Today’s devotional from Dallas Willard’s “Hearing God Throughout the Year” struck me as worth sharing. As the title reveals, the devotional is 365 Biblical insights into fostering a personal relationship with God. Here’s Dallas on, “Led by God”:
There is massive testimony to and widespread faith in God’s personal, guiding communication with us—far more than in blindly controlled guidance. This is not only recorded in Scripture and emblazoned upon the history of the church; it also lies at the heart of our worship services and our individualized relationships with God, and it actually serves as the basis of authority for our leaders and teachers. Only very rarely will someone profess to lead or teach the people of God on the basis of his or her education, natural talents and denominational connections alone. Credibility in any sort of spiritual leadership derives from a life in the Spirit, from the person’s personal encounter and ongoing relationship with God.1
Meditate: Read Proverbs 3:5-6 and consider the ways you are a leader in a friendship, family, church, neighborhood or workplace. (Being a leader means that people listen to you and value your opinion regardless of whether you fill a role or hold a title.) Read the verses again and ask God to show you in what ways you need to listen for God to speak in those relationships and circumstances.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. —Proverbs 3:5-6
Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson, Hearing God through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional (Westmont, IL: IVP Books, 2015). ↩
First off, thank you to the 42 believers who responded to the question posed in the last email, “Would you take advantage of free access to ALL the courses in the Mobile Ed catalog?”
Now that FaithLife has agreed to reinstate our subscription from last year, it’s truly heartening to hear how these courses would bring scholarly insight into God’s Word all over the globe.
We even had five subscribers donate $95 towards this mission which is more helpful than you might imagine.
I’m excited to share the news that we now have a product sponsor who will put 100% of the proceeds of sales of “First Words” towards DivineCouncil.org’s Logos Mobile Ed yearly subscription!
Yes! Until we reach our goal for this mission, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to DC to help get us there. So, even if you don’t happen to be in the market, you can still help by forwarding “First Words” to family, friends, or anyone you know who might be interested. For example, do you know anyone in the mission field in Latin America who might want to get a jumpstart on their Spanish?
“First Words” is a father’s quest to present (via digital flashcards) the 1000 most optimal “First Words” to begin teaching his children Spanish, French, Latin, & Greek.
These are not just any words; they are 1000 of the most frequently used words in each language (though only Spanish is currently available.) All the words on the 1000 Optimal First Words list are in the top 5000 most frequently used words in Spanish. And 787 of them are in the top 3000! That makes them pure gold for the student first learning Spanish.
Taylor Marshall’s explanation of the Catholic Crisis is so accessible and succinct I thought a transcription of it would be the perfect way to bring non-Catholics up to speed on just what in the world is going on.
Below, see Taylor’s video and, below that, a full transcription of it to make for quicker apprehension.
In short, Bergoglio knew everything. He knew about the Vatican Bank scandal, and he knew the names and details about the widespread homosexual infestation of the Catholic church up through its highest levels.
Unfortunately for Bergoglio, he not only ignored the warnings of the cardinals and papal nuncios reporting to him but promoted the guilty into positions of vast influence.
The real crisis, then, is Bergoglio’s non-Christ-like behavior in just about every way that matters, except for appearances.
Bergoglio is Probably Not the Pope
According to Catholic Canon law 188, if Ratzinger’s (Benedict XVI) resignation was invalid (made out of grave fear that is inflicted unjustly or out of malice, substantial error, or simony), then Ratzinger is still the rightful sitting pope. What does that make Bergoglio? The proper Catholic term for Bergoglio would be an anti-pope.
Why did Pope Benedict XVI resign the papacy on February 28, 2013?
This has been a big mystery for most of us, but we now have many more clues in the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI because of the testimony of Archbishop Viganò.
Viganò was at Ground Zero when the Vatican Bank scandal broke out in 2010-2011. This led to the VatiLeaks scandal and more scandals culminating in this 300-page dossier that was presented to Pope Benedict XVI months before he resigned.
And so, Viganò has really opened this up, and his role in this recent testimony isn’t new; it actually goes back into his days with Benedict XVI in 2010 with the scandal at the Vatican Bank.
So, let’s look at what the Vatican Bank is.
Now, the Vatican Bank is officially known as the IOR, Institute for works of religion. IOR stands for the Latin Institutum pro Operibus Religionis, that’s the Institute of Works of Religion.
Now, in newspapers and the news, they call it the Vatican Bank. I’m gonna use the term Vatican Bank and IOR interchangeably; they refer to the same Institute.
Now, the IOR was founded in 1942 by Pope Pius the 12th. So it’s a new Institute. It’s recent within the last 100 years. And what’s interesting about the IOR is it’s not the property of the Holy See. It remains outside the jurisdiction of the prefecture for the economic affairs of the Holy See. This makes it independent, and therefore many people have conspiracies about what it is and how it works.
Now the IOR is governed by a commission of five Cardinals and a lay board of superintendents. Now let’s look at the scandal of the IOR the Vatican Bank going back to the year 2009.
From 2009 to 2010, under Viganò’s leadership, the Vatican City went from a 10.5 million negative deficit to a 44 million positive surplus under Viganò’s supervision.
How did that happen, was Viganò really good at the stock market? No, it seems this 54 million dollar swing into the black, into the positive, was in fact not great investing but the consolidating of hidden funds; hidden funds that were being used all over the place in Vatican City without oversight, off the books, not audited, not being accounted.
And so it seems that Viganò and those with him consolidated all of these accounts and put them into one place to be seen. And so, suddenly, the Vatican City went from a negative 10.5 million deficit to a 44 million dollar surplus. 54 million dollars, the equivalent of US dollars, suddenly appeared in the Vatican checking account.
Not surprisingly, in September of 2010, that same year, the Italian government seized 23 million euros from the Vatican Bank, from the IOR, and alleged that there was money laundering conspiracy going on with the IOR. It fell under the anti-money laundering laws of Italy.
About 6 months after the money was seized on March 27th, 2011 archbishop Viganò, the same Viganò, addressed a letter to Pope Benedict the 16th describing the financial corruption in the Vatican Bank, the IOR.
