End Time Hysterics

[Meh_Gerbil]

I apologize in advance if I come across as sounding like Hal Lindsey or some other end times whack job that likes to scream 'anti-Christ' every time a new political figure ascends; however, I got to thinking about the mark of the beast and couldn't help but wonder if new technology is actually going to make this whole thing possible.

See:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=573&e=1&u=/nm/20050314/od_nm/odd_germany_fingerprint_dc

New security technology that allows shoppers to buy goods by simply reading a fingerprint -- although not new technology the idea that goods and services could eventually become 'cashless', 'checkless', and 'cardless' is a new application. If you imagine the technology being used to read the retina being coupled with this could we have the 'mark on the hand and on the forehead' right there?

There is every reason to embrace this type of technology. It could eliminate bad checks, the need to carry cash, and the vunerabilities of credit cards. While it is possible to guess a PIN number, someone isn't likely to guess your thumbprint (especially if matched with a face from a database).

Anyways, just a goofy thought there.

[Jordan]

I apologize in advance if I come across as sounding like Hal Lindsey or some other end times whack job that likes to scream 'anti-Christ' every time a new political figure ascends; however, I got to thinking about the mark of the beast and couldn't help but wonder if new technology is actually going to make this whole thing possible.

See:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=573&e=1&u=/nm/20050314/od_nm/odd_germany_fingerprint_dc

New security technology that allows shoppers to buy goods by simply reading a fingerprint -- although not new technology the idea that goods and services could eventually become 'cashless', 'checkless', and 'cardless' is a new application. If you imagine the technology being used to read the retina being coupled with this could we have the 'mark on the hand and on the forehead' right there?

There is every reason to embrace this type of technology. It could eliminate bad checks, the need to carry cash, and the vunerabilities of credit cards. While it is possible to guess a PIN number, someone isn't likely to guess your thumbprint (especially if matched with a face from a database).

Anyways, just a goofy thought there.

Why is it that people think that there has to be microchips and advanced forms of technology for this mark of the beast thing to be made possible? It seems to me this could be done with just a simple tatoo. A vendor would just have to check a persons hand or forehead to see if they had the tatoo; no need for high-tech devices to read some sort of microchip or bar-code.

[Ted]

Would you mind reading Rev 13 again? The natural reading places the Mark during a 1,260 "day" period that comes after the deadly wound is healed. That wound, according to the natural reading, was the fall of Pagan Rome in 476AD, with the healing the rise of Papal Rome.

What does that have to do with now?

Ted

[Meh_Gerbil]

Would you mind reading Rev 13 again? The natural reading places the Mark during a 1,260 "day" period that comes after the deadly wound is healed. That wound, according to the natural reading, was the fall of Pagan Rome in 476AD, with the healing the rise of Papal Rome.

What does that have to do with now?

Ted

I'm not going to get into an eschatology argument here -- I'm obviously presenting this information from a dispensationalist point of view.

[jesterbr549]

Why is it that people think that there has to be microchips and advanced forms of technology for this mark of the beast thing to be made possible? It seems to me this could be done with just a simple tatoo. A vendor would just have to check a persons hand or forehead to see if they had the tatoo; no need for high-tech devices to read some sort of microchip or bar-code.

Shalom Jordon. I used to think the same thing for the Nazi's used tattoos on the Jews. But then I found out that IBM actually designed the first computers (the punch card type) for the Nazi war machine and this is how Hitler, apparently, kept track of everything. So, though you are correct in that it could be done with tattoos etc, it is also highly probable that they will use computers to aid this and to keep track of everything and, if they do, the use of the computer chip will greatly expidite that system. In other words, both are possible scenarios, but it is looking more and more like they will use the chip.


Would you mind reading Rev 13 again? The natural reading places the Mark during a 1,260 "day" period that comes after the deadly wound is healed. That wound, according to the natural reading, was the fall of Pagan Rome in 476AD, with the healing the rise of Papal Rome. What does that have to do with now? Ted

I disagree. George N.H. Peters has shown in his work The Theocratic Kingdom that the Roman Empire never received a head wound until the abdication of Napolean for there was always an Emperor on the Throne, sometimes two, ruling either in the East or the West and both were recognized as such. The so-called Holy Roman Empire is a mis-nomer for the Papacy received their authority from the Empire, not vice versa and thus the Empire was unchanged until recent years.

