bar Enasha (Son of Man) is slated to be baptised into?

And they both said to him, Rabbi, we are able.

Then Iesous spake to them saying,

“You have both spoken well when you say you are able, for Amen, Amen, you both will drink the Cup that the Son of Man must drink and you both shall be baptized into the same Baptism that the Son of Man must be baptized with - but to sit on the Right Hand or the Left of the Son of Man when he assumes the Throne of his Kingdom is not for him to grant, but rather these Thrones belong only to those for whom they have been pre-destined [i.e. from the Beginning of Creation] ...

So if this early double martyrdom Tradition is true even in part ( i.e. that 'James' and his brother 'John' both were martyred in the 40s before the 'Book of Revelation' came into existence, then we must needs look for another Yohanon as ourr Author- andd he would naturally have to be a priestly one - who may not even otherwise be known - although some Catholic scholars (e.g. as Massyngberde Ford thought way back in 1967 who opined that the Book was actually based on the prophetic priestly apocalyptic teaching of 'Yohanon bar Zechariah' i.e. John the Baptist - since John the Baprist came from the tribe of Levi and whose father Zechariah (accoding to thee canonical Greek gospel of 'Luke' in chapter 2) allegedly served in the 2nd Temple of Herod in Jerusalem in the early 1st century...

But to me, John the Baptist (executed at the Machareus Fortress c. 34 AD) lived a little too early to be associated with the 'Book of Revelation' (penned c. AD 69) = unless some of his material was taken over by a disciple of his (and remember both Shimeon bar Yonah (i.e. Simon Peter) and his brother 'Andreas' were both first disciples of John the Baptist only joining up the R. Yehoshua (bar Yosef aka Iesous) after the execution of the baptist - apparently R. Yehoshua took over a lot of John's former disciples when he went around saying Follow Me...

At any rate, the author of the Book of Revelation was almost certainly a Levetical or Zadokite priest in the 2nd temple or one of the renegade celibate priests at Qumran (or came from a priestly family, like the anonymous author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose Greek was certainly not Paul's - was likewise a priest (cohen) heavilly steeped in the traditions of all the finer points of levitical ritual sacrifices...and Yohanon the son of Zavdai shows no such connexion in the earliest traditions of the Nazorean Messianic communities in the 1st century.

Does this help your evident confusion of Yohanon-named persons a little?

reply to post by kallisti36

hi Kallisti -

You Wrote: [ref: the Book of revelation not quoting from the masoretic text used by Protestants and Rabinnic Jews today]

"That's because the Masoretic text wasn't around back then! In fact the Masoretic wouldn't be written for another 900 years.."

I think you are confusing the POINTED (later vowelled) text of the later MT Masoretic Leningrad Codex (c 1000 CE) with the much earlier Masoretic ConsMT 'consonantal text' (thee proto MT containing no vowells) which (see the books of Larry Schiffman, a Talmudic scholar who showed that at least a form of the MT consonantal text was in use in certain places as early as 100 BCE

yalepress.yale.edu...

And even at Qumran, there are some examples that the consonantal protoMasoretic Text did exist in some form as early as 100 BCE (e.g. see the version represented in the Great Isaiah Scroll - version A (1Q IS-a) - not to be confused withe 1Q IS-b which was found right next to it, representing another text family tradition for the Isaiah material !!)

What the Dead Sea Scroll fragments tell us is that there were several competing versions of text families at Qumran when the caves were sealed up in June of AD 68, only one of which was the consonantal proto-Masoretic text family which had not yet come 'into dominance' until AFTER the Rabinnic Council of Javneh in the 90's CE - more than 20 years after Israel was ground to powder by the Romans in AD 70.

The fact that the author of the Book of Revelation chose to quote NOT from the Masoretic text would not be surprising since the author wrote BEFORE the Council of Javneh more or less determined that the protoMasoretic text was to be the one and only text of the Hebrew Scriptures that 'defiled the hands' i.e. was the one and only sacred version...

