For as in those days before the flood
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day when Noah entered the ark…
(Matthew 24:38)

The Oath/Sanctions section of the Revelation seems to have three parts. The judgment begins in the house of God (Temple bowls – Garden), then follows the revelation of the “mystery” of the Woman and the kings of the Land, and finally the judgment reaches out to the borders of the World (the oikoumene). This corresponds not only with the Garden, Land, World architecture of the nations in Genesis 1-10, it brings an end to the “intermarriage,” the compromise of the Priestly people with idolatrous kings. It is fitting that the third part of this judgment (chapters 18-19) culminates in a Red Wedding.

You must be logged in to see the rest of this post.

Join now for a year for $15!

“Far more can be known about the early recorded history of mankind than is generally allowed, and what is revealed by this history is a story that is very different indeed from the one that we are used to hearing.”

Those who take Genesis 1-11 as literal history are considered ignorant by the “more respectable” echelons of Christian academia. But it turns out that it is these scholars who are the ignorant ones, and there is documentary evidence to prove it. Two thousand years of recorded history which corroborates the testimony of the Bible was deliberately ignored and is excluded from the modern curricula. Bill Cooper writes that this evidence is not difficult either to access or to read, which means that much of Christian scholarship has either been duped by secular historians about the historicity of Genesis, or is deliberately lying to the people of God.

Excerpts from Bill Cooper, After The Flood: The Early Post-Flood History Of Europe Traced Back To Noah.

In the Beginning

It is commonly thought in this present age that nothing is worthy of our belief unless first it can be scientifically demonstrated and observed to be true. This idea, known today as empiricism, has been around since the 1920s, and says basically that nothing is to be taken on trust, and that anything which lacks direct corroboration must be discarded from mankind’s fund of knowledge as simply not worth the knowing. Not surprisingly, a special case was made by those who had thought of the idea for including the Bible in this great process of deselection, and it was assumed without further enquiry that nothing in especially the earlier portions of the biblical record could be demonstrated to be true and factual. This applied particularly to the book of Genesis. There all was relegated, by modernist scholars at least, to the realms of myth and fiction, with very little of its contents being said to bear any relevance at all for 20th-century man. Not even a moral relevance was granted. In other words, we were solemnly assured in the light of modern wisdom that, historically speaking, the book of Genesis was simply not worth the paper it was printed on.

When I first came across this problem some thirty years ago, I found it most perplexing. On the one hand I had the Bible itself claiming to be the very Word of God, and on the other I was presented with numerous commentaries that spoke with one voice telling me that the Bible was nothing of the kind. It was merely a hotch-potch collection of middle-eastern myths and fables that sought to explain the world in primitive terms, whose parts had been patched together by a series of later editors. Modern scientific man need have nothing whatever to do with it.

Now, it was not possible for both these claims to be valid. Only one of them could be right, and I saw it as my duty, at least to myself, to find out which was the true account and which was the false. So it was then that I decided to select a certain portion of Genesis and submit it to a test which, if applied to any ordinary historical document, would be considered a test of the most unreasonable severity. And I would continue that test until either the book of Genesis revealed itself to be a false account or it would be shown to be utterly reliable in its historical statements. Either way, I would discover once and for all whether the biblical record was worthy of my trust or not. It seemed a little irreverent to treat a book that claimed to be the very Word of God in such a fashion. But if truth has any substance at all, then that book would surely be able to bear such a test. If Genesis contained any falsehood, error or misleading statement of fact, then a severe testing would reveal it and I would be the first to add my own voice to those of all the other scholars who declared the book of Genesis to be little more than fable.

With any ordinary historical document, of course, a simple error or even a small series of errors, would not necessarily disqualify it from being regarded as an historical account, or one that could at least be made use of by historians. But Genesis is no ordinary record. No ordinary document would claim inerrancy in its statements, and any document which did make such a claim for itself could expect a thorough and severe drubbing at the hands of scholars. But, if Genesis was indeed a true account of what had happened all those years ago, it if was indeed everything that it claimed itself to be, then the truth that it proclaimed could not be destroyed by any amount of testing. It could only be vindicated. In that regard at least, truth is indestructible.

