Heraclius as The Beast out of The Sea

I've already laid some ground work for this in a few prior posts that were mostly meant to potentially support more then one model but end on a connection to Heraclius (The Seven Kings, Pergamon, Roma, The Image being a Son).  Here I shall break things down more firmly.

I am of a few different minds about the issue of the Four horseman, I often learns towards a very Historicist understanding of them with all of Revelation 6 corresponding to the beginnings of sorrows of Matthew 24 and thus referring to conditions that start before 70 AD but apply still even today.  I will be considering in the future the arguments against viewing the Horsemen as villains.  But for this post I shall focus on arguing they can refer to the Sassanian Conquests of the early 7th Century.

The rider on The White Horse, the Conqueror, would be The Persian Shah Khosrow II.

The Red Horseman would be his general Shahin Vahmanzedegan who penetrated all the way to just outside Constantinople in 614 AD.

The rider on the Black Horse would be Shahralanoyzan the Persian military Governor of Egypt which position gave him a lot of Economic Power with Egypt having been a main source of the Roman Empire's Bread.

Death and Hades of course can't be identified with human figures.

There are strong arguments others have already made for The Two Witnesses being Jewish leaders (probably not Christians), paralleling Zerubbabel and Jeshua in Zechariah.  In this context they would be Nehemiah Ben Hushiel and Benjamin of Tiberias.

In Revelation 13 the Beast is described as like a Leopard, it is identified with the Third Beast of Daniel 7 more directly then any other.  The Reign of Heraclius is considered by many historians the key turning point in the Eastern Roman Empire becoming more Greek then Roman.

I think Hosea 13:7-8 is also a factor in understanding how Revelation 13 and Daniel 7 relate. The feet of the Bear are associated with violence and thus military force, I think they represent the Persian Generals who eventually defected to Heraclius, Shahrbaraz and Kardarigan.

We know from Daniel 7 the Mouth of a Lion must represent some connection to Mesopotamia.  But in 2 Timothy 2:17 the mouth of the lion is associated with Martyrdom.  There was a city called Martyropolis that was important to Byzantine Mesopotamia.

As far as the mortal wound goes, Heraclius was in some sources literally wounded at the battle of Nineveh in 627.  But symbolically I think it mainly refers to how the loses the Empire suffered in 610-614 seemed like something it would not be able to recover from, until it did under Heraclius's campaigns of the 620s.

622 was the beginning of Heraclius's counter offensive "who is able to make war with him", and I think the 42 months specially begin with a key turning point in 624 and end with the major victory of spring 628.

The Beast out of Earth aka The False Prophet would be Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople, the highest ranking religious leader in the empire who also held pollical and military authority at times.

My Roma post ends with how The Beast destroying Babylon fits Babylon as Rome.  But if you view Babylon as Jerusalem then in the Spring of 630 AD Heraclius did betray and massacre the Jews of Jerusalem (and possibly Miaphysite Christians as well).  And if you want Babylon to still be an east of the Euphrates center of Paganism then that fits Takht-e Soleymān in 624 or Dastgerd in 627. 

One could also see the Woman of Revelation 17 as representing the Oriental Orthodox Church which wielded power in Persia at this time partly through the influence of Gabriel of Sinjar and Queen Shirin.

The Fast of Heraclius is a Coptic Tradition that comes from Heraclius supposedly desiring to repent of the massacre of the Jews in 630 so that could fit my Baptism of The Beast premise. 

Antioch and The Treasures of The Temple.

1 Maccabees 1:21-24 says Antiochus Epiphanes took from The Temple the Menorah, Altar of Incense, Table of Showbread and many other gold and silver vessels.  And in verse 23 "also he took the hidden treasures which he found".  None of this was ever returned or retrieved, Judas Maccabeus had new sacred vessels made in 1 Maccabees 4:47-49.

Some theorize that a little before the First Temple was destroyed The Ark was hidden in a secret hiding place?

Hidden Treasures is in plural, the Rod of Aaron, Jar of Manna and Torah Scroll were placed in the Ark by Moses but seemingly not there anymore when Solomon placed it in his Temple.  Perhaps Solomon removed them to place them in a hidden chamber? That maybe would later wind up also hiding The Ark itself?

Antiochus most likely took them to Antioch, perhaps kept them in the royal palace on the island, or maybe put them somewhere in the Fourth Quarter which was his expansion of the city.  The royal palace was later built over by a Church Constantine built, which itself was destroyed by several earthquakes and wars over the city's history.

Some Islamic Prophecies foretell that The Mahdi will discover the Ark of The Covenant and other Biblical treasures buried at Antioch.  Back when I first read about that researching for my thought on the Mahdi concept I had no idea what theoretically could have brought them there because I had overlooked this detail of I Maccabees.

"The reason he is called the Mahdi (a.s.) is that he guides the way to a hidden thing. He will bring forth the  Ark of the Covenant  from a place known as Antioch."  (Jalal-uddine AsSuyuti's  Al-Urf Al-Wardi fi Akhbar Al-Mahdi, a part of Al-Hawi li Al-Fatawa)

"He is called the Mahdi (a.s.) because he is the key to something nobody knows. He will bring forth the Ark of the Covenant from the Cave of Antioch." (Nuaim bin Hammad's book Kitab Al-Fitan) and (Ibn Hajar Haithami Al-Makki's book Al-Qawl al-Mukhtasar fi Alamat al-Mahdi al-Muntazar)

Tamin Ad-Dari said " I said, 'O Messenger of Allah  صلى الله عليه وسلم , I have never seen a Roman city like the city of Antioch ( in Turkey, but historically, is part of Syria) and I have never seen more rain than it has.' Whereupon the Messenger of Allah,  صلى الله عليه وسلم , said: 'Yes, that is because the Torah, Rod of Moses, Tablets (of the Ten Commandments), and the Table of Solomon, the son of David, (made of gold and ornamented with precious jewels, emeralds, pearls and rubies) are in its caves. There is not a single cloud that comes from any direction to it that does not pour its blessing in that valley. And the days and night will not pass until a man from my musked children live in it. His name is like my name and his father's name is like my father's name; his manners are like my manners. He will fill the world with fairness and justice just as it had been filled by harm and transgressions'." (Ibn Hibban's book Ad-Dua'fa and Shaykh Abdullah bin Sadek, Grand Muhaddith of Morocco, 's book Al-Mahdi, Jesus and Dajjal)

Ka'b said: "The Mahdi ... excavates Tabout Al-Sakina (Ark of Covenant) from a cave in Antioch (in it, will be the Torah that Allah (t) revealed to Moses and the Gospel that Allah (t) revealed to Jesus..." (Nuaim bin Hammad's Kitab Al-Fitan)

Now I'm not one of those Islamic Antichrist theorists saying we should actually believe these Islamic Prophecies will come true.  Instead these Hadiths may have just recorded some Prophecies given after the fact.  Perhaps referring to discoveries made by Caliph Umar who first captured Antioch for the Arab Empire, or later by Al-Mahdi (775-785).  Or maybe they just come from Ancients who knew things now forgotten related to what I've theorized above.  Maybe they come from local beliefs the Christians of Antioch had in antiquity before Islam even emerged.

I think the Rod of Moses in this Hadiths may actually refer to the Rod of Aaron.  And remember The Ark also had an early Torah Scroll in it

Being in a Cave perhaps fits the Fourth Quarter, which from the map I looked at seems to include some hills and mountains which could possibly have caves.

While I do think it's possible the Ark was among what Antiochus Epiphanes took, just the fact that he definitely did take the Menorah, Altar and Table of Showbread built by Solomon (the Mosaic ones were never in The Temple) is itself really significant.  I suspect that what one of those Hadiths refereed to as the Table of Solomon was really originally Solomon's Table of Showbread.

Antioch is where Believers were first called Christians in Acts, treasures of Solomon's Temple being there during the New Testament era when the city became a major Capital of the True Temple of God is very interesting.

If an early text of one of The Gospels wound up with these treasures, my first hunch is it's Mark's.  Acts 13 implies John Mark was also in Antioch when Paul and Barnabas left on their first journey from there, Chuck Missler argued Mark's Gospel was already written by that time based on what the Greek text calls Mark.  And we know Peter spent time in Antioch as well from Galatians, Mark's Gospel was according to tradition him writing down what Peter had preached.  Still the association of the Nazarenes with this region makes it not impossible a copy of Hebrew Matthew wound up in Antioch, and Hebrew Matthew being what early Muslim sources meant by the original Injil fits some theories I've had about the origins of Islam.  However I can't entirely rule out any of them.

