The Beast and Babylon the Great are Different Powers

 The Beast and Babylon the Great are Different Powers

 

As SDAs we don’t really pay much attention to details.  Traditionally, we have treated the beast, the little horn of Daniel 7:25, and Babylon the Great (the great prostitute) as one and the same power.  We basically say it is all the papacy.  Perhaps in the back of our mind we kind of know that they are different, but we do not really treat them as different powers.  We must once again turn to Revelation 17.  I will show here they are different powers and speak about the fall of Babylon and then later in subsequent posts, I will discuss who Babylon is and who the beast is.  I appreciate everyone’s patience.  I am trying to do this in small posts.

We first see the great prostitute, which I’ll simply call BtG from now on, sitting upon the heads of the beast.  See Revelation 17:9.  More on this at the end of this.  For now, please notice that the woman does not sit on the back of the beast, but on the heads.  Rome was universally known as the city of seven hills so while the beast is not Rome, this is a reference to Rome in my opinion and I believe this is because in John’s time, Rome was the 6^th head and BtG was definitely sitting on the head.  We can infer from this imagery that she controls the mind of the head, but as I will demonstrate shortly, BtG in the last days represents a literal geographic power.

While we must acknowledge that BtG controls the beast and its heads, we cannot escape the plain statement of Scripture that they are different as is obvious from this passage.

And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the whore; they will make her desolate and  naked; they will devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. (Revelation 17:16).

Please also note Revelation 17:12.

And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.  (Revelation 17:12 emphasis is mine).

It is crystal clear that we are dealing with two powers.  The beast and the ten kings turn against BtG and destroy her.  Although I won’t go into it here, these verses are necessary to fully understand the trumpets and the 6^th trumpet and 6^th plague in detail.  For now, please note they are clearly different.  And with this knowledge, we can now make sense of passages in Revelation 18 which describes the fall of BtG.

Render to her as she herself has rendered,  and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed. (Revelation 18:6 emphasis is mine).

 

We now understand what this actually means.  We are told in Revelation 18 that BtG is burnt with fire.  Revelation 17 told us who did it.  When Babylon falls, she is hit twice.  Her first calamity comes at the hands of the beast and the ten kings.  By the way, I should point out here that Revelation 17 clearly says to John that the 10 kings have not yet received royal power.  If the present tense is in 1798 as the SDA church maintains, the ten divisions of Rome have already come on the scene.  This is yet another proof that the “is not” refers to the 1^st century CE.  But back to the main thread.  BtG’s second calamity comes courtesy of God during the 7^th plague.  This is why she gets double.

 

Notice also the merchants of the earth stand and watch her smoke.  They are not crying to the rocks and mountains to fall on them.  They stand and observe her smoke.  Might we say nuclear destruction?  One thing they say is particularly important for our discussion.

They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas, alas, the great city, Babylon, the mighty city!  For in one hour your judgment has come.” (Revelation 18:10 emphasis is mine).

Revelation 17 told us the beast and 10 kings would reign together for one hour and burn BtG with fire.  Stop and marvel at how unbelievably intricate and well structured the book of Revelation actually is if we but only read and pay attention.  We can read “one hour” is meaning a very short time, or say it refers to literally one hour.  I tend toward the former but note this is very specific.  I mentioned nuclear destruction because however the beast and 10 kings destroy BtG, fire and smoke result and it is a fast, sudden destruction.  We are told it happens in one day elsewhere in Revelation 18.

Revelation 18 then goes into great detail describing BtG.  What we see is a world economic power that uses shipping by sea as a main vehicle, a power that fornicates with the kings of the earth through trade and seduction.  But of primary importance here is the inescapable fact that when the merchants mourn for BtG, they mourn for a specific and known power that has fallen, one they identify as that great city.  This is not a nebulous spiritual veiled theological power we’re dealing with.  BtG is a specifically known entity mourned by real merchants who traded with her in the past.  And this power is destroyed by a beast with 10 horns who turns on this power that has been sitting on it.

Now, Revelation 18:4 takes on new meaning.  When the world is told to “come out of her my people” they are told to leave a specific, geographically known, economically known, world power, not some nebulous spiritual condition.  Revelation 18 has far too much detail. 

Revelation 17 tells us that BtG as something written on her forehead (mind),

and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations (Revelation 17:5 emphasis is mine).

