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Christians: What is the mark of the beast?
- Thread starter YeshuaRedeemed
- Start date
sooda
Veteran Member
I used to have the mark of the Beast.
I used to be under God's wrath.
But it was over now.
The mark of the Beast were mentioned in the Book of Revelation, in six occasions.
Revelation 13:16-18 New International Version (NIV)
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
Before defining the mark of the Beast, you have to know what is the Beast.
The Beast forced people to receive the mark
Where? on the right hand or the forehead
The Bible is a book about religion therefore the mark also pertains to religion.
No mystery there.. the beast was the Roman emperor(s).
Revelation is also political.. They weren't living in a vacuum .. Even the Sermon on the Mount is political.
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
Revelation 13:16 New International Version (NIV)
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,
....made using your right hand, you should touch your forehead
Revelation 14:11 New International Version (NIV)
And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
sooda
Veteran Member
The Jews hated the Roman occupation and the Hellenization of some Jews.
The Jews were divided.. The so called "apostate" Jews were collaborating with the Romans.
You are expecting poetic language from 2000 years ago to make sense without bothering to understand the basics of the first century political situation.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
You've gotta be kidding, right?
Let's take a look at that verse in context:
Revelation 13[16] Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead,
[17] so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.
[18] This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.
Notice "buy and sell" in verse 17, which is not what genuflecting is about. Notice that verse 18 uses the present tense, not a future tense. Notice in verse 16 that this mark logically must be permanent with the person. Also, genuflecting was something that developed later in Christianity, thus not when Revelation was written.
Who taught you this?
sooda
Veteran Member
Notice that verse 18 uses the present tense, not a future tense. Notice in verse 16 that this mark logically must be permanent with the person. Also, genuflecting was something that developed later in Christianity, thus not when Revelation was written.
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
Yep, metis
Do you know about the Inquisition?
During those times, when you happen to be a Jew
Your properties would be confiscated
Your business closed
And you are faced with conversion or death
Spanish Inquisition - Wikipedia
False conversions
The Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians. It had no power to investigate, prosecute, or convict Jews, Muslims, or any open member of other religions. Anyone who was known to identify as either Jew or Muslim was outside of Inquisitorial jurisdiction and could only be tried by the King. All the inquisition could do in some of those cases was to deport the individual according to the King's law, but usually, even that had to go through a Civil Tribunal. The Inquisition only had power to try those who self-identified as Christians (initially for taxation purposes, later to avoid deportation as well) while practicing another religion de facto. Even those were treated as Christians. If they confessed or identified not as "judeizantes" but as fully practicing Jews, they fell back into the previously explained category and could not be targeted (they would have pleaded guilty to lying about being Christians previously though).
Expulsion of Jews. Jewish conversos
Though not subject to the Inquisition, Jews who refused to convert or leave Spain were called heretics and could be burned to death on a stake
The Spanish Inquisition had been established in part to prevent conversos from engaging in Jewish practices, which, as Christians, they were supposed to have given up. However this remedy for securing the orthodoxy of conversos was eventually deemed inadequate since the main justification the monarchy gave for formally expelling all Jews from Spain was the "great harm suffered by Christians (i.e., conversos) from the contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith", according to the 1492 edict.[49]
The Alhambra Decree, issued in January 1492, gave the choice between expulsion and conversion. It was among the few expulsion orders that allowed conversion as an alternative and is used as a proof of the religious, not racial, element of the measure. The enforcement of this decree was very unequal however, with the focus mainly on coastal and southern regions-those at risk of Ottoman invasion- and a more gradual and ineffective enforcement towards the interior.[8]
Historic accounts of the numbers of Jews who left Spain were based on speculation, and some aspects were exaggerated by early accounts and historians: Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. While few reliable statistics exist for the expulsion, modern estimates based on tax returns and population estimates of communities are much lower, with Kamen stating that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews and 200,000 conversos, about 40,000 emigrated.[50] The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (where the entire community was forcibly converted in 1497) and to North Africa. The Jews of the kingdom of Aragon fled to other Christian areas including Italy, rather than to Muslim lands as is often assumed.[51] Although the vast majority of conversos simply assimilated into the Catholic dominant culture, a minority continued to practice Judaism in secret, gradually migrated throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, mainly to areas where Sephardic communities were already present as a result of the Alhambra Decree.[52]
The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted until 1530. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to 3% of the total. There was a rebound of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews was discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588; and there was a rise in denunciations of conversos in the last decade of the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition, founded in 1536. This led to a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691, during a number of autos-da-fé in Majorca, 37 chuetas, or conversos of Majorca, were burned.[53]
During the eighteenth century the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition decreased significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Córdoba in 1818, was the last person tried for being a crypto-Jew.[54]
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
So what is the mark of the Beast in your opinion?
sooda
Veteran Member
The control by the Roman emperor.. It got pretty bad.. All the Jews and Gentiles had to worship the Emperor once a year on his birthday.. Some think it was some kind of certification that allowed them to buy and sell.