Further, it is after this "head wound" to the Roman Empire in the days of Napolean, that the four beasts of Daniel 7 begin their rise from the sea during this interim.

Also, as other passages make clear, you can not separate the King from the Kingdom and if the Kingdom receives a head wound than so also will the King and it is to that "head wound" that Revelation 13 is refering to.

For instance - when did the Roman Empire get interned in "the abyss" and when did it rise up out of the abyss?

Further, when was the mark of the Beast instituted in the Roman Empire in 476-479AD during which the entire world had to take this mark or be beheaded. Finally, at the end of that 1260 days all those who were beheaded will "live and reign with Christ for a thousand years" and thus, this reign should have ended circa 1480AD and we should know about it and it should be easily pointed out through history.

So, when did all that occur?

[GhostontheNet]

Why not sidestep the papacy altogether and admit that Otho is the Beast revived, conforming to the Nero Redivivus legend and the language of the Apocalypse. One of my old posts at another forum should come in handy here;

I will here first of all state that I was an orthodox preterist and a postmillenialist even before reading the Last Disciple, and will take the time to defend Hanegraaff. Out of curiousity, had you actually read the book? As if so, you seem to have forgotten that Hanegraaff takes the time to discuss how the value of Nero's name in Hebrew gematria totals 666, in other words Hanegraaff believes Nero is the anti-Christ and not Titus. Thus you counter that Titus never rised from the dead is nailed from the beginning. I will also state here and now that what I write will most likely be a spoiler to the series, as due to my research in the era, I spot what exactly Hanegraaff is foreshadowing long down the road like a sniper scope. As to Nero, I will put some interesting data on the table;

Nero died at the age of thirty-one, on the anniversary of Octavia's murder. In the widespread general rejoicing, citizens ran through the streets wearing caps of liberty. But there were people who used to lay spring and summer flowers on his grave for a long time, and had statues made of him, wearing his fringed toga, which they put up on the Rostra; they even continued to circulate his edicts, pretending he was still alive and would soon return to confound his enemies..... In fact, twenty years later, when I was a young man, a mysterious individual came forward claiming to be Nero; and that so magical was the sound of his name in the Parthians' ears that they supported him to the best of their ability, and only handed him over with great reluctance. (Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (Nero) 6.57) And remember, skeptics could accuse us (wrongly so), of pretending that Christ is still alive rather than actually believing it.

About this time Achaia and Asia were thrown into a groundless panic by a rumour that 'Nero was at hand'. The accounts of his death being many and various, people were all the more inclined to allege and to believe that he was still alive. I shall mention in the course of this work the attempts and fate of the other pretenders [to be Nero -Ghost]. (Tacitus, The Histories 2.8) Tacitus then moves on to describe one pretender in A.D. 69, shortly after Nero's death.

