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The Antichrist Legend

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  • #31
    The Antichrist Legend

    Continued from last post↑

    From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 22-23):
    Chapter II Statement of the Problem


    I turn to a third allied passage, the section of the Lord's discourse in Matthew xxiv. and Mark xiii. on the Second Coming, and I assume, with many recent expositors, that the distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid genuine utterances of the Lord. It is also evident that compared with that of Mark the text of Matthew is the original. Here we have again the same phenomenon of short mysterious forebodings. The writer speaks of the "abomination of desolation" in the holy place, followed by the flight of the faithful (one scarcely knows from what) ; of a shortening of the days (we know not what days, or whether any definite period of time is meant) ; of the "sign of the Son of man," which still remains a puzzle, although treated lightly by most expositors. In any case the view is steadily gaining ground that the allusion to the siege of Jerusalem and the flight of the Christians to Pella is an explanation introduced as an afterthought into Revelation. Yet one is reluctant to understand the passage except in association with the time of Caligula. How then is to be explained the flight after the pollution of the Temple? Was the writer one of the advocates of peace, who wished to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from taking arms? But if so, he might have spoken in plainer language. A life-and-death struggle would after all seem probably to have taken place before the setting up of the emperor's statue.

    To be continued...

    Comment


    • #32
      The Antichrist Legend

      Continued from last post↑

      From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (page 23):
      Chapter II Statement of the Problem


      The simplest way out of the difficulty may be to apply 2 Thessalonians to the explanation of Matthew xxiv. Then the profanation will be the Antichrist who takes his seat in the Temple of Jerusalem, and the flight will be that of the faithful from Antichrist and his persecution.

      [Note the projection of the Antichrist legend into the respective biblical texts, rather than faithfully and meticulously allowing the biblical texts to say only what they actually say rather than forcing them to conform to the legend. By way of contrast see the exegesis here, here, and here -JR]

      To be continued...

      Comment


      • #33
        This is perhaps an intrusion - but - Near as I can tell, no-one in history has yet gone to the extent of exalting himself above ALL the gods.
        1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
        .
        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
        Scripture before Tradition:
        but that won't prevent others from
        taking it upon themselves to deprive you
        of the right to call yourself Christian.

        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by tabibito View Post
          This is perhaps an intrusion - but - Near as I can tell, no-one in history has yet gone to the extent of exalting himself above ALL the gods.
          Not at all an intrusion; it is very good to hear from you, tabibito.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by tabibito View Post
            This is perhaps an intrusion - but - Near as I can tell, no-one in history has yet gone to the extent of exalting himself above ALL the gods.
            To what biblical text are you referring, tabibito, and what do you make of it?

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Dan 11:36

              And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
              I was sure that something to the same effect was in Revelation - but just now I can't find it.
              1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
              .
              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
              Scripture before Tradition:
              but that won't prevent others from
              taking it upon themselves to deprive you
              of the right to call yourself Christian.

              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                I was sure that something to the same effect was in Revelation - but just now I can't find it.
                Are you assuming the traditional, legendary equivalence of texts in Daniel, Thessalonians, Matthew, Mark, the Johannine letters, and Revelation as all being references to one and the same "Antichrist"? ― even though the texts themselves say quite different things? ― even though the term "Antichrist" occurs only in 1 and 2 John, wherein the term is defined in a way that does not correspond with any other text in any other biblical book?

                I am currently reading Karen Jobe's recently published (2014) Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1, 2, & 3 John; so far, I have not found any text in which she sees any correspondence between references to antichrist in the Johannine letters and texts elsewhere in the Bible.

                ETA: How much of this thread have you read?
                Last edited by John Reece; 08-04-2015, 10:16 AM.

                Comment


                • #38
                  It seems that I inadvertently mapped Daniel into Revelation somehow. I have read a fair amount of the thread, but I'll now be going back through it to make sure of detail.
                  1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                  .
                  ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                  Scripture before Tradition:
                  but that won't prevent others from
                  taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                  of the right to call yourself Christian.

                  ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                    It seems that I inadvertently mapped Daniel into Revelation somehow. I have read a fair amount of the thread, but I'll now be going back through it to make sure of detail.
                    Regarding your quote of Daniel 11:36 above:

                    From Daniel (Hermeneia ― A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), by John J. Collins (color and bold emphases added):
                    36. The king will do as he wishes: Compare above, Dan 8:4; 11:2, 16. Verses 36–39 do not continue in chronological sequence but recapitulate the king’s behavior during the persecution.

                    and magnify himself against every god: See the Commentary on 8:10, 11, above. Here, as there, the most obvious background is provided by biblical passages such as Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, drawing ultimately on Canaanite myth. Antiochus’s rebellion against the gods was evident in the hubris of the titles on his coins—BASILEOS ANTIOCHOU THEOU EPIPHANOUS—and in his plundering temples, especially that of Jerusalem.

                    he will speak wondrous things against the God of gods: Compare the “mouth speaking great things” in Dan 7:8, 20 and the assault on the “prince of the host” in 8:11. The word נפלאות is also used with reference to Antiochus in 8:23.

                    he will succeed until the wrath is finished: On the “wrath,” see the Commentary above, on Dan 8:19. In 11:30, זעם is used as a verb, with Antiochus Epiphanes as subject. In light of this, it would seem that the king is allotted a fixed period to indulge his wrath against Israel (thus “until his wrath is spent”). The alternative interpretation, that the wrath is the Lord’s anger against Israel, is not impossible but goes against the tendency of Daniel to place the blame for the turmoil on the king.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      The Antichrist Legend

                      Continued from prior post↑

                      From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (page 24):
                      Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                      But then the question will again rise, Whence this whole cycle of thought? What was the source of this conception of the Antichrist in the Temple in Jerusalem? Do the last verses of Revelation ii., 2 Thessalonians ii., and Matthew xxiv. all belong to the same legendary matter, and will it be possible again to bring the scattered fragments together? Apart from the New Testament, are there any sources still at all available calculated to afford fresh information on this common tradition? We can now say that there is, in fact, still extant a superabundance of such material.