In other words the author of the Book of Revelation chose other families of MSS floating around (e.g. the various Vorlagen - wwhich were the Hebrew and Aramaic textual 'underlays' used later by Theodotiion or Aquilla for their own Greek translations which differed by more than 20% at times ffrom the text family of the Masoretic. )

In fact, it can be shown that the author of the Book of Revelation used his OWN very 'Targum like' Aramaic source of the Hebrew scripture material he handles (and he handles a lot of it, as you can see by what has been written on ATS in this post alone !) - which differs at times follows some of the Hebrew textual underlay Vorlagen used by the translators of the Alexandrian LXX Greek Septuaginta, and at other times follows the proto MT consonantal Masoretic, and at other times follows the weird Hebrew Vorlagen used later by Symmachus, and at other times follows the texts of the Samaritan Pentateuch...

In fact, the author of the 'Book of Revelation' treated his own various a& sundry versions of the consonantal Hebrew Scriptures exactly like the Dead Sea Scroll Covenanters at Qumran did - whose texts were sealed up in Time Capsule Caves in June of AD 68 - which suggests strongly that the author of the Book of Revelation wrote his editorial midrashic commentary-prophecy while these 'still-textually-liquid' i.e. not set in stone, but still variable OT texts were still in wide circulation in the Synagogues of the Troad - somthing that came to a grinding halt after AD 90 and the Rabinnic Council with their stubborn insistence that ONLY the Babylonian Masoretic Text MT consonantal version of the OT be 'standard' and 'official' for all Jews...andd which specific Consonantal text family of the Hebrew Scriptures was the text family forming the basis for the AD 1000 vowell addings by the Masoretes reflected in the Leningrad Codex...

Does this help any?

reply to post by troubleshooter

Hi Trouble shooter -

Apparently, you have NOT understood my point at all when I said that the opening Titulus to the so-called 'Book of Revelation' was not always the same in all the ancient MSS copies - so now let me be very clear:

The fact is that the so-called 'Book of Revelation' (in all of its ancient mangy Greek versions) did NOT originally say (in the earliest MSS ) the words: 'THE REVELATION OF IESOUS CHRIST' - those words DO NOT appear at all in many of the most ancient MSS copies of this book..

So why would you keep quoting these words as if they did ? Is it to back up your own warped Theology -

You must know that to claim anything of the sort (as you have TWICE already) is to write a blatant falsehood.

So please 'cease and desist' in reporting half-baked non-truths on this Thread. It will get you no where in any serious discussion of the texts that were used to print the 'Book of Revelation' .

Is there anything above-mentioned that you do not understand ?




.

reply to post by Sigismundus

What are your credentials?

The opening line was in the oldest manuscripts...
...but various titles were added.

reply to post by troubleshooter


Hi Troubleshooter

You apparently did not learn much Koine Greek in the two years you claimed to have spent learning it if you think for ONE MINUTE that the mangy Greek of the 'book of Revelation' was in any way shape or form related to the smoother and more polished Koine Greek of the 4th Gospel or the Greek used by the author of the epistles (1,2 and 3 John) in your canonical Greek Bible.

You (or your parents) need to get your money back and retake the course. I shudder to think where you studied it (an online course, perhaps?)

I hold an M.A. from a British University having first studied Latin for 7years, 1st century Koine Greek for 4 years, Aramaic for 2 years and paleoHebrew for 3 years and can well back up any claims I make (20 times over in many cases) with thorough academic reference to any extant text.

If you really had learned anything at all useful in your 'studies' ref: the ancient languages used in what later became the Canonical texts of the 'Bible' why is it that your posts reflect having absolutely NO serious modern scholarship at all under you belt - but are quite obviously (not to put too fine a point on it..) utterly lacking in meaningfully cogent facts and sober academic reasoning?

It's sort of like listening to a self proclaimed 'artist' who has trouble even drawing a crude circle with a pencil....!

The proof of the Pudding is in the Eating of it (that is, if you don't mind gerundives...) as they say....so now is the time to start proving your 'credentials' with some serious academic comments on this thread that will meaningfully move this discussion along - we're waiting patiently !

reply to post by Sigismundus

What a terrible terrible shame then that you have used your learning in such a destructive manner...
...I pity you.