The phenomena introduced here is what is usually called by scholars, the 'Nero Redivivus Myth'. And besides these more obvious examples, it also appears in apocalyptic literature, even centuries after Nero's possible lifespan assuming he did after all escape death; a startling implication indeed. One notable example comes from the second century Christian apocalypse The Ascension of Isaiah; AND now Hezekiah and Josab my son, these are the days of the completion of the world.After it is consummated, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being; yea, he will descent from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself (even) this king. Will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands. This ruler in the form of that king will come and there will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will hearken unto him in all that he desires. And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon to appear at the sixth hour. And all that he hath desired he will do in the world: he will do and speak like the Beloved and he will say: "I am God and before me there has been none." And all the people in the world will believe in him. 8. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: "This is God and beside him there is no other." And they greater number of those who shall have been associated together in order to receive the Beloved, he will turn aside after him. And there will be the power of his miracles in every city and region. And he will set up his image before him in every city. And he shall bear sway three years and seven months and twenty-seven days.And many believers and saints having seen Him for whom they were hoping, who was crucified, Jesus the Lord Christ, [after that I, Isaiah, had seen Him who was crucified and ascended] and those also who were believers in Him - of these few in those days will be left as His servants, while they flee from desert to desert, awaiting the coming of the Beloved. And after (one thousand) three hundred and thirty-two days the Lord will come with His angels and with the armies of the holy ones from the seventh heaven with the glory of the seventh heaven, and He will drag Beliar into Gehenna and also his armies. And He will give rest of the godly whom He shall find in the body in this world, [and the sun wil be ashamed]: And to all who because of (their) faith in Him have execrated Beliar and his kings. But the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are (now) stored up on high in the seventh heaven: with the Lord they will come, whose spirits are clothed, they will descend and be present in the world, and He will strengthen those, who have been found in the body, together with the saints, in the garments of the saints, and the Lord will minister to those who have kept watch in this world. And afterwards they will turn themselves upward in their garments, and their body will be left in the world. Then the voice of the Beloved will in wrath rebuke the things of heaven and the things of earth and the things of earth and the mountains and the hills and the cities and the desert and the forests and the angel of the sun and that of the moon, and all things wherein Beliar manifested himself and acted openly in this world, and there will be [a resurrection and] a judgment in their midst in those days, and the Beloved will cause fire to go forth from Him, and it will consume all the godless, and they will be as though they had not been created. (The Ascension of Isaiah 4:1-18) As you are a futurist, no doubt the theology of this should sound familiar. But, you may say, there is no indication that Nero redivivus is Beliar (i.e. the anti-Christ) in this as of yet unfulfilled prediction from a non-inspired writer. On the contrary, the text in specific accuses him of murdering his mother, and as I show in the notes section of my burgeoning fanpage of The Last Disciple http://www.geocities.com/thelastdiscipleghost/notes.html Nero had murdered his mother, everyone knew it, and a vast multitude of classical writers hold it against him.

However, like all of the other predictions of Nero's return "to confound his enemies", it ultimately failed. There is in fact, only one example of a sucessful prediction relating to this myth, that of the Apocalypse of St. John given to him on Patmos. The interpretive key to the passage of the beast revived in Revelation 13 is, I believe, is this explanation of that text in Revelation 17:7-11;

But the angel said to me, "Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. (Revelation 17:7-11 ESV) First we start with a reiteration of the whole beast revived thing, and then an explanation. For these purposes, Hanegraaff states my line of thought well; "'Seven hills.' Rome. That is very obvious. I understood it the first time I read the letter, as would anybody in the world. 'Five kings have fallen; and the sixth now reigns'? Any child who knows Roman history will answer that." He ticked off on his fingers as he named the emperors [or more accurately, Caesars -Ghost] in succession. "Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and now Nero."
Azariah nodded. "Strictly speaking, Julius Caesar did not allow himself to be called emperor, but he was a de facto emperor and everyone since has referred to him as one [after all, coins minted by him which I have seen with my very eyes declare that he is dictator for life in Latin -Ghost]. So, yes, it is an obvious reference to the first six emperors after the fall of the Republic."
"So..." Damian spoke more slowly as he tried to think it through. "'The seventh is yet to come.' The next emperor? A brief reign. Then the eighth [who is also the sixth, i.e. Nero, allowing for there to still be only seven heads with one revived -Ghost] will go to his doom.?"
"One could easily read into that the prediction of a rapid sucession of emperors. 'Doom' suggests unnatural deaths."
Damian felt another surge of excitement. "This is suggesting assasination?"
"Several in succession. Perhaps civil war." (Hank Hanegraaff, The Last Disciple p. 339-340) Now, here's what Hank hasn't told the reader yet as the story has not yet progressed thus far. Nero continued his persecution until its total durations was three and a half years, exactly as predicted in Revelation. Then, he was driven to suicide by the success of Galba's revolt, ending the persecution of Christians and elevating Galba to the emperor's throne. From there, Galba, the seventh, reigned for seven months before being assasinated by Otho, a short time indeed just as John predicted, whereupon, it was Otho who took the throne as the eighth, meaning he must function as Nero Redivivus. As it so happened, there is strong evidence that he was treated as such;

