Religious Prophecy (Religion)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, September 13, 2010, 02:22 (5184 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Why wouldn't I like it? You were honest :)
> -Well... I typically meet resistance when I talk about doubt. -> > I've been a student of religions for a long time. I've read the Bhagavad Gita, Torah, Bible, and the Koran. I've studied Zoroastrianism. I've also read the Sybilline Oracles. I'm also very familiar with as many of the ancient stories of my Nordic ancestors. I am not at all uneducated in the realm of prophetic revelation. 
> > 
> I spent nearly 15 years studying the Bible, and for the last 5 I have been covering the Bhagavad Gita, Koran, Mythology, and some older Esoteric stuff. Glad to meet someone else that is open enough to remove the blinders and look around :)
> -If I were a religious man in this day and age, I can honestly say the hermetic path would definitely be the one I would take. Have you ever had a pop at Sacred Geometry? Sadly I haven't but I've been using what little I HAVE found in a novel I started on a couple years back. -> > First, The Revelation of John was largely meant to describe the state of Rome. Early Christianity didn't fare too well under Rome, and most early Christians thought that Christ was coming back to save them from Rome. Part of the reason it took 30 some years after his death to write anything down, was that the early fathers thought that his return was very imminent. The same prophecies you're claiming to be true now, were thought to be true then. Here's an exercise on why.
> > .....
> > 
> > 2 Peter 1:20 "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation."
> > 
> > So not only is there a correct interpretation, we are also to believe that we are not to innovate on the interpretation. Starting from that point, start searching online, and you see rather quickly that there's alot of exactly this thing going on. 
> >
> 
> -> Making the translation (without the influence of the Catholic Church):
> 1:20 Above all, you do well if you recognize(66) this:(67) No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet's own imagination,(68) 1:21 for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men(69) carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
> -The analysis is excellent and well-said; but it doesn't answer my deeper question of how are we to know what is the correct interpretation? Picking on Daniel again, what from the 4 gospels fulfils Daniel's prophecies regarding the "Son of Man?" To me, there simply is too much interpretation going on here. Someone here quoted Thomas Paine recently... something like "Only the person who receives the revelation acquires knowledge... everyone else from the 2nd, 3rd, ... nth telling gets secondhand hearsay." -At any rate, 1:20 and 1:21 together comprise an opposing viewpoint to my own, if for no other reason than the failed prophecy in Ezekiel that I mentioned. "The one true God" wouldn't say he would do something and then not deliver. -Going back to my main point, how are we to trust prophecy when we are so culturally and linguistically distant from the prophet(s) that we cannot begin to comprehend them? Going back to the time before canonization, to the 30yrs after Christ's death, if John thought that his revelation was meant to talk about Rome, than who are we to say that his revelation is for today? Shouldn't John's interpretation supercede ours? -Or what about all the "Fufilled prophecies" marking the "end of days" at AD 1000? Or how about the Mayans stating that the world was going to end in 600AD? (don't get me started on 2012...)-> I am not surprised to see that the Catholic church changed the translation to fit their needs. One of the benefits of getting to read the translators notes from someone who is not employed by the PTB :P-They didn't change the translation--I grabbed that line from the NIV. The interpretation given was my own, and I like yours better. (You said translator's notes, for what edition? There's a big difference between NIV, ASV, and NKJV...) -Whether or not you hate the Catholic Church, I hope you realize that the "Canonization" had really already begun quite some time before Emperor Constantine, and during the time when Revelation was nearly rejected as canon, the church was enemies with the Roman state? (I suggest Constantine's Bible, if you haven't already read it.) Catholics, though having corrupted much leading up to the enlightenment, do have a strong argument in that the four churches of the apostolic fathers are within their fold. The argument for their supremacy came from a Greek tradition of deferring to the masters of (philosophical school "x"). It is argued that correct interpretation belongs to those who have the closest ties to the original author. We can like it or not, but all roads really do lead to Rome if you agree with that sentiment. I'm getting my Master's in computer science, do you trust my word on sociology or football? Or how about if we talk about programming? Do I not have obvious talents that means I should be trusted for one thing and not another?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"