Then a few months later on May 8, 2011, Archbishop Viganò addressed a second letter this time to the Cardinal Secretary of the state again describing financial corruption in the Vatican Bank.
Now just a few weeks later, Rome’s Attorney General released the 23 million euros, those assets, back into the Vatican Bank. So, the charges of money laundering were dismissed or taken care of, somehow.
A few months after that onAugust 13th, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI removes Viganò from within the Secretariat of state and instead appoints him as papal nuncio to the United States of America where he will live in Washington DC next to Cardinal McCarrick and Cardinal Wuerl. Reuters reported that Viganò was unwilling to take this assignment but Benedict the 16th insisted, and so Viganò said yes.
Why did Pope Benedict do this? Well, it seems that Pope Benedict knew that he could trust him to go and make an honest investigation into the alleged corruption of the infamous Cardinal McCarrick. We now know that because of the 11-page testimony that Viganò released. Again, now with this new document if it’s true these stray ends are coming together and being wrapped up.
After Archbishop Viganò was sent to Washington DC some hierarchs in Vatican City issued a statement against him and here’s what it said:
“The unauthorized publication of two letters of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the first addressed to the Holy Father on March 27, 2011, the second to the Cardinal Secretary of State on May 8, for the Governorate of Vatican City is a source of great bitterness”. It continued, “The allegations contained in them can not but lead to the impression that the Governorate of Vatican City, instead of being an instrument of responsible government, is an unreliable entity, at the mercy of dark forces. After careful examination of the contents of the two letters, the President of the Governorate sees it as its duty to publicly declare that those assertions are the result of erroneous assessments, or fears based on unsubstantiated evidence, even openly contradicted by the main characters invoked as witnesses”.
So, these Cardinals and secretaries of the Vatican state issued the statement directly against Viganò, and they call Viganò a liar. So was Viganò a liar? Was their corruption at the IOR, the Vatican Bank or was there not?
Well, just a few months after this happened in May 2012 a journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published a book called “His Holiness: the secret papers of Pope Benedict XVI.” This is the controversy known as Vatileaks, it’s like WikiLeaks, but it’s the Vatican, the VatiLeaks scandal. And this book included letters by none other than Archbishop Viganò.
Just a few days later on May 23rd, 2012 the Pope’s Butler Paolo Gabriele, a was arrested by Vatican police, not Italian police, but by the police force of Vatican City itself. And the next day he was charged. And on the very next day May 24, 2012, the head of the Vatican Bank was fired. So they arrested the butler and then the next day they fired the head of the Vatican Bank. That head or president of the Vatican Bank was Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and the reason given was “failure to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known to be in the president’s possession.”
A couple months later, August13, 2012, Pope Benedict’s Butler, Paolo Gabriele, was indicted by Vatican magistrates for aggravated theft. On October 6 the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was found guilty of theft and was sentenced to a reduced sentence of 18 months inside the Vatican. And usually, these punishments are not in a dungeon in the Vatican. They are living in Vatican City under house arrest.
And on December 22nd, 2012, interestingly enough, Pope Benedict the sixteenth pardoned his Butler Paolo Gabriele. So Paolo the Butler receives a papal pardon.
Now while all of this is going on, the VatiLeaks, Pope Benedict XVI is unnerved, and he commissioned an investigation. He chooses three of his most trusted cardinals to do an investigation on the irregularities the Vatican Bank and to find out who these people are. And these three Cardinals were Cardinal Herranz, he’s a Spanish Cardinal and member of Opus Dei, and he served as the chair of this investigation committee. Also Cardinal Joseph Tomko, he’s Slovak, and he’s bi-ritual, he serves in the Roman Rite and the Eastern Churches I think the Byzantine jurisdiction, but I’m not quite sure on that. And then also Salvatore de Georgi is an Italian.
These three men did a secret investigation for Pope Benedict XVI. They prepared a 300-page dossier inside of a red binder and presented it to Pope Benedict XVI on December17th, 2012. This red binder with 300 pages in it documented financial corruption but also deep moral corruption; allegedly describing Vatican hierarchs and Cardinals dressed in drag with lewd details about them given by Roman male prostitutes.
By the way, December 17th, the day he receives this red binder dossier and reads it, is the day reported that Pope Benedict XVI realized I am not up for this challenge I’m going to resign.
Just to make a connection the binder was given on December 17, 2012. It was on December 22nd, five days later, that Pope Benedict pardoned his Butler Paolo. And this has led some including myself to wonder perhaps the leak was on purpose. Why would the Butler do all this if he’s a very close friend to Ratzinger Benedict and then go through the whole process of a trial and then get pardoned within days of this binder by Benedict XVI? It’s a little unclear, but something’s going on there as well.
Now just a couple weeks after he receives the binder and reportedly decides to resign pressure is placed upon him. On January 1st, 2013 the ATM machines inside Vatican City, these are the machines that people who work there used to get cash to get money, they cease to work and all the Vatican bank accounts are reportedly closed; so much so that the Sistine Chapel the Vatican Museums can only accept cash because the systems are down.
On February 11th, so a month in eleven days later, Pope Benedict XVI announces publicly that he is going to resign at the papacy. The very next day on February 12, 2013, a Swiss company called the Aduno Group takes over the operation of the Vatican ATM cash machine and by doing so circumvents the Italian and EU regulatory pressures.
On February 28th Pope Benedict officially resigned at the papacy, and we entered into an interregnum.
On March 13, 2013, Pope Francis was elected by the College of Cardinals. What’s interesting is just a few months after the election of Pope Francis in June 2013 the money-laundering case against the ex-head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was dropped. And around the same time, Pope Francis appointed Monsignor Battista Mario Salvatore Ricca as the interim head for the Vatican Bank.
