When Revelation 9:2 says that the opening of the Abyss causes smoke like a great furnace to arise and darken the skies I can’t help but see that as a description of a Volcanic Eruption.
Now I know “Smoke of a Furnace” language is also how certain people try to argue Mt Sinai was a Volcano. But in passages like Exodus 19:18,, Genesis 15:17 or Genesis 19:18 it’s not possible to interpret underground as the source of the Smoke, but that is heavily implied to be the source of the Smoke in Revelation 9.
And I also can’t help but suspect Ancient Greek readers would have been reminded by this chapter of the mythology surrounding Mt Etna (the largest Volcano in the Mediterranean world), inside of which is imprisoned the monster Typhon and also the forge of Hephaestus a god who was cast down from Olympus.
The last verse of Chapter 1 sets the stage that sometimes if not always in this book Stars represent Angels, so we have in Revelation 9:1 a Star falling from heaven and being given the Key to the Abyss which houses monsters including a King of those Monsters.
Maybe it wasn’t just Etna, maybe most known Volcanoes had similar mythological frameworks surrounding them and Etna’s is just one most well remembered?
In my desire to place as much of Revelation 6-19 in Late Antiquity as possible the most significant Volcanic Eruption is the one that happened in AD 536 causing the major climate issues of the next few years. The main culprit for that Eruption is far away from the Biblical World, but other Eruptions seem to have possibly also happened the same year including another Eruption of Mt Vesuvius.
But the Vesuvius Eruption of 472 is one that could be notable being close to 3 ½ years before the Western Roman Empire is popularly viewed to have ended.
And Mt Etna had one in AD 252 just before the Valerian Persecution happened.
Should Satan’s release from the Abyss after the Millennium be expected to be represented in the visible world by the same kind of events? Those with less strictly chronological readings of Revelation are included to see both releases of a villain from the Abyss as the same event being described in different ways, i.e. Apollyon and Satan are the same.
The Kingdom doesn’t end when the Millennium ends, the only event directly correlated to the Millennium ending is Satan being released from his prison. His attempt to destroy the Camp of the Saints/Beloved City is doomed to fail.
The YLT of Revelation 20:7 says “when the thousand years may be finished” which, along with looking at the Greek word for “Finished” or “Expired” used here, has me considering that during the year 1000 could also be a viable reading.
I have been preparing to consider an Idealist model where the Millennium begins with The Resurrection of Jesus which I lean towards placing in AD 30 and that Satan was imprisoned in the Abyss about that same time when or after Judas died (who Satan was indwelling within). In which case it’s fascinating that a Mt Etna Eruption happened in AD 1030.
Other models for The Millennium I’m considering could make worth noting for it’s end the possible Etna Eruption of 1169 or 1329 or 1381, the Mystery Eruptions of 1452/1453 and 1458, the Nuovo Eruption of 1538 or Etna Eruptions of 1536-37, the Vesuvius Eruption of 1631 and the Etna Eruption of 1669.
Mt Etna specifically is believed to have probably had Eruptions between 252 and 1030 that we simply don’t have the exact date documented for. Maybe one of them was among the Eruptions of 536? But Geologists seem to have concluded that about 300-450 was one of its more active periods. Also 1669 was not its first 17th Century Eruption. An Eruption has been dated to 1634 and in my Heraclius model 634 is a viable year to start the Millennium. And a possible Eruption of 590-604 could fit one happening before the rise of Heraclius.
An Idealist could also, depending on how they view the relationship between Apollyon and The Beast, want to associate the Revelation 9 release of Apollyon BC with something soon before the Roman Empire “begins” as First Century Jews understood it.
The Etna Eruptions of 140, 135, 126 and 122 BC can be seen as correlating to a time when the strife that would end the Republic and create the Caesars was beginning. The 49 BC Eruption preceded Caesar becoming Dictator, the 44 BC Eruption was the year Caesar was killed and the reign of Antony and Octavian began. The 36-35 and 32 BC Eruptions could be seen as heralding Octavian’s Victor at Actium. Octavian aka Augustus’s deification of himself was largely as an incarnation of Apollo, a name Apollyon can be easily linked to.
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