…when, over my twenty-five years of research, that confirmatory evidence grew past 40% to 50%, and then 60% and beyond, it soon became apparent that modern wisdom in this matter was wide of the mark. Very wide of the mark indeed. Today I can say that the names so far vindicated in the Table of Nations make up over 99% of the list…

What I had not expected at the time was the fact that the task was to engage my attention and energies for more than twenty-five years. Nor had I expected the astonishing degree to which Genesis, particularly the tenth and eleventh chapters, was to be vindicated. These chapters are conveniently known to scholars as the Table of Nations, and the sheer breadth and depth of the historical evidence that was available for their study astonished me. It bore very little relation indeed to wheat I had been led to expect. But that was not the only surprise in store.

The test that I devised was a simple one. If the names of the individuals, families, peoples and tribes listed in the Table of Nations were genuine, then those same names should appear also int he records of other nations of the Middle East. Archaeology should also reveal that those same families and peoples are listed in Genesis (or not as the case may be) in their correct ethnological, geographical and linguistic relationships. I allowed for the fact that a good proportion of these names would not appear. Either the records that once contained them had long since perished, or the diversity of language and dialect had rendered them unrecognisable. Some would be lost in obscurity. It simply was not realistic to expect that every name would have been recorded in the annals of the ancient Middle East and would also have survived to the present day. I therefore would have been content to have found say 40% of the list vindicated. In fact that would have been a very high achievement given the sheer antiquity of the Table of Nations itself and the reported sparsity of the surviving extra-biblical records from those ancient times. But when, over my twenty-five years of research, that confirmatory evidence grew past 40% to 50%, and then 60% and beyond, it soon became apparent that modern wisdom in this matter was wide of the mark. Very wide of the mark indeed. Today I can say that the names so far vindicated in the Table of Nations make up over 99% of the list, and I shall make no further comment on that other than to say that no other ancient historical document of purely human authorship could be expected to yield such a level of corroboration as that! And I will add further that modern biblical commentators must make of it what they will.

But the test didn’t stop there. I had determined at the very beginning that the test was to be one of unreasonable severity, so even the astonishing level of vindication so far achieved did not fully satisfy the requirements of the test. The reason for this was simple. The Table of Nations was written in the Middle East. But all the records consulted by me in investigating that Table were also written in the Middle East. I therefore decided that the test should continue beyond those geographical bounds, and I carried the search into the records of the early peoples of Europe. I wanted to see firstly whether the same patriarchs mentioned in Genesis were evident in the most ancient genealogies and chronicles of the peoples of Europe, and I wanted also to assess the level at which these early peoples were aware of other events mentioned in Genesis. The important part of this test was that the documents and records consulted by me had to date from before the time that any given European nation was converted to Christianity. That was because it is too often alleged by certain scholars that the early Christian church, particularly the monastic community, was given to forgery and invention. So only documents that pre-dated the coming of Christianity and its forging monks to a particular nation whose records I was consulting would be considered. This part of the test was crucial and was to yield as great a level of vindication for the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis as the first part of the test…

Where to begin?

History has never been so popular. The man in the street has never been so well informed about his past as he is today. And yet it is a sad and unhappy fact that for all that has been said, written and broadcast about the early and more recent history of mankind, there remains a very large body of historical evidence that is mostly poised over in silence by today’s scholars. And because it is passed over by today’s scholars, it never reaches today’s general public.

I say that this is sad because it is not as if this vast fund of knowledge is hard to get at. On the contrary, every fact that you are about to read is available to anyone who takes the trouble to look. And each fact can be obtained cheaply enough. It does not lie in obscure libraries about which no one has heard or to which none can gain access. Nor is it written in languages or scripts that cannot be deciphered. Indeed, scholars have been aware of the existence of this vast body of information for many years. So why is it passed over in such silence?