Another note, the person Muslim Tradition remembers as Habib'i Neccar/Habib Al-Najjar is probably Simeon called Niger of Acts 13 in my opinion.

A Muslim scholar named Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (994-1064) claimed that Mark wrote "His Gospel in Greek at Antioch".  Ephrem the Syrian seems to have claimed John's Gospel was written at Antioch in his commentary on the Diatessaron, but remember Mark was also named John so there could be confusion there.

However if a text was found there that Muslims felt was the original Ingil that might actually be an Ebionite version of Matthew, since the Ebionite view of Jesus is very similar to the Islamic view.

Daniel 11:36-45 is about Augustus

How most of Daniel 11 is about the Hellenistic Kingdoms in the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC is well known, lots of commentaries on that exist. 

Many of those commentaries don't think the Hasmonean Revolt itself is referred to however, but I think in verse 32 "the people that know their God shall be strong and do exploits" is referring to the Maccabees.  It seems "do exploits" can alternatively be translated "take action".  Then 33-35 sums up further Hasmonean history including them falling to the Romans beginning under Pompey in 63 BC the same year Augustus was born but completed with Anthony's conquest of Antigonus Matthias in 37 BC.

Augustus never admitted to being a King but we see in John 19:15 that the Israelites in Judea didn't care about those semantics.

I will cover 40-45 first because that's the specific events, and get into how the primarily spiritual details of 36-39 apply later.

First I want to say terms like "Time of the end" also occur earlier during what few deny was fulfilled in the Hellenistic age.  So selectively using that as proof we're in the full End Times here is rather disingenuous.  What is notable is that Augustus lifetime overlaps into the New Testament era.  In fact he was younger then the Prophetess Anna.

Daniel 11:40

And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

The Naval aspect of this battle is usually not emphasized when trying to interpret it in a modern context, since Naval warfare hasn't really been as important as it used to be since WWII.  These ships could still be aircraft carriers, but those are just glorified launching pads.

Chris White's argument for the "he" here being separate from the King of The North is very good in his commentary on this.  People generally do not note that the King of The South has the leadership role here.  Even how this is tied into the Mahdi theory with Sufyani needs to consider the North more important.

You can probably guess where I'm going here is that this is Actium, and that the two "kings" of north and south are Anthony and Cleopatra.  You may be thinking "but wouldn't it be the Queen of the South then?"  The Prophetic sense simply means the King as synonymous with Nation more or less in these kinds of verses.  But I could also point out that Antony and Cleopatra were more or less officially ruling in the names of Cleopatra's children.

The main one was Ptolemy Caesarion who she had by Julius Caesar, who was Pharaoh of Egypt.  Then there was her and Anthony's youngest son Ptolemy Philadelhus who at the Donations of Alexandria was proclaimed King of Syria and other core Seleucid lands.  Alexander Helios was mostly given Kingdoms they didn't actually control yet, Parthia, Media and Armenia.  And Cleopatra Selene was given the usual Ptolemaic lands peeled off for younger brothers and bastard sons to rule.  I personally speculate that Cleopatra was planning to marry Selene to Caesarion once she was old enough, the question is how okay Anthony would have been with that.

Now the movies about Anthony and Cleopatra and Octavian usually skip right from Actium to the fall of Alexandria, but in fact plenty happened in-between.  You could learn about it by reading ancient historians like Josephus, or you could just read Daniel 11:41.

He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

Yes Augustus did enter the Biblical Promised Land during this time. Herod switched sides over to him and he confirmed Herod's kingship increasing his power.  A number of local governments were overthrown at this time.  However Biblical Edom, Moab and much of Ammon were part of the Nabatean Kingdom that Rome never conquered till the reign of Trajan.  What little of Ammon wasn't part of Nabatea was part of the Decapolis, independent city states.  The Nabatean kingdom was a thorn in Rome's side all through the Julio-Claudian and Flavian periods.

Then in Daniel 11:42-43 is the fall of Alexandria.

He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.  But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

This is when the Fourth Beast fully replaced the Third.

Augustus gave Egypt a special status among Roman Provinces.  It was treated as his personal possession.  Which is why it's Governors were appointed by him rather then the Senate even though it wasn't a military province.  Egypt became his gold mine basically.

Libya (Phut in the Hebrew) in the Bible doesn't really correlate well to modern Libya or what would become the Roman province of Libya, it's more like the rest of North Africa west of Libya and Cyrene. What Rome controlled of the rest of North Africa was only ever the very northern Mediterranean coast-lands.  And even then right after Egypt fell Mauritania remained a client kingdom.

Also there were wars fought between Rome and Kush during Augustus reign, but Rome never conquered them.  It annoys me that people want to make Cleopatra black when there was a black African Queen contemporary with her who unlike her did keep her nation independent from Rome.  But Hollywood doesn't make movies about that Queen.

Daniel 11:44

But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.

The east here no doubt means east of the Euphrates, Parthia and it's client Kingdoms.  The north here must be further north then the Seleucid lands already conquered, probably other nations that were proxies between Rome and Parthia like Armenia.  Alluding to the sort of cold war between Rome and Parthia.  But it could also have in mind Rome's ongoing wars with the northern Celts and Germans.

The earlier parts of Daniel 11 sometimes moved to a successor without it being obvious it was doing so.  So it could be carrying over into Tiberius here, or even later Julio-Claudians.  But both this and the next verse I feel can remain in the time of Augustus.

Daniel 11:45

And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.

The word for "tabernacles" here means tents. the Preterists who want to make everything about 70 AD say this refers to the tents Roman soldiers camped in in Jerusalem then.  Similar Roman encampments could have happened earlier during any time Roman soldiers had to take Jerusalem from rebels.  Including the rebellions that broke out after Herod died, or when Archelaus was removed in 6 AD.

The word translated "palace" was not even a Hebrew word but a Persian one.  So it's not an allusion to The Temple or anyone deifying themselves in The Temple.  It's probably the Antonia Fortress finished by Herod in 19 BC.

Augustus died in 14 AD, many scholars now are skeptical of the rumor that Livia poisoned him.  Either way it fits the end of Daniel 11:45 fine in my opinion.  And so would any other Judeo-Claudian Emperor.

Herod had a Kingdom that was pretty sizable, all of modern Israel and chunks of Jordan and Syria.  After he died Augustus divided it into four Teterarchies.  Archelaus got Judea, Idumea and Samaria, and Antipas got Galilee and Perea.  Philip got Batanea, Trachonitis, Aurantis, Gaulantis and Ceasarea Philippi.  And Herod's sister got the Gaza strip.   So that is probably what "shall divide the land for gain" in verse 39 means.  Though it's apparent chronological placement before Actium means it could be Rome's division between the second Triumphirate.

Now to get into the spiritual aspects of 36-39.

Augustus did not deify himself in the obvious insane way some later Emperors like Caligula would.  But it was considered perfectly acceptable in Rome for him to be worshiped as a god by the conquered peoples.  He didn't force it on the Jews, but the other people around Israel worshiped him as a god, in Egypt he basically took over the traditional Pharaonic worship.

In Rome, he was not openly worshiped as a god while he lived, but there was a lot of quasi deification going on.  The name Augustus effectively meant divine, and he was given that name the same year his adopted father Julius Caesar was officially deified, so he officially became the son of a god.  More of his deification of himself will become relevant later.

Saying Augustus didn't honor the god(s) of his father or desire of women may seem odd, but I think those have nuances abstract applications.  A lot did change about Roman Religion during his time.

Now "the God of forces" sounds like a war god.  Rome identified their local deities with Greek ones, but Ares was never a favored deity among the Greeks.  To Rome however Mars was their Patron, the father of Romulus and Remus.  They defined themselves by their military nature, this is part of what America has inherited from Rome, and Christians sadly take part in it.

The word for "Strange" means foreign.  Apollo was the only Olympian the Romans didn't have their own deity to identify with, so even in Latin he is just worshiped as Apollo.  But Apollo was not a very poplar deity in Rome before Augustus.  In fact Apollo was almost unheard of to Romans before Augustus. A number of articles have been written on how greatly Augustus popularized Apollo.

A rumor circulated that Augustus was actually fathered by Apollo.  Augustus's birthday (September 23rd) became Apollo's national holiday.  Virgil's fourth Ecolouge contained a pseudo Prophecy from the Cumea Sybil of Augustus as an incarnation of Apollo.

The fascination that the renaissance, enlightenment and modern world has with Apollo mainly goes back to Augustus' promotion of him.  Especially since it largely tends to be filtered through Virgil.  So the fact that the ships that took us to the moon were all called Apollo you can thank Augustus for.