There were also a few instances of the Abomination of Desolation beginning with Antiochus IV Epiphanes... followed by the Roman authorities not permitting circumcision.
Its not futuristic...
In any case it was present tense so its in the past.
- 4 beasts Daniel 7
1. Babylon
2. Persia
3. Greece
4. islam
Clues :
1 will attack holy people (islam attacking Jew and Christian) – Dan 7:25,Rev 13:7
2. will change law ( established sharia law)- dan 7:25
3 will change time (established hijria calendar) – Dan 7:25
4. will insult God ( deny Jesus divinity)- Dan 7:25, Rev 13:6
5 will insult God holy place (build mosque in temple Jerusalem)- Rev 13:6
6 will spread with sword – Rev 13:10
- Angel clearly stated that 10 horns ( Rev 17, Dan 7) are kings from 4th or 7th kingdom. They are:
1. muhamad
2 Abu bakr
3 umar
4 utman
5 ali
6 hasan
7 husein
8 khalid ibn al walid
9 Abu ubaidah
10 jafar bin abi talib
>> 10 horns purpose to give power and authority to the beast (rev 17:13). Those 10 leaders committing jihad wars to spread islam (to give power and authority). they will rule for one hour that's 41 years (one prophetic day equal to 1000 years) started 620 (islam perfected when mohamed ascend to heaven-isra mijrad and receive allah order to pray 5 times/day) until 661 when ali,hasan,husein subdue to muawiyah (founder of umayah caliphate)
little horn: muawiyah
after mohammed died he replaced by 4 caliphs, abu bakr, umar both father in law, utman, ali both son in law of mohamed so all blood related to mohamed. problem arise when utman replaced by ali, muawiyah who's blood related to utman but not to ali protest said no need blood related to mohamed to rule islam anyone can as long as justified and starting rebellion (first fitna – islam internal conflict) this is the origin of sunni vs shia conflict. in 660 AD muawiyah gain control most of islamic caliphate territory and jan 661 ali died months later ali sons hasan (5th caliph) and husain(2nd imam of shia) surrender to muawiyah new caliphate system (non blood/sunni) last for 1260 years from 660 (muawiyah gain control of IC) until 1920 (first meeting of league of nation, fall of ottoman)
7 heads are kings/kingdom, 5 fallen, one is, the other not come but when he does come he must remain for a little while (rev 17:10), the 8th would represent the beast belong to 7.
5 fallen :
1 Egypt
2 Asiria
3 Babylon
4 Persia
5 Macedonian Greece
6 Rome -one is
7 islamic caliphate – blood related leadership – for little while 620-661 AD
8 islamic caliphate – non blood related/sunni – is represent the beast belong to 7
sunni represent 90% of islamic population
The beast who once, now is not and will come out of the abyss is represent king priest system. During John era this system is not exist but exist during Sumerian Akkadian empire (once was). Sargon king of Akkadia priest of Anu, later this king priest system re-appear in islam know as the caliph.
I copied it from a comment in another website from a person named donal. That website has an interesting comparison between the number 666 from islamic and Christian perspective. Link below
Islam and 666 - islamrevealed.org
1. Babylon
2. Persia
3. Greece
4. islam
Clues :
1 will attack holy people (islam attacking Jew and Christian) – Dan 7:25,Rev 13:7
2. will change law ( established sharia law)- dan 7:25
3 will change time (established hijria calendar) – Dan 7:25
4. will insult God ( deny Jesus divinity)- Dan 7:25, Rev 13:6
5 will insult God holy place (build mosque in temple Jerusalem)- Rev 13:6
6 will spread with sword – Rev 13:10
- Angel clearly stated that 10 horns ( Rev 17, Dan 7) are kings from 4th or 7th kingdom. They are:
1. muhamad
2 Abu bakr
3 umar
4 utman
5 ali
6 hasan
7 husein
8 khalid ibn al walid
9 Abu ubaidah
10 jafar bin abi talib
>> 10 horns purpose to give power and authority to the beast (rev 17:13). Those 10 leaders committing jihad wars to spread islam (to give power and authority). they will rule for one hour that's 41 years (one prophetic day equal to 1000 years) started 620 (islam perfected when mohamed ascend to heaven-isra mijrad and receive allah order to pray 5 times/day) until 661 when ali,hasan,husein subdue to muawiyah (founder of umayah caliphate)
little horn: muawiyah
after mohammed died he replaced by 4 caliphs, abu bakr, umar both father in law, utman, ali both son in law of mohamed so all blood related to mohamed. problem arise when utman replaced by ali, muawiyah who's blood related to utman but not to ali protest said no need blood related to mohamed to rule islam anyone can as long as justified and starting rebellion (first fitna – islam internal conflict) this is the origin of sunni vs shia conflict. in 660 AD muawiyah gain control most of islamic caliphate territory and jan 661 ali died months later ali sons hasan (5th caliph) and husain(2nd imam of shia) surrender to muawiyah new caliphate system (non blood/sunni) last for 1260 years from 660 (muawiyah gain control of IC) until 1920 (first meeting of league of nation, fall of ottoman)
7 heads are kings/kingdom, 5 fallen, one is, the other not come but when he does come he must remain for a little while (rev 17:10), the 8th would represent the beast belong to 7.
