Survival Guide to the Biblical Apocalypse

the

apocalypse

doomsday the end of the world is a grim theme that many world religions have approached in christianity the last book of the bible the book of revelation contains a terrifying vision of cataclysmic events demonic horsemen and even some accurate multi-eyed bible angels for For good measure, this book is without a doubt the strangest and most disturbing book in the entire Bible, so naturally, it is a topic I had to cover on this channel. You may have heard of the book of Revelation, but you may not be as familiar with what actually happens in it. book, for example, where does the number 666 fit into all this?

If you are looking to learn more about the

biblical

apocalypse

, you are in the right place. I've put together this helpful introductory video. You never know when you might need it. Before we begin, it is worth noting that I am going to examine the book of Revelation from a secular, non-religious perspective. The book is highly symbolic and probably should not be taken literally, so at occasional points throughout the video I will explain what some of the symbolism may mean using the interpretations of

biblical

scholars disclaimer along the way bring about the apocalypse the word apocalypse itself comes from the Greek and literally means to discover something, which is why it is actually called the book of revelation, everything has to do with something that is being In this case, the end of the world is revealed.

There's a rich history of these apocalypses in the Old Testament, but they don't necessarily have anything to do with the end times, sometimes they're just these amazing visions of the supernatural, like a glimpse of God. throne in the book of Ezekiel or a dream featuring four strange beasts in the book of Daniel the book of revelation is from the perspective of a guy named John we don't know much about this character he is not the same John who baptized people in the Jordan is not the same person who wrote the fourth gospel. No, this is a completely different John.

It turns out that there are many people called John in the Bible. In fact, some scholars believe that this particular John may not have existed at all like most books. of the bible the book of revelation was written and edited by anonymous authors, so john may have been a pseudonym. Scholars say the oldest part of the book was probably written around 65 AD. during the reign of Emperor Nero and may have come to an end. It was formed around 95 AD. during the reign of Emperor Domitian. Both emperors, particularly the first emperor, were known for their brutal persecutions of the first Christians.

An important detail to understand the worldview behind the book of revelation. It was written in a terrifying time. for these early Christians and their anxieties were captured on the pages containing a terrifying collection of visions about the end of the world. Let us move on to the content of the vision itself. We begin on the idyllic Greek island of Patmos, where our main character, Jon, has been. exiled behind him, he suddenly hears a booming voice calling his name. He turns around only to see a spectral figure bathed in brilliant light surrounded by seven golden lanterns. This nameless person, who some believe to be Jesus himself, has a very strange appearance that he is wrapped in. white with eyes like fire and protruding from his mouth is a sharp two-edged sword.

Yes, this description is in the text and believe me, it's not the strangest thing we've seen yet. This strange figure tells Jon to write to the seven churches along the way. the mediterranean to warn them about what is about to happen once he does, jon is immediately taken to heaven from there, john gives a spectacular account of everything he sees in front of him: a giant throne with 24 smaller thrones surrounding it . The central throne is so shiny like so many gemstones that you can't actually make out the figure sitting on it, but we can safely assume it must be God himself, but your attention is quickly drawn to four strange multi-eyed beasts that are floating nearby. of the throne, although the Bible calls them simply living creatures, you may already be familiar with them as exact angels of the Bible, good friends of the channel, at this point here is a description he gives of them around the throne and on each side of the throne.

They are four living beings full of eyes in front and behind, the first living being is like a lion, the second living being is like an ox, the third living being with a face like a human face, and the fourth living being like an eagle flying, the four living creatures each one of them with six wings are full of eyes on all sides and inside day and night without ceasing they sing a very strange description in fact a winged lion humanoid ox and an eagle covered with eyes from head to toe and singing praises to god eternally but This point You may have already seen my video on the exact angels of the Bible and you may be familiar with these creatures in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

They appear in a magnificent vision that the Hebrew prophet gives of God's heavenly throne. In that video I suggested that they probably developed from the Mesopotamian cherubs known as lamasu, unfortunately, however, none of those eyed wheels known as ophenim are found in this account, not much more is said about these four supernatural hybrids other than this, although some have interpreted its multiple eyes as a symbol. of God's all-seeing nature, others see it as deliberately creepy now I don't know about you, but I certainly see why you think this after your description of the four living creatures, before Jon arrives, another strange beast that is described like a lamb although it has seven horns and seven eyes because of course it has them, it also seems that it has been killed because of this many associate this being with jesus, who is sometimes called the lamb of god, whatever that is, the lamb creature holds in its hooves a large scroll with seven wax seals with this, the apocalypse is really underway when the first seal is broken, a man appears on a white horse wielding a bow and wearing a crown, this is the incarnation of conquest, the first of the four horsemen of the seal of the apocalypse. two are broken and a rider comes out, a stilted red horse holding a big sword, this is the horseman of war, in my opinion, something similar to conquest, but any cl3 is broken and a rider comes out on a black horse holding a scale, this is the rider. of hunger the fourth seal is finally broken and a rider comes out on a pale horse the incarnation of death itself with four of the seven seals broken the lamb creature gives the four riders a quarter of the population of the earth to destroy by means of violence famine, pestilence or death, okay, then there are three seals left and three unpleasant events left to transpire.