This is a mystery.  BtG’s mind is the source or root cause of all of earth’s abominations.  And what is Babylon known for?  Trade!  And what led Lucifer into sin according to Ezekiel 28?  Trade!  This brings me back to my very first point.  Tyre was the economic power in Ezekiel’s time.  Ironically, Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was the third head, but it was Tyre who sat on her and Nebuchadnezzar hated this and tried to destroy Tyre, but failed after a long siege collapsed.  Marvel at how intricate and well structured Bible prophecy is if we only read and pay attention.

I will end this post by reproducing a long comment I made in my previous post on this subject.  A question was posed that if Rome is not the 4^th beast of Daniel 7, and by extension not the beast of Revelation 13, what behaviors should we look for.  What follows is my answer to that question.

The behavior question is a good one and I believe there are two ways to approach this question based on the Bible.  The first is to look at 2 Thessalonians 2 in which Paul says that in his time, the mystery of iniquity was already present but would be fully revealed just before the second coming.  Paul then refers to Daniel 11:36-39.  So we can say that when the “man of lawlessness” is finally able to act in the open, he openly exhibits the behaviors Paul describes.  We can infer then that before this power is able to work openly, it exhibits similar characteristics but perhaps not as strongly because it has to work behind the scenes.  What we see then is someone who obviously hates God (Revelation 13 reveals this) controls through conquest, wants to control the economy through brute force, and what is important here, wants to set himself up as an alternative god.  Exalting himself above all other gods.

 

Throughout history, we see this manifested by the individual heads to greater or lesser degrees.  Egyptian pharaohs were the incarnation of Ra, the supreme deity so that’s pretty obvious.  Assyrian kings were not quite as bold, but they did say they had a special define connection with Assur, their chief deity not available to anyone else.  The Babylonians were similar.  We then have the story of Daniel 3.  Persia got worse as time passed but the Greeks were not so inclined seeing themselves as men.  This is until Alexander was exposed to Persian ways and he then became a god-king.  He even said he was a special son of Ra, the Egyptian god and there are stories to back this up.  Subsequent kings like Antiochus IV, for example, followed suit. 

 

Rome, like Greek started with mortal rulers but that changed with Julius Caesar who literally believed he was descended from Venus.  When he was assassinated, the senate was forced to declare Julius Caesar a god which helped Augustus immensely because as Julius Caesar’s adopted son, he became the son of a god and he milked that for all it was worth.  Then various emperors like Nero and Caligula joined the divine party.  In short, every head proclaimed the king or emperor as either a god straight out, or having a special unique relationship with the gods no one else had.  And while we speak of the known world, every oriental dynasty such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese dynasties not to mention South American ones are exactly this way.

 

So what we need to look for is a power that introduces a new religion unknown to the ruler’s ancestors, and proclaims himself as chief deity.  This is why with all due respect to James, and I have a great deal of respect for him, we have to rule Islam out.  We are looking more along the lines of a traditional god-king with a brand new religion (See 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 and Daniel 11:36-39). 

 

A second approach is to contrast the beast to the great prostitute (Babylon the Great or BtG from now on).  They are two different powers (see my next post) but BtG does ride the beast.  Note that BtG sits on the heads of the beast, and not on the back, so her mindset holds the upper hand.

 

BtG is a prostitute.  She works behind closed doors, making deals behind closed doors.  Revelation 18 tells us she is an economic power so that when she falls, it is the merchants who mourn.  We all know of powers that have worked this way.  However, she is still full of violence.  That she sits on the heads shows that she manipulates brute force to do her will.  We see today, for example, America works through corporate elites, but still uses brute force to serve the rich elite, and so on.  Tyre was that power in Ezekiel’s time.  Meanwhile the beast is brutal and cruel.  When BtG rides on the heads, that brutality is curtailed, but the brutality is still there.  The beast conquers through brute force trampling all before it.  It is not subtle, but it too is interesting in controlling buying and selling.  In Revelation 13, we see it do so world-wide, but the individual heads use their military to control buying and selling as well.

 

So in summary, we can look forward to a brutal military dictatorship which exerts absolute control over the economy and is led by a god-king who introduces a new and hitherto unknown religion.

