How many writers wrote the book of Revelation?

tat tvam asi · Fri Oct 07, 2011 5:23 pm

Here's some very interesting research in the making by a freethinker on youtube:

From Zero to Eclipse. The Entire Jesus Playlist
http://www.youtube.com/user/Xoroaster#g ... E394AD0DA6

Book of Revelation
http://www.youtube.com/user/Xoroaster#g ... D746F648CF

Robert Tulip · Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:09 pm

Thanks Tat, this material is interesting. His basic point is that we can interpret the Book of Revelation in a rational way, by looking for how it embeds coded messages about the stars. It illustrates that this mysterious text is highly suggestive of hidden meaning, but what this meaning may be is notoriously difficult to ascertain. The suggestion of a role for eclipses looks promising. I find Xoroaster's approach welcome, as a way to set Revelation within a scientific world view. Whether his speculation about the intent and origins of the text is accurate is far harder to say. He does not discuss precession of the equinox, which I regard as a key organizing principle for hidden meaning in the New Testament.

kelstan · Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:25 pm

tat tvam asi, I'm just curious and so I have to ask - why do you discuss religion so much when you do not believe in it? Really, I'm just puzzled, no dig intended.

tat tvam asi · Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:41 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: Thanks Tat, this material is interesting. His basic point is that we can interpret the Book of Revelation in a rational way, by looking for how it embeds coded messages about the stars. It illustrates that this mysterious text is highly suggestive of hidden meaning, but what this meaning may be is notoriously difficult to ascertain. The suggestion of a role for eclipses looks promising. I find Xoroaster's approach welcome, as a way to set Revelation within a scientific world view. Whether his speculation about the intent and origins of the text is accurate is far harder to say. He does not discuss precession of the equinox, which I regard as a key organizing principle for hidden meaning in the New Testament.

That's because I don't think he even knows about it yet Robert. GodAlmighty has been chatting with him and perhaps you may tip him off on a few things as well. He basically stumbled into this independent of knowing or understanding mythicism from what I gather. I think he's on to something with the multiple writers of the text, especially the first writer being fully Jewish and Christianizers adding later. The chapters in which he simply labels as "Dogma" and leaves alone are of course some the most astrotheological in content. So he basically has to venture deeper into the text and see how it all fits together.

tat tvam asi · Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:44 pm


	kelstan wrote: tat tvam asi, I'm just curious and so I have to ask - why do you discuss religion so much when you do not believe in it? Really, I'm just puzzled, no dig intended.

This may be the best answer to your question:

As a former religionist I have an interest in the academic study and dissection of mythology and religion to gain the best possible understanding of it. But as it turns the out, the more I know about it the less I believe...

kelstan · Sat Oct 08, 2011 9:35 am

Thank you for your kind reply. I'm sorry, I thought I understood from reading some of your previous postings that you are firmly an Atheist, but from your own statement, "the more I know about it the less I believe . . . " leads me to think that your Atheist position is perhaps not so firm as I thought? In mathematics, "less" implies that there is still "some." Or perhaps I'm merely reading more into your statement than exists?
Certainly it is difficult for us to set aside that which we were taught from the cradle. No matter how strong our intellect, we are not only intellectual beings but emotional beings as well, and the fear and guilt inherent in most modern religions are difficult to overcome.

tat tvam asi · Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:28 pm

Yes, I more or less meant to express that I started out from a position of full blind belief and then gradually lost belief the more knowledgeable (or book smart) I became. Until, finally I 'lacked belief' altogether and began to qualify as an atheist. I did take a second run at trying to find something valid about religion though, at which point I went on a philosophical journey that settled me into a pantheist worldview. And I began to see how Judeo-Christian mythology is largely borrowed nature religion motifs presented in a more or less confused monotheistic presentation.

The question is what exactly is there to believe in? The motifs of the sun's path through the year and all of the basic astronomical data are simple fact, something to believe in for sure. The sun does travel around the ecliptic as the Jesus myth implies on an esoteric level, and the Great Platonic Year did end in the constellation of Aries and began anew in the constellation Pisces in likewise fashion. These are obvious truths. They are mentioned in allegory by the various writers. But the supernatural imagery in the mythology is nothing more than a way of presenting these observations in storyline format for the sake of memorizing the data and passing it along generation to generation.

Take for instance the video series at the top of the thread. He's found that the first writer in Revelation appears to be Jewish and concerned with using astronomical alignments to designate the time periods in which each of the Caesars were ruling. These are not a projection of future events yet to come viewed by one John of Patmos in divine vision, they are simply records presented in an esoteric fashion that one priest or scribe could relate to other priests or scribes (initiates if you will) and the general public have taken a hold of these strange symbols and tried to make sense of them in various ways. Then a second writer appears. The second writer seemed to understand the intent of the first writer and sought to take what had been written and add to it. These writers are entirely mysterious. It's interesting how the video maker concluded that both the 616 and 666 numbers of the beast appear as late editions. One refers to Caligula while the other Nero. So apparently a later writer came along and tried to insert Nero (666) while other editions wished to insert Caligula (616). In both cases it's quite reasonable to see that there was never any real intention to project either of these numbers into the distant future to apply to some anti-christ NWO leader that so many "sheeple" search the headlines for year after year.

