Peteitorial

Myths and Stuff

2000

Lots of this stuff I got from the encyclopedia.  An encyclopedia is a series of books or a CD that contains the definitions and explanations of just about anything, according to smart people, and generally accepted as fact.  Facts change with time, but I think that this stuff is pretty good for what I am telling you about.

The Millennium, in Christian eschatology, period of 1000 years, foretold in the New Testament Book of Revelation, in which the devil will be chained and holiness will prevail on earth. The concept of the millennium, which is based principally on a literal interpretation of Revelation 20:3 and other passages, is held by a small number of Protestant denominations, among them the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Adventists, including the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The sects believing in the millennium, however, differ over its precise nature. The main disagreement is over the interpretation of the description (see Revelation 20:4-15) of the second coming of Christ. The more generally held interpretation is that of the so-called premillenarians, who believe that the visible second coming will precede the millennium and will be a mark of it. Christ will descend on the earth and raise from the dead the so-called chosen ones, or elect, who then will participate with him for 1000 years in a triumphal reign over the earth. At the end of that time, all other people will be resurrected. The wicked will be annihilated, and the just will live forever with Christ in a renewed heaven and earth. The so-called postmillenarians believe, on the other hand, that Christ will not begin his reign until after the millennium, which they see as a period of gradual spiritual regeneration. Most Christian churches reject the concept of a millennium, but despite disagreement on particulars all Christian denominations believe in the Second Coming.

In popular usage, the word millennium has come to be applied to an ideal or utopian period or situation.

Here is an example of Millennial Thought.

Russell, Charles Taze (1852-1916).

An American religious leader, who founded the International Bible Students Association, now known as Jehovah's Witnesses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Russell rejected orthodox Protestantism early in his life, studying the Bible independently. In 1872 he organized a group devoted to Bible study. In the same year he published a small book stating that Christ would return, invisibly, in 1874 and that the world would end in 1914. Russell quickly gained a wide following, and in 1878 he established an independent church in Pittsburgh, taking the title of pastor. The next year he began publishing The Watchtower, a journal setting forth his views. In 1884 he founded the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Soon congregations of so-called Russellites began to form, establishing the core of the International Bible Students Association. Despite his involvement in several scandals, Russell's reputation was never seriously damaged, and his various books and pamphlets were distributed by the millions. His major writings were collected in the six-volume work Millennial Dawn (1886-1904).

Campbell, Alexander (1788-1866).

An American minister, a founder of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), or Campbellites. He was born in Ireland and studied for one year at the University of Glasgow. He immigrated to the

 United States in 1809 and later settled in Bethany, West Virginia. At first a member of the Baptist church, he organized the nucleus of the Disciples of Christ about 1827, merging his group with that led by the American revivalist Barton Stone in 1832.

Campbell founded Bethany College in 1840 and served as its president until his death. In 1823 he established the magazine Christian Baptist, which became the Millennial Harbinger in 1830; Campbell continued the publication until 1863. He also engaged in many public debates and published approximately 60 volumes, including hymnbooks and a translation of the New Testament. His most important doctrinal work is The Christian System (1839). Campbell also wrote (1861) a biography of his father, Thomas Campbell, who had been associated with him in organizing the Disciples of Christ.

The significance seems to be the apocalypse.

The Apocalypse

In the beginning there was the apocalypse, and the apocalypse was the word, and the word was the apocalypse. The apocalypse, the first one, the first definition, the first thought thereof, was a religious one. Over the centuries, the religious one became a secular one and the secular one became all sorts of convoluted nonsense.

What it is considered to be, in the simplest words, is the end of the world.

Most everyone thinks it will come by nuclear holocaust.  We will do it to ourselves.  I don't worry much about it because there is nothing I can do about it.  If and when it happens, I will be vaporized just like you and everyone else.  This is called a fatalist theory.  I call it common sense.

All I can do is live today for today and when tomorrow doesn't come, that will be that.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

In the Bible, elements of the scenes of the Last Judgment depicted in the Book of Revelation. In chapter 6 of his apocalyptic vision of God's purpose in the world, John the Evangelist describes four horses, signifying war (a red horse), civil strife (a white horse), hunger (a black horse), and death (a pale horse). The horses and their riders are frequently depicted in art and have come to be a symbol of the evils of the earthly world.

Apocrypha (Greek apokryphos, “hidden”).