                      To be continued...
                      Last edited by John Reece; 08-04-2015, 12:57 PM.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Continued from prior post↑

                        From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (page 24):
                        Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                        When we pass on to the eschatological commentaries of the Fathers on Daniel, Revelation, 2 Thessalonians ii., Matthew xxiv., etc. we everywhere observe the same phenomenon, a multiplicity of details, causing us to ask in amazement, How does it happen that these expositors of the Old and New Testament writings are all alike so full of those wonderful and fantastic representations which occur precisely in this particular domain? Even beneath the most arbitrary exegetic fancies and allegorical explanations we may still perceive how this came about. But in this field of research there is opened up a world of fresh eschatological imagery, for which scarcely any support is sought in the Bible, at least beyond suggestions. Yet these very suggestions or assertions everywhere crop out with surprising persistence, so that when the matter is more closely examined we begin to detect order, consistency, and system in what we regarded as a mere congeries of marvelous fancies.

                        [Note: the "order, consistency, and system" of which Bousset here speaks is not "detected" in the Bible; rather ― as he will go on to explain ― it is "detected" in the Antichrist legend -JR.]

                        To be continued...

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          The Antichrist Legend

                          Continued from prior post↑

                          From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 24-25):
                          Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                          Doubtless explanations of a chapter in eschatology are not to be sought in the apostolic Fathers or in the apologists. But with Irenaeus the above-mentioned statements already begin to be more clearly formulated and supported by a series of instances. I prefer, however, to illustrate the point from Hippolytus' treatise On the Antichrist, reserving for the next section a general survey of the whole material. In chapter vi. Hippolytus sets forth the following contrasts: "A lion is Christ, and a lion is the Antichrist; King is Christ, and king is the Antichrist. ... In the circumcision came the Redeemer into the world, and in like manner will the other come; the Lord sent apostles unto all nations, and in the same way will the other send false apostles; the Savior gathered the scattered sheep, and in like manner will the other gather the scattered people. The Lord gave a seal to those that believed in Him, and a seal will the other likewise give; in the form of a man appeared the Saviour, and in the form of a man will the other also come; the Lord stood up and exhibited His holy body as a temple, and the other will also set up the temple of stone in Jerusalem."

                          To be continued...

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            The Antichrist Legend

                            Continued from prior post↑

                            From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 25-26):
                            Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                            Whence did Hippolytus get all these data concerning the Antichrist? In any case it cannot be said that from the figure of Christ the several features in the figure of the Antichrist were inferred by the law of contrasts; it would seem rather that the case was here and there reversed; compare, for instance, the last antithesis, and the other further back, "The Lord gave a seal to those that believed in Him." In what follows a biblical passage is quoted only for the first statement―the Christ, like the Antichrist, was called a lion. Then comes a proof (chapter xv.) that the Antichrist will spring from the tribe of Dan, on the strength of Genesis xlix. 16, 17 and Jeremiah viii. 16. This last notion, so surprisingly widespread amongst the Fathers, seems, however to have had its origin in those passages of Scripture, though we cannot yet say when it arose. But before any one thought of applying those passages to the Antichrist, the idea must have already prevailed that the Antichrist would spring from the people of Israel.

                            [Note, again, the phenomenon of projecting into Scripture a fantasy about Antichrist, rather than deriving from Scripture exegetical information about Antichrist -JR.]

                            To be continued...
                            Last edited by John Reece; 08-07-2015, 11:00 AM.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              The Antichrist Legend

                              Continued from prior post↑

                              From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (page 26):
                              Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                              This idea is also shared by Hippolytus, and thus is obtained another very important factor to the problem. For Hippolytus, the Roman empire is not the kingdom of the Antichrist, which is all the more remarkable that the Johannine Apocalypse distinctly indicates the Roman empire as the last great foe before the end of the world. Nor could Hippolytus be personally at all opposed to such an assumption, considering the judgment he himself pronounces on the Roman empire at the end of chapter xxxiv. He so far agrees with chapter xiii. of Revelation that he certainly understood the allusion in the first part of the chapter to point at the Roman empire; but then for him the Antichrist is the second beast with the two horns, who will establish his sway after the fall of the Roman empire.

                              To be continued...

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                The Antichrist Legend

                                Continued from prior post↑

                                From The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore (1895), by Wilhelm Bousset (pages 26-27):
                                Chapter II Statement of the Problem


                                By such an exposition we may gather what violence Hippolytus does to the text of Revelation (see chapter xliv.); nor did his exegesis on this point find much approval in after-times. Yet none the less is the conception itself a commonplace for nearly all the Fathers, beginning with Irenaeus. They hold, not that the Roman empire is the Antichrist, but that the Antichrist will appear after its fall. The Roman empire is the power referred to as "he who now letteth" in 2 Thessalonians ii. 7. In this application the Antichrist saga has made its way into history, and in fact acquired a historic mission.

                                {Note: "the Antichrist saga has made its way into history" ― not by way of sound exegesis of biblical texts but ― by way of "violence [done] to the text of Revelation" (among other biblical texts).}

                                To be continued...

                                Comment

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