So, why did Pope Benedict XVI resign? Well, going back to 2009-2010 there’s a shake-up in the Holy See with the Vatican Bank and who is right there in the middle at the bull’s-eye? Viganò. Viganò is the one that’s shaking things up, and it leads to secular intervention and an accusation of money laundering. The head of the Vatican Bank ends up getting fired. Viganò ends up being pulled out of the Secretary of State and sent over to the United States of America. But 54 million dollars have come into the Vatican Bank, and there’s a lot of questions and the VatiLeaks begins to break that open and that, in turn, leads to Benedict discovering the moral rot of sexual deviancy within the walls of the Vatican. Something he may have suspect or not but becomes clear when those three Cardinals present a 300-page binder on to his desk.
So really it was a four-punch knockout. First off, Viganò blows the whistle on alleged money laundering; two, the accusation of money laundering leads to the VatiLeaks scandal; three, the VatiLeaks scandal leads Benedict to form a secret investigation with three Cardinals; and then four, those three Cardinals expose moral rot, sexual deviancy, that’s been paired up with financial irregularity. This is what moves the Pope to resignation. And just to make sure there’s enough pressure on him to actually do it and to do it quick something funny goes on with the Vatican banks beginning on January 1st, 2013. And it seems that the powerful Cardinals, the powerful hierarchs within Vatican City, wanted it to happen fast because they don’t want the contents of that 300-page dossier released to the public because there is moral scandal in those pages.
Now, that binder was left for the successor of Benedict who is Pope Francis, but nothing has been done. And what we’ve seen in the years to follow is that those who were opposed to Benedict XVI, theologically but also on administration, have been reinstalled, reinstated and promoted. Viganò says that Benedict XVI put sanctions on Cardinal McCarrick in Washington DC and that Pope Francis reversed them.
If that’s the case we can see that within the walls of Vatican City, not just Cardinals working secretly, but Pope Francis himself, has been undermining the investigation that was prompted by Viganò as far back as 2010.
So where do we stand now? Well, we had this 11-page document that Viganò has released to the public and it connects the dots, morally. He doesn’t go into the financials; a lot of that stuff is already out in the public though no one knows about it. But, if you go back into the VatiLeaks story, you’re gonna see Viganò is all over it.
Could Viganò be lying? He could be, and if so all this falls apart. It could just be that he’s been a troublemaker from the very beginning. But if he’s telling the truth and other Vatican officials and other Cardinals come forward and attest to what Viganò has been telling us then this pontificate of Pope Francis is in big, big trouble.
So there it is Archbishop Viganò and the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
If this helps you get some clarity or connect the dots, please like it, share it, subscribe to this channel. But more importantly pray the rosary, go to confession, draw near to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Do not lose faith, do not lose charity, do not give in to hate. Use this as a time to offer up great sacrifice because if these things are true, we are in a very difficult epoch of Catholic Church history.
Again thanks so much for watching god bless you see you in a future video.
If you’re interested in the topic of exorcism, the documentary, “The Devil and Father Amorth,” is worth your time.
It’s a professionally made documentary primarily due to the thoroughness of the director. He interviews a broad sample of observers (and participants) around the exorcisms. And, despite his expertise, the director removes all effects and technical obstacles from his subject rather than add layers of them as he did in “The Exorcist.”
If you’ve watched the clip, you’ve heard the voice of one of the possessed women (Christina) at 1 minute, 12 seconds into the above trailer.
I consistently hear three voices every time the one being exorcised cries out. If this is, somehow, faked by the director, it discredits the documentary. However, I don’t suspect there was any sound editing of the ladies voice. To satisfy my own curiosity of the makeup of these “voices,” I captured many of them from the documentary, and you can see their spectral frequency prints, below.
Dissociative Trance Disorder?
When the director interviews a room full of five doctors of various expertise, he’s quickly referred to what the doctors say is “a recognized diagnosis, worldwide”: Dissociative Trance Disorder.1 From the abstract of that paper:
Although dissociative trance disorders, especially possession disorder, are probably more common than is usually though, precise clinical data are lacking. Ten persons undergoing exorcisms for devil trance possession state were studied with the Dissociative Disorders Diagnostic Schedule and the Rorschach test. These persons had many traits in common with dissociative identity disorder patients. They were overwhelmed by paranormal experiences. Despite claiming possession by a demon, most of them managed to maintain normal social functioning.
Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, says he wouldn’t speak to the devil like Father Amorth because he’s not at that spiritual level:
Speaking to the devil like Father Amorth? I would never dare do that. I’m not there, spiritually, I think it’s a very dangerous thing…it’s dangerous ground. You have to be really, really, Holy. . . I’m not ready for that; I’d be afraid.
Jeffrey B. Russell’s Says it Best
One of the most insightful comments in the documentary is by Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of “The Prince of Darkness.” Jeffrey says that possession is merely the seizure of your body.
The way they take over your soul is by tempting you to sin. That’s how they get you because you’re using your free will to do evil.
Spectral Frequency Displays
As a musician, I have a good ear for sounds and the ability to distinguish between them.
For example, you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and can’t quite place the voice? I rarely experience that since the person behind the voice is evident to me (If I know who they are in real life.)
To make a more objective visual image, however, I used the Spectral Frequency Display in Adobe Audition to show the “print” of the voices in this documentary.
For reference: human speaking voices for men range from ~85 – 180hz and for women, 165 – 255 Hz. Frequencies above this are usually attributed to harmonics, room echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds produced by the throat. All of those elements are present in the voice prints, below.
The vertical axis is frequency, and the horizontal axis is time. The brightness represents the loudness of the sound source in that frequency range. The bright yellow areas are the primary sound, the orange and purple are harmonics, echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds. The black areas are silent.
Here’s the director’s voice asking a question:
Here’s Christina answering the Director’s question:
Father Amorth praying:
Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer:
Family praying together:
Christina’s first “possessed” voice:
A six-second segment of Christina’s possessed voice:
When looking at the prints of Christina’s voice during the possession, it becomes apparent why it gives the impression of either three or four voices. Two frequencies are pronounced enough to be heard separately at 1k and below. Two more are at 2k-4k. Her first print is also extraordinary in that it emits harmonics >16khz. No other voice in the documentary does that.
