Does this passage discredit the bible?

[웃 910]

Sorry to do this. This really opened my eyes about the coherency of the literature. Kinda caused me to realize it was truly fictional. One time after church many years ago I tried to briefly talk to a pastor about this. He was really busy and said that I should buy his book!!!

Passage in question:

Revelation 12:3-8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Red Dragon, Satan

³ Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. ⁴And his tail *swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

The Male Child, Christ

⁵ And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to ^[a]rule all the ^[b]nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. ⁶ Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she *had a place prepared by God, so that there ^[c]she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

The Angel, Michael

⁷ And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, ⁸ and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why is this silly?

Total stars in universe = 300 sextillion (300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)

1/3rd = 100 sextillion stars

Size of dragons tail = large enough to whip 100 sextillion stars

100 sextillion = Going out on a mission to pick up each individual grain of sand on earth. Scouring every beach. Then repeating the process 10 times over (give or take 100s and 100s of trillions).

Smallest star = 20% larger than Jupiter

1 Jupiter = 1321 earths (there is not 1 star in the universe that is even remotely close to this small)

So a dragon in the sky will take his tail and whip 1/3rd of the stars out of the sky!!!! I believe that back then they thought a star was maybe the size of a car. And they probably thought there were a couple hundred stars in the sky. So it makes sense why the author would write this because he thought that a dragon could whip a couple hundred stars onto the earth. The closest star is about 4.2 light years away from us (give our take a few months traveling at 186,000 miles per second). The furthest star is more than 13 billion light years away (give or take 100s of millions of years traveling at 186k miles per second)!

Edited July 27, 2011 by Lord Infamous

[^_^ 5,021]

Maybe 'heaven' is a subset of 'universe'.

[mawilson 2,133]

Maybe 'heaven' is a subset of 'universe'.

Cracks me up how LI is trying to make sense of a nonsensical book with questionable authorship.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Most of the stories in the bible are fiction, even if they are based on real events and people, but that doesn't make it any less relevant. IMO, it makes it more relevant.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Flawed poll. Revelations was a comment on the current Roman Emperor, not a prediction of the future. In the former context, the passages make sense. In the latter context, they provide great fodder for books and movies, not much else. Further, many of the passages in the New Testament refer to books popular at the time, yet omitted from the current codex. If not for the Dead Sea Scrolls, we may not have had a clue exactly what those works were, and still, we are left to speculate about quite a bit.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Some Old Guy

[mawilson 2,133]

Most of the stories in the bible are fiction, even if they are based on real events and people, but that doesn't make it any less relevant. IMO, it makes it more relevant.

It's no more relevant than Jack and the Beanstalk or Puss in Boots.

[BishopM 114]

Hey LI,

I'll be honest with you...I, personally, don't pay much attention to the Book of Revelations. In recent years though (again, in my opinion only)it seems that the Book of Revelations has become the central focus of a lot of Protestant preaching (cuz it rises fearz, again imho). I personally detest that type of preaching...but during these tough economical times a lot of people are taking it to heart, sadly.

In my opinion and from my observation, you are trying to do what a lot of Protestants do in their interpretation of the Bible: read it in a literal manner. From what I've seen in your postings about your life, a literal interpretation is your natural/preferred method of exegesis. Indeed a lot of the Bible can be interpreted in a literal manner, but in the case of the Book of Revelation, you need to throw out any attempts to interpret it literally. Read it in an allegorical manner instead and I think you'll have a better chance of understanding the spiritual meaning of the Book of Revelations.

I read the Bible each day, and each day I come to the same conclusion: it is an inspired book...which I learn from each and every day. However, I have no expectation that someday I'll be able to say that I 'understand the Bible' it is simply too complex of a book. However, when it comes to the Book of Revelations, its too 'far out there' from an allegorical perspective for me to unravel...I simply don't have the tools.

I don't see a lot of people really benefitting by spending an large amount of time reading about the 'end times' as laid out in the Bible. Instead, Christ said that he came to earth so that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Why focus on the study of the 'end times' when it is LIFE that is directly in front of us each day?

Again...just my two cents brother,

Blessings to you and good post!