 

The Fourth Beast of Daniel 7 is not Rome

 The 4thBeast of Daniel 7 is not Rome

Hello again.  I am going to divert a little and not speak of extraterrestrials directly because as SDAs there are some things we must unlearn first.  I do not intend to be condescending.  I am an SDA and had to unlearn these things as well.  You will find me to be very careful in actually reading what the Bible says.  This does not mean I always take things literally, but one mistake we make is we do not read what the text actually says which means we interpret incorrectly.  So let us pay close attention to what the Bible actually says.

I assume most of us know what Daniel 2 means.  We believe gold = Babylon, silver = Persia, brass = Greece, iron = Rome and iron mixed with clay = period of fragmentation in which no power dominates.  And finally, stone = kingdom of God.  We will use this as a foundation.

With respect to showing that the 4^th beast of Daniel 7, and therefore the beast of Revelation 13 is not Rome, let us begin with Daniel 7:1.  In this verse we learn that the vision which follows occurred in the first year of King Belshazzar.  If we place this first year as the year Belshazzar ruled as regent in Babylon while his father Nabonidus spent time in Arabia, this places the vision in 553 BCE. 

Daniel has the vision and then an angel interprets it for him.  I will bold what I wish to emphasize.

As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. (Daniel 7:17).

The angel explicitly places all four kings in the future to the time of the vision.  This makes sense because Babylon had already arisen.  In fact, this vision occurred 52 years after Babylon became the prominent power in the known world.  It was only 14 years away from falling when Daniel had this vision.  I, along with many others, fell into the trap of assuming the four beasts of Daniel aligned with the four metals of Daniel 2.  But here, we see that the four beasts arise in the future.  This means that the lion = Persia, the bear = Greece, and the leopard = Rome.  What would the fourth beast be?  If we use Daniel 2 s a guide, we must conclude that the fourth beast can only appear after the period of fragmentation in which iron mixes with clay since it is clear that no power gains dominance during the period of fragmentation.  I would also point out that the period of fragmentation is not specified precisely.

For those who argue I have no historical basis for my beast shift, I could easily say that Persia conquered like a lion but then issued laws and policies, some of which we inherit today, thereby becoming a man.  I could say the tilted bear was Phillip of Macedon followed by Alexander the Great who rose higher than his father Phillip and that the three ribs symbolize the Greek States (which Phillip unified under one rule for the first time in Greek history), Persia, and Egypt.  I could say the leopard’s four wings correspond to the eventual division of the empire into four parts, and on and on.

But let us get back to the main thread of the discussion.  If I only had this verse to work with, my argument might be interesting, but far from conclusive.  Fortunately, we have Revelation 17, a text pretty much ignored in SDA Revelation seminars.  Revelation 17’s purpose is to reveal the mystery of the great prostitute and the beast upon which she rides.  It is to this chapter, then, we turn to show that my use of Daniel 7:17 is correct.

We first note that when the angel speaks to John, he does this sometime at the end of the 1^st century CE.  I believe the disciple John wrote Revelation and not the mysterious John of Patmos conjured up by modern scholars.  This is important.  Now we must pay close attention to what the angel says to John at the end of the 1^st century CE.

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. (Revelation 17:8 emphasis is mine).

We learn that the beast used to exist at some point in the past.  The beast will one day ascend from the abyss = Tartarus = bottomless pit.  But at the end of the 1^st century, the beast does not exist.  We know that the Roman empire ruled during this time and yet we are told explicitly that the beast does not exist.  As if this were not conclusive enough, we are given additional information.

This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction (Revelation 17:9-11 emphasis is mine).

We learn that at the end of the 1^st century, five heads or kingdoms had fallen as kings (more later).  One ruled during John’s time, and the 7^th and final king would come but remain only a short time.  The final piece to the puzzle is that the entire beast is an 8^th power.  This is definitive.  Rome is the 6^th head, but not the beast.  In fact, another power would arise after Rome before the beast exists once more.  In other words, the beast as a whole used to exist.  It does not exist as a whole now, but the 6^th head exists.  The 6^th head exists while the beast does not exist.  Eventually, the entire beast will exist again, and it will come from Tartarus = the abyss = the bottomless pit and when it does this, it will be an 8^th power.