But look at the print when Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer. Strong harmonics appear three or four times just below 3k Hz. This is an important comparison because Father and Christina are in the same room at the same time.
For an additional comparison, I’ve recorded two isolated voice tracks of Janis Joplin. The recordings attempt to isolate only Janis’ voice to be as similar as possible to the Father Amorth and Christina.
Janis Joplin, Clip #1:
Janis Joplin, Clip #2:
”Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism” by Stefano Ferracuti, Roberta Sacco, and Renato Lazzari, Dept. Of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1996, 66(3), 525-539, Copyright 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. ↩
Adam Ford, the man behind The Babylon Bee, has started a Christian “Drudge Report” called the “Christian Daily Reporter.” If you enjoy Adam’s comics and humor on “The Bee,” you might be interested in the daily news articles Adam finds important enough to share with other believers.
Stop letting Facebook and Google dictate which news and opinions you are allowed to see.
The Christian Daily Reporter is a source for the most important news and content from a Christian perspective — and it lives outside the tech-giant information choke hold.
Just before falling asleep, last night, I found my thoughts turning to whether the book of Revelation was written before, or after AD70. It was a lingering curiosity after taking Dr. Heiser’s course “Why Do Christians Disagree about End Times? and late-night viewing of N.T. Wright videos on preterism.
A quick web search led to a useful excerpt from a book by Jonathan Welton where he lists many of the pre-AD70 arguments in one place. As it turns out, I was reading from the first edition of Jonathan’s book, “Raptureless” which he’s made available for reading online. The third edition of the same book was published in 2015.
An expanded version of the same excerpt is also published on Jonathan’s website in the first two chapters of his “The Art of Revelation.”
Welton Addresses Three Common Objections Stemming from the Title ‘Raptureless’
The excerpt, below, is written by Jonathan Welton. You can read more from him on his website: Welton Academy.
Excerpt of ‘Raptureless’ by Jonathan Welton
I have come to believe the majority of the Book of Revelation was written regarding events that took place at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. In order to believe that, we must first address the date of authorship. If the book was written in AD 96, as many modern teachers claim, then my point of view cannot be valid. Yet, I believe the overwhelming body of evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that Revelation was more likely written before AD 68. Let’s look at the proofs to establish the date of writing.
The Proofs
The primary reason some Bible teachers claim the Book of Revelation was written around AD 96 is because John noted in Revelation 1:9 that he was on the island of Patmos at the time he received the Revelation. There is some historical evidence that John was exiled to Patmos under the reign of Domitian between AD 81 and AD 96. Therefore, the book might have been written during that time—or so some claim. In reality, there are also historical documents that tell us John was exiled to Patmos at a much earlier date. Here I will share ten evidences that Revelation was written before AD 68.
1. The Syriac
We have the witness of one of the most ancient versions of the New Testament, called The Syriac. The second-century Syriac Version, called the Peshitto, says the following on the title page of the Book of Revelation:
Again the revelation, which was upon the holy John the Evangelist from God when he was on the island of Patmos where he was thrown by the emperor Nero.
Nero Caesar ruled over the Roman Empire from AD 54 to AD 68. Therefore, John had to have been on the island of Patmos during this earlier period. One of the oldest versions of the Bible tells us when Revelation was written! That alone is a very compelling argument.
2. Revelation 17:10
When we look at the internal evidence, we find a very clear indicator of the date of authorship in Revelation 17:10: “They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while” (Rev. 17:10). This passage, which speaks of the line of rulers in Rome, tells us exactly how many rulers had already come, which one was currently in power, and that the next one would only last a short while. Take a look at how perfectly it fits with Nero and the Roman Empire of the first century.
The rule of the first seven Roman Emperors is as follows:
“Five have fallen…”
Julius Caesar (49–44 BC)
Augustus (27 BC–AD 14)
Tiberius (AD 14–37)
Caligula (AD 37–41)
Claudius (AD 41–54)
“One is…”
Nero (AD 54–68)
“the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while.”
Galba (June AD 68–January AD 69, a six month ruler-ship)
Of the first seven kings, five had come (Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, and Claudius), one was currently in power (Nero), and one had not yet come (Galba), but would only remain a little time (six months). The current Caesar at the time of John’s writing was the sixth Caesar, Nero.
3. Those Who Pierced Him
As I discussed in depth in _Raptureless, _the Hebrew idiom “coming on clouds” speaks of God coming to bring judgment on a city or nation. That is what Jesus came to do in AD 70. Revelation 1:7 tells us who His judgment is against:__
Lo, he doth come with the clouds, and see him shall every eye, even those who did pierce him, and wail because of him shall all the tribes of the land. Yes! Amen (Revelation 1:7 YLT).
Here, the phrase “those who did pierce him” refers to the people of the first century. According to this passage, they were expected to be alive at the time of Revelation’s fulfillment. The fact that “those who did pierce him” were not alive in AD 96, because they were killed in the slaughter of AD 70, is a clear indicator that Revelation was written before AD 70.
4. Jewish Persecution of Christians
The Jewish persecution of Christianity in Revelation 6 and 11 indicates a pre-AD 70 authorship. After the slaughter of AD 70, the Jews were not in a position to persecute the early Church. In fact, since AD 70, the Jews have never been in a position to be able to persecute Christians.
5. Judaizing Heretics in the Church
The activity of the Judaizing heretics in the Church (see Rev. 2:6,9,15; 3:9) is emphasized in the letters to the churches in Revelation. This tells us something about the dating of the letter, because the Judiazing heretics lost a great deal of influence after Paul’s epistles were circulated. Also, it makes sense that the heresy would have been a much smaller issue after so many Jews were slaughtered in AD 70. Only an early date of authorship allows for the heretics to be a significant problem.
6. Existence of Jerusalem and the Temple
The existence and integrity of Jerusalem and the Temple (see Rev. 11) suggest a date before the destruction of AD 70. If the Book of Revelation was written in AD 96, only twenty-six years after the destruction of the Temple and the Holy City, it is shocking John didn’t mention the recent massacre of the city and Temple.
