Van Robison's recommended this article on the book of Revelation. I could not get it to format correctly here, so check it out here: Why The Book Of Revelation Is Heresy
The answer is that almost everything in John Patmos' hallucination opposes the Gospel Jesus' words, ways, and teachings. All one must do is pay attention to what John Patmos wrote. That will be done, with some detail, later in this critique. But first, some general background information is needed.
The Greek literary styles of John Patmos and John Apostle were examined in very early Christianity to prove these are two different writers. Eighteen hundred years ago, Dionysius (Bishop of the Patriarchy of Alexandria) stated that "Revelation" was not written by the same person who wrote John's Gospel and Letters. (Eusebius' History of the Church, 7.25) His opinion came from his comparing their two writing styles and found John Patmos to be entirely different from John Apostle and any other New Testament writer.
We do not need to be Greek scholars to look at the text of the Gospel and letters of Apostle John to notice John Patmos contradicts John Apostle at every turn. Those examples are examined in this report. But now we should remember that "Revelation" was doubted in Eastern Christianity and not generally accepted into the New Testament until AD 508. Some ancient Christian branches still do not include it in their Bibles. Therefore discussion and criticism of "Revelation" is not a new and is not a disrespectful activity.
3 comments:
Eusebius' own list of disputed books that were added to the cannon of the New Testament included Revelations.
The Eastern Orthodox Church excluded Revelations until very recently.
It is fascinating to realize the books now in the New Testament are there by votes of various Catholic Councils that were strongly divided on many of the writings that were ultimately included and none were unanimously added to the cannon.
It is also sobering to realize that these writings were originally on separate scrolls that were copied by hand many times over before they came to be included. Any powerful individual could easily have made changes to various copies along the way.
There is a book available free to read at the following link.
www.livingandlovingbyfaith.com/index.php/the-revelation-of-revelation
It goes into detail about the origins of the Book of Revelation and exposes its contradictions with the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. I believe it reinforces your viewpoint well. However, its a bit controversial for open discussion.
Cheers
Martin Luther recommended against Hebrews, James, and Revelations (and some other books), relegating it to appendix. I think if it's bad enough for Luther then it's bad enough for me.
Since John specifically mentions the book of life as mainly a Revelation concept, and since it is mentioned (once) outside of Revelation, I have decided that notions of second coming outside of Revelation are also tampered with. I scratched out a number of passages about the second coming, and then I noticed something interesting... the second coming is a distraction from the resurrection. It's a way of saying "Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world... people who don't know Jesus (much less those who couldn't trust a Jesus that would judge the world) are condemned to death, possibly even before they are born." Live and die without ever knowing Jesus? Damned to hell!
There has to be a better way. Either Jesus died for all sins (as he says he does when he says that he "did not come to judge the world but to save it") or God has a means of grace that the disciples neglected to tell us about.
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