Originally posted by Sigismundus
reply to post by kallisti36


hi Kallisti

I think you are confusing two separate people here (i.e. two Johns - not related to each other) - the first John one of the 12 (i.e.Yohanon bar Zavdai (one of the 2 Benei Regesh ('sons of Thunder') one of the 12 from the Galilee - and also one of the so-called Pillars of the Church) and the second was 'Yohanon ha Zeqen, i.e. 'the Presbuteros' i.e. the 'Elder') the latter of whom is assocciated with the city of Ephesus, and who according to Polycarp lived to an advanced age, possibly c. 96 years old).

I'm not confusing the Johns here. Polycarp cited John as the Beloved disciple, the John of the epistles (elder) who was also described as operating in Ephesus, and the author of Revelations as the same John.

Apparently Yohanon (or even Yonah) was a common first name in the 1st century among Diaspora and Palestinian Jews (Shimeon bar Yonah, haKephah was 'Simon Peter, son of Yonah i.e. 'son of the Dove') - so it is easy to get Yohanons mixed up

Yes, but there was only one John among the Apostles. If we were talking about a James, I would admit the possiblity of a confusion. However, the Beloved Disciple (who can be seen as John through cross referencing Gospels and by process of elimination), John the Evangelist, and John of Patmos show personal experience with Ya'hshuah of Nazareth.

- there might have been several of these Yohanons in the early Christian Nazorean Ebionite movement running around after the execution for 'armed sedition against Rome' of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir in 36 AD ('during The Insurrection' (see the ccanonical Greek gospel of 'Mark' - whoever he was - chapter 15:7-8 and also 'Luke' 's account of the arming of the Disciples with real swords in chapter 22:30-35) at the 100th anniversary of the Invasion of the Roman Army into Palestine by General Pompey...)

This is revisionist nonsense. First of all, there is no way John (even if all of the Johns were different) who wrote extensively of the Pre-existent Logos was an Ebionite. The Ebionites believed that Christ did not exist before Mary, something the Logos doctrine evident in all Johannine texts refutes. Furthermore, they were the Judaizers who Paul refuted extensively for their legalistic attachment to the Law of the old covenant. Furthermore, John and Peter are recorded as siding with Paul against such people at the Council of Jerusalem. John was not an Ebionite.

Now let me explain the issue of the swords. Here you are taking an oft confusing passage and making ridiculous claims not supported by the text. The point of the swords was not to make rebellion but to give the appearance of it. When the disciples brought two swords, Ya'hshuah said "that is enough". Enough for what? An armed rebellion? Of course not. To make the Romans think he was revolutionary and execute him? Yes. "He was numbered among the transgressors". Ya'hshuah made it explicitly clear he was to be executed, this made it easier. What happened when Peter actually used it to attack someone? Ya'hshuah is recorded rebuking him in 3/4 Gospels and heals the injured man in every one.

As for the author of the so-called 'Book of Revelation', absolutely NO THING is known about him except according to parts of the mangled Greek texts, he went by the common name 'Yohano'n (no father is listed to establish a firmer identity for him) and that he was trained in priestly matters to an extraordinary degree (or his literary source was, if this 'Yohanon' person was an editor for someone else's work...) - if he was not a 2nd temple Priest on active duty during the 1st failed Jewish War Against Rome ( fought between 66-72 CE ), then he may well have been onee of the 'Sons of Zadok' at Qumran - the persons responsible for the so-called Dead Sea Scroll fragmentary material locked up in sealed Cave Time Capsules in 68 CE (during the height o the War) and rediscovered beginning c. Nov 1946

"NO THING" lends credence to this theory.

'John the Elder' (whoever he really was...) apparently 'really met' Polycarp c. 85 AD (i.e. the later Bishop of Smyrna - who was said to have been then around age 15) 'in the flesh' when the Elder John was c. 95 years old and had to be carried into the Ephesian synagogue 'on a stretcher' (his few words at the time of his appearance in Ephsesus according to Polycarp was a single phrase - 'Little children...Love one another...' but it was widely believed at the time that the 'Ephesian John the Elder' had at least met R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. Iesous) in the flesh wwhich made the oldd man kind of a celebrity c. 85 AD

I would like a source for this claim. I'm not seeing it anywhere else. What I do know is that Polycarp studied under the *Apostle* John and was appointed Bishop of Smyrna by *Apostles*.