7. Time-related Passages
The internal time-related portions of Revelation indicate that the events it foretells will come to pass shortly (see Rev. 1:1,3; 22:10,20). If this is read with an unbiased perspective, we can easily conclude Revelation was not written about events 2,000 years in the future. The time texts are bookends, which frame the content of the book.
8. John’s Appearance in AD 96
Another reason to believe the Book of Revelation was written at the earlier date is because Jerome noted in his writings that John was seen in AD 96 and that he was so old and infirm that “he was with difficulty carried to the church, and could speak only a few words to the people.”1 We must put this fact together with Revelation 10:11, which says John must “prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.” It is difficult to imagine John would be able to speak to many nations and many kings at any date after AD 96 since he was already elderly and feeble.
9. Timetable Comparison with Daniel
In Daniel, the author was told to “seal up the vision, for it is a long way off” (Dan. 12:4)—which referred to a 483-year wait until Jesus came to fulfill the prophecy. By contrast, in Revelation, John was told to “not seal up the vision because it concerns things which must shortly come to pass” (Rev 22:10). If 483 years was considered a long way off, meaning that the vision should be sealed, it makes no sense that 2,000 plus years would be considered “shortly to come to pass” and not to be sealed up. Clearly, the obvious answer is Revelation shouldn’t be sealed because it was about to happen at the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem.
10. Only Seven Churches
The existence of only seven churches in Asia Minor (see Rev. 1) also indicates a writing date before the greater expansion of Christianity into that region, which occurred after the fall of Jerusalem.
The Other Perspective
Those who believe in the later date of authorship for the Book of Revelation mainly lean on the fact that Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons (AD 120–202) claimed John wrote while on Patmos under Domitian’s reign. This alone could seem compelling, except Irenaeus is noted for making mistakes in recording dates and times in his writings. Irenaeus is the same Church father who claimed Jesus’ ministry lasted nearly twenty years, from the age of thirty until the age of fifty.
Because Revelation contains no internal evidence for a later date of authorship, proponents of the later date must lean only upon external evidence to force this conclusion. Even the external evidence of Irenaeus is not a reliable source, and many scholars have even picked apart Irenaeus’ quote about the date of authorship as possibly being a very misunderstood quotation.
Kenneth Gentry has done the world an invaluable service by writing his doctoral dissertation on the dating of Revelation. His irrefutable paper is easily purchasable as a book under the title: Before Jerusalem Fell. John A.T. Robinson has also graced us all with his book, Redating the New Testament, in which he proves all the books of the New Testament were written before AD 70.
Considering these strong proofs for an early date of writing alongside the very poor evidence in favor of a later date, I believe it is common sense to date the writing of Revelation prior to AD 70.
This transcript is of a presentation given by Michael Heiser entitled “What You Know May Not Be So — How Biblical Prophecy is Unclear and Why.” My best guess for the date of the presentation is January 5th, 2012 given to the first “Future Congress.”
The transcript is ~8800 words and includes 50 slides. All the material (and excerpts, below) is owned and copyrighted by Dr. Heiser and please consider supporting his work in creating, presenting, and posting such presentations on Youtube.
The excerpts, below, are 1/8th of the entire transcript. They are a sample of the transcript, not a summary of the presentation.
What You Know May Not Be So
I’ve entitled this what you know may not be so. And the subtext here is how Biblical prophecy is unclear and why.
I should preface this by saying that the reason I proposed this topic and was interested in doing this, because I don’t really do prophecy, but I have a concern that there are a lot of believers who are sort of locked into one perspective and prophecy. And my concern is that if certain things don’t pan out the way you sort of expect them to, then it’s going to have a very dispiriting effect on the church.
The fact is that there is very little that’s self-evident when it comes to prophesy. Really, almost nothing. And I’m going to show you why that is. Why do people disagree so vehemently when it comes to Biblical prophecy? There are actually reasons for it, and I’m going to give you a few of those, by no means all of them, but a few of them.
So what I want to do is to illustrate the problems (by) plucking a few examples out and then apply the results of those difficulties.
So, illustrating the problem. Problem number one is something I call clarity of intention. Basically, this is the issue or the problem of how do we really know what the biblical writer of a prophecy intended as far as fulfillment or what was the intended meaning or the intended outcome. How do we really know?
Splitter or Joiner?
Why is it when we come to prophesy, instead of harmonizing, instead of joining, we split? It’s the only place we do that.
Here’s what I mean. Read 1 Thessalonians 4; a familiar passage. Again, the so-called rapture passage.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
A very familiar passage.
Then we look at this one. Zechariah 4, and they say: “Well, here it says, ‘on that day his feet shall stand the Mount of Olives and why that lies before Jerusalem the East, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two’ …blah blah. Hey, this doesn’t sound like this.”
Or I could put Matthew 24 up here, which has a lot of similarities with 1 Thessalonians 4. But, you look for differences, and then you split them.
Here’s the point: the reason you believe what you believe about the rapture is because you have decided. If we put all the passages about a second coming, a return of Jesus let’s put it that way. If we took all those passages about a return of Jesus and put them all right here in front of us, you would either harmonize them, or you would look for differences and split them into two events. If you’re a splitter, you have a rapture and a second coming. If you’re a joiner, you don’t have a rapture. It’s just a decision you make. Neither one is self-evident.
The Bible doesn’t have like an instruction appendix in the back that says addendum to the last chapter the book of Revelation when thou shalt encounter a prophecy passage, split or join. We don’t have an instruction book. We just make this decision. Usually, because we’ve read somebody who splits and then we decide what sounds great I’m going to split, too. Or we’re going to be a joiner, and then we read a split. They’re interpretive decisions that color, that dictates, that compel, where you end up when you come out.
Imminence?
Another one: Imminence. Again these are all problems with certainty, with what we do when we talk about prophecy. Imminence whatever that means now why do I put it that way? Well, people define Imminence differently. Some people say Imminence means Jesus could return in the next I blink. In other words, there’s nothing preventing it. Some other people say Jesus will return soon, that’s what Imminence means. It means soon. But there might be some things that still need to happen.
