"This is what the LORD says-- Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God," Isaiah 44:6
" 'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty,'" Rev. 1:8
"And he said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment,'" Rev. 21:6
" 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end,'" Rev. 22:13
Some musings from this morning:
Recently I became interested in the book of Revelation (earlier post). So yesterday I was examining how there are 3 times where G-d says in it "I am the Alpha and Omega." And I noticed that the Christian scholars tend to say that Jesus is speaking in Revelation 22:13.
But it's very tricky determining the speaker in Revelation 22:13.
At one point, there's an angel interjecting because he had to inform John that he was just an angel and only G-d should receive worship. But then suddenly the speaker changes and it's G-d talking and making the self proclamation "I am the Alpha and Omega." Up until that point in Revelation, only the G-d the Father appears to have used this expression "Alpha and Omega" as a self-referent.
And so, to my consternation, I learned that the scholars are divided on who exactly is talking in 22:13--is it Jesus or G-d the Father?
But I think I figured out though how we can attribute 22:13 to Yeshua.
Note that in 22:13 we are given the clarifying name "the first and the last." But in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Revelation we learn that the "first and the last" is the one who "died and came back to life", the one who is the "Son of Man."
This indicates that the speaker in 22:13 is Yeshua, the Son of Man, the Resurrected One. Also, that fits with the rest of the passage in 22.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
I came across a good quote that provides an exegetical rule of thumb for how to interpret the predicative vs. absolute forms of "I am" in the book of John:
"In its predicative form...'I am' is a grammatically normal enough statement...When 'I am' lacks even an implied predicate, however, it becomes unintelligible except as an allusion to God's name..." Keener, The Gospel of John, pgs. 769-770
forget revelations. study its history and you will see that it was simply a move by rome to sustantiate its oral teachings agter the threat imposed by the reformation came along. ALL the apochraphy books were canonized in the council of trent in 1582.(see eusebius circa 350ad)
ReplyDeleteThe writer of rev. is cernthus, a malintent that had his own dogma similar to the 70 virgins of islam and a thousand year reign.
he simply stole prophesies from the nevim and did his own embellishments along with the necessaty vagaries.
There is no basis for the 1260 days, the 666 is simply his coded way of pointing to vespasians rise in 68ad from the end of dan 9 70 weeks in 32ad.
1plus2+3+4+5...etc to 36(as in years from 32 to 68) comes to 666.
rome was the power of his day therefore he treaded lightly and allegorized his accusations of who he was referring to.
It got into the protestant canon because James had to bend to rome. the roman church uses this book and the 12 stars and the women to deify mary.
King james supposedly bowed to the will of the protestants who used revelation to call the pope the anti-christ. All the while he was subtily capitulating to romes request.
No book of revelation,... no foundation for the churches teaching on mary.
This is why rome does not care about all the different dogmas that have come about from this book.
ANY dogma keeps its validity alive.
Revelation is trash. it cannot be lined up with the correct times of the prophets without scewing the prophecies to fit revelation.
The story and time frame of the messiahs and kingdom and YHVHs actions are complete in the Tanakh.
No new testament or apochryphl literature is needed.
If you understand what the hebrew is saying, you see that YHVH made it quite clear what HE was and is to do.
THAT is how HE glories. HE does not need or WANT ambiguity.
Only liars do.
shalom, Anthony
Do you not need to return to Judaism and our Sages to be part of Israel ? How can you interpret the scriptures without the oral torah and our Rabbi's? http://beithashoavah.org/2015/06/behold-the-king-of-the-jews/
ReplyDeleteIf the Sages represent Oral Torah then how come there are different opinions?
DeleteThat's my polite way of pointing out that the Sages are not infallible and therefore their opinions cannot be called "Torah" in the Divine sense of that word.
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