(unlike the gentile loving Saul of Tarsus aka 'Paul' who never did meet 'Iesous' in the actual flesh, but only in dreams and visions, like my gardner) =

Paul was held in high esteem by the Apostles who I trust knew their leader well enough to be able to test the veracity of Paul's visions. Oh, but of course, we are operating on the presupposition that supernatural events are impossible and that the apostles were inept. You win.

Perhaps this John the Elder (who might have been responsible for a good chunk of material tha lay behind the text of the Greek epistles of 1, 2 and 3 John as well as the 4th gospel in parts) might have been 'one of the 70' apostoloi sent out by R. Yehoshua himself to preach to the 'lost sheep of the House of Israel scattered among the goyim-gentiles' i.e. two-by-two recorded in the 3rd canonical Greek Gospel ('acccording to Luke' whoever he was).

Luke is either one of the seventy or at the very least one of the seminal gentile Christians and companion of Paul. John on the other hand was in Ya'hshuah's inner circle with James and Peter and most certainly NOT one of the seventy.

We do not know anything more substantial than that - there was an early tradition in the Nazorean Ebionite community that the Galilean disciple 'R. Yohanon bar Zavdai' was put to death by Herod Agrippa some time in the mid 40s CE along with his bother James (R. Yakkov bar Zavdai, the other 'son of thunder') - we have some words placed into the Greek Speaking Iesous in the canonical Greek gospels which betray such a dual martyrdom traddition see the gospel of 'Mark'

Source please. Even if there is a tradition corroborating this claim, you are operating on the assumption that the Ebionite tradition is more accurate. Nevermind that the Apostles refute Ebionite doctrine up, down, and sideways.

we have some words placed into the Greek Speaking Iesous in the canonical Greek gospels which betray such a dual martyrdom traddition see the gospel of 'Mark'
Mark 10:35-45

Then 'James and John', the two sons of Zebedee (recte: Zavdai) , came to him saying,“Rabbi' “we want you to do a Mitzvah for us... And Iesous answered saying, “What would you have the Son of Man (bar-Enasha) do for you?” and they replied saying,

“Let us each of us sit at your side, one on the right and one on the left hand side you assume the Throne of Glory and possess the Kingdom of the Father...'”

And Iesous answered them saying, Do you know what you are asking? Are you able to drink the cup that the bar Enasha (i.e. Son of Man) must drink, or be baptised into the same Baptism that the bar Enasha (Son of Man) is slated to be baptised into?

And they both said to him, Rabbi, we are able.

Then Iesous spake to them saying,

“You have both spoken well when you say you are able, for Amen, Amen, you both will drink the Cup that the Son of Man must drink and you both shall be baptized into the same Baptism that the Son of Man must be baptized with - but to sit on the Right Hand or the Left of the Son of Man when he assumes the Throne of his Kingdom is not for him to grant, but rather these Thrones belong only to those for whom they have been pre-destined [i.e. from the Beginning of Creation] ...

This isn't an Ebionite tradition, it came much later and within the Catholic (Early pre-Schism) church from such writers as Philip of Side (bad source) and Origen (anathematized). Also, what bible are you using? Are you using the Pes h i t t a or are you inserting Hebraisms into the text where there aren't any?

Tradition has it that John lived at Ephesus to an old age . . . We can neither prove nor disprove this. Sometimes it is said that John was martyred quite early . . . If true this would rule him out as the author of any of our NT books. But the reasons are scarcely sufficient. A seventh-century summary of a fifth-century writer, Philip of Side, reports that Papias said that John and James were killed by the Jews. But Philip was a careless writer and nobody else seems to have found the reference in Papias. The ninth-century George the Sinner repeats the statement about Papias, or at least one manuscript says he does. But there is no evidence that he has any authority for this other than Philip of Side or his summarizer. To this is added the evidence of some church calendars (i.e., calendars which indicate the days on which the saints were commemorated) where James and John are commemorated together . . . But it is scarcely necessary to point out that commemoration together does not mean that both were martyrs, and even if they were it does not mean that they were martyred at roughly the same time. Those who favor the early martyrdom take Mk. 10:39 as a prophecy after the event, and say it indicates that John had already been martyred when Mark’s Gospel was written. This is surely an argument without weight. All in all the evidence brought forward for early martyrdom is very scanty and it is better to reject the whole idea. There is no solid argument against the tradition that John lived to a great age and was active in the service of his Lord. -- Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopediaa, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988; 2002), 2:1108.