Why is it, for example, that no modern book on the early history of Britain goes back beyond the year 55 BC, the year when Julius Caesar made his first attempt to invade these islands? We may read in such books of this culture or that people, this stone age or that method of farming. But we will read of no particular individual or of any particular event before the year 55 BC. This has the unfortunate effect of causing us to believe that this is because there exists no written history for those pre-Roman times, and that when they landed in Britain the Roman encountered only a bunch of illiterate savages who had no recorded history of their own. But our conclusion would be wrong, for we will see as our study progresses that the Britons whom the Romans encountered were, on the admission of the Romans themselves, a people who could teach the Romans a thing or two about the finer arts of warfare, and who left a clear and written record of themselves dating back to the very earliest years of their existence as a nation.

These records still survive, and we shall be considering them in some detail. We shall also be examining many other ancient records that various peoples have left behind them and we shall note with interest the story that is told by each one of these documents. Far more can be known about the early recorded history of mankind than is generally allowed, and what is revealed by this history is a story that is very different indeed from the one that we are used to hearing. But where to begin?

When applied to the Table of Nations, this healthy historical research yields some surprising facts, surprising that is, in the light of what most commentaries go to such great lengths to assure us of, namely that Genesis is not be trusted as accurate history.

We must being our investigations with one of true oldest historical documents in the world. This document comprises the tenth and eleventh chapters of the book of Genesis and is known to scholars as The Table of Nations. However, when I use the word ‘document’, it must be understood that this in no way subscribes to the erroneous view propagated by Julius Wellhausen and his colleagues int he 19th century regarding the much-vaunted but still fashionable ‘documentary hypothesis’ of biblical criticism. That hypothesis was designed to be destructive of any impression that the Genesis record in particular was a reliable source of historical information, whereas the objective of our present study lies in entirely the opposite direction. But it does recognise the fact that the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis consist of a self-contained unit of information that is complete even if read in isolation from the rest of the Genesis account. In that sense, at least, it forms a document that we may study in isolation. But how accurate is that document? Most scholars today would renounce it as unreliable, and some would dismiss it from any further discussion by attaching to it labels of ‘myth’ and ‘pious fiction’, favourite terms among modern scholars, thus assuring their readers that its study, and especially faith in its accuracy, is a waste of time. These terms and labels will become more familiar to us as we come across a great many extra-biblical records that substantiate rather than undermine the Genesis account, but their over-use by certain scholars has left the definite impression that the modernist protests too much, and when applied as often as they are to so many historical records, they become tired and meaningless phrases that convey no information at all. There is doubtless method in this academic madness, given the question that if Genesis cannot be relied upon when it comes to stating accurately simple historical facts, then how can it be relied upon when stating higher truths? But the over-use of such labels becomes wearisome and ultimately meaningless, and is of no service whatever to healthy historical research.

When applied to the Table of Nations, this healthy historical research yields some surprising facts, surprising that is, in the light of what most commentaries go to such great lengths to assure us of, namely that Genesis is not be trusted as accurate history. This became very clear when I first began my researches into the Table of Nations, and the nature of those researches is as follows.

When we consider the truly vast body of evidence from the Middle East that is conveniently ignored in modern commentaries on the book of Genesis, such wholesale omission will appear as hardly surprising. Yet perhaps the reader is unaware of the sheer scale of this omission…

Having constructed the Table of Nations into a simple genealogy, I wanted to see how many of its names were attested in the records of other nations in the Middle East, which indued for my purposes all the nations of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even Greece. It was an obvious procedure, but one that had not, as far as I was aware, been conducted before and the results published. I had already found certain individual names that were mentioned in scattered works of varying merit, often Victorian, but the whole had never been gathered together into one cohesive study. And so my research began. Over the years, little by little, pieces of corroborative evidence came together and a picture bang to build up that revealed the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis to be an astonishingly accurate record of events. The Table of Nations had listed all the families and tribes of mankind in their correct groupings, whether those groupings were ethnological, linguistic or geographical. All the names, without exception, were accurate, and in more than twenty-five years of searching and analysing, I uncovered not one mistake or false statement of fact in the Table of Nations.