This word was coined (I prefer the colloquial "koined") by the 5th-century biblical scholar Saint Jerome for the biblical books received by the church of his time as part of the Greek version of the Old Testament, but that were not included in the Hebrew Bible. In the Authorized, or King James, Version, the books are either printed as an appendix or are omitted altogether; they are not considered canonical by Protestants.

The Septuagint was received by the Christian church from Hellenistic Judaism. The books included in the Septuagint that were excluded by the non-Hellenistic Jews from their canon were Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Tobit, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and the two books of Maccabees. Of these, Judith and Tobit are best described as edifying historical fiction, and Baruch, as an appendage to the Book of Jeremiah, written in the person of Jeremiah's secretary. Wisdom and Sirach are testimonies to the wisdom tradition of Israel otherwise represented in the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The books of Maccabees are historical works in the tradition of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Also generally included with the Apocrypha are the two books of Esdras, additions to the Book of Esther (Esther 10:4-10), the Song of the Three Young Men (Daniel 3:24-90),

Susanna (Daniel 13), Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14), and the Prayer of Manasseh.

Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians still follow the Septuagint and include in the canon of the Bible all the Apocrypha, except the two books of Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. They generally refer to the Protestant Apocrypha as deuterocanonical books, however, and reserve the term Apocrypha for those books entirely outside the biblical canon, which Protestants call the pseudepigrapha.

With the growth of a historical perspective in biblical studies during the 19th century, the value of the Apocrypha as historical sources came to be generally recognized. Derived from the period 300 BC to New Testament times, the Apocrypha shed valuable light on the period between the end of the Old Testament narrative and the opening of the New Testament. They are also important sources of information on the development of belief in immortality, the resurrection, and other questions of eschatology, as well as the increasing impact of Hellenistic ideas on Judaism.

Apocryphal New Testament (Greek apokryphos, “hidden”).

This is the title that refers to more than 100 books written by Christian authors between the 2nd and 4th centuries. The books have two characteristics in common: (1) In general form they resemble New Testament writings, many of them falling into the literary categories of gospel, acts, letter, and apocalypse; (2) they belong neither to the New Testament canon nor to the writings of the recognized Fathers of the Church.

Some of the documents were written for initiates in groups such as the Gnostics for those groups, who claimed knowledge derived from a secret tradition, the works were genuinely apocryphal, that is, “books kept hidden.” Others were written for open and general use in the churches of which their authors were members; they simply failed to become accepted as part of the orthodox canon of the Bible. Some of the writings, such as the Gospel According to the Hebrews, may have held a place of importance in the common life of Jewish Christians. Others were read in Gnostic circles, such as the Letter of Eugnostos found in the Naj‘ Ťammadě texts, a collection of Gnostic treatises discovered in 1945-46. Still others, such as the Infancy Story of Thomas and the Acts of Pilate, addressed the curiosity of common people in the church at large by filling in tantalizing gaps in the biblical writing with highly fanciful details about the unknown aspects of Jesus' life.

Roman Catholics and Protestants use the term Apocrypha differently when referring to biblical literature; both, however, refer to the same books when they speak of the Apocryphal New Testament.

Apocalyptic Writings, Jewish and Christian writings, most of them composed between about 200 BC and AD 100, distinguished basically by a belief in two opposing cosmic powers and in two distinct ages (eons) of the world. Typically, the authors of apocalyptic literature believe that the present age of the world is irredeemably evil, ruled by a Satan figure that personifies evil. These authors reveal, however, that the evil age is soon to be ended, destroyed by God, who is good. The subsequent age, the kingdom of God, will be ruled by God, will be perfect and will last forever; and only the good, formerly oppressed, will enjoy it.

The Book of Revelation was the first work to be called an apocalypse, and it exhibits the features that characterize such writings: A revelation from God concerning future events is delivered to a seer through an angelic or divine intermediary (in the case of Revelation, the intermediary is Jesus Christ and the seer is Saint John). The book also uses elaborate animal and numerological symbolism. Variations on these features are found in other apocalyptic writings—for example, the writings may describe many visions instead of only one; they may include specimens of other genres within them (for example, the epistle or the hymn, as in Revelation); and they may describe the destined events literally rather than figuratively.