BishopM

[웃 910]

Most of the stories in the bible are fiction, even if they are based on real events and people, but that doesn't make it any less relevant. IMO, it makes it more relevant.

Here is a good one by Scan:

"Certainly if there were an exterior creative force outside of that, we have no possible knowledge of it and I find it rather pointless to speculate about it. I do feel quite firm in my convictions that any exterior force there might possibly be would not have created a Universe so vast, with such vast uncrossable spaces between the stars, and somehow then decide to focus all attention on one little rock revolving around one little star in some distant outback spiral arm of one insignificant galaxy among trillions. Oh, and that he would choose a period of roughly 2000 years out of a time span of 4 billion that this rock has existed, 1 billion that life has existed, and ~200,000 years that anatomically modern humans have existed to suddenly make a big deal of His Existence. Think about it - only 1% of the time humans have been around(2000 out of 200,000 years) has this Creator made himself known and demanded that humans take that into account. So what about those 99% of human generations that were around before he showed up? Hmm. Did He just not give a ###### about them? Guess not."

EDIT: Science recently found out that modern humans have been around for 400,000 years, not 200,000....Which makes the time God presented Himself to us at 2000 out of 400,000 years ago (a half a percent or 99.5% of the time He didn't give a sh!t about us).

Edited July 27, 2011 by Lord Infamous

[B_J 2,752]

One bit of advice, if you're sincerely trying to understand Christianity, please don't start with the book of Revelation.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I don't see a lot of people really benefitting by spending an large amount of time reading about the 'end times' as laid out in the Bible. Instead, Christ said that he came to earth so that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Why focus on the study of the 'end times' when it is LIFE that is directly in front of us each day?

BishopM

One interesting observation about the Apostles and the early Church, was that the end time were expected in their lifetimes. There was an expectation that Jesus had gone to prepare for them a place in heaven, that they would occupy soon. In that sense, Jesus followed the tradition of earlier Prophets, that, "The time to reform your wicked ways is now, for the judgement time is near." The message hasn't changed that much over the last two thousand plus years, except now, it's the Green Freaks that are the loudest making such doomsday predictions.

[BishopM 114]

One interesting observation about the Apostles and the early Church, was that the end time were expected in their lifetimes. There was an expectation that Jesus had gone to prepare for them a place in heaven, that they would occupy soon. In that sense, Jesus followed the tradition of earlier Prophets, that, "The time to reform your wicked ways is now, for the judgement time is near." The message hasn't changed that much over the last two thousand plus years, except now, it's the Green Freaks that are the loudest making such doomsday predictions.

Hello Brother SOG,

Good point about the interpretation of Christ's return, from the viewpoint of the first century Apostles. Again, that is a literal interpretation and certainly the early 12 Apostles had as much difficulty understanding/comprehending/interpreting Jesus as we do today!

There are a few theological schools of Christology, and personally I like to study Christ's life in the manner of a what is known as a very 'High Christology'. When studying the life of Christ through the methodology of 'High Christology', we view much of his life (and much of the complete Bible) allegorically. I'm not saying that this is the best way to study Christ, but it just the way which comes naturally to me. In fact, at times I tend to be too much on the side of 'High Christology'...admittedly...

So, with the view of High Christology, we can view the life of Christ as a mirror of what we see in our own lives, internally. In Christ's life, he said that we must 'die to our passions/self'...in short, be born again, in Spirit. This is the elimination of ego/lust/greed, a freedom from the 5 senses and the associated passions. This is a difficult task, but if accomplished, we do get the 'new heart' which God promised. That 'new heart' does cause a personal rebirth, and our energies are refocused and our compassion increases as we seek to serve others. In short, we become a better brother / sister / mother / father / employee / husband / wife / father / mother / neighbor, because we are infused with the life of Christ, living life in abundance.

In that spiritual rebirth, are we not much different than Christ on the cross? Think of the physical life of Jesus and his death on the cross, and then compare it to the spiritual rebirth of the individual, once we 'take up our cross and follow God', we crucify our remaining passions/desires/lusts/greed/etc and, maybe for the first time, we can view/understand what Christ meant by 'life in the spirit'...which is the life that Jesus wanted us to have...and to 'have it abundantly'. We begin to 'thrive' and cease to 'strive'...