Fortunately, seal five is a bit fake. In reality, nothing happens other than the souls of the martyrs are given nice white robes and told to wait a little until the final judgment. but when seal six is ​​opened, things get really unpleasant for the people on Earth as soon as the seal is broken and there is a giant earthquake, an earthquake so big that, quote, every mountain and island was removed from its place. If we take it literally, this type of earthquake would far exceed the magnitudes of the largest earthquakes on record, such as the 1960 Valladolid earthquake in Chile, which measured 9.5 on the Richter scale.

An earthquake that large would be particularly bad news for anyone living on tectonic fault lines, as would a catastrophic earthquake. The sixth seal. It would also turn the sky black if it occurred, perpetual darkness would be devastating to the Earth, especially plant life, which requires sunlight to photosynthesize. Interestingly, such events have occurred before and are often caused by large volcanic eruptions in 536 CE during a period of European history known aptly as the Dark Ages. A giant volcanic eruption believed to have come from Indonesia triggered what is known as a volcanic winter. , this is when large amounts of volcanic ash enter the atmosphere obscuring the sunlight and causing rapid cooling written from Constantinople in 536 Byzantine historian Procopius wrote that quote: During this year the most fearsome omen took place because the sun was emitting its light dull and seemed extremely like the sun in eclipse because the rays it threw were not clear, other contemporary writers as far away as Ireland have attested. the same extreme weather indicating that this phenomenon may have been widespread at the time and that the earth was indeed in a volcanic winter if giant earthquakes and volcanic winters were not enough.

The sixth seal also describes how the stars from heaven have now fallen to the earth. If a real star were to collide with the Earth, then that would actually start over, as the Earth would be engulfed by a much larger ball of flame and plasma, so it is more likely that the author is referring to a meteor shower. Often these are pretty harmless Earth orbits through lots of space rocks every day, resulting in beautiful shooting stars, things get dangerous; However, when these rocks are large enough to not burn up completely in the atmosphere, one such occasion was the Tunguska event in 1908, where an approximately 100 meter meteoroid landed in eastern Siberia, flattening the surrounding forest of up to 2100 square kilometers i.e. 830 square miles, being in Siberia the land was sparsely populated so it is believed that only three people died if this had landed in a city in 1908 then it would have been truly catastrophic.

Seal six is ​​quite brutal mega earthquakes perpetual darkness and meteorite impacts but there is one more seal left the seventh seal fortunately just like seal five seal seven does not bring too much calamity the book simply says quote there was a silence in heaven for about half Time maybe the many-eyed living creatures of old can finally have a break from singing praises to God. You would have thought that the seven seals were enough to end the earth. More bad things are on the way almost as soon as the seventh seal is opened, seven angels appear holding. seven trumpets now you've probably noticed that the number seven appears quite a bit in the book of Revelation seven golden lampstands seven seals now seven trumpets the number seven is important throughout the Bible, for example in the book of Genesis it supposedly took seven days to create universe in the ancient world, this number seven was often considered the number of completion.

The idea that the number seven was a special number carried over into later Christian tradition, where you also get the seven deadly sins, which by the way are another topic I've covered on the Forget What You've Seen channel about cute angels with little ones. and sweet trumpets these seven trumpets are about to destroy the earth it is about to get dark and in the case of the fall of the trumpets, literally, let's quickly repeat what each trumpet sounds, one trumpet rains fire and hail upon the earth , soon forest fires ravage the planet and a third of the earth's vegetation is burned, two trumpets sound and a large object the size of a mountain falls into the sea, transforming a third of the oceans. in blood also kills a third of the innocent sea creatures, which is quite sad, three trumpet blasts and a star falls from the sky and lands in the rivers of the earth, the star is even called wormwood, actually too It is a type of semi-poisonous herb. known as mugwort, which makes sense in the book of revelation because wormwood contaminates all of the world's fresh water supplies, making it bitter and toxic, trumpet four blasts and a third of the sun goes out enveloping the planet in darkness, it seems that we have already had this.