It has to be said here that such a result could simply not be expected or obtained from any comparable historical document, especially one as ancient as this. The Table of Nations embraces a sweeping panorama of history that is not only truly vast in its content but unique. Its like simply does not exist…

…throughout the Table of Nations, whether we talk about the descendants of Shem, Ham or Japheth, every one of their names is found in the records of the early surrounding nations of the Middle East, even the many obscure names of certain remote Arab tribes that are otherwise not evident in any modern history book of the times, and enough is available for a detailed history to be written about them. It is a phenomenon of immense implications. These records were mostly written (and then lost until their rediscovery in modern times) during the Old Testament period, during which time many of the peoples mentioned in them had vanished altogether from the historical scene or had been assimilated into other more powerful nations and cultures. Even those who retained their national or tribal identities soon lost all trace and memory of their own beginnings and went on to invent fantastic accounts of how they came to be. Indeed, the very early emergence of such mythological invention and the exceedingly rapid growth of paganism is a very telling point indeed against the modernist motion that Genesis is a late composition, for many of the names recorded with such astonishing accuracy in the Table of Nations, had disappeared from the historical scene many centuries before the time in which modernism would say that the Table of Nations was written. The Table of Nations, it thus seems, is a very ancient document indeed.

I cannot think of any other literate nation on earth that has managed to obliterate from its own history books two thousand years or more of recorded and documented history. Not even the censors of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China in their vigorous hey-day were this effective…

In time, of course, the true histories of several of these early nations became obscured beyond all recognition. Josephus was given good cause to complain that this had happened to the Greeks of his own day, and he lamented the fact that by obscuring their own history, they had obscured the histories of other nations also. Yet by no means all of the early nations were to follow this path. We shall see that many kept an accurate record down the centuries of their beginnings and wrote down the names of their founding patriarchs, bringing the records up to date with the advent of each new generation, and it is these records that provide us with such a surprising link between the ancient post-Flood era depicted in Genesis and the history of more modern times. These lists, annals and chronicles have been preserved and transmitted from generation to generation not by the nations of the Middle East this time, but by certain European peoples from times that long pre-dated the coming of Christianity, and it is most important that we remember the pre-Christian aspect of much of the following evidence, for it is too easily and too often alleged by modernist scholars that these records are the inventions of early Christian monks and are therefore worthless. Such claims of fraud will be examined in detail, particularly with regard to the records that the early Britons have left us and which are omitted in their entirety from modern history books, the media and the classroom.

When we consider the truly vast body of evidence from the Middle East that is conveniently ignored in modern commentaries on the book of Genesis, such wholesale omission will appear as hardly surprising. Yet perhaps the reader is unaware of the sheer scale of this omission, for the records of the early Britons, and that’s not counting the Irish Celtic, Saxon and continental records which we shall also be examining, cover not just a particular phase of history, but span more than two thousand years of it. I cannot think of any other literate nation on earth that has managed to obliterate from its own history books two thousand years or more of recorded and documented history. Not even the censors of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China in their vigorous hey-day were this effective, or even needed to be this effective, in doctoring their own official accounts. So how did this extraordinary circumstance come about, and who is responsible for it?

By way of a refreshing change, we cannot lay the blame entirely at the door of those evolutionary Victorian and later educationalists and philosophers who laid the foundations of our modern curricula. They are surely to blame for much else that is amiss, but this time the story begins long before their age and influence…

“Titus was the only individual in history that could be said to have fulfilled Jesus’ prophecies concerning the Son of Man.” – Joseph Atwill

“But whenever they persecute  you  in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to  you,  you  shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.” (Matthew 10:17-23)

Joseph Atwill is a biblical scholar who believes that the Gospels were a satirical invention of the Romans for the purpose of pacifying the Jews. This sounds harebrained, but as I have written elsewhere (see Jesus’ Caesars), he does have a gut sense of the way the Scriptures speak. He has observed that the conquest of Judea by Titus follows a similar route to the one traced by Jesus in the Gospels one generation earlier. Atwill’s conclusion is back-to-front, but his observation remains profound. If Judea would not accept the true King of the Jews, she would be “ministered to” by a Prince of the Gentiles. Jesus’ ministry ended with the tearing of the Temple Veil. Titus’ campaign ended with the destruction of the entire Temple.