Hence he proceeded to the palace, where he recieved fulsome congratulations and flattery from all present, making no protest even when the crowd called him Nero. Indeed he undoubtably allowed some of Nero's condemned busts and statues to be replaced, and reinstated procurators and freedmen of his whom Galba had dismissed; and the first decree of the new reign was a grant of a half a million gold pieces for the completion of the Golden House [which Nero built -Ghost]. (Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (Otho) 8.7)

He [Otho -Ghost] is believed also to have thought of celebrating Nero's memory as a means of attracting public support. Some persons actually erected statues of Nero, and there were even times when the populace and the soldiers saluted Otho as Otho Nero, as though thereby enhancing his fame and dignity. (Tacitus, The Histories 1.78)

I could go on with documentation. Also, the life of Nero and the life of Otho have an astounding amount of similarities and overlap, even ending the same way, for whereas Nero commited suicide with a dagger to the throat after being provoked to do so by Galba's rebellion, Otho also comitted suicide with a dagger to the throat at being provoked by Vitellius' rebellion. It may, I believe, be accurately said, that Otho, the eighth as divinely predicted, embodies John's beast revived by functioning as Nero and truly returning to defeat Galba who had caused Nero's death. Although I have no time, I hope to deal with the other points later.

[End post]

As to a "natural reading", I do not believe the Apocalypse is so much interested in chronology at this point as to require that the mark be given after the Beast is revived.

[Sheepdog]

alternatively, the beast could use a red hot brander to mark your forehead and wrist, much like the Romans sometimes marked their slaves in John's time.

to be brutally honest, i've never seen the coorelation between "cashlessness" and what is described in the text as the mark of the beast. maybe it's something i missed in the text, but mark of the beast need not entail cashless society.

[Meh_Gerbil]

alternatively, the beast could use a red hot brander to mark your forehead and wrist, much like the Romans sometimes marked their slaves in John's time.

to be brutally honest, i've never seen the coorelation between "cashlessness" and what is described in the text as the mark of the beast. maybe it's something i missed in the text, but mark of the beast need not entail cashless society.

I think the reason it makes me wonder is because:

1: It would be hard to sell tattoos to the public -- and they wouldn't be secure because they could be easily re-created in any tattoo parlor in town.

2: Thumb-prints as a secure way to bank and buy goods and services would be easy to sell to a society plagued by identity theft -- I know I'm for it.

3: Unlike a tattoo, the thumbprint or retina scan could tie a person to their medical history, financial history and so forth in an instant.

I'm not really aguing for this -- I cannot say I even really care -- I just find it interesting.

[GhostontheNet]

This whole discussion on whether microchips or tatoos or any other such strikes me as totally out of base with the intent of the Apocalypse's intent. Personally, I think the mark was from the beginning a reverse parody on the seal of the lamb (surely that the second beast is said to have horns like a lamb is no coincidence). Personally, I think John intends to communicate that the mark of the beast is the worship of Caesar imposed by the imperial cultus (some documentation on the cultus can be found on a part of my incrementally updated The Last Disciple fanpage at http://www.geocities.com/thelastdiscipleghost/imperialcultus.html , though I still feel the present page is but a shadow of what it will be, the parts of the Ben Witherington cite of the cultus' economic influence should be the most helpful here).

[Sheepdog]

I'm not really aguing for this -- I cannot say I even really care -- I just find it interesting.

ok, fair enough.

FWIW, i also find it interesting to speculate about these kinds of things.

[Eric C.]

Hysterics is right --

The "Mark of the Beast" -- aside from its historical locus which someone above rightly pointed out as being Caesar worship -- is UNBELIEF. It is NOT any kind of physical branding, tattooing, microchip, or any other such nonsense. The mark is evident from a person's beliefs (mark on the head) and from their deeds (mark on the hand).

End of story. Repent and believe, and the "Mark" is erased.

I hate dispensationalism.