I am under the impression you have not actually read the Christian Bible's "Book of Revelation."
Your impression is quite false. As I've stated before, I grew up in a very conservative Restorationist Chrisitan home, attended a very conservative Restorationist church, and attended and graduated from a K-12 private Christian school that required daily bible classes and weekly, school-wide bible study devotionals. I have a 400 page commentary on the Book of Revelation and it was major focus of our study during my senior year of high school. Been studying the Bible in depth for 36 years now. I'm pretty sure I'm informed enough to speak on this.
When one reads those passages where the Mark is mentioned, there is little or no conflation to the notion that the Mark is a literal marking of some kind which gets literally placed upon the literal physical bodily right hand and/or the forehead of millions of people all over the world.
Sure, if the "one" you refer to is some ill-informed Bible thumper who is reading this dream sequence as if it were literal. Which, I would definitely agree describes many of the Evangleical and Protestant notions of Revelation among the laymembers of those churches.
However, scholars who have actually taken the time to study this, know that it is a dream sequence and that John is not asserting that a physical "mark" will be placed on people but is likely referring to Roman money with Nero's image. How do they know this? One reason is because the Greek word (χάραγμα) that was erroneously translated to be "mark" in the King James Bible actually literally
refers to something stamped on a coin.
I am familiar with the interpretation of the Mark of Cain back in Genesis. But the funny thing about the Mark of Cain is that the Bible never says a) what the Mark of Cain actually looked like, only said what its function was, nor b) where on Cain's body the Mark appeared.)
True. However there was an ancient custom of symbolically expressing connections/covenants/relationships with dieties by marking one's face (a custom likely borrowed from Egypt). A popular example of this back then was marking or covering one's head with ash as a sign of repentance to the deity for transgressions against the god. This is continued today in a more modern context when Catholics and some Evangelicals mark their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.
So, you are correct that it does not state specifically what God's sign or mark for Cain was or where. However, ancient custom of the time Genesis was written suggests that it could be understood as a mark on his head.
The Nero interpretation thing might have bearing on the past, but not on the future. The principle of "dual reference" comes into play when one takes the position that a certain passage is meant to have two meanings at the same time, one for the time period in which the passage was written and one for the future. And "dual reference" is used frequently in Biblical interpretation, especially with passages which are deemed prophetic/dealing with the future. And in some instances, "dual reference" position is taken on passages which are deemed to deal simultaneously with 1) with the time period that the passage was written, and 2) the ancient past such as when God first created the heavens and the Earth. (So we are talking about some Bible passages which are flashbacks versus those which are flashforwards.)
Perhaps, but most serious, credible scholars of the Book of Revelation regard it as being about Nero and the coming fall of Jerusalem, not a tome of end times. Unfortunately, believing that it's about the end of the world is sexier and more ingrained in the culture (just look at the success of the
Left Behind series of books) as well as taught in churches by preachers who lack any real education in the subject (and, there are plenty of those out there).
Yes, I certainly do.
Okay, dude, here's what the Bible says. (Why did you make me hafta go and post scriptures?? Troublemaker!
)
I didn't make ou do anything, but I hope in reading the book more you'll come to a better understanding of what it actually is; a symbolic dream sequence expressing John's disdain of Nero and prediction of (or recounting of, depending on when you believe it was written) the fall of Jerusalem.
The word "mark" appear a total of seven times in the Book of Revelation.
Yes, the word "mark" (as we understand the term) appears in the English translation but the word used in the original Koine refers specifically to an image stamped on coin money.
Also, the number 7 is used a lot in the book (as "7" represented God or spiritual perfection of some sort) to number things (e.g. 7 horned Lamb, 7 headed Beast, 7 headed dragon, 7 angels with trumpets, etc.), so it's likely not a coincidence that the word appears 7 times (I haven't counted, so I'll assume you're correct).
Here are all seven of those instances. And after reading them, I cannot see any nother interpretation than the mark being a LITERAL mark.
I'm not sure why you're taking anything as literal in a story that was intentionally written to be symbolic and metaphorical.
The only way it can't be literal is if 100% of Revelation is just poems and bad acid trips and picture symbols with no bearing on reality. If you wanna inpterpret Revelation that way, fine, you will not be alone iif you do. But millions of people do not, including more than a few posters here on this message form.
Not a bad acid trip...well, probably not, anyway....but it was definitely written to be symbolic. The Beast of the Sea (the antichrist) is widely believed to have been Nero or the Roman Empire in general (7 heads, each representing a different Roman emperor).
The "mark," as I said, likely represented the use of Roman money, which bared the emporer's face (Nero, at the time. He ruled in 66...OMG...that's one 6 away from 666!!!), especially given the fact that it had Nero's face on it, grpahically represented that he was divine (that was the propaganda of the time), and the Kione word translated as "mark" means an engraving on a coin.
This was also the time that Jews revolted and made their own money. So, if you had the "mark of the beast," you were carrying around Roman money instead of Jewish money and it likely meant you were not a Jew (God's chosen people, ya know!) or were a traitor.
I also wanna point out that these passsages are among the all-time scariest shit the Bible has to offer. And so these passage are taken very seriously by a lot of Christians. Not all Christians believe these passages are literal, but many do.
They are only scary and taken literally by people who haven't studied it enough to know better and haven't read the books of Daniel and Zechariah thoroughly enough to know where John of Patmos
stole borrowed much of his symbolism from.
Revelation 13:15-18
The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
These are the only verses I'll address because I don't have all night to spend on this. But, verses 15-17 are referring to using Roman money (they can't buy or sell unless they had the mark, etc.) rather than Jewish money.
In verse 18, John of Patmos (who is NOT John the Apostle or John the Baptist), is being coy and basically daring someone to decode his symbolic "666" ("calculate the number...") and figure out the specific person he's talking about ("the number of a man...666").
That number transliterates to Neron Caesar.
Of course, I take the preterist, historical interpretation of Revelation, which is currently the most widely accepted and logical view.
I know that some take a futurist, doom and gloom interpretation but, given the historical evidence, that seems to me to be more fueled by ignorance of the known research, fantastical thinking, and affinity to conspiracy theories.