Several other frequently occurring secondary characteristics of apocalyptic literature are pseudonymity, the ascribing of an apocalyptic work to some earlier revered figure (for example, a prophet or a saint); contending hierarchies of angels and demons; a faith in God, who will fulfill the promises of the Bible; a belief in a heavenly city and a heavenly paradise reserved for the just in the age to come; and a belief in a messiah.

Several representatives of the apocalyptic genre survive, most of them classified with the pseudepigrapha. The outstanding exception is the collection of apocalypses in the canonical Book of Daniel, chapters 7 through 12. The first of these is a vision (chapter 7), the message of which is the impending overthrow of the oppressors and the vindication of God's people. Other elements that conform to the apocalyptic pattern are revelation (8:1-14); the presence of an intermediary (8:15-26); the seer (8:17-18, 27); and the description of future happenings (8:19, 26). The apocalypses in chapter 8 and chapters 10 through 12 contain similar elements. Among noncanonical works, the Book of I Enoch includes an apocalypse in chapters 14 and 15; here the revelation takes the form of a vision in which the seer is transported to the divine throne. Similarly, the group of apocalypses in IV Ezra is cast in the form of a dream and deals with divine judgment and salvation. II Baruch describes a vision of the 12 ages of the world; it culminates in a period of tribulation and the ultimate victory of the Messiah.

Most of the apocalypses appear to have been written during times of persecution. Their authors are attempting to provide the faithful with an image of triumph and vindication, and the trials of earthly life are described as the necessary prelude to the birth of the messianic order. In most cases, the authors lend dramatic force to their narratives through the literary technique of vaticinia ex eventu (prophecy after the fact). The detailed prophecies in the Book of Daniel, for example, are purported to date from around 600 BC but were actually written as a response to the persecutions of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV in the 2nd century BC.

Religion in the Apocalypse

Paul, Saint (circa AD 3-62), the greatest missionary of Christianity and its first theologian, called Apostle to the Gentiles.

Life

Born to Jewish parents in a thoroughly observant home in Tarsus (now in Turkey), Paul was originally named for the ancient Hebrew king Saul. On the eighth day he was circumcised, as stipulated by the Jewish Law; indeed, in all respects he was reared in accordance with the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law. As a young Jew of the Diaspora (the dispersion of Jews into the Greco-Roman world), Saul took as his everyday name the Latin Paul, a name with a sound similar to that of his Hebrew birth name.

Paul's letters reflect a keen knowledge of Greek rhetoric, something he doubtless learned as a youth in Tarsus. But his patterns of thought also reflect formal training in the Jewish Law as preparation for becoming a rabbi, perhaps received in Jerusalem from the famous teacher Gamaliel the Elder (flourished AD 20-50). By his own account Paul excelled in the study of the Law (see Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:6); and his zeal for it led him to persecute the nascent Christian church, holding it to be a Jewish sect that was untrue to the Law and that should therefore be destroyed (see Galatians 1:13). Acts portrays him as a supportive witness to the stoning of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Paul became a Christian after experiencing a vision of Christ during a journey from Jerusalem to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-19, 22:5-16, 26:12-18). Paul himself, in referring to this event, never uses the term conversion, which implies shifting allegiance from one religion to another; he clearly

perceived the revelation of Jesus Christ to mark the end of all religions, and thus of all religious distinctions (see Galatians 3:38). Instead, he consistently spoke of God's having “called” him (see Election below). Paul viewed his call to be a Christian and his call to be an evangelist to the Gentiles as a single and indivisible event. He recognized the legitimacy of a mission to the Jews, as carried out by Peter, but he was convinced that Christianity was God's call to all the world, and that God was making this call apart from the requirements of the Jewish Law.

According to the widely known account recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul carried out three well-defined missionary journeys . The letters reveal that Paul's missionary itinerary was guided by three major concerns: (1) the vocation of a missionary to work in territory as yet unreached by other Christian evangelists—hence his plan to go as far west as Spain (see Romans 15:24, 28; see also Romans 1:14); (2) the concern of a pastor to revisit his own congregations as problems arose—hence, for example, Paul's several visits to Corinth; and (3) an unshakable determination to collect money from his largely Gentile churches and to deliver the collection himself to the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. Although scholars do not fully understand Paul's motive for this endeavor, it is certain that he wished by it to bring together the churches of his Gentile mission with those of the Jewish Christians in Palestine.

From Acts it is known that Paul was arrested in