Okay, other people will say well it means Jesus will return unexpectedly. So those are these are the three most common definitions of Imminence that you see.
Now, here’s the point. you go back to these definitions of Imminence how would you apply them to first Thessalonians 5? Well, the reality is that anything that smacks of a sign in the New Testament, heavenly portents, celestial things happening, the appearance of the Antichrist, you know. Jesus even said you know things like about even what’s going to happen to some of the disciples again talking about you know that is coming and how do we handle that now that we’re dealing with a distant future, all this kind of stuff. Signs are relegated to the second coming only if you presume a rapture when you read 1 Thessalonians 5. If you don’t, then you have no problem with things appearing before the actual return.
In other words, these are decisions you make. I’m not saying any one of them is bad. What I want you to see here is that a lot of what you believe about prophecy you believe, not because it’s just so plain from the Bible. You believe it because you’re filtering it through, again, things you’ve read your experience and the exposure you’ve had to certain things. As you study you develop again presuppositions, presumptions, inclinations to look at things a certain ways, it’s just a natural human thing. Because I don’t know which is right. I don’t know if we should split or join because there’s no instruction manual. And I’m not inspired, so I’m not going to tell you that you would have to pay for that. I can’t do that.
What I want you to realize is that a lot of this stuff is really here. It’s decision oriented. It’s about presuppositions. It’s about thoughts you bring to the text when you read it that it’s going to inform and guide the way you think about it. And someone else will bring another set of thoughts to the same text and come out totally different, and this is why. Because there are ambiguities, it’s going on in the text.
So conclusion. What I want you to get out of this is that you just be aware you just be aware that this is sort of the nature of the problem. There are things going on in the text. There are things God does conceal, he did it a lot the first time, and it could be significant points. Things are cryptic there’s the problem of how do I know what an author originally intended.
This third transcript is Part 2 of the presentation Michael Heiser gave in 2013 to Future Congress 2. It’s entitled “The Post-Christian Future, Part Two, Pop Culture as High Priest of the Post-Christian Religious Worldview.
Part two is ~8500 words and includes 40 slides. All the material (and excerpts, below) is owned and copyrighted by Dr. Heiser and please consider supporting his work in creating, presenting, and posting such presentations on Youtube.
The excerpts, below, are 1/8th of the entire transcript. They are not a summary of the presentation.
Pop Culture as High Priest of the Post-Christian Religious Worldview
MH: What I’m going to focus on is talking about the post-Christian culture post-Christian condition. And then sort of zero in on how in the post-Christian world what you’re going to see, as far as the morphing of Christianity. And I’m not saying that the morphing is going to be good. In fact, I’m suggesting that the morphing is not a good thing. And it’s really going to morph into something that’s actually very old. And we’ll talk about that at that point. So this is going to be sort of, hey here’s what I think it’s going to look like. And it’s not really just opinion because I’m going to show you what people are saying right now okay, the Futurists scholars and religious studies scholars and pop culture that sort of thing. And we will comment on it as we go.
MH: Techno-utopian values. The usual suspects, here: progress, purposeful evolution, human power over nature, material or technological advancement as the key to success in the future world, all that sort of stuff. Freedom really translates to don’t give me any rules or any dogma so I can be free — happiness and hedonism right in their presentation. The singularity, something we’ll talk about momentarily.
MH: But I want to zero in on this document: “A Cosmist Manifesto,” this one here, and here are the ten points. I’ve abbreviated the annotations for the cosmos manifesto, but here are the ten principles, ten points humans will merge with technology to a rapidly increasing extent. It’s a new phase of the evolution of our species.
MH: You might be thinking cyborgs here, which is one think about it. But if you know anything about nanotechnology that’s an invisible integration. That’s something you never see, but it has the potential. Once you have control over every atom in your body I mean you know every molecule you can change the human species as we know it. And this is going to be and is now, I mean, you can buy whole books on the ethics of nanotechnology. I’ve read a couple of them this year again to get my head into the sequel to the novel. And they’re talking about things like elimination of disease, optimizing the human DNA for its various potentials, and they’re really ultimately talking about immortality because you’re dying cell by cell and every cell is made of molecules and at you know that sort of thing. Well if you can control and release nanobots into the body so to speak that instantly repair cellular loss you have potential immortality other than somebody you know shooting you in the head or something like that I mean you get the idea. You will not age you will not decline as a physical specimen. So this is how it’s going to be cast, but this is the sort of merging they’re talking about, too. It’s not just what we would sort of think of as a cyborg.
MH: So what’s the theological cost? Well, we become divine apart from God’s plan of glorification.
MH: It redefines salvation only in terms of the end, glorification, rather than it dismisses the means which is the cross and the whole reason for it which is sin.
MH: I drew this from my series I did on The Da Vinci Code, someone out there may have seen.
MH: So, what is Gnosticism? The basics. Well, the Gnostics believe that there is something they refer to as the true God or the light or pneuma, which is spirit. And isn’t God a spirit, doesn’t John 4 say that? God is a spirit; he’s pre-existent, God is preexistent, uncaused, and perfect? Sounds pretty biblical, so far.
MH: Gnostics imagined the true God of being both male, the Father, and also female. And the reason they thought this was because everything else that exists is produced by this God.
MH: Now, in terms of cosmology, the highest Aeon is called, in Gnosticism, the Logos. Is that a familiar term? Okay, this is the highest son of the true God, the Logos. The first aeon, the first emanation, the first act of the father, he is the entire likeness and image of the true God. And these are Gnostic statements okay. He’s the form of the formless, the body of the bodyless, the face of the invisible, the word of the unutterable and all these things. And he actually possesses the knowledge of all the eons. He is unquestionably superior. He’s the top dog, the top Eon.
MH: Now, the Logos right here again is the top, and together the law goes with the true God, the father and mother element in the true God, form the Triad. Let ‘s just call it a Trinity and be done with it. It’s not the same as a Trinity. If you know your trinitarianism, this is not same. But they’re using the three language.