“What time Ierusalem that Cittie faire,
Was sieg’d and sackt by great Vespatians heire”
(Thomas Dekker, Canaans Calamitie, Ierusalems Misery)

What follows is an excerpt from Atwill’s book, Caesar’s Messiah, which includes the kind of chart you might be used to finding around here.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

Fishers of Men: Men Who Were Caught Like Fish

To begin to explain the relationship between Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign that my analysis indicates is a satire, I point to the following passages.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is described at the onset of his ministry asking Simon and Andrew and the “sons of Zeb’edee” to “follow me” and to become “fishers of men.”

From that time Jesus began to preach. “Repent,” He said, “for the Kingdom of the Heavens is now close at hand.” And walking along the shore of the Lake of Galilee He saw two brothers—Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew throwing a drag-net into the Lake; for they were fishers. And He said to them, “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:18-19)

The same story is represented in the Gospel of Luke as follows:

While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennes’aret. And so also were James and John, sons of Zeb’edee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” (Luke 5:9-10)

In another passage from the New Testament, Jesus foresees that cities on Gennesareth Lake (better known as the Sea of Galilee) will face tribulation for their wickedness.

Woe to you Chorazain! Woe to you Bethsaida! And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. (Matthew 11:23)

In War of the Jews, Josephus describes a sea battle where the Romans caught Jews like fish. The battle occurred at Gennesareth, where Titus attacked a band of Jewish rebels led by a leader named Jesus.

This lake is called by the people of the country the Lake of Gennesareth . . . they had a great number of ships . . . and they were so fitted up, that they might undertake a Seafight. But as the Romans were building a wall about their camp, Jesus and his party . . . made a sally upon them. . . .

Sometimes the Romans leaped into their ships, with swords in their hands, and slew them; but when some of them met the vessels, the Romans caught them by the middle, and destroyed at once their ships and themselves who were taken in them. And for such as were drowning in the sea, if they lifted their heads up above the water, they were either killed by darts, or caught by the vessels; but if, in the desperate case they were in, they attempted to swim to their enemies, the Romans cut off either their heads or their hands . . . [1]

A first-century peasant who heard Jesus’ doomsday prophecy, which describes what would become of the inhabitants of the cities on Gennesareth Lake, and also heard the passage above from War of the Jews, which describes their destruction, would have understood the juxtaposition as evidence of Christ’s divinity. What Jesus had prophesied, Josephus recorded as having come to pass.

But an uneducated peasant could not have understood that there was another “prophecy” that came to pass within the passages above. I am referring to Christ’s exhortation to become “fishers”or “catchers” of men, while standing on the spot where Jews would be caught like fish during the coming war with Rome.

However, any patricians who knew the details of the sea battle at Gennesareth would have seen the irony in a Messiah who was named “Savior” inventing the phrase “fishers of men” while standing on the beach where the Jews were caught like fish. The grim comedy is self-evident.

These two “fulfilled” prophecies exemplify the two levels on which the New Testament can be understood. Jesus’ prophecy regarding the destruction of Chorazain and Capernaum is completely straightforward and meant to be understood literally.

The other “fulfilled” prophecy that of Jesus’ prediction that his followers would become fishers for men, is not so straightforward. It could be understood only by someone who, like the residents of the Flavian court, had knowledge of the details of the sea battle between the Romans and the Jewish fishermen at Gennesareth. Only such individuals could have seen the prophetic irony in Jesus using the expression while standing on the very beach where the Jews would later be caught like fish.