Due to the DSS manuscripts of Daniel skeptics are limited in how late they can get away with late dating Daniel.  Generally they can't even allow it past the death of Epiphanes.  The fact that it describes Augustus as accurately as it did Epiphanes is a major problem for them.

You may think "there were no chapter divisions originally, Daniel 12 says "at that time" referring to what just happened", 10-12 is all one revelation.  Well how Daniel 12 can refer to the Time of Christ is something I'm working on will hopefully be able to make a post on before the end of the year.

Asher and Phoenicia

The first mention of Tyre in The Bible is in Joshua 19:29 as a City in the Allotment of Asher.

There is a lot of overlap between what the Greeks and later Romans called Phoenicia and what was allotted to the Tribe of Asher in the days of Joshua.  Zidon/Sidon itself is listed in Joshua 19:28.  Dor was basically the southernmost city of what they called Phoenicia and Joshua 17:11 lists it as a City originally meant for Asher but that Manasseh wound up taking.  And Aphek/Aphik of Joshua 19:30  is Apheca up in the Jibel district of Lebanon east of Byblos and west of Baalbek.

I also have a hunch the name of the nearby Jezzine District of Lebanon comes from the Jesuite clan of Asher from Number 26:44.  Of course a few verses later there are a couple clans of Naphtali with arguably more similar names but I feel Jezzine is to far west to be Naphtali.

Of course many of these are cities the Canaanites weren’t chased out of, as we’re told of Dor in Judges 1:27 and five proper Asher allotted cities in Judges 1:31, and the five in that verse weren’t even made tributaries like the others, they were fully independent.  That verse lists Zidon, Acco/Acho (the city known today as Akka and to the Crusaders as Acre but in Acts was Potlemias), and Aphek.  The Asherites are also described different then the tribes preceding them in Judges 21, they dwell among the Canaanites rather then the Canaanites dwelling among them.

But Judges 1:31 doesn’t mention Tyre, and that gets me to wondering, was Tyre an Asherite city for more of its ancient history than we usually think?

Hiram was the King of Tyre contemporary with David and at least the early reign of Solomon.  1 Chronicles 22:4 and 1 Kings 5:6 refers to Hiram and his kingdom as distinct from the Zidonians, not from Sidon as a city but from the Sidonians as a tribe.  It seems weird that he is merely allied with the House of David and not part of their Kingdom if he’s an Israelite, but maybe being surrounded by so many Canaanite cities cut them off.

Isaiah 23 refers to Tyre as the Daughter of Sidon, meaning the population of Tyre had become Sidonian by then.  And other Prophets like Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah constantly pair Tyre and Zidon together as practically twin cities, but all these are much later, so when did the change happen?

Ethbaal/Ithobaal the father of Jezebel you may have seen referred to as a King of Tyre, but The Bible in 1 Kings 16:31 calls him king of the Sidonians and never mentioned Tyre in its Ahab & Jezebel narrative at all.  The source for him being a King of Tyre is chiefly the Phoenician Historian Meander as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion.  These sources also tell us he did not descend from Tyre’s prior Kings but founded a new Dynasty, he was a Priest of Astarte who killed the previous king Phelles implying this was a Coup d'etat perhaps religiously motivated.  

But that also wasn’t the first time this happened, Phelles’s own dynasty gained power the same way decades earlier.  According to Meander Hiram/Hirom was succeeded by a Son then a Grandson but then his Dynasty ended.  Meander’s names for the Father, Son and Grandson of Hirom seem to imply Tyre was already worshiping Baal and Astarte even then, but those names could have been altered by the later Baalist record keepers.

When you study the Etymology of the name Phoenicia and why the Greeks gave that name to this region, you'll discover it's tied to a Greek word for Purple and to Phoenicia being a source of Dates and a rare Purple Dye, and that this is also tied to how Purple became a color associated with Royalty, this Purple is even specifically associated with Tyre being called Tyrian Purple.  

So Jacob's blessing for Asher in Genesis 49:20 is arguably fulfilled by Asher being Phoenicia, the Royal Dainties are the Dates and Tyrian Purple Dye.  Moses' blessing from Deuteronomy 33:24 can fit as well.

The Phoenicians had a major influence on the early prehistory of Ancient Greece.  The Greek Alphabet is basically an adaptation of the Phoenician Alphabet, Aphrodite was basically just Astarte coming to Greece via Phoenician colonies on Cyprus.  

Later in the Hellenistic era Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus of Cios were Hellenized Phoenicians who were core to founding the Stoic School of Philosophy which would be the dominant Theistic school of Greek Philosophy during the era of The New Testament.

I don’t believe in British Israelism so I don’t see this as evidence that the Ancient Greeks as a whole or even specially the Aeolians literally primarily genealogically descended from Asher or Dan.  But the cultural influence is interesting, and perhaps adds some poetic symmetry to how, if my theories are correct, the modern Descendants of Asher follow liturgically Greek Rites of Christianity probably due to be Hellenized Jews before converting to Christianity.

As I discussed in my last Lost Tribes post, DNA research seems to show that the Christians of Lebanon are kin to The Jews.  My focus in that post was on arguing for the Maronites being Dan.  But I also think the Christians in the Tyre, Sidon, Jezzine and Nabatieh Districts of Lebanon, as well as the Haifa and Akko districts of Israel mostly descend from Asherites who converted to Christianity at some point in the first four centuries AD.  Those that follow Greek Rites from Asherites who were Hellenized by the First Century, and the Syriacs those who were not Hellenized.  The Melkite Greek Catholics are the largest Christian group in these districts followed by the Greek Orthodox as a somewhat close second.

Acts 11:19 tells us that one of the regions the Hellenized Jewish Christians we met in chapters 6-7 were scattered to during the persecution following the Martyrdom of Stephen was Phenice in the KJV which is a well known shortened form of Phoenicia, these Christians in Phenice are mentioned again in Acts 15:3, 21:3-7 and 27:3-12 where in this time Acco was called Ptolemais.

The Christians in this region are even the majority population in the villages of Mi'ilya and Fassuta,

I believe the Israeli Christians native to what was Galilee in New Testament times also descend chiefly from 1st Century Jews, but they would be of the Tribes of Zebulun and Issachar.

Dan in Lebanon

I had in the past been attracted to identifying the Dan of Judges 18 and Jeroboam's Idol with Baalbek, but I have changed my mind on that.

While Baalbek was a site with Temples going way back into the Bronze Age, the most impressive structures there now are Roman ones, chiefly The Temple to Jupiter built by Hadrian.  It seems like originally the far more important cult center was to the West, in the eastern part of the Byblos District of Modern Lebanon.

A site in that region called Afqa/Afka/Apheca/Afeka is one of the sites proposed to be the Aphik/Aphek allotted to Asher in Joshua 19:30 and Judges 1:31.  Marvin H. Pope of Yale University proposed that somewhere in this area was the ancient home of El referred to in the Ugarit texts.  In Greek Mythology this same region is the setting of the story of Adonis/Adonais who's name comes from the Biblical Hebrew Adoni/Adonai which is not otherwise known to have been used by Canaanites who preferred Baal as their word for calling a god Lord.  So I really do think this is evidence this cult was a Paganized worship of of the God of Abraham.

Both those references to Asher's Aphik mentioned a Rehob nearby.  If this is the same Rehob that is identified with the "Entering in of Hamath" in Numbers 13:21 as well as the Bethrehob of Laish in Judges 18, then that is the city of Northern Dan.  Judges 1:31 lists these cites as among those Asher didn't drive the Canaanites out of, so that's consistent with them still being Canaanite when Dan arrives later.  

My current theory reads that verse as making them the northern most of those cities and Accho/Acco the Sothern Most.  Accho is the city called Ptolemais in Greco-Roman times and thus in The New Testament, Acre by the Crusaders and is now known as Akka in modern Israel.  It would be the only of the Judges 1:31 cities that is today in Israel rather then Lebanon.  And Asher unlike the tribes in the surrounding verses didn't even make these Canaanite cities Tributaries, they remained fully independent.  

So Rehob/Laish/Dan is probably Yanouh (the nearby temples at Qaalat Faqra and Yammoune are also interesting).

For Naphtali the main cities they didn't drive the Canaanites out of, but that they did make Tributaries, were Beth-Anath and Bethshemesh according to Judges 1:33.  These Tributaries I think were still practicing their Native Baal Worship however.  Two of the sites proposed for Beth-Anath are in South Eastern Lebanon close to the proper Naphtalite territory, Aynata and Safad El Battikh.