5 fallen :
1 Egypt
2 Asiria
3 Babylon
4 Persia
5 Macedonian Greece
6 Rome -one is
7 islamic caliphate – blood related leadership – for little while 620-661 AD
8 islamic caliphate – non blood related/sunni – is represent the beast belong to 7
sunni represent 90% of islamic population
The beast who once, now is not and will come out of the abyss is represent king priest system. During John era this system is not exist but exist during Sumerian Akkadian empire (once was). Sargon king of Akkadia priest of Anu, later this king priest system re-appear in islam know as the caliph.
I copied it from a comment in another website from a person named donal. That website has an interesting comparison between the number 666 from islamic and Christian perspective. Link below
Islam and 666 - islamrevealed.org
sooda
Veteran Member
What a shame this heresy has spread to Islam as well.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
This has nothing to do whatsoever about the issue of genuflecting. What you have done is to take something that is beautiful, namely giving honor to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then turn it into something very ugly. And I can't help but notice that you didn't say where you got this from, so why is that?Yep, metis
Do you know about the Inquisition?
View attachment 29096View attachment 29097
During those times, when you happen to be a Jew
Your properties would be confiscated
Your business closed
And you are faced with conversion or death
Spanish Inquisition - Wikipedia
False conversions
The Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians. It had no power to investigate, prosecute, or convict Jews, Muslims, or any open member of other religions. Anyone who was known to identify as either Jew or Muslim was outside of Inquisitorial jurisdiction and could only be tried by the King. All the inquisition could do in some of those cases was to deport the individual according to the King's law, but usually, even that had to go through a Civil Tribunal. The Inquisition only had power to try those who self-identified as Christians (initially for taxation purposes, later to avoid deportation as well) while practicing another religion de facto. Even those were treated as Christians. If they confessed or identified not as "judeizantes" but as fully practicing Jews, they fell back into the previously explained category and could not be targeted (they would have pleaded guilty to lying about being Christians previously though).
Expulsion of Jews. Jewish conversos
Though not subject to the Inquisition, Jews who refused to convert or leave Spain were called heretics and could be burned to death on a stake
The Spanish Inquisition had been established in part to prevent conversos from engaging in Jewish practices, which, as Christians, they were supposed to have given up. However this remedy for securing the orthodoxy of conversos was eventually deemed inadequate since the main justification the monarchy gave for formally expelling all Jews from Spain was the "great harm suffered by Christians (i.e., conversos) from the contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith", according to the 1492 edict.[49]
The Alhambra Decree, issued in January 1492, gave the choice between expulsion and conversion. It was among the few expulsion orders that allowed conversion as an alternative and is used as a proof of the religious, not racial, element of the measure. The enforcement of this decree was very unequal however, with the focus mainly on coastal and southern regions-those at risk of Ottoman invasion- and a more gradual and ineffective enforcement towards the interior.[8]
Historic accounts of the numbers of Jews who left Spain were based on speculation, and some aspects were exaggerated by early accounts and historians: Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. While few reliable statistics exist for the expulsion, modern estimates based on tax returns and population estimates of communities are much lower, with Kamen stating that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews and 200,000 conversos, about 40,000 emigrated.[50] The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (where the entire community was forcibly converted in 1497) and to North Africa. The Jews of the kingdom of Aragon fled to other Christian areas including Italy, rather than to Muslim lands as is often assumed.[51] Although the vast majority of conversos simply assimilated into the Catholic dominant culture, a minority continued to practice Judaism in secret, gradually migrated throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, mainly to areas where Sephardic communities were already present as a result of the Alhambra Decree.[52]
The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted until 1530. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to 3% of the total. There was a rebound of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews was discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588; and there was a rise in denunciations of conversos in the last decade of the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition, founded in 1536. This led to a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691, during a number of autos-da-fé in Majorca, 37 chuetas, or conversos of Majorca, were burned.[53]
During the eighteenth century the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition decreased significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Córdoba in 1818, was the last person tried for being a crypto-Jew.[54]
And, yes, I am quite familiar with Church history with all of its warts and beauty-marks, and if you read your Bible you'll also see that this was true with the apostles. Maybe take a look at your own church's history objectively, and while you're at it maybe take an objective look at yourself and why you post such bigotry.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"-- Jesus.