On the sixth seal, this discrepancy has led some scholars to suggest that a different author is writing here, perhaps unaware of the previous destruction wrought by the seven seals. Trumpet five, in my opinion, is the strangest of all. An angel descends to earth with a large key, the key opens a large trap that reaches a bottomless well and from the well comes thick black smoke that eclipses any remaining sunlight, then giant locusts emerged from the dense smoke and swarmed. and they cause plagues throughout the land. They are not just any giant locusts, they are giant locusts from the book of revelation and that is why they are given a very disturbing description.

Here it goes, they have human faces and long flowing hair, they wear armor and little crowns on their heads, oh, they also have dandelions and giant teeth. scorpion stingers because, again, why aren't these creatures instructed to sting people, but not enough to kill them? In fact, it says that people will not be able to die during this time, no matter how much they want to. This is absolute nightmare fuel, but there are still two trumpets left tosound, trumpet six is ​​sounded and four angels are released to kill a third of humanity, all of whom helped exterminate a third of the human population, the final trumpet, trumpet seven does not cause any destruction, instead, There is a little hymn for those. in the sky and some lightning here and there, but there is no major destruction on the earth right now.

I imagine the world is practically uninhabitable. I'm starting to think that calling this video a

survival

guide

may seem a little pointless. It has turned to blood things are on fire there is no more sunlight and there are giant lobster-like manticores biting people the book of revelation has really gone out of its way to paint the most disastrous picture possible believe it or not there is still more troubles to come, but In the form of three giant monsters, first there is a giant red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, so two of the seven heads have two horns each.

The dragon's ten are so large that when it sweeps it apparently throws out a third of the stars. below we discover that the red dragon is satan himself who is suddenly attacked and defeated by the archangel michael the dragon satan is expelled from heaven and thrown to earth and the earth swallows him after this strange little episode comes the main attraction of the two called beasts the first beast comes out of the sea this firstThe beast has the shape of a leopard, it has feet like a bear and a mouth like a file, it has multiple heads and it is not surprising that there are seven like the dragon, it has 10 horns with a diadem on each of those horns.

The heads, however, seem to be injured. Once it comes out of the sea, this beast is talking bad about God and saying all kinds of blasphemies. The survivors on earth and yes, apparently there are survivors, everyone begins to worship this monster and suddenly the earth opens up. and another strange beast comes out of the ground compared to the first beast the description is a bit missing the only thing we understand is that it has two horns like a lamb but it talks like a dragon and that's it, this beast goes around telling the inhabitants of the earth how big it is.

Beast number one is and performs a ton of magic tricks to prove he's legit. The character is later known as the False Prophet, although you may be familiar with the name used in other Christian texts. The antichrist literally means the anti-messiah, so you should do it. choose to believe in this monster, it is bad news for you, this beast is walking around and writing a specific number on the four heads of the idolaters, the famous mark of the beast, the number 666, what is significant about this number 666 Well, many biblical scholars have suggested that it is a code for the tyrannical emperor Nero that you see in the classical world there was this practice of assigning letters to numbers that is known as gematria.

The Hebrew letters also had this system and if you spell entrepreneur in Hebrew, they add up to the number six six six some. of the oldest versions of the book of revelation, such as this papyrus manuscript found in oxyrinkus in egypt, is numbered 616. gemitrio still works here only because of a different spelling of Nero's name. Interestingly, the book of revelation says that to buy and sell things you need to show the mark of the beast as with current coins, Roman coins often featured the head of state, in this case the emperor, so in order to To barter and trade it is necessary to show the mark of the beast, that is, the face of Emperor Nero on the coins.

This interpretation is supported by the Greek word for mark as mark of the beast, which is haragma and is most commonly used to refer to the printing of coins. What does Emperor Nero have to do with the beast? Well, entrepreneur who ruled from 54 to 68 CE was responsible for a series of infamous Christian persecutions. The early Christians refused to worship the emperor, who in the imperial cult was a divine figure. Instead, they maintained that his exclusive belief was in God, the god of Israel. This infuriated many Roman emperors, especially Nero, who attempted to persecute them until they were eliminated, even blaming Christians for the Great Fire of Rome, and contemporary writers wrote harrowing accounts of all the suffering this emperor inflicted, such as throwing Christians into the lions, as a result, nera especially became a symbol of evil, so when the book of revelation refers to people who worship the beast it refers to the practice of worshiping the emperor all this is done in code those who wear the mark 666 in other words Nero will be condemned to suffer for all eternity as long as the earth is under the rule of these strange beasts they cut down the Roman emperors in heaven the angels are preparing the final phase of destruction we have had seven seals seven trumpets and now we have seven bowls these bowls are said to be full of the wrath of god, whatever that implies anyway The bowls function similarly to seals and trumpets when poured onto the earth.