More then one city is called Beth-Shemesh in the Hebrew Bible since naturally there were many Houses of Sun Worship.  The one west of Jerusalem was no longer in use by Hellenistic times.  The Bethshemesh in the Land of Egypt mentioned in Jeremiah 43:13 we know was called Heliopolis by the Greeks.  Baalbek was also called Heliopolis by the Greeks.  Baalbek and Afqa are close to being on the same Latitude, along with the port city of Byblos.  

In 1 Kings 5:18 what the KJV weirdly translated "Stonequarers" is actually Gibilites or people of Gebel/Byblos.  Since a Maternal Danite was the architect of The Temple I consider this evidence Gebel was by this time Dan's port city (but was still Canaanite during the Amarna period).

The Byblos District is among the regions of Lebanon where today the majority of the population is Maronite.  I have a theory that the Maronites are the modern descendants of the Danites.  They are significantly the Majority of Christians in Lebanon, and DNA studies have shown the Lebanese Christians to be among the groups even closer related to The Jews then the Arabs are.  Since the people classified as Arabs includes the Ishmaelites, Keturites, Edomites and probably now also descendants of Moab and Ammon, that would have to make The Maronites fellow descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  The Maronites are an Eastern Rite Catholic Church meaning like many Ancient Danites they practice Idolatry.

The Adonis connection also means this region's version of Astarte might be the version who became Aphrodite after entering Greece through the Southern Peloponnese.  The same region of Greece said to have been colonized by Danoi/Danaans, but I doubt they left much a permanent genetic impact there being not it's first residents and then later conquered by the Dorians.

There are other Maronite populations in Lebanon further south closer to Sidon and the border with Israel.  For those who view the Leshem taken over by Danites in Joshua 19:47 as separate from Laish and closer to Sidon it could be around here.  There used to be a Maronite population in the Golan Heights as well, meaning identifying traditional Tel-Dan with Dan isn't entirely wrong.

Before 1948 there were two Maronite Towns in Modern Israel proper, both way up north just south of the border with Lebanon. Kafr Bir'im and Jish.  Mainstream Historians believe this area became Maronite after some Maronites migrated south during the Ottoman period and that these cities were Muslim for about a Millennium, but in my view no solid evidence they were ever Muslim exists.  

Kafr Bir'im is north of a Mountain in Israel called Mount Meron, I think that is where the name Maronite actually came from and thus they were always connected to that mountain somehow.  Other theories on the origin of the name I think are folk etymology.

In Jish a Maronite Church was built over an ancient Synagogue, which suggests the Maronites of Jish do in fact descend from people who were practicing Judaism before they converted to Christianity.

In the first century AD I suspect these Danites who later became Maronites close to the modern Israel-Lebanon Border were not very Idolatrous and practicing Judaism proper, while the ones up in the Byblos region had long fully descended into Idolatry and may have virtually forgotten their Biblical Heritage.  But both would have been using the Aramaic/West Syriac language explaining how both became part of the same Liturgical Rite when they became Christians.

Jish is also called Gush Halav and is the city known in Josephus as Gischala/Giscala.  John of Gischala was a native of this city who became a prominent leader among the Zealots during the Jewish Revolt that started in 66 AD and was taken prisoner by Titus after his victory in 70 AD.  

I have been wondering now if some of the Old Testament prophecies about Dan that have lead to many Pre-Millennial Futurists thinking the "Antichrist" will be a Danite were perhaps actually fulfilled by John of Gischala?

Things that are NOT signs of The End in Matthew 24.

 [1] And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

[2] And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
[3] And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?

I agree with other Preterists that when The Disciples said "these things" they were thinking of what Jesus said in the prior verse and probably also what He said at the end of chapter 23.  And I suspect they assumed those things happen at the same time as what they asked about next, the sign of Jesus's Parousia and of the end of the Age.

However there is a theme throughout the Gospels of the Disciples being mistaken about certain things and Jesus then trying to correct them.  And that this is one of those is implied by what Jesus says next.

[4] And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Assumptions are frequently key to how deceptions work.

Verses 5-7 are what verse 8 calls the beginning of sorrows.  They are also called the Non Signs by the late Chuck Missler because of the last part of verse 6  "see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet".  But I think it's particularly notable that the "wars and rumours of wars" was what directly preceded that statement.  

The Temple was destroyed because of a war, and it wasn't the only war going on at that time, there had recently been rebellion in Britain and then civil war broke out because of Galba overthrowing Nero starting the year of the four emperors.  The rumors of wars refers to wars that could have happened but were averted, like the tensions between Rome and Parthia at this time.

I'm still of the opinion that the fist proper false Christ was Bar Kochba, but still a more fluid definition of what it means to be a false Christ is applicable to many people both before and during the first Jewish-Roman War.

The verse that proclaims all of these to be not actually signs is rightly used often to make fun of the more sensationalist Futurists.  But it's 70 AD Preterism especially Full Preterism that it outright founded upon ignoring the ramifications of Jesus saying this, if the end was always a mere 40 years away max then it was never not nigh.

I think even the Persecution discussion is really part of the Non Signs, Roman Persecution started with Trajan but the first empire wide one was under Decius and the only really great one was the Diocletian Persecution.  But the end of Roman persecution ushered in Persian Persecution, and even today in many countries Christians are being persecuted.

I've also come to agree with Preterists that the word for "World" in verse 14 being neither Kosmos or Aion is one that can be interpreted as meaning the domain of the Roman Empire.  But even then The Gospel still hadn't reached all of the Roman world by 70 AD.  

It was in the late Second Century that it first came to Gaul and Britannia, I'd been attracted to the various legends and fringe theories about New Testament characters coming to First Century Albion myself in the past, but they don't hold up as even Geoffrey of Monmouth says The British Church began with Lucius in the time of Eleutherius, after then is when Tertullian first mentions Christians being in Brittan.  Even that Lucius story is not taken seriously by historians, it has when more right then other legends but probably not how.  

And The Church in Gaul started a little before then with Pothinus and Irenaeus who moved there from Ionia (Ephesus, Smyrna, Miletus).  With Britain you can try to make an excuse that it wasn't part of the Empire yet when Jesus made this Prophecy, but Gaul absolutely was.

Still while verse 14 can be interpreted as having that limited scale I'm inclined to think it's not.  That word translated world is a particularly fancy Greek word for Household.  While Greco-Romans did use if for the Imperium like in Luke 2:1's account of the Census decree.  I think Jesus means the Household of Adam, since Son of Man is the title for Himself that He likes to use when describing The Parousia.

Preterists will then try to prove this was fulfilled in the first century by taking certain things Paul said in Romans and Colossians out of context.  Paul is talking about what the mission of The Church during the Age of Grace is, in context he clearly does not see that mission as actually already accomplished or he wouldn't still be doing what he's doing.  When Preterists "Proof Text" like this it's just like the worst Futurist bad understanding of the concept of using Scripture to Interpret Scripture, just cause two verses use similar language doesn't mean they solve each other.

Now as a reminder I am a type of preterist now, but a partial one and unconventionally even among those.  Luke is talking about 70 AD a lot, but Revelation was written later.

And as I argued earlier Hadrian's Statue was The Abomination of Desolation.

Assyria, Asshur and Asshurim

 In Genesis 25 we learn that after the passing of Sarah Abraham took a new wife named Keturah.  In verse 2 one of the sons by Keturah is named Jokshan.  In verse 3 Jokshan has two sons named Sheba and Dedan, and then Dedan's descendants are referred to as the Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.  

Asshurim is the plural form of Asshur the second born son to Shem in Genesis 10:22 but also the name of a region in northern Mesopotamia and south-western Turkey.  Asshurim is the exact same spelling as what's translated "Assyrians".

The modern Assyrians who tend to be members of one of three East-Syriac Churches (The Assyrian Church of The East, The Ancient Church of The East, or The Chaldean Catholic Church) actually claim to descend from the Asshurim of Dedan.  One could dismiss that as Christian Assyrians wanting to take an opportunity to strengthen their ties with Abraham.  However the Assyrian Kings List does list a Didanu among the "kings who lived in tents" which is a memory of when they were a more nomadic people before settling in the area of Nineveh.  The Assyrian people in Assyria don't securely enter recorded history till around 2000 BC, I currently date the death of Joseph to about 2036 BC, 430 years before my date for the Exodus.

Now it's possible both Genesis Asshurs are relevant to the early history of the civilization that history would come to know as Assyria.  Asshur son of Shem founded a settlement on the Tigris river roughly contemporary with Nimrod founding his three cities there and thus the region around it became named after him, later one of the nomadic tribal groups to come from Dedan migrated to that region and become called Asshurim because they were dwelling in Asshur.  In time both of them along with other descendants of Arphaxad and Aram contributed to the population of Northern Mesopotamia but the Dedanites became numerically dominant, at least among those identifying as Assyrians, because YHWH did promise Abraham's Seed would be Numerous like the Stars of Heaven and Sands of the Sea.