MH: Last point: there’s a whole scholarly book. This is University of Chicago Press this, and this is a dense read, it’s a scholarly book called mutants and mystics science fiction superhero comics and the paranormal. And guess who wrote it? Our friend Jeffrey Kripal. He has an entire chapter if you’re into UFOs this will be shocking to you. his entire last chapter is on Whitley Strieber and communion. The whole purpose of the book is to show how comic books, and specifically the alien theme, has been a useful and wonderful and delightful vehicle for transmitting the truths of Gnosticism. I mean, they’re not secretive about this. It’s just, here it is, you know?
MH: I highly recommend that you read this. He argues that much of the recent popular culture of the u.s. Comes from what we used to be called the paranormal. He has a third book called authors of the impossible where he as an academic says academic scholars ought to own up to the fact that paranormal stuff is real. And he’s arguing in favor of paranormal stuff within the account.
MH: He even goes into Madame Blavatsky. None of this is new. The whole alien thing is just rehashed Gnosticism slash occultism slash theosophy slash whatever, fill in the blank, for a technological society. That’s all it is. And this is what’s going to reach the masses.
MH: And what I’m telling you this whole presentation comes down to this: the adaptation is going to be led by people who know what they’re doing and will control the vocabulary and teach others. They will teach others to mine the vocabulary and morph the theology, and it’s only going to take a generation before that becomes the articulation of what Christianity is.
As described in a recent post, there are all kinds of great uses for transcripts, and I’ve started creating them for video and audio materials important enough to have in text format.
The first transcript I completed is of a documentary interview with Jordan Peterson conducted by David Fuller for Rebel Wisdom entitled, “Truth in the Time of Chaos.” You can find that transcript on McGillespie.com.
This second transcript is the first part of a presentation Michael Heiser gave in 2013 to Future Congress 2. It’s entitled “The Post-Christian Future, Part One, Thinking Theologically About the Utopian Impulse as a Perversion of the Judeo-Christian Worldview.”
(Note: I’ll be posting the transcript on the forum. What follows, here, are short excerpts)
The presentation was given while Mike was preparing to write the sequel to “The Facade.” Part one is ~9000 words and includes 25 slides. All the material (and excerpts, below) is owned and copyrighted by Dr. Heiser and please consider supporting his work in creating, presenting, and posting such presentations on Youtube. The transcript is merely an attempt to make video and audio material more accessible.
MH: There’s always been sort of this impulse to either create the perfect society or more pertinently, force it on people. And so, I see looming on the horizon a new effort at creating a wonderful, blissful, totalitarian state and I want to sort of pursue that a little bit and talk about it. And again, for those of you here, and for those of you who listen later to the presentation, I just want to get you thinking about why it is that this always seems to rear its ugly head and why even Christians, at times, are not immune from this notion that we can make things perfect, that we can just make it alright if we did this, that, and the other thing, everything would be ok.
MH: So, I want to try to think theologically about those things, and we’ll see what happens. So, here is our roadmap for the day.
Definition & Relevance
MH: So, first part: definition and relevance. Utopia as you may or may not know, again, is this idea of a perfect human society. The term itself refers to an ideal place that actually doesn’t exist.
MH: It’s imaginary, you know, it’s conceptual. It’s this grand wish, something that can’t be real in the real world but boy we wish it was, that sort of thing.
MH: And again the breakdown of the term utopia: no place, a good or no place. And you’ll see it spelled either with the “e” or with the “o” forming the “u”, in either case. But it actually could have either derivation depending on who’s using it.
MH: An imaginary world where social justice is achieved, whatever that means, and the means of guaranteeing all that is secure. That’s where the control comes in. So that’s what we’re talking about. And as far as the impulse, what are the elements?
Examples
MH: And HG Wells, of course, a lot of a lot of their thinking was influenced by eugenics. To create the ideal society you need ideal people, right? You need to sort of weed out the unfortunate or less desirable elements to the human population. So that was very common in the United States. A lot of later not-so-eugenic theory and practice was drawn from American and British writing. Those were the seed beds to some of those things that we would come later on.
MH: Marxist Leninism, of course, this would be the Lennon experiment with Marxism. Of course the Revolution of 1917. You know, again, the working class. We’re going to create the community where the worker is in power. Ostensibly, this is how it’s marketed. This is how it’s put forth.
How It’s Sold vs. Actual Result
MH: Nowadays we refer to eugenics as genetic engineering and genetic selection. Genetics is just the new eugenics. And I’m not here to demonize all genetic research because that would just be ridiculous too. But, once you have the power of the genome in your hand, eugenics is really easy. You know, it’s just it’s just how do we how do we accomplish this thing we can easily do now on a wide scale? That’s the only question you need to ask.
MH: Politically, of course, world peace freedom from crime which in their right mind would oppose that? Well, I’m not opposed to that. I am opposed to statist fiefdom. If you’re a statist, you are anti-individual. Think about that. That means if you’re in control you get to criminalize practically anything. Criminalize self-protection —that would be like gun laws taking guns away okay. We’re going to criminalize your ability to protect yourself. Why? Because your emphasis is on the state, the utopia, as opposed to the individual.
MH: Citizens self-sustenance, we talked about that with the food supply. You have each individual state, state being defined as country here, trying to implement their view of perfection, their view of the ideal situation. But ultimately you have a push toward global government.
Progress or Human Control?
MH: Progress, human improvement, science & technology. Human control is what this means in our day and age. So, whereas we would call it progress human improvement through science and technology what it really means is control of people through science and technology.
MH: We have information control. In other words, we’ll fill your head with what it needs to be filled with. Knowledge is power. It’s easy to propagandize things like the political process. Eugenics, that’s progress because we’re weeding out…we’re clearing out the gene pool there and that a good thing. Police state we have to have a police state to enforce progress. Commerce comes under state control. Basically, everything you do, if it’s viewed as being an impediment to progress, then it needs to be controlled or eliminated. We have to be able to keep the progress going. We don’t want progress to stop.
MH: Now, utopian impulse as a biblical perversion. And this is where your handout comes in I’m going to go through this quickly, and I’ll tell you what the handout supplements.