I grew up in a strict Revelation seminar environment as an Adventist youth and we thought that we had Daniel and Revelation figured out to a tee. When in reality no one really understood the half of it. We'd seek to proselytize and convert Catholics and all other Protestants with our claims of direct access to divine revelation and absolute truth. I uncover more and more of the actual truth of these strange texts year after year now. And one day I may actually understand the texts in their entirety with little to no gray era whatsoever. And that's just it. I can see that the ultimate Revelation seminar is one that actually reveals the text just as it is, just the way it was originally written, by these various writers contributing to the text, regardless of the outcome. Imagine running "Revelation Seminars" around the country - and the whole world for that matter - that can trump any traditional Catholic or Protestant interpretation and can potentially convert the audience from blind believing "sheeple" to freethinking individuals who can toss off the mental shackles of the former proselytizing religious institutions and walk away free and clear...

kelstan · Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:30 pm

Careful, sugar, you made a lovely point right up until:


	Quote: Imagine running "Revelation Seminars" around the country - and the whole world for that matter - that can trump any traditional Catholic or Protestant interpretation and can potentially convert the audience from blind believing "sheeple" to freethinking individuals who can toss off the mental shackles of the former proselytizing religious institutions and walk away free and clear...

How is converting the audience to your way of thinking not proselytizing? And before you ask, I am neither Christian nor Atheist.

I appreciate the courage it took for you to make the journey away from your faith; I know from experience it is an arduous and terrifying journey. I only hope that you found happiness along the way. After all, if this life is all we have, shouldn't we live it in contentment?

Robert Tulip · Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:35 am


	kelstan wrote: How is converting the audience to your way of thinking not proselytizing?

Not all conversion can be classed as proselytizing. Presentation of ideas that are grounded in evidence converts people to a way of thinking, but is completely different from proselytising, which relies only on traditional authority. Scientific thinking converts people to new insights through methods that are falsifiable, subject to proof by logic and consistency with observation. No one serious accused Charles Darwin of proselytizing for his advocacy of the theory of evolution, which included strong efforts to convert his audience. It is only when it comes to discussion of biblical texts that this suspicion is raised that advocacy involves proselytizing.

Proselytizers hold to a magical supernatural view of the world, advancing arguments that are in conflict with science, and seek to justify them solely by faith and traditional authority. This is why proselytizing is irrational.

Many people find it hard to imagine that a scientific analysis of the Book of Revelation is possible, but it is. A good example of a scientific analysis of the Book of Revelation can be seen with the allegory of the tree of life and the river of life in Chapter 22. The text states the tree has 'twelve fruits, one for each month of the year', and grows 'on both sides of the river of life'. The astrotheological suggestion that this means the zodiac and the Milky Way is a scientific hypothesis, not a claim based on traditional authority. The zodiac, as we see it in the sky, has twelve 'fruits' one for each month of the year, and is seen on both sides of the Milky Way, which is conventionally called a celestial river. No trees grow on both sides of a river, so the writer is obviously inviting us to think about what this strange image really means. The exact correspondence with observation of the sky makes the cosmic allegory a promising hypothesis.

Similar scientific analysis is possible for other strange images in Revelation such as the holy city, the leopard-lion-bear, the four living creatures, and others. These allegories can be analysed against a purely materialist rational modern understanding of the universe. But this style of analysis is so foreign to conventional Christian faith that it remains very marginal, and is censored and excluded from public discussion. This is why Tat suggested that advancing such discussion requires free thought. Free thought is very rarely found when it comes to religious analysis. My impression is that cosmic analysis of the Bible is largely banned from the mainstream media and academia through a pervasive informal censorship.

tat tvam asi · Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:24 am

Robert, if you go to the introduction video (decrypting the Bible) of the Revelation series I've posted at the top of the thread, you'll see that Xoroaster starts off by pointing out that these ancient writers viewed time as cyclic and not in the modern linear fashion that we are now familiar with. So he wishes to approach interpretation from their cyclic mind set. He doesn't directly mention precession or lead on that he knows about it's specific presence in the text, he just mentions that generally speaking these ancient writers expected that time always 'repeats itself':

http://www.youtube.com/user/Xoroaster#p ... GRR14TWCJE

That is exactly how his historical reading of the allegorical symbols corresponds to the precession of the equinoxes content that we've found over the years. In this light, the authors of both Daniel and Revelation were all writing some time after these choice historical events had taken place and they presented them as a way of perhaps warning future generations about history 'repeating itself' because they believed in cyclic time model scales in various ways. Here's Xoroaster's series on the book of Daniel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Xoroaster#p ... 5C28B2AAD8

When you put it all together it becomes obvious that the clue left at the end of Revelation that firmly displays the 12 jewels as the 12 signs of the zodiac in reverse order, was done so because it gives away the cyclic time model intent (Great Year) of the writers involved. Xoroaster has done a great deal of leg work in this series which can then be gathered together in combination with the findings of the mythicist movements astrotheological content in order to achieve one complete rational and logical approach to interpreting the strange cryptic esoteric texts. It's the simplest explanation of the texts at that. And it seems best to start off with his analysis of Daniel first because it makes it perfectly clear that the writers were trying to project their stories backwards in time from after Alexander the Great's conquest back to the time of the Babylonian Captivity. The further back in time the writers tried to go, the more inaccurate the writers were with their historical knowledge and the closer to the post Alexandrian writing period of the firmer their historical data becomes...

Then later with the writing of Revelation the same basic style was used to make a similar cryptic text about the destruction of the Temple and the birth of Christianity in the diaspora thereafter, one that refers back to Daniel in various ways. The intent in both cases seems to be one of warning who ever can understand the cryptic, esoteric, mystery school initiate type of symbolism against a future 'repetition' of said historical events marked by their corresponding 'astronomical markers' in the heavens. All of the traditional Revelation interpretations that I've read through that try to take the text as a magical future forecasting prophecy, not about the first century but our modern era, can potentially be consumed by a new rational reading of the symbols. I can see how one could briefly outline some of the main traditional readings of Revelation and point out the inconsistencies and short comings of each before moving on to what is potentially the ultimate solution to the mystery....

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