As far as the other two tribes of Dedan go, Leummin I think is a form of the Lihyan the people who controlled the cities of Dedan and Hegra at the start of classical Antiquity.  So it's only the Letushim who are a mystery, I am personally hoping for a way to link them to the Lakhmids, that would result in them sharing the Assyrians' connection to the Church of The East..

I found this discussion on Reddit of the Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups of the Assyrians.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Assyria/comments/at5332/the_most_common_ydna_haplogroups_among_assyrians/

They are mostly either the same as or related to the Haplogroups prominent in Jewish and Arab populations (as well as those I believe descend from the Lost Tribes, Kurds, Lebanese Christians, Armenians and Anatolians), R1b, J1, J2,, E1b1b, and even T and G show up in a few Jewish populations.  

The below digression is a tangentially related theory I may abandon it, everything above holds together perfectly without it..

666 cannot be Nero

It frustrates me how that is the one secular scholarship orthodoxy about Revelation only extreme Pre-Millennialists ever seem to question.  Even if I became a full on Atheist viewing Revelation as Prophecy written after the fact I would still reject 666 being Nero.

The name identified by the number 666 can’t be Nero because that’s based on Aramaic/Hebrew Gematria and Revelation is in Greek with this number clearly echoing 888 as the Isopsephy value of Iesous.  Nero in Greek has an Omega in it so Nero can never work, the same goes for trying to make Nero fit the 616 variant.  It is also verified by Chapter 39 of Suetonius Life of Nero that the Isopsephy associated with the name of Nero was 1005.

And Nero didn't persecute Christians.

If the 616 Variant is correct (which I consider unlikely) that probably points to Theos Caesar and/or Dios Caesar which were used for the Deified Roman Emperors in the Eastern Provinces, but in that context it doesn’t apply to only one.  

Revelation 13:1 and 17:3 do seem to imply the Blasphemous Name associated with this Beast is on each of the heads and not merely an individual name.

Some even question the practice of using Isopsephy/Gematria entirely and suggest like other symbols in Revelation the key is its Hebrew Bible precedent.  666 as a number has two notable appearances, being associated with Solomon in 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13 but also with Nebuchadnezzar's Image in Daniel 3.  

I am no longer concerned with proving it can be applied to anyone's individual name, if it were that simple it wouldn't require "wisdom".

Ἰαπετός commonly rendered in English as Iapetos but sometimes Japetos was a Titan of Greek Mythology, but it's also documented that the name was viewed as a form of Japheth by Ancient Jews and Christians in the Greek speaking world by texts like the Sibylline Oracles..

The spelling has a Greek Isopsephy value of Six Hundred and Sixty Six.
Iota=10, Alpha=1, Pi=80, Epsilon=5, Tau=300, Omicron=70, Sigma=200.

10+1=11+80=91+5=96+300=396+70=466+200=666
10+1+80+5+300+70+200=666.

It being a seven letter word means there could've been a letter on each of the Seven Heads in John's Vision.

Genesis 9 foretells Japheth to dwell in the Tents of Shem, symbolizing becoming religiously Semitic.  The most undisputed to identity sons and grandsons of Japheth in Genesis 10 were either in Turkey and/or the Classical Greek world, and each disputed one has been placed there by at least one theory.  The languages that can be traced back to Japheth are probably the Indo-Europeans and other languages connected to Europe but also the languages of Georgia who I identify with Meshech and Tubal.

The last three of the seven Pre-Republic Kings of Rome were Etruscans, a people who can be argued to descend from Tiras.  However the Romans proper through their claimed descent from Troy go back to Ashkenaz son of Gomer after whom Lake Ascanius was named, and the name Ascanius shows up a few times in the traditional genealogy of Aeneas.  Josephus mysteriously says the descendants of Ashkenaz were the Reginians, that could be a reference to Rhegium a location in Italy Aeneas was depicted as stopping at on the way to Rome, or maybe also the Regnii a Brythonic tribe in specifically the part of Brittan Josephus's patron Vespasian had been stationed, and the Britons would eventually claim to share Rome's descent from Aeneas.

The extent to which any of those claims of ancestry are true doesn't really matter, that the belief itself existed is enough for it to have symbolic value in interpreting a book like Revelation.

So an identification with Japheth works as an identification with Greco-Roman Empires.  And Religiously with Chalcedonian Christianity but perhaps the Eastern Orthodox in particular.

Mystery Babylon as an Adulteress

The more technical arguments for making Mystery Babylon Jerusalem don't hold up at all.  What does hold up are the more thematic connections to themes in the Hebrew Bible about her as a wife of YHWH engaged in Harlotry with The World.  

The problem is a lot of Christians are uncomfortable with accepting that that could be us, we think The Church is supposed to the one people of God who won't fall into the same pitfalls that Samaria and Jerusalem fell into.  Even when more fringe elements are criticizing the mainstream Church it's usually in the context of wanting to deny that they actually count as The Church, as legitimately part of the Body and Bride of Christ.

So Protestants and Evangelicals and Torah Keepers point out the ways in which Mystery Babylon can apply to the Catholic Church, but are unwilling to see how we've been guilty of the same basic sins in our own way.

I'm not an Historicist in remotely the traditional sense.  But I do think it's fascinating how the clues in Revelation about Mystery Babylon both point to Rome and to her being either The or A Church.  Meaning on some level however indirectly this book that even the most skeptical critics can't date to later then the mid second century predicted Rome becoming Christian.

The Revelation is drawing on Old Testament imagery, but it's directed at The Church, at Seven Greek speaking Churches in Asia Minor.

However the time when Rome became Christian is also the time when OG Rome on the Tiber River ceases to be the only candidate for who Rome is, because that is when Constantinople was founded.

In my view the only cities eligible to be considered candidates for the Seven Hilled city of Revelation are ones that define themselves that way as a positive because they want to be seen as an heir to Rome.  The main three candidates are modern Rome, Constantinople/Istanbul and Moscow.

God's judgments are for correction, this Harlot no matter who she is should not be seen as being permanently rejected, this all goes back to Ezekiel 16, she becomes The Bride and Wife of The Lamb in the next chapter.

However this is speculative mainly in that Revelation 17 does not explicitly say the Harlot is also committing Adultery.  

In Proverbs the Harlotry as symbolic of Idolatry imagery is usually about the Pagan religion as the Harlot and the male clients as wayward believers.  This is also the imagery in 1 Corinthians 6.  Revelation 18 telling God's people to come out of her could imply she is not the Covenant people.

Roma as Mystery Babylon

I disagree with the argument that Babylon is "Code" for Rome in some way meant to hide it from Roman authorities who might read the Book.  It is largely Rome's own cultural symbolism that makes it explicit, applying purely prior Biblical meaning to the same symbols is if anything what weakens it.  A city on Seven Hills which had Seven Kings is how Rome defined itself, not how it's enemies defined it.

People interpreting Revelation have tried to make Seven Hills a defining characteristic of countless cities, I've looked into the argument for applying it to Jerusalem and find it to be pretty bad.  The thing is the only city already defined as a city on Seven Hills (whether that is strictly geographically accurate or not) before Revelation was written was Rome.  And since it was written the only attempts to make a city a Seven Hill city as a positive trait with no regard for the Biblical implications are ones doing so in a desire to claim to be a New Rome or successor to Rome.  It was done with both Constantinople and Moscow for example.

What I want to get into here is some stuff about Rome that may have been particularly relevant to the region of the Seven Churches The Revelation was first given to.

The City of Smyrna was where the Roma cult was founded in 195 BC.  Roma was the City of Rome personified as a Goddess.  Mellor has proposed her cult as a form of religio-political diplomacy which adjusted traditional Graeco-Eastern monarchic honors to Republican concepts.  Athens and Rhodes accepted Roma as analogous to their traditional cult personifications of the demos (ordinary people).  In 133 BC when Pergamon became part of the Empire it quickly became another major center of the Cult of Roma.

We can't be certain what colors Roma would have usually be depicted wearing, what we know about how she was depicted comes largely from coins.  But we know that during The Roman Triumph the Triumphitor wore Purple and their face was painted Red, so I feel Purple and Scarlet as the colors of Roma fits.  Some want to point out Purple and Scarlet being the colors of the Veil of The Tabernacle/Temple of Solomon to support the Jerusalem as Mystery Babylon theory, but every-time the Veil is refereed to as Purple and Scarlet/Crimson in Exodus 25-28, 35-39 and 2 Chronicles 2-3 the color Blue is also mentioned, usually first, and no Blue is in Revelation 17-18.  The Veil of The Temple is basically the Bisexual Flag.

