at least as someone raised as a Catholic during the 1960's, we were told to ignore Revelations by our priets. When I asked why I was told "No one knows what is truly meant by that book and smarter people than you'll ever be have driven themselves to insanity trying to figure it out. When god means for us to understand, he'll reveal it. Until then live a good Christan life."

Unfortunetly, I didn't listen and spent several years reading up on this stuff. Luckily, at some point, my brain started working and I woke up.

Apocalyptic writings were quite popular at that time, we find them in the Dead Sea scrolls and at least five others in the Nag Hammadi Library. They all read like an abused 10 year old yelling "My big brother is gonna kick your butt!" to the bully who just took his lunch money. Adolescent revenge fantasies.

Here's a link to the Nag Hammadi texts.

by CptRich on 10/11/2009 12:37:02 PM EST

[ Parent ]