If the beast ascends from the abyss, it must have been sent there at some point in the past.  After its demise, the first head arose, and then the second, and so on.  Who might the five fallen heads represent?  If we use Rome as the 6^th head at the end of the 1^st century, we can say that the five powers that ruled and persecuted God’s people prior to Rome represent Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece.  Note that Egypt as a world ruler fell but Egypt was not destroyed.  Assyria fell as a world power, but we still have Iraqis today.  In fact, Iraqis refer to their nation as Assur which is the biblical word for Assyria.  The same applies to Babylon and we can easily see that Iran and Greece are still with us.  Thus the five fallen heads still exist, but not as kings.  So, when the second head rises and the first head falls, we have 2/7 of the beast, then 3/7, then 4/7 and so on.  When the 7^th head finally emerges, we have the beast as a whole, but the 7^th head is only there for a short time.  Then, and only then, do we see the entire beast rise in its entirety as the 8^th power.

In Revelation 13, the inhabitants of the earth are amazed at the beast because they thought the beast was killed, but here it is again.  Who can fight against a power that cannot die?  Logic tells you that the head that was wounded is the 7^th head.  In fact, it can only be the 7^th head the other six having fallen.  But the people of the earth realize that the whole beast, which only comes into existence when the 7^th head emerges, was wounded, but the deadly wound was healed. 

It is therefore absolutely clear that the 4^th beast of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation 13 cannot be Rome.  The 6^th head is Rome.  The 7^th head appears after the period of fragmentation for a short time because Daniel 2 tells us that the period of fragmentation occurs after the pure iron of Rome.  If you want to extend the 6^th head to include papal Rome, go ahead but the important thing to note here is that the beast is not Rome and therefore is also not the papacy.

We now have lion = Persia, bear = Greece, Leopard = Rome, period of fragmentation, 7^th head, wounded 7^th head and the beast appears slain, followed by the entire beast resurrected as it were representing the 8^th and final power just before the stone hits the image.  This is very difficult for SDAs because we are fixated on the papacy.  Because we are SDAs, I will now turn to the 1,260 days.

Our church teaches that one day of apocalyptic prophecy = one actual year.  We use Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34 to prove this.  Neither Numbers nor Ezekiel are apocalyptic texts so this proof is highly flawed.  What is even more telling itself is Revelation 13.  Read Revelation 13 honestly and without the baggage we associate with it.  Ask yourself whether the 42 months occur before or after the deadly wound is healed.  Our church teaches that the 42 months or 1,260 days, occurs prior to the deadly wound.  But if you read Revelation 13 honestly, you can only conclude that the 42 months occurs after the wound is healed.  Does this mean we must endure for 1,260 years?  Our universal and mindless application of the year-day principle is what prevents us from reading the plain statements of Scripture.  I can demonstrate this very simply.  Consider this passage which our Daniel and Revelation seminars completely ignore.

I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.  As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.  (Daniel 7:11-12 emphasis is mine).

The 4^th beast is burned with fire.  This occurs at the second coming as is clearly shown in Daniel 7 itself, as well as in Revelation 19.  But the other three beasts, which I have identified as Persia, Greece, and Rome, are not destroyed when the 4^th beast is.  They are stripped of sovereignty, but their lives are prolonged.  We can interpret “a season and a time” as referring to an indefinite period of time in the sense that “their lives were prolonged for a little while” or we could say that a season is equal to 90 days while a time = 360 days = 90 + 360 days = 450 days = 450 years.  This means that after the second coming, we have 450 more years to go.  Although I won’t go into a deep analysis of year-day here, this is quite problematic for the SDA view of last day events.  I believe a day-day application is warranted here which aligns with most Christians who feel that the 1,260 days = 1,260 days.  I mention this to give you something to think about.  What is important here is that we actually read what the Bible is saying.

Although there are still many unanswered questions, we can now definitively say that the beast is not Rome or the papacy.  The SDA position is that the action of Revelation 17 occurs in 1798 so that when the angel says the beast is not, that refers to the beast not existing in 1798 when we say the deadly wound was received.  My counter to this argument is a simple one.  To my simple mind, the present tense is the present tense.  If an angel speaks to John and says something does not exist (present tense) that means it does not exist at the time when the words are uttered.  There is no other place our church jumps to another time when interpreting the present tense in the Bible.  Quite frankly, this position is an embarrassment.  The 1798 view does not explain the heads in that it does not say what the 6^th head was in 1798.  In fact, we do not examine the seven heads at all and as I said earlier, ignore Revelation 17 in our seminars.

 

Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6 Heavenly Beings

 Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6 Heavenly Beings?

For my second extraterrestrial post I will begin with two texts.  All scripture quotes are from the NRSV unless specifically indicated.