Back to your point about the early Apostles and followers of Christ, they certainly did view the Book of Revelations as a direct 'casting out' of Nero, from a purely literal sense (as close to literal as you can get, with the Book of Revelations'). Yet, from a point of 'High Christology' could it be that the second coming of Christ is REALLY the rebirth of Christ within the individual, thus making him more Christ-like? If the Second Coming of Christ is really an 'inner rebirth into the life of Christ/a new heart' then Christ's return to earth (as stated in the Book of Revelations) is almost rendered secondary, because we are already with Him in Spirit...which I believe is his real message.

With that said, the person reborn in the Spirit of Christ worry very little about the number of stars or their sizes or dates/times, which gets back to Brother LI's post. We are focused only on life, because Life infused with the Spirit of Christ is 'abundant life' and eternal.

Just an honest thought...and different viewpoint from the vantage point of 'High Christology'. But what do I know...

Blessings...Bi

[mawilson 2,133]

My God... you're all insane.

[BishopM 114]

My God... you're all insane.

Blessings to you too, M

In all reality though, I speak this way not strictly from reading/studying (though I do read/study) but rather from my own experiences with Christ.

Edited July 27, 2011 by BishopM

[웃 910]

Hello Brother SOG,

Good point about the interpretation of Christ's return, from the viewpoint of the first century Apostles. Again, that is a literal interpretation and certainly the early 12 Apostles had as much difficulty understanding/comprehending/interpreting Jesus as we do today!

There are a few theological schools of Christology, and personally I like to study Christ's life in the manner of a what is known as a very 'High Christology'. When studying the life of Christ through the methodology of 'High Christology', we view much of his life (and much of the complete Bible) allegorically. I'm not saying that this is the best way to study Christ, but it just the way which comes naturally to me. In fact, at times I tend to be too much on the side of 'High Christology'...admittedly...

So, with the view of High Christology, we can view the life of Christ as a mirror of what we see in our own lives, internally. In Christ's life, he said that we must 'die to our passions/self'...in short, be born again, in Spirit. This is the elimination of ego/lust/greed, a freedom from the 5 senses and the associated passions. This is a difficult task, but if accomplished, we do get the 'new heart' which God promised. That 'new heart' does cause a personal rebirth, and our energies are refocused and our compassion increases as we seek to serve others. In short, we become a better brother / sister / mother / father / employee / husband / wife / father / mother / neighbor, because we are infused with the life of Christ, living life in abundance.

In that spiritual rebirth, are we not much different than Christ on the cross? Think of the physical life of Jesus and his death on the cross, and then compare it to the spiritual rebirth of the individual, once we 'take up our cross and follow God', we crucify our remaining passions/desires/lusts/greed/etc and, maybe for the first time, we can view/understand what Christ meant by 'life in the spirit'...which is the life that Jesus wanted us to have...and to 'have it abundantly'. We begin to 'thrive' and cease to 'strive'...

Back to your point about the early Apostles and followers of Christ, they certainly did view the Book of Revelations as a direct 'casting out' of Nero, from a purely literal sense (as close to literal as you can get, with the Book of Revelations'). Yet, from a point of 'High Christology' could it be that the second coming of Christ is REALLY the rebirth of Christ within the individual, thus making him more Christ-like? If the Second Coming of Christ is really an 'inner rebirth into the life of Christ/a new heart' then Christ's return to earth (as stated in the Book of Revelations) is almost rendered secondary, because we are already with Him in Spirit...which I believe is his real message.

With that said, the person reborn in the Spirit of Christ worry very little about the number of stars or their sizes or dates/times, which gets back to Brother LI's post. We are focused only on life, because Life infused with the Spirit of Christ is 'abundant life' and eternal.

Just an honest thought...and different viewpoint from the vantage point of 'High Christology'. But what do I know...

Blessings...Bi

^^^^ It is seriously hard to read this with a straight face*!

*as in not bursting out into laughter at various parts

Edited July 27, 2011 by Lord Infamous

[Ban Hammer 13,407]

My God... you're all insane.