If the authors of the Gospels were being less than transparent when they referred to the Jewish rebels as fish, they were at least using a metaphor common in the first century. For example, Rabban (chief Rabbi) Gamaliel spoke of his disciples through a parable in which they were compared to four different kinds of fish—an unclean fish, a clean fish, a fish from the river Jordan, and a fish from the sea. Roman authors also used the metaphor. Juvenal, a contemporary Roman poet, specifically compares fugitive slaves and informers to fish. [2]

The structure of the comedy is important. Jesus speaks of “catching men” in a seemingly symbolic sense. Josephus then records that Jesus was indeed a “true” prophet. His vision of “catching men” at Gennesareth did come to pass, the joke being that it came to pass literally, and not in the symbolic manner that Jesus seemed to have meant with the phrase. This is the most common structure of the humor created by reading the New Testament in conjunction with War of the Jews.

If the New Testament and War of the Jews engage in an interactive comedy regarding “fishing” for men at Gennesareth, they also work to create another “fish” joke. As mentioned above, in Matthew 11:23 Jesus predicted “woe” for “Chorazain.”

Scholars have always presumed that Jesus was referring to a Galilean fishing village. Josephus, however, gave a different definition of the word “Chorazain.”

The country also that lies over against this lake hath the same name of Gennesareth . . . Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, because it produces the Coracin fish as well as the lake does which is near to Alexandria. [3]

So, while at the Sea of Galilee Jesus predicted woe for the Chorazain, and said that henceforth his disciples would follow him and become fishers for men. Titus’ experience was strangely parallel to Jesus’ prophecies in that he literally brought woe for the Chorazainians and his soldiers literally followed him and became “fishers of men.” That is, they fished for the inhabitants of the village named for the Coracin fish. If the irony of juxtaposing the onset of Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign was created deliberately, it apparently stemmed from the fact that Titus saw the humor in his “fishing” for the Chorazainians as they attempted to swim to safety.

The previous examples, in and of themselves, are not convincing evidence that there is a deliberate parallel between Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign. It is, after all, quite possible that it was just an unfortunate coincidence that Jesus chose the beach at Gennesareth as the spot where he described his future ministry as fishing for men. I present this example of the two levels of interpretation that are possible while reading the New Testament in conjunction with War of the Jews, because it occurs near the beginning of both Jesus’ and Titus’ narratives. I show below that the sequence of events that take place in the New Testament and War of the Jews have a meaning not heretofore understood.

However, the parallels that exist between the experiences of Jesus and Titus at Gennesareth are not limited to catching men. The first part of Jesus’ statement is “Follow me” and “Do not be afraid.” When one reads the passage from Josephus in which the Jews were “caught” it is also recorded that the soldiers who did the “catching” were told not to be afraid and indeed “followed” someone. As the next excerpts show, the person being followed was Titus, who told his troops not to be afraid.

“For you know very well that I go into danger first, and make the first attack upon the enemy. Do not you therefore desert me, but persuade yourselves that God will be assisting to my onset.” [4]

And now Titus made his own horse march first against the enemy. [5]

As soon as ever Titus had said this he leaped upon his horse and rode apace down to the lake; by which lake he marched and entered the city the first of them all, as did the others soon after him. [6]

Thus, Josephus pointed out three times that Titus was the first into battle. And again, the Roman soldiers who would do the “fishing” literally followed Titus, creating another conceptual parallel with Jesus.

In fact, the New Testament passage above, in which Jesus asks his disciples “follow me,” and the passage from Josephus in which Titus asks his troops to follow, so that they can become fishers of men, have a number of other parallels.

Like Jesus, Titus had been sent by his father.

So he sent away his son Titus to Casarea, that he might bring the army that lay there to Scythopolis. [7]

While it is hardly unusual to follow a leader into battle or to have been sent by one’s father, Titus, again like Jesus at Gennesareth, is in a sense beginning his ministry there. He states that the battle is to be his “onset.”

“Do not you therefore desert me, but persuade yourselves that God will be assisting to my onset.” [8]

The Greek word that Josephus uses here, horme, means “onset” in English, that is, either an assault or a starting point. From Titus’ perspective the moment can be seen as a starting point because it is his first battle in Galilee entirely under his command.

To summarize, though there were thousands of other possible locations, both Jesus and Titus can be said to have had the onset of their narratives at Gennesareth, and in a manner that involved fishing for men—parallels that are unusual enough to at least permit questioning whether they were the product of coincidence. Further, the parallels are of the same nature as the typological relationship shown above between Jesus and Moses. The connections between Jesus and Titus are made up of parallel concepts, locations, and sequences.

