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Our discussion on Revelation and how it is apocryphal literature reminded me of the many people I know that think that there might be a chance that we are nearing THE END OF TIME.  Yes, I know it sounds crazy, however the time is going to come sooner or later, all in God’s perfect timing.  When I was younger, my mom would always talk to me about the Book of Revelation and how it talked about the end of time, and I just was never really interested in it.  Recently, death has been something that I have just had to accept as part of life, and I think that flipped a switch, because now, I think about Judgement day a lot.  There is a Christian song that I absolutely love and that will move you to tears.  There was also a movie created about the making of the song.  It is called “I can only imagine” sung by Mercy Me.  In the movie, it explains how the son had to make amends with his father, because his father gave him a hard childhood.  When the father gets sick and the son finds out, he has a change of heart, and therefore forgives his father.  One of the most moving parts for me was when the father and son both come to terms and realize that the son was in the wrong for holding a grudge on all the mistakes the father had made, and how the father was wrong in how he treated their family.  Anyways, the song talks about Judgement day and how we will react when we stand before God and have to say all that we did during our life.  Every time that I listen to this song, it causes me to reflect, and through reading Revelation, I now know that this song is directly referring to Revelation 20:11-15.

Connecting prophecy, prophesy and prophets really enlightened me, and gave me flashbacks to when I took Old testament in High school.  Prophecy is the noun, prophesy is the verb, and prophets are the people prophesying.  When it comes to prophets, I found it interesting that they were often seen as God, however, I can understand why the people thought this.  Often times they were delivering messages directly from God and therefore it makes sense that the people thought that the prophets were God.  The prophecies seemed crazy and shocking to the people because they were often warnings to the people that they needed to change their ways to connect more with God.  They were reminders and warnings to the people that the people need to withhold their end of the covenant and act ethically.

Revisiting the flood stories, I reflected on what key differences existed between the Yahwist version and the Priestly Writers version.  The first was the most obvious, and I also think the most important: the use of the term Yahweh vs. Elohim.  Yahweh in Hebrew translates to mean “LORD” and Elohim translates to mean “gods” or “deities.”  I found this difference quite significant because as a child I was always told that LORD was “YHWH” or the one and the only God.  The differentiation between gods and God was always emphasized when I was younger, and I think this is an example where the differentiation becomes critical.  God refers to our God, the one and only all powerful and all knowing God, however, gods refers to other “gods” that people turned from God to worship, such as Ba’al and others.  Another key difference is the duration of the flood.  Being raised in a Catholic school, I have reflected on this story many times.  The duration of the flood in the Yahwist version is forty days and forty nights, however forty days and forty nights is simply symbolic of a long time.  It is very interesting that the Priestly Writer’s version mentions 150 days.  In the notes at the end of the article it says that the flood lasted one year and 10 days.  This got me thinking that we potentially have an idea of how they measured time, however, there is no way to know that the article’s one year and ten days is accurate.  These are two key differences between the two versions that I found very important to highlight.

After reflecting on these two versions, I have discovered that when comparing these two versions of this story with the Bible that I have, details from both versions of the story are present.  Both versions are intertwined to help more thoroughly tell the story, which I find very helpful, but a little redundant at times.  Overall, these two stories have some key similarities, however some crucial differing details from both  that are included in the story of Noah and the flood.

Our discussion about Revelation was one of my favorite lectures this semester. Reading it is extremely confusing, but hinges mostly on one’s knowledge of horses and the number 7. For some reason, I never knew that the number 666 originated in the Bible, I just knew it as a demonic symbol. In my personal experience, my mother and pastors believe in the prophetic aspect of this book. It’s terrifying. Blood, anguish, and monsters dominating the earth pales in comparison to the pandemic and climate change we’re going through now. Whether you read it as a literal prediction of events or an epic metaphor for the end of times (whether a certain time period or the end of the earth in general), it’s still a lot to process especially in comparison to the stories of hope preceding it. The New Testament often talks about the hope of Jesus and the early church, so this is a stark contrast through the images of pain and judgment.