You are making the presupposition that Ya'hshuah is implying by "his cup" that he is referring to his death. Furthermore, James' martyrdom is detailed in Acts, but John isn't mentioned. If he died with his brother, it would have been mentioned. This a very shaky foundation. What about the verses that explicitly imply ambiguity to the nature of his death?

Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what [is that] to you? You follow Me.” Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If I will that he remain till I come, what [is that] to you?”

The people in Ephesus thought that John would live until the second coming due to his advanced age. John, by process of elimination is the author of this Gospel and therefor could not have been martyred in A.D. 40 as you say, because John was the last Gospel written. Furthermore, when the Gospel says that "he would not die" martyrdom is not implied unlike the prediction of Peter's manner of death: crucifixion. John isn't dead by the time this Gospel was written, so the statement of Ya'hshuah concerning John is not a prediction, but a simple desire for everyone to mind their own business.

So if this early double martyrdom Tradition is true even in part ( i.e. that 'James' and his brother 'John' both were martyred in the 40s before the 'Book of Revelation' came into existence, then we must needs look for another Yohanon as ourr Author- andd he would naturally have to be a priestly one - who may not even otherwise be known - although some Catholic scholars (e.g. as Massyngberde Ford thought way back in 1967 who opined that the Book was actually based on the prophetic priestly apocalyptic teaching of 'Yohanon bar Zechariah' i.e. John the Baptist - since John the Baprist came from the tribe of Levi and whose father Zechariah (accoding to thee canonical Greek gospel of 'Luke' in chapter 2) allegedly served in the 2nd Temple of Herod in Jerusalem in the early 1st century...

But to me, John the Baptist (executed at the Machareus Fortress c. 34 AD) lived a little too early to be associated with the 'Book of Revelation' (penned c. AD 69) = unless some of his material was taken over by a disciple of his (and remember both Shimeon bar Yonah (i.e. Simon Peter) and his brother 'Andreas' were both first disciples of John the Baptist only joining up the R. Yehoshua (bar Yosef aka Iesous) after the execution of the baptist - apparently R. Yehoshua took over a lot of John's former disciples when he went around saying Follow Me...

You misunderstand the theory which is that Revelations is in part a collection of the prophecies of John the Baptist.

At any rate, the author of the Book of Revelation was almost certainly a Levetical or Zadokite priest in the 2nd temple

Nevermind the "synagogues of Satan" remarks.

or one of the renegade celibate priests at Qumran (or came from a priestly family, like the anonymous author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose Greek was certainly not Paul's - was likewise a priest (cohen) heavilly steeped in the traditions of all the finer points of levitical ritual sacrifices...and Yohanon the son of Zavdai shows no such connexion in the earliest traditions of the Nazorean Messianic communities in the 1st century.

Perhaps John the Baptist was a *renegade* Essene or from Qumran, but for the most part, Ya'hshuah and his disciples don't reflect the Qumran/Essene mindset. First of all, while upholding the sanctity of celibate life, Ya'hshuah does not decry Marriage, rather he holds it to even higher standards of sanctity. The same can be said of the virgins in Revelation who do not constitute all of the martyrs but a select number. Again, John of Patmos holds up the sanctity of virginity, but his imagery of the marriage of the Lamb show the sanctity and heavenly nature of marriage. More importantly, the authors of the DSS were clearly waiting for two messiahs, a concept not found anywhere in the NT.

The author of Hebrews makes the New Covenant clear and was most certainly not a Levitical Priest promulgating Mosaic Law. Perhaps he was a Cohen, but he was most certainly a Christian in line with the Council of Jerusalem.

reply to post by Sigismundus


As I said, the MT wasn't compiled for another 1,000 years. Proto-Masoretic simply means written in Hebrew and it was hardly the definitive collection of texts back then (that would have been the LXX which the NT sources much more often).