Moreover, these parallels must be viewed in conjunction with the historical parallels between Jesus and Titus. Jesus predicted that a Son of Man would come to Judea before the generation that crucified him had passed away, encircle Jerusalem with a wall, and then destroy the temple, not leaving one stone atop another. Titus was the only individual in history that could be said to have fulfilled Jesus’ prophecies concerning the Son of Man. He came to Jerusalem before the generation that crucified Christ had passed away, encircled Jerusalem with a wall, and had the temple demolished.

The overlaps between Jesus’ prophecies and Titus’ accomplishments make the “fishers of men” parallel more difficult to accept as random. And this is just the beginning of the uncanny parallels between the two men who called themselves the “son of God” and whose “ministries” began in Galilee and end in Jerusalem.

TITUS AND JESUS COMPARED: AT THE “SEA” OF GALILEE

__________________________________
1. Josephus, War III, x
2. Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, 4
3. Josephus, War III, x
4. Josephus, War III, x
5. Josephus, War III, x
6. Josephus, War III, x
7. Josephus, War III, ix
8. Josephus, War III, x

[A guest post by Chris Wooldridge]

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” (Matthew 11:21-24)

If we are paying careful attention to the historical context of this passage, it should be clear enough that the “day of judgment” referred to was fulfilled in the Jewish war of 66-70 AD. But why then does he seem to bring Tyre and Sidon/Sodom onto the scene in verses 22 and 24? Are we dealing here with a future judgment of the inhabitants of these cities, perhaps one which awaits the second coming of Christ?

I think the answer is no, but to help us understand why, let’s see what Josephus has to say. [1]

For starters, we can look at what happened to the three Galilean cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. Near the beginning of the Jewish War, in 67 AD, war broke out in Galilee:

“nor did the Romans, out of the anger they bore at this attempt, leave off, either by night or by day, burning the places in the plain, and stealing away the cattle that were in the country, and killing whatsoever appeared capable of fighting perpetually, and leading the weaker people as slaves into captivity; so that Galilee was all over filled with fire and blood” (War of the Jews, Book 3, Chapter 4)

It is worth noting that this conflict occurred near the beginning of the Jewish War, just as Jesus’ oracle against the Galilean cities occurred near the beginning of his ministry. But what of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom? Well, there was an event which occurred near the start of the war as cities began to rise up against the Jews:

“Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up against the Jews that were among them… those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a greater number in prison…

only the Antiochtans the Sidontans, and Apamians spared those [Jews] that dwelt with them, and would not endure either to kill any of the Jews, or to put them in bonds… I think the greatest part of this favor was owing to their commiseration of those whom they saw to make no innovations.” (Ibid, Book 2, Chapter 18)

Based on this response, it seems unlikely that Tyre would be a likely location for further resistance from the Jews. Even if further resistance did occur, it would not likely be as violent a conflict as the one which occurred in Galilee. Regarding Sidon, it would appear that they spared the Jews who dwelt within their city because they seemed to “make no innovations”, which I think suggests that the Jews of that city were not deemed to be a threat. So for both cities, there probably wouldn’t have been much turmoil going on as a result of the Jewish war. They would also have been relatively unaffected by the civil war of 69 AD, since they supported Vespasian, who managed to secure the throne and bring about relative stability.