Last class, we discussed the question of whether Jesus had siblings or not, and since then I can’t stop thinking about that question.  Prior to taking this class, I had never thought that Jesus had a sibling, human or Godly.  I had only ever been taught that he was the one and only son of God.  So if Mary did have more children, or Joseph had children from a prior marriage, why don’t we hear about it more in the Bible?  I mentioned in class that I thought that brothers was figurative, in that Jesus had brothers in Christ, in that they shared their belief in God (much like how we use that term today).  However, it got me thinking about if Jesus did have a brother, would he have had the same relationship with God that Jesus had?  How would miracles work?  Could they both perform different types of miracles or would they only be able to perform specific types?  Would they both need to be present for the miracle to work completely?  The questions keep flowing, but I think it is safe to say that there is much clarification needed if Jesus did have a brother.

Discussing whether James was Jesus’ brother or not during class was very interesting.  I decided to look at my Bible to see exactly what it says and any references it has in the introduction to each of the books, and sure enough, it referred me to Galatians 1:19.  In Galatians 1:19, there is reference to Jesus’ brother, but there are no other specifications.  While reading the Letter of James, I found it very interesting in the first verse that there is mention of the Lord Jesus Christ, however it refers to James as the servant (otherwise translated as slave).  So this still leaves me with the lingering question of, “Is James really Jesus’ brother, or does brother have another meaning here?”  Despite not having any answers, I really enjoyed reading the Letter of James.  I haven’t read it in a while so it was a very refreshing review.

Revelation makes my brain hurt, but it’s also my favorite lecture of the semester so far. I found it interesting thinking about the anti-Christ and who this person may be. It’s so hard to think about where we may be in a hundred more years as the 1920’s and now are almost two whole different worlds. This being said I don’t think the antichrist is alive merely because it is statistically unlikely. I also think that all of the different ways of calculating ones name into a number has become completely disingenuous because they don’t even know what language it’s supposed to be in or if it should add up to 666 or 616. It’s weird to hear about something so dystopian and pretty sad in the Bible, but I’ve become genuinely compelled to read the book of Revelations to more fully understand what the end of the world is supposed to look like.

Revelation is often referred to as a prophecy. This book in the Bible was a vision that John received. This book is becoming more and more referenced as it talks of the “Anti-Christ” or the beast with the referencer to the number 666. As we talked about in class due to theses sign somehow everything can related to it including Barney the dinosaur, or specific dates. These markings/signs are referenced as becoming the last days of humanity. The End of the world, and religion. In class we also brought up the rapture. This was never specifically listed in revelation but it is the idea that all believers in God and pure people would be saved and sent to heaven as the rest of the people would be left on earth in a post apocalyptic world. Revelation was a very interesting chapter as it brought up a lot of different ideas.

During Tuesday’s class, we talked about Paul and James. I learned a lot of new things that I previously did not know. First, Paul and James disagree on a lot of things. They use “faith” and “works” in different ways. James believes more I good actions while Paul focuses on following the rules and the law. I think it is clear that Paul and James are talking past each other. Neither of them offers a counterargument of each other’s points and only focusing on their side/opinion. It is also clear the influence of Jesus’ teaching on both of them. One last thing I found interesting is the difference in time Paul spends on Genesis. I feel as though this proves Paul was not telling the truth. In my opinion, liars tend to come up with more complex, detailed stories in order to prove their side. I feel like its more clear when it’s shorter because they aren’t thinking about someone doubting them. Secondly, Dr. McGrath talked about Bone boxes which honestly blew my mind. The idea of these is crazy. A year after someone dies you collect their bones and put it in a box? This sounds very traumatizing to me and I can’t believe people used to do this. I don’t think it was a tradition for very long and I understand as to why.

It is interesting to talk about how the beast is an allusion to the past. I had not read the book of Revelation, so it was interesting to read about the interpretations of it. It is interesting to read about Jacqueline Hidalgo’s ideas on the book of Revelation. She talks about how it really is a critique and interest in the Roman empire. It was interesting to discuss in class how the book is thought to be about the anti-Christ for some people. There is a weird stigma around the book, and it makes sense why. Most people think the book of Revelation is about the end of humanity, so they are scared by the book.

Revelation has this stigma of a powerful and sometimes scary book of the Bible that people see as a prophecy. People have formed conspiracies about an anti-Christ based on the number 666. I think that this is very interesting because we want to make the world revolve around us. By conspiring about people in the present day who could be the anti-Christ and start the ending of known humanity, it upholds that we are very self-centered. The author of Revelation wrote to the people of their time, not to the current population on Earth. They made it understandable to all people so everyone would be able to realize the message that was being written.