MH: Here are the fundamental myths of utopianism. The idea that humans are perfectible, that’s a myth. Either on an individual level or a corporate level, it ignores human capacity for evil. It ignores you know the condition of the heart. But it’s a myth that drives utopianism. The other myth is that you can force human perfectibility. That just isn’t going to work. So enforcing an Edenic state. In other words, it would be Eden by human effort. Eden created by a ruling human elite.
Babel and Myths of Utopianism
MH: Babel is a big deal with this because if you understand what’s going on at Babel a ziggurat, Tower of Babel, was built to bring the divine to earth. We’re going to build you a house we’re going to build you home because gods live on mountains so let’s like build our own mountain so that the deity will come here and when he comes here we can negotiate; we can we can kind of barter.
MH: It’s the same logic of idolatry. The ancient person wasn’t wasn’t an idiot he knows that this thing he just made isn’t his creator so why do they make idols? Because they believe deities can be summoned to reside there; you locate the deity. This is why Israel was forbidden to make graven images because Yahweh cannot be tamed. Yahweh will not be brought anywhere for negotiation. That’s up to him. It’s a completely different perspective on it. But you have the same thing going on with Babel. We are going to reestablish Eden we are going to bring the deity back to earth. We’re separated from the deity now we got kicked out in all that stuff we’re going to bring the deity back down to earth, and then we’re going to you know do all this stuff, all this good stuff. Well, again it’s a usurpation of God’s plan God’s punishment. Humans trying to remedy and re-kick-start what they ruined. Babel is sort of the beginning living illustration of this idea that hey let’s bring heaven to earth. Utopian thinking. Heaven is not going to come to earth until God wills it and not before. But that’s what the utopian misses or hates take your pick, one way or the other.
During the first class of the morning at the small Christian college, our professor stopped the lecture and used his walking stick, curiously similar to a wizard’s staff, to step from behind the podium to the front of the class. He did this when he really wanted us to listen.
He leaned on the staff as if he was Pastor Gandalf and scanned the class before muttering a kernel of weathered wisdom. It was a heartfelt opinion, but it resonated with the force of a command: “Christians ought to be at the forefront of every discipline.”
Are we at the forefront of the Art that’s shaping our culture?
So yes, we must learn how to make better art, but what good is that if we aren’t speaking the same language as the culture around us?
In Apologetics and The Christian Imagination, Holly Ordway insists that the lost meaning of Christian terminology is what prevents many believers from being intelligible to unbelievers. For example, our world doesn’t hear “Jesus,” “faith” or “sin” as defined by Christians. She argues that an effective, and underused, way to reclaim lost meaning is to create art with sound doctrine (her specific focus in the book, however, is apologetical literature).
In a word, Christian artists need to learn apologetics in addition to their craft. If you have the creative drive and you believe Jesus is the Son of God, then learn apologetics. Know what you believe and why. Your art will be better because you’ll be confident enough to tackle tough issues.
Christian artists don’t have to hide in the realm of “self-expression.” If we study apologetics, the more we’ll naturally see how we can demonstrate Christianity’s implications in our work.
For a start, here are 4 habits to ignite artistic apologetics (although my primary focus is narrative art, creators of other forms may still benefit).
Develop the Worldviews Behind the Central Conflict
Art enables us to raise deep worldview questions without coming across as hostile. How? Well, in storytelling, there is a single question called the dramatic question, which involves the protagonist’s (main character) central conflict with the antagonist.
This clash arises from conflicting desires, which arise from conflicting values, which are motivated by their conflicting worldviews (or perhaps variations of the same worldview).
To put it plainly, the main character wants something and the bad guy wants something else. But they both can’t get what they want because they value different things, so a conflict arises.
For example, the dramatic question of The Lord of the Rings is: “Will Frodo destroy the ring?” And the antagonism is that Sauron wants to reclaim it.
If desires drive characters, values drive desires, and worldviews drive values, then destroying the ring drives Frodo, selfless heroism drives his desire to destroy it, and Goodness motivates his selfless heroism.
With Tolkien creating this conflict, we are drawn in. We want to know what happens to Frodo.
When we empathize with characters by vicariously experiencing their journey (not to mention the world they inhabit), we participate in the worldviews involved in the story as well, albeit indirectly.
So whether we agree with it or not, we let the protagonist’s worldview speak as we follow the story because the answer to the dramatic question unearths deeper worldview implications based on which desires were met and which values are maintained.
How do we develop the expertise to naturally develop worldviews into our art? For starters, learn the craft of dialogue, character development, sentence structure, description, scene structure, etc. Study award-winning stories and the conflicts that generate them. Take a poorly-rated movie, TV show, or song and rewrite it. Then use that as an inspiration or primer for your own work (don’t plagiarize, obviously).
All it takes is the desire to learn. Ask experts. Google it. YouTube it. The Internet Age has its benefits!
Embedding worldview into the central conflict is perhaps the most important element in creating art because when it’s done right, deep questions are raised, which demand inward attention on the audience’s part.
Wrestle with the Darkness
Christian art cannot be pigeonholed into what is family-friendly (although the genre is necessary), aesthetically unambitious or, worst of all, thinly-disguised proselytization. It requires provocation with novelty and sound theology with beauty. It must engage with our world and be relevant.
Now, here’s the point. you go back to these definitions of Imminence how would you apply them to first Thessalonians 5? Well, the reality is that anything that smacks of a sign in the New Testament, heavenly portents, celestial things happening, the appearance of the Antichrist, you know. Jesus even said you know things like about even what’s going to happen to some of the disciples again talking about you know that is coming and how do we handle that now that we’re dealing with a distant future, all this kind of stuff. Signs are relegated to the second coming only if you presume a rapture when you read 1 Thessalonians 5. If you don’t, then you have no problem with things appearing before the actual return.
MH: Now, the Logos right here again is the top, and together the law goes with the true God, the father and mother element in the true God, form the Triad. Let ‘s just call it a Trinity and be done with it. It’s not the same as a Trinity. If you know your trinitarianism, this is not same. But they’re using the three language.