In the Hellenistic world typically Male deities had male Priests and Goddesses had Priestesses.  But the Roma Cult was explicitly an exception to this, her worship was lead by male Priests.  And so I think that is partly what the False Prophet may have been seen as to the book's earliest readers in these cities.

In either 30 or 29 BC the worship of the Emperor in the provinces began, and in Asia particularity it was essentially just merged with the Roma Cult. Pergamon was the first city where the Imperial cult was established. From here on Roma increasingly took the attributes of an Imperial or divine consort to the Imperial divus, but some Greek coin types show her as a seated or enthroned authority, and the Imperial divus standing upright as her supplicant or servant.  Thus her as a woman riding the Beast.

The reason Smyrna and Pergamon were the churches most facing persecution is because in these cities the worship of the Emperor was required by law, most Pagans didn't see it as a conflict.  Jews were usually excepted as theirs was an ancient religion, but Christianity was new and so once it stopped being seen as a sect of Judaism the Christians had a problem in these cities.

Aphrodite/Venus as the mother of Aeneas mythical progenitor of Rome naturally become identified with Roma sometimes, like in the Temple Hadrian built.  

People who like to argue the United States is Babylon could easily draw attention here to how the concept of Roma is basically the same as the concept of Columba/Columbia.  But other such feminine personifications of the state exist in the modern world, the Pan-Europa movement has taken Europa of Green Mythology and made her more of a Roma type figure.  I'm pretty sure Athena was originally just the Demos of Athens before Pan-Hellenism turned her into an Olympian all of Greece had to recognize.  And of course I believe the Woman of Revelation 12 is the Demos of Israel/The Church being symbolically personified in a similar way.

The theme of Martyrdom is most pronounced in the Smyrna section of Revelation 2-3, and it very pronounced in Revelation 17 as well.

The Greek word for City is related to the words Polity and Politics.  In my new semi-Historicist reading of Revelation the various Barbarian sacks of Rome in the 5th and 6th centuries are relevant.  But the final breath of the Roma Politeia was the dissolution of the Senate sometime between 603-630 AD, possibly tied to certain events of 618-619.  So once again a reason for looking at the time of Heraclius.

Hadrian's Statue on The Temple Mount was The Abomination of Desolation

The one referred to by Jesus which was a repeat of Antiochus Epiphanes actions in Daniel 11.

First I want to state that Luke 21 (which isn't an Olivet Discourse, it was given in in The Temple Complex) verses 20-24 is about 70 AD, but the "Times of The Gentiles" we are still in.

Likewise in Matthew 24:21 the "Great Tribulation" is a period that began in Ancient times and which we are still in now, which is the same as the Tribulation referred to in Matthew 24:29 and Mark 13:24.   In Revelation 7 ALL of the Martyrs are said to have come out of Great Tribulation, not just those of a specific brief time period. 

70 AD Preterists obsess over an argument that a Biblical Generation is 40 years because the wandering in the wilderness was to kill off a generation.  But not all of them actually died, that statement was hyperbole, it was mostly just about the 10 spies who gave the bad report.  Numbers 14:33-24 clarifies it was 40 years because the spy mission was 40 days.  Genesis 6 and the lifespan of Moses support making a Biblical generation up to 120 years.

 Quadratus of Athens in his apology to Hadrian written for Hadrian's visit to Athens in 124 or 125 AD says that some of those healed and risen from the dead by Jesus were still alive at that time.  Today it is verified as being possible to live to 122.  Pliny using documents related to a Roman Census of 74 AD says in one region of Italy there were many people who were over 100, 4 were 130 and some up to 140.  So I have no doubt that in Judea some people born BC lived through the Bar Kochba Revolt and that some people who were healed by Jesus and then witnessed Him Risen made it even into the reign of Antonius Pius.

With Luke 21 it's unique characteristics are what makes it most applicable to 70 AD.  Only Luke 21 actually uses the name of Jerusalem at all, when foretelling it's desolation which is language borrowed from Jeremiah about the fall to Nebuchadnezzar indicating what happened to Jerusalem then will happen again.

But Luke 21 does NOT contain a statement that this time of trouble is will never be surpassed.

The Bark Kochba revolt did not add anything to the destruction of Jerusalem since this time the Rebels never even had Jerusalem to begin with.  But for Judea as a whole that war was far more catastrophic and destructive then the 66-73 AD war and over a shorter period of time.   Many historians consider this the real beginning of the Diaspora.  It is only the fact that it doesn't have it's own Josephus that makes it less analyzed by historians and scholars and less romanticized by artists and poets.

Luke 21 is about things that happened before the "beginnings of sorrows", Matthew and Mark about things that happen during or after.  Meanwhile the second time Matthew and Mark's discourses bring up the issue of False Christs has no parallel in Luke at all, likewise no False Prophets in Luke 21.

This is significant because contrary to popular opinion the era leading up to and during the 66-73 AD war was NOT filled with would be Messiahs.  Josephus only ever uses the word Christ when describing what Jesus was called. There were would be prophets, and secular revolutionaries, but no claimed Messiahs.  Jewish prophetic expectations of the time were generally that the Messiah can't come till after Rome has already fallen.

Bar Kochba was the first to ever claim to be the Messiah as a rebel leader, that was his innovation.  And he really was the second person after Jesus to ever truly claim that title at all.  Meanwhile since Preterists don't take literally the stuff involving the Sun, Moon and Stars, maybe Stars falling from heaven is also wordplay on the name of Bar Kochba?  Kukbe is the word used in the Peshita.

The Abomination of Desolation is a very specific phrase, that has connotations more specific then just the etymological meanings of the words used to construct it.  Of the two places where the phrase appears in Daniel the one in chapter 12 is probably what Jesus is revealing to still have at least one more yet future fulfillment.  But it's the context in Daniel 11 that defines it.

There are three or four different Hebrew words that get translated "Abomination" in the KJV, the one used in Daniel is not even related to the one used in Leviticus 18-20 and Ezekiel 40-48.  But more importantly to the topic at hand, the precise word used in Daniel is everywhere it appears a synonym for an Idol or False god, from Deuteronomy 29:17 to 1 Kings 11 to Jeremiah 32:34.

But what makes the Abomination of Desolation special is it's being placed inside The Temple (not near it) by a Pagan ruler who had outlawed their faith.  The history of the Hasmonean revolt was to first century Jews not just the reason behind Hanukkah, it was to them as the Revolutionary War or French Revolution is for modern America and France.  When Jesus used this phrase he knew exactly what imagery he was evoking and so did His audience.

Now I'm open to a more "creative" interpretation of what a Historicist (or Futurist) fulfillment of this may look like, but that's about redefining what this would mean for the New Testament Church with the help of II Thessalonians 2 just as we redefine a number of Hebrew Bible concepts under the doctrine that now we are The Temple.  If you're going to insist this is about the Judea of that time, then you have to be specific to what that idea meant to those Judeans.

70 AD Preterists bend over backwards coming up with every excuse they can to apply that phrase to something that happened in 70 AD.  They take a passage from the Talmud claiming Titus had sex with a whore on a Torah scroll and sliced open the veil with his sword.  Leaving aside how I doubt Titus would have had the means, motive or opportunity to do that from what the actual eyewitness Historian tells us, even this Talmud passage doesn't call that an Abomination of Desolation or compare it to Antiochus Epiphanes in any way.

The timing is also wrong, by the time Titus was able to do anything anywhere near The Temple it was already too late to run.  Jesus spoke of the Abomination of Desolation as an event that begins the time of trouble not occurring at the middle or end of it. That fit Hadrian who's said to have set up the initial Idol in 31 AD sparking the Rebellion even though the full Temple to Jupiter is built after.

An alternate 70 AD Preterist take on the Abomination of Desolation makes it about things Josephus described Zealot leaders doing in 68 or 69, but again the specific word for Abomination in this phrase is about Idolatry, not mere ceremonial desecration or uncleanness.

Preterists aren't the only ones refusing to distinguish between the Olivet Discourses, there are also Futurists who want to use Luke 21 to say Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies again.

Yes the three discourses are "parallel" in a lot of ways, but the differences are there for a reason and ignoring them because you don't want to think Jesus was foretelling more then one thing is simply not respecting the text.  In the case of Luke it has to do with how this isn't even the only place that Gospel records Jesus talking about the fall of Jerusalem, that is a theme of the entire Gospel in a way it's not in the others.