 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; (2 Peter 2:4)

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6).

Who were the angels put into prison?  When were they put there and why?  Is this prison literal or metaphorical?

I suspect most SDAs would say the prison is metaphorical since we don’t believe in a hell that exists right now.  It is significant, however, that the word “hell” in 2 Peter 2:4 is based on the Greek word Tartarus, and not Hades.  It is the only place in the NT where Tartarus is used.  This is highly significant because in both Jewish and Greek mythology – not that Christians believed in Zeus, Hera and so on – Tartarus was a prison in which the especially wicked were imprisoned to await the final judgment.  Thus, the reader is meant to understand this to be a literal prison housing literal angels.  Christians believe that evil angels roam the earth and indeed, the Bible supports this belief in a number of places known to most of us here, so I won’t deal with that.  And yet, Peter and Jude cannot be denied.  I will return to Jude later.

 The first thing to note about Peter and Jude is the imprisoned angels statements are mentioned as fact, to an audience who knew of this event.  In fact, this event was as widely known as Israel coming out of Egypt, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Jewish tradition is full of this story and is found in many non canonical books.  The Bible supports the overall story.

 When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, ^the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.  Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown (Genesis 6:1-4).

 The Jewish tradition which was held by well over 90% of all living Jews at the time the Bible was written, holds that heavenly beings married mortal women and produced either giants or men of mythology, take your pick and this is what brought about the flood.  The earth was filled with violence because the families who had such unions were given superior technology which they used to oppress and enslaves those who did not have this advantage.  After the flood, God imprisoned those fallen angels in the abyss = Tartarus = the bottomless pit but left some on the earth.  The basic story was universally held though details vary.  The main book that holds this tradition is 1 Enoch.  This is important because Jude quotes from 1 Enoch later in his letter showing he believed it was canonical.

 “Sons of God” or “Children of God” if we are being politically correct, is used in two ways in the Bible.  One is to refer to celestial beings, what we might call extraterrestrials today.  The other is that we are all children of God and heirs to salvation.  The question is, which of these is meant here?  One interpretation is the children of Seth (sons of God) saw the daughters of men (daughters of Cain) were fair and married them thereby causing the problem.  The other, as I said, is that celestial beings married mortal women.  In Hebrew, “sons of God” here is “benney Elohim.”  Elohim is also the Hebrew word for God.

 And it happened, when humans began to become numerous upon the land, and _⌊they had daughters_⌋, the angels of God, having seen the daughters of humans, that they were beautiful, took for themselves women from all whom they picked out. (Genesis 6:2 English translation of the Septuagint).

We can see that the translators of the Septuagint, abbreviated as LXX clearly understood “sons of God” to mean celestial beings or angels.  It is important to remember the LXX was the Old Testament used by the Christian church not a Hebrew version.  The LXX was a Greek translation of a version of the Hebrew Bible we do not have today.  The biblical text of the Dead Sea Scrolls is, however, much closer to the LXX than to our Hebrew Bible today. 

Both Philo of Alexandria and Josephus wrote that the “sons of God” refer to angels.  I have been criticized for using these sources by people who only wish to use the Bible.  I use Josephus in particular, to demonstrate that as a Pharisee, Josephus states the belief of the largest sect of Judaism.  We also know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that those in Qumran also held this belief as did the Jews in Alexandria, the largest population of Jews outside of Judea.  For all practical purposes, the heavenly beings view was held universally at the time the NT was written.    The idea that the sons of God were the righteous descendants of Seth was hardly believed at all at the time but did gain prominence in both Christianity and Judaism about 300 years after the crucifixion.

And now we go back to Jude.  Greek is a language with masculine, feminine, and neuter genders.  I will quote from Jude 6 and 7 in English and put gender in parentheses where required.  Neuter doesn’t apply here so it will just be masculine and feminine.

And the angels (M) who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. Likewise, Sodom (F) and Gomorrah (F) and the surrounding cities (F), which, in the same manner as they (M), indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 6, 7).

Most English readers interpret Jude 7 like this.  Sodom and Gomorrah were like the surrounding cities and indulged in sexual immorality and suffered punishment.  Because Greek is a language with gender, the pronoun “they” is masculine not feminine.  This means that “they” cannot refer to any of the cities mentioned in Jude 7.  It must refer to the only masculine noun involved which is “angels.”  Therefore, there is one and only one way to interpret and understand the Greek.  I will now paraphrase Jude 7 the only way it should be understood.

 Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as the angels, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust. . .” (Jude 7 paraphrased).

 Thus, Christians need have no ambiguity.  Jude holds that angels or celestial beings, married mortals and were put into prison, and held in chains awaiting their judgment.  Not all angels did this which is why not all evil angels are in this prison.  And now I will conclude this with a text most people gloss over.

 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:17-24).

 Josephus tells us in Antiquities of the Jews that things went bad in the 7^th generation from Adam.  If you count the genealogies here with Adam as generation 1, we get Lamech as generation 7.  There are two things to note here.  First, from this one family, we get a lot of innovation.  Animal husbandry, music, and metallurgy all emerge at once from this family.  But notice what Lamech says.  Earlier in Genesis 4 God placed a mark on Cain after Cain murdered Abel and told Cain that this mark would let everyone know that if they killed Cain, God would avenge that sevenfold.  (Genesis 4:15).    With this in mind, Lamech’s words become clear.  Lamech brags that he also killed someone like Cain.  Just as a heavenly being (God) backed Cain up to deter Cain from being executed for his crime, Lamech also has backup.  Lamech is bragging about his backup.  If a divine being will avenge Cain sevenfold, the divine beings backing him up will avenge Lamech seventy-seven-fold.  Thus, in Genesis, we have the two elements of Jewish tradition:  a sudden influx of technology or learning, as well as a father who believes he is untouchable because he has heavenly backing.  This also agrees with the Jewish belief stated by Josephus that things went bad in the 7^th generation from Adam. 

 This understanding also clears up a mysterious portion of the Genesis 6 passage in which God says, My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever.”  What does God mean here?  Why does God say his spirit will not abide in mortals forever?”  This proclamation leads to the 120 year prediction.  In other words, God says his spirit will only abide in mortal flesh for 120 years.  Surely God cannot mean the Holy Spirit will only dwell in humans for 120 years.  Remember Genesis 6 refers to these beings and the “sons of God.”  The heavenly beings partake of God’s celestial nature and it is this which will not abide in mortal flesh forever.  That is the only context in which God’s declaration makes any sense.

 Now we have established all this, we still have many questions.  Where is Tartarus?  Does it even exist?  For that matter, where is heaven?  I will answer these questions in later posts.  For now, however, we have established that a group of angels (extraterrestrials) rebelled against God and went native.  They married mortal women and produced strong offspring.  This brought about violence and oppression.  It was this which led to the flood.  We will learn later that the flood was the culmination of a war between the angels who rebelled, and those who remained loyal to God. 

 

With Whom was Lucifer Trading

 With Whom did Lucifer Trade?

Hello voice family.  A couple of weeks ago I said a couple things in the comments of another post which sparked some discussion.  I suggested that extraterrestrials would make their appearance showing that we are not alone and that this would be part of the events of the last days.  I said this would spark a brand new religion and that the strong delusion the Bible speaks of would consist of really advanced technology.  It is difficult to prove such claims in posts but I thought I would start by posing a very simple question.  What follows is by no means a proof of any kind, but should be seen as the beginning of an inquiry which I hope will open our minds to what the Bible is really saying.  I will begin with a passage I believe most of you are familiar with.  It is Ezekiel 28:11-17.  I have quoted it in full from the NRSV below, and I have put in all caps what I want to emphasize.

Many people apply Ezekiel 28:11-17 to Lucifer.  I am a traditionalist in this regard so this is how I apply it as well.  Most modern scholars disagree with me.  They apply this to a king of Tyre contemporary with Ezekiel.   Other scholars apply this to Adam.  I’m happy to discuss this in the comments, but for now I’m going to stick to the Lucifer application.

My simple question is this.  With whom was Lucifer trading?  We tend to focus on how Lucifer fell into sin because of his beauty and that’s part of it, but this passage explicitly states in unambiguous language that it was because of the abundance of his trade that he became filled with violence.  There is a reason why this is a lament against the king of Tyre.  Commerce is what is meant here.  If this describes how Lucifer fell into sin, then he was engaged in commerce with someone before humanity enters the scene.  This could only refer to trade with other heavenly beings.

Moreover the word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God;  every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; and worked in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. IN THE ABUNDANCE OF YOUR TRADE YOU WERE FILLED WITH VIOLENCE, AND YOU SINNED; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire. ¹⁷ Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.