BTW, did you ever do an in-depth look at the history of Protestantism? Maybe you should check it out if you haven't. I grew up in a fundamentalist Protestant church with thoughts about going into the ministry, so there were many things I checked up on, including what these churches and their leaders historically did, and if you think they all acted out of Jesus' love, well you got another think coming, I'll tell ya.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Oops, I think you made a mistake as I wrote the above.
sooda
Veteran Member
Yes, I know. Bears repeating.Oops, I think you made a mistake as I wrote the above.
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
That is no mark
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
My golly - I'm no bigot.
I live in a 3rd world country for heaven's sake's.
It is history.
I showed you the history.
The church history with popes have apologized it happened.
Pope Asks Forgiveness for Errors Of the Church Over 2,000 Years
By ALESSANDRA STANLEYMARCH 13, 2000
Saying ''we humbly ask forgiveness,''John Paul II today delivered the most sweeping papal apology ever, repenting for the errors of his church over the last 2,000 years.
''We cannot not recognize the betrayal of the Gospel committed by some of our brothers, especially in the second millennium,'' the pope, dressed in purple robes for Lent, said in his homily. ''Recognizing the deviations of the past serves to reawaken our consciences to the compromises of the present.''
Pope Asks Forgiveness for Errors Of the Church Over 2,000 Years
List of apologies made by Pope John Paul II
List of apologies made by Pope John Paul II - Wikipedia
Now with regards to Protestantism. I'm no Protestant.
I believe Protestants came from Europe then to the Americas
and it grew there in Americas
Basically Protestantism is Western in origin.
So I am totally oblivious to Protestantism
Protestants too have their share of killings
Protestantism believe in the Trinity
So with the originator, the Roman Church.
Used to believe that stuff too when I was Catholic
sooda
Veteran Member
Its metaphor.. When you spend some time studying first century history and the 200 years before the birth of Christ the symbolism will make more sense.
And don't forget.. the scriptures repeat stuff over and over again using different metaphors or codes to describe the same stuff.
Well, the more the merrier....
We are all born to die anyway. The world may end at anytime anyway and I think we should make use of our little time here on earth to do good and prepare ourselves. To be a better person, we need to understand and know ourself. Spirituality should be spread inwards not just outwards.
When will there be no chaos? That is when time ceases to be. When will time cease to be? At the end of the world. When will world end? When everyone is without diversity and thinks the same way. When change is a constant no more. Who is the world's most dangerous animal? Human beings. So who or what will be the beast? It might be a human being.
sooda
Veteran Member
Well, the more the merrier....
We are all born to die anyway. The world may end at anytime anyway and I think we should make use of our little time here on earth to do good and prepare ourselves. To be a better person, we need to understand and know ourself. Spirituality should be spread inwards not just outwards.
When will there be no chaos? That is when time ceases to be. When will time cease to be? At the end of the world. When will world end? When everyone is without diversity and thinks the same way. When change is a constant no more. Who is the world's most dangerous animal? Human beings. So who or what will be the beast? It might be a human being.
Maybe so, but Revelation was written for people of the first century AD.
Yes. But now we are in the 21st century and have no way to ask our 1st century ancestors on what they thought. The temperature, the animals that lived then, the plants that grew then and the social and political influences then is no more and it would be difficult to understand. Perhaps when certain things pass by we might get some insight into what the revelation is all about. Perhaps some of these signs predicted have already passed by us without our knowing. So best is to prepare ourselves to whatever worlds end that comes. Being good takes a lot of practice and time.
There is a certain fascinating order within the chaos of this world. Certain rules in the way the world runs itself. There is such systematic and compatibility in the construction of biological body. Everything seems to have a purpose. So it is impossible to reject the possibility of a supreme authority, whom we may call God. Whether God is as depicted in religion is upto the individual thoughts. Even if you take 100 people from the same belief and church and ask them to describe their God to us, the 100 people will give 100 different depictions.
Then when we ask different people to interpret the revelations, each one will give a different interpretations. So what we are left is a vast number of different possibilities. So what is the truth? For that we might have to invent a time machine and find the person to whom this revelation appeared, for then we can get the original persons' thoughts.
There is a certain fascinating order within the chaos of this world. Certain rules in the way the world runs itself. There is such systematic and compatibility in the construction of biological body. Everything seems to have a purpose. So it is impossible to reject the possibility of a supreme authority, whom we may call God. Whether God is as depicted in religion is upto the individual thoughts. Even if you take 100 people from the same belief and church and ask them to describe their God to us, the 100 people will give 100 different depictions.
Then when we ask different people to interpret the revelations, each one will give a different interpretations. So what we are left is a vast number of different possibilities. So what is the truth? For that we might have to invent a time machine and find the person to whom this revelation appeared, for then we can get the original persons' thoughts.