So plenty of people want to argue that Luke 21:20 is about the same thing as The Abomination of Desolation because Jesus then advises basically the same reaction.  As if there can't be more then one good reason to get out of Dodge.

Remember the OG Abomination of Desolation preceded that Jewish revolt, but since they won that war the city was never surrounded by armies.

One of the oldest examples of Patristic support for viewing the Abomination of Desolation as already re-fulfilled is Jerome applying the term to the Statue of Hadrian set up where The Temple formally stood which was seemingly still standing when he wrote his commentary on Matthew.  Jerome may have been off on saying it was specifically over the Holy of Holies, in the Bordeaux Pilgrim the two Statues he saw were separate from the "stone" the Jews anointed which I think may have been where the Ark once rested.  Epiphanes' statue was on the Brazen Altar according to 1 Maccabees 1:54-59.

We even have a secular pagan gentile source on this happening, Cassius Dio.

[69.12.1] At Jerusalem, Hadrian founded a city in place of the one which had been razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of the [Jewish] god, he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war of no slight importance nor of brief duration, 

[69.12.2] for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites planted there. So long, indeed, as Hadrian was close by in Egypt and again in Syria, they remained quiet, save in so far as they purposedly made of poor quality such weapons as they were called upon to furnish, in order that the Romans might reject them and they themselves might thus have the use of them. But when Hadrian went farther away, they openly revolted.

Meanwhile somewhat less reliable sources like the Historia Augusta say Hadrian also banned Circumcision and sacrificed Pigs to this Idol making it echo Antiochus Epiphanes even more.   It seem Pigs were depicted on Coins minted in Aelia Capitolina.

And like then this caused the war rather then being caused by it.

And like in 70 AD the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem did as Jesus advised and fled, becoming the Nazarenes of later generations, some may have went to Mesopotamia and also became among the ancestors of some West Syraic Rite sects.

Caesarea Maritima in the first verse of Revelation 13

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea"

Caesarea Maritima means Caesarea “by the sea”, and it was also a very sandy location, Josephus's account of Herod building the city in Antiquities of The Jews 15:9:6 talks a lot about Seas and Sand.

My hunch that Caesarea Maritima is in mind here probably doesn't actually affect interpreting anything else much at all, but I find it a fascinating theory for how Revelation works Poetically.

The City was a Roman Colony in Judea, it generally had no Jewish Population and was entirely Pagan until a Gentile Christian community first formed there and probably was still majority Pagan till sometime between Constantine and Theodosius.

It was usually where the Roman Governor resided (Pilate was in Jerusalem during Passover to keep an eye on things during the pilgrimage festival) even after Hadrian made Jerusalem itself a Roman Colony and still even after Christianization, even after Chalcedon finally made the Bishop of Jerusalem outrank Caesarea in the Church Hierarchy.

Naturally it played an important role as a Roman Military base of operation during the 66-73 Roman-Jewish War, and probably also in the Bar-Kochba Revolt though we know less of the details about that war.

Eusebius account of the Martyrs of Palestine during the Diocletian Persecution shows that Caesarea Maritima was the stage for most of that persecution in Palestine, they are called ____ of Caesarea because of where they were Martyred more so then where they were originally from.

Certain Bishops of Caesarea became key theological leaders of Arianism during the reigns of the Arian Emperors, Acacius and Euzoius.

The Last Pharoah of Egypt

 Ezekiel 30:13

"Thus saith the Lord YHWH; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt."

I've seen some say this means "native prince" and apply it to Nectembo II but nativness isn't innate to what Ezekiel says here at all.  Most would say the last Pharoah of Egypt was Cleopatra but that's not true either.

The Roman Emperors starting with Augustus were recognized as Pharaohs in Egypt.  The history of this practice is documented on the Roman Pharoah Wikipedia page.

So in fact the last Pharoah was Maximinus Daza, who was also the last real Pagan Emperor.  (Julian The Apostate was really a Neoplatonist not a follower of classical Paganism).  So this verse associating the last Prince of Egypt with the end of Egyptian Idolatry lines up perfectly.

Maximinus Daza definitely fulfils Bible Prophecy in that sense.  But what about viewing the Last Roman Pharoah as also The Beast of Revelation 13?

Daza was the last real Roman Persecutor of Christianity, Julian didn't try to kill anyone for being Christian and Eusebius's claims that Maxentius and Licnius persecuted Christians are not considered credible by modern historians and pretty firmly contradicted by Lactantius, it was pure propaganda to make Constantine look like more of a savior then he actually was..  Most of the Persecution was happening in The East where Licnius's victory over Daza was much more of a direct deliverance then anything Constantine did.

Ezekiel 29-32 is a collection of different prophecies about Egypt, every time Ezekiel says "the Word of the LORD came unto me" that's the start of a new Prophecy.  So they are thematically connected but could also each have a different focus  In the Egypt section the verses where that phrase appears are.

29:1

29:17

30:1

30:20

31:1

32:1

32:17

The phrase "Great Dragon" appears in Scripture only twice, Ezekiel 29:3 in reference to Pharoah and Revelation 12 in reference to Satan.  In this part Pharoah could refer not to the actual Human Ruler but be identifying Satan with one of the Egyptian Deities associated with the office of Pharoah, the one most likely to be described as a dragon would be Sobek the protector of Pharoah who was depicted as a Crocodile.  In some versions of the myth it is also Sobek who heals Osiris after he is murdered by Set.

Speaking of healing, Ezekiel 30:24 speaks of Pharoah being deadly wounded by a sword.  So possibly one of the Bible Prophecies that Revelation 13 has in mind. 

Ezekiel 32:2 says Pharoah is as a whale in the seas, the word translated whale being the same word usually translated dragon.  The Pharoah of the Exodus was last seen being drowned with his army in the Red Sea.

Interestingly the Targum Johnathan on Isaiah 27 interprets it's first verse as being about Pharoah.

Many of the Plagues in Revelation seem like grander repeats of the Plagues of the Exodus, giving good thematic reason to view The Beast as Pharoah.

Now I above besmirched Eusebius as an historical source a bit, but he's still useful when we know and keep in mind what his biases were.  And he certainly had direct knowledge of affairs in The East that Lactantius did not.  Meanwhile his bias regarding Revelation was that he wanted it removed from the Canon and felt it was the work of a heretic.  So it would not serve his interests to describe any contemporary history in a way that makes it sound like it's fulfilling Revelation.

So it's fascinating then how his account of the reign of Maximinus Daza in Church History Book IX reads like someone's fictionalization of how they think Revelation will be fulfilled even though it never quotes Revelation directly or any other Bible Prophecy.  In chapters 2 and 3 Daza has a False Prophet (seemingly named Theotecnus but googling that name usually brings up Saints with the name) who sets up a Statue in Antioch and performed false miracles.  He talks about there being Famine, Pestilence and War in chapter 8.

But Daza also repented and issued a decree in favor of Christians before his death in chapter 10 fitting my Baptism of The Beast thesis.

Most of my posts on this blog so far have focused on later Emperors, but again I'm not 100% decided and so am considering different theories.

Pergamon and The Beast

All of Revelation is framed as a message to the Seven Churches not just chapter 2 and 3, the Vision that is 4:1-22:5 often repeats ideas from those two chapters.

And one thing interesting about Pergamon is how it seems specifically to be tied to the topic of The Beasts of Revelation 13 and 19.

Pergamon is described as being where Satan's Seat is (Thronos is the Greek word from which comes the English word Throne).  Later in chapter 13 verse 2 The Dragon (who is identified with Satan in chapter 12) gives his Seat to The Beast (and it's mentioned again in chapter 16 after the 6th bowl) and in the next verse is talk of the mortal wound that was healed.

The popular view on what specific location in Pergamon was called Satan's Seat is the Altar of Zeus built by Eumenes II King of Pergamon in the second century BC.  But the context is the persecution of Christians which in 1st and 2nd century Asia Minor was always for refusing to take part in the Imperial Cult, which Pergamon was the center of in the Roman Province of Asia.

I've read a lot on the theory that Pergamon is the actual site of Troy (really Ilion/Ilium more specifically which can be interpreted as a technically separate nearby city).  I was ultimately unconvinced of the theory because archeologically the city wasn't built till the 8th century BC after the very date for the Fall of Troy one of these books used, 811 BC.  However what I did become convinced of is that many locals of Pergamon in Classical Antiquity believed they were Troy.  And a core foundation of why was the name Pergamos being used of a citadel on the highest peak of Ilium in the Illiad.  

Pergamos is the spelling for Pergamon used by Xenophon in Anabasis and also by the KJV which followed Tyndale.  Why Tyndale used this spelling when the Textus Receptus used Pergamon is not something I've been able to find out by Googling.  Point is it is a form of the name that existed.