Bad things happen. Here we go again. This time bowl one is poured onto the ground and painful spasms and boils form on all the people who use them. the mark of the beast on his forehead bowl two turns the entire sea now into blood no longer just a third bowl three turns all the fresh water in the lakes and rivers into blood yes, a lot of blood in this balfour passage causes the heat of the sun to intensify and severely burn the people on earth bowl 5 causes the kingdom of the beast to darken and political instability ensues some have seen this as a reference to the fall of the roman empire Bowl six causes the Euphrates River which is located in present-day Iraq to dry up.

Later, all the armies of the world gather and fight in a place known as Armageddon. Fun fact, the Hebrew word for armageddon is ha megiddo, in reference to mount megiddo in northern Israel, over time, ha megiddo changed to armageddon and because of the book of revelation. became another name for the bowl of apocalypse 7 is his classic book of revelation business lightning hail and a massive earthquake destroying the city of babylon however where babylon was the great city of evil in the old testament at the time when When the New Testament was written, the city of Babylon had been deserted for a long time after being conquered by the Persians about 500 years earlier, so many believe that Babylon is a reference to the capital city of the Roman Empire.

Again, it is another example. from the book of revelation that speaks in code after a third and final round of devastation that seems a little excessive to me the vision in the book of revelations begins to approach its end in fact everything ends quite quickly without much struggle the first and the second beast are captured by the armies of god and are kicked into, quote, a lake of fire burning with sulfur, which is probably a reference to hell, then the giant multi-headed dragon, which is satan, is also locked in the pit and sealed for 1000 years in this interim, jesus descends to rule the earth until things get better again well, time flies, 1000 years pass and satan is released, now is the time for the final epic showdown or of biblical proportions, without However, the serious ending of the Bible is a bit anticlimactic, all that happens is a shoot of Fire comes down from heaven and engulfs Satan's evil army and all his monsters are thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone to join the beasts. and its evil influence finally comes to an end.

The book of Revelation comes to an end and we get the Bible. happy ending a vision of something called the new jerusalem is a description of a wonderful new city made of solid gold our protagonist john does his best to describe its dimensions and it turns out that the new jerusalem is a giant cube of his length, width and high. There are 12,000 stadiums, which are 2,220 kilometers, that is, 1,380 miles. In this city, God Jesus, all the benefactors and all the many-eyed creatures live in perpetual harmony. It is this vision of a strange science fiction construction that the Book of Revelation shows. closes with him and with him the entire Bible comes to an end, so without a doubt the book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible and ends in a maelstrom of fire, earthquakes, supernatural creatures, chaos and calamity if such an event were to occur. .

It seems to be quite unpleasant business in such a complex and intricate book of the Bible. I haven't managed to explore everything this strange book has to offer, just the main story beats if you want me to cover some aspect that has interested you. in this video write them in the comments below. A theme in this book and many other New Testament texts is that Jesus will return and bring with him the second coming and a fiery cataclysm. The first communities of Christians believed that such an event would happen. in his lifetime, but when it never happened, the hope was transferred to later generations and so to this day, throughout history, theologians and ordinary people have tried to discover when the apocalypse will happen and if there will be any signs warning.

That clue is on the way they often, as always, get it spectacularly wrong and occasionally embarrass themselves in the process, just as Pope Sylvester feared that the year 1000 would mark the end of the world. Some worry that the year 2000 will also be the year 2000, fearing the year 2000, in which computers would stop working causing a global technological collapse; More recently, 2012 was seen as a good year for the apocalypse. Misplaced fears about the Mayan calendar led some to believe that the earth was on a collision course with the fictional planet Nibiru just as the Mayan calendar continued, the Gregorian calendar continued, and we are still here today in my mind.

I doubt anyone can predict when the end of the world will happen so for now we can relax, people have been wrong in the past so let's hope they continue to misunderstand each other in the future. Hey, thanks for watching this video. I really hope you enjoyed it. It's an absolute blast if you're into this sort of thing, especially this longer-form video. When I subscribe, like and Comment is also very helpful after a short break and loads to finish my university thesis. I'm glad to say I graduated. Thank you all for your patience. There will be more videos.

I promise I have plenty of videos I've been wanting to do anyway. I hope to see you next time. Bye bye.