In some passages this Pergamos Citadel has the Seat or Thronos of Apollo the seeming Patron Deity of Ilium.

Homer, Iliad 7.17 ff :
"Now as the goddess grey-eyed Athene [on Olympos] was aware of these two [the Trojan princes Hektor (Hector) and Paris] destroying the men of Argos in the strong encounter, she went down in a flash of speed from the peaks of Olympos to sacred Ilion, where Apollon stirred forth to meet her from his seat on Pergamos, where he planned that the Trojans should conquer. These two then encountered each other beside the oak tree, and speaking first the son of Zeus, lord Apollon, addressed her : ‘What can be your desire this time, o daughter of great Zeus, that you came down from Olympos at the urge of your mighty spirit? To give the Danaans victory in battle, turning it back? .

And also Pergamos is where Apollo heals the mortal wound of Aeneas.

Homer, Iliad 5. 445 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"Apollon caught [the wounded] Aineias (Aeneas) now and away from the onslaught [of the battle], and set him in the sacred keep of Pergamos (Pergamus) where was built his own temple. There Artemis of the showering arrows and Leto within the great and secret chamber healed his wound and cared for him."

Aeneas is the Trojan Hero who would later be claimed to have founded Rome, or some other Latin civilization that spawned Rome, Livy and Virgil would depict a son of Aeneas as fathering the Gens Julii specifically.  So with all the other reasons for viewing The Beast as Rome or a Roman Emperor this imagery fits poetically.

Pergamon first became a center of the Imperial Cult under Augustus who was a big fan of Apollo making his Birthday September 23rd a Holiday for Apollo, Suetonius biography of Augustus records that at some point Augustus was claimed to have been the Son of Apollo. Virgil's writings also play into Augustus's desire to be associated with Apollo.  So a place where Apollo was worshiped in Pergamon probably became the center of the Imperial Cult.  But later Trajan and Hadrian preferred to be associated with Zeus, so I think the Trajenum was built over the same place where Augustus and Apollo were worshiped previously.

In all this context it's easy then to see in the message to Pergamon the figure of The Beast typologically represented by Balac and The False Prophet by Balaam.

But Satan's Seat isn't the only connection.

Revelation 2:16 says "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." That sword being a reference back to verse 12 which was referencing back to Revelation 1:16 the sharp two-edged sword.  The Context in 2:16 is referring to specifically those in Pergamon who followed the Doctrine of Balaam and/or the Nicolaitans from the prior verses.

So when Revelation 19:21 says referring to the Beast's armies after he and the False Prophet are cast alive into the Lake of Fire, "And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth" it is I think meant to be an echo of 2:16.  The Beast's armies may be Christians.

Even after Nicaea it took awhile for most of the actual armies of the Roman Empire to become mostly Christians, discussions of Julian The Apostate's reign frequently talk about how most of the army were still Pagans.  The Edict of Thessalonica and Augustine's Just War Principal were the key turning points here.

The Greek word for Stone in the White Stone reference isn't Petros or Petras, it is Psephos a word that in the Greek mind was associated with Voting and Democracy.  The only other time the New Testament uses it is Acts 26:10 where the KJV translates it "voice" the context is Paul saying how he voted.  Usually Psephos were used for Secret Ballots and so that's what the Name no one knows but the person who has it is probably alluding to.

On my other Blog I've already talked about why The Bible is actually Anti-Monarchy.  Eric Nelson's The Hebrew Republic contains a good discussion of the history of Judeo-Christian debates about Deuteronomy 17, and he revisits the subject in Royalist Revolution in the chapter on Thomas Paine's Common Sense (despite the title he does acknowledge Paine was authentically anti-Royalist).

I further hold the view that every appearance of Moloch/Molech in The Hebrew Bible should be translated The King and Milcom as Kings.

The relevance here is that Kingship is a Human being worshiped as God whether the Christians engaging in it want to admit that or not.

I have come to agree with the common Historicist reading of II Thessalonians 2, that The Temple of God there is The Church like every other time the Paulian Epistles speak of The Temple of God.  But I still don't agree with the Day=Year theory.  And I also don't make it about just The Pope specifically, it's all Episcopal Polity and all Christian Monarchies.

Many (though not all) Christian Emperors also persecuted believers of The Biblical God who didn't follow the right denomination.  Jews, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, Pelegians and Nestorians had it difficult no matter which sect had The Emperor.  Until 380 it was mainly the Arian Emperors persecuting others, but after that the Nicenes became the intolerant ones.  And the Chalcedonian Emperors' attitudes towards the Oriental Orthodox were complicated.

In 262 AD during the Crisis of the Third Century the City of Pergamon was hit by an Earthquake and then sacked by the Goths, this really was the end of the City of Pergamon as it was known to the Author and original Audience of Revelation, (Ephesus experienced similar disasters in the same year but they were able to recover while Pergamon was not).  This is when the Library of Pergamon would have been finally destroyed if it was still operating at all, same with the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.

I have a personal hunch that I can't prove that the Church of Pergamon after this moved to Nicomedia and other cities of Bithynia (like Nicaea, Chalcedon and Byzantium) and that during Late Antiquity the Bithynian Churches were the heirs of the Pergamon of Revelation.  They then became the clerical heart first of Arian Christianity, then of Chalcedonianism within Nicene Christianity and of Greek Orthodoxy within Chalcedonian Christianity.

You do not have to think one of those sects was more Doctrinally Correct then Chalcedonian Christianity to view this interpretation of Revelation to be correct, I am writing this as a Chalcedonian.  You simply have to believe it was wrong and evil for Christina to persecute other Christians.

This can apply to a number of Christian Roman Emperors from Theodosius to Justinian down though all the Greek Emperors.  But once again I want to draw attention to Heraclius in the 7th Century AD who was the first Roman since 509 BC to openly call himself King.  Then he and Sergius did the Monenergism/Monothelitism project which created more internal strife within The Church.

The Image of The Beast could be his Son

At the end of my post on Translation Issues that could be important, I showed that the Image of The Beast is not necessarily something created then, that "make" in the KJV should be translated "set up" or "established" or something like that.

In Genesis 5:3 Seth is called the Image and Likeness of Adam because he is Adam's Son.

The first reference to the concept of an Image in The Bible is Genesis 1:26-27 where Adam is created in The Image and Likeness of God.  In Luke 3:38 Adam is called a Son of God.  

Derived from that all Human Beings are also The Image of God as we see in Genesis 9:6.  All Humans are called the Offspring of God in the Sermon on Mars's Hill in Acts 17:28.  Believers specifically as Children of God is vital to John 1 and 1st John and comes up elsewhere, as an Evangelical Universalist I believe the non believers are only temporarily estranged from the family.

Paul calls Jesus The Image of God in 2 Corinthians 4:4.  And Jesus as The Son of God is vital to New Testament Theology.

So every time a living person is called the Image of someone else it's someone who they are the Son of in some sense.  So the question then is can The Image of The Beast be understood as that rather then a normal Statue or Coin or whatever most people are usually thinking of?

The main objection would be that if the Image is just a person why is it being able to speak and kill people treated as something attributed to the second beast?  And why isn't the Image also punished in the Lake of Fire?

Well both those questions could have the same answer, the Son in question isn't an adult yet, the actions legally attributed to them are really as a puppet ruler and thus they aren't actually morally culpable for any of it.

Naturally for an interpretation like this the fact that people will assume a Statue at first is intentional, this is why it takes "Wisdom" to understand what's going on here, don't jump to conclusions.  Consider how the only time the Greek word for "mark" is used elsewhere in the New Testament it's in Acts 17:9 refers to Graven Images in a way that equates it with the Hebrew word translated "Graven" throughout the Hebrew Bible, that creates a further thematic connection to idolatry but it's also a reversal, now it's the worshipers being graven.

When I first devised most of this interpretation I jumped to applying it to Titus son of Vespasian in the context of 70 AD Preterism.  But that last piece of the puzzle, it being a child ruler, wouldn't fit Titus.

Heraclius the Roman Emperor from 610-641 AD had a son named Heraclius Constantine who was born in 612.  In 622 when Heraclius left to lead his counter offensive against Persia his young son was named Regent in his place but the real power was wielded by Sergius the Patriarch of Constantinople.  He had also been formally Co-Emperor since 613 basically and thus was also proclaimed Baselios when Heraclius was in 629.  Turning 17 that year he might have been an Adult by some modern legal standards but the Brain isn't fully done developing till 25 which the author of The Pentateuch seemed to be aware of in Numbers 8:24.