But what about Sodom? Once again, let us turn to Josephus:

“The country of Sodom borders upon it. It was of old a most happy land, both for the fruits it bore and the riches of its cities, although it be now all burnt up. It is related how, for the impiety of its inhabitants, it was burnt by lightning; in consequence of which there are still the remainders of that Divine fire, and the traces [or shadows] of the five cities are still to be seen, as well as the ashes growing in their fruits; which fruits have a color as if they were fit to be eaten, but if you pluck them with your hands, they dissolve into smoke and ashes. And thus what is related of this land of Sodom hath these marks of credibility which our very sight affords us.” (Ibid, Book 4, Chapter 8)

So we can fairly safely conclude that Sodom would have been unaffected by the wars of 66-70 AD. However, Jesus seems to have had in mind an actual judgment involving both Sodom and Capernaum. Thus far we have been focusing on the earthly cities, but now let us consider what happened to their inhabitants at the end of the old creation:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Matthew 25:31-32)

In his covenant with Abraham, God had promised that nations would be blessed and cursed through him. In 70 AD, the Abrahamic covenant came to an end and the blessings and curses were distributed. Nations were resurrected, stood before Christ in heaven and were judged in accordance with their treatment of the people of Abraham. Israel herself would be judged in accordance with her treatment of the apostolic church. The blessing would take the form of reigning with Christ in heaven for the remainder of the new covenant era (Revelation 20:4-6). The cursing would take the form of returning to the grave in “shame and contempt” (Daniel 12:2) to await the end of the new covenant and eternal destruction in the lake of fire.

Now Sodom and Tyre (and Sidon) would certainly have been involved in this judgment. They all had a sort of covenant relationship with Israel, Sodom because of Abraham’s pleading (Genesis 18) and Tyre and Sidon because they formed an alliance with Solomon and donated material towards the construction of the temple (1 Kings 9). The old covenant destruction of these cities also related to their treatment of the people of Abraham, in particular, Sodom’s sinful attitude towards Lot and his household (Genesis 19) and Tyre’s sinful attitude towards Jerusalem (Ezekiel 26). For the cities of Galilee to be compared with these cities was surely a great insult.

To top it off, there would also have been many righteous gentiles in the judgment:

“The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” (Matthew 12:41-42)

All of this would have caused great shame and humiliation for the generation of Israel which witnessed the ministry of Christ and yet refused to heed his warning. The blood of all the righteous, from Abel to Zechariah, was required of that wicked generation.

_________________________________
[1] For this study, I enlisted the help of biblestudytools.com, which hosts a searchable edition of “The Works of Flavius Josephus”.

“Revelation is not just a vision of the King of Kings,
but of the King of Kings in His court.”

Preterists have a go at dispensationalists for interpreting the Bible through the lens of current headlines. We recognize that the Bible must be interpreted in its historical context, for its “first audience.” But there’s a brand of “newspaper exegesis” that plagues preterism as well.

In 2007, I listened to a lecture series on Revelation by Ken Gentry. I thought it was pretty good, but something didn’t sit right. Next, I got into James Jordan’s series, and it did sit right. Rather than forcing an interpretive framework onto the text, Jordan lets the text speak for itself. In fact, it sings.

What’s the difference? As much as I hate to set the work of these two gents in opposition, Gentry’s approach is to begin with Josephus’ account of the Jewish war and seek to find correlations in the text of St. John. But isn’t this just a first century version of “newspaper exegesis”? Gentry would agree that Revelation is “level-pegged” with Ezekiel as a prophecy against a corrupted Temple. But if we had a 6th century BC equivalent to Josephus, would anyone try to interpret the book in the light of the CNN of the day? No.

But what framework does this leave us with? Where does Jordan begin? How does he make near perfect sense of a text that has baffled scholars for centuries? Rusty Reno gives us a clue, in his foreword to the recent James Jordan festschrift, The Glory of Kings.

James B. Jordan is remarkable. There are plenty of Bible preachers in America who know the Scriptures well. Lots of professors read books in philosophy, history, and literature and have all sorts of interesting things to say about culture. Pundits cultivate a sharp, pungent, and readable style. But Jim is perhaps unique.

___________________________________________

Jim knows a great deal, but I have no doubt that the electricity in his writing and conversation come from his biblical vision. He does something remarkable. He takes the cultic core of the Old Testament—Temple and Priesthood, altar and sacrifice—and reads it into the full sweep of the biblical witness.
___________________________________________

Who else writes detailed interpretations of the Book of Daniel and quotes Allen Tate’s poetry? Who else can give a lecture on echoes of Leviticus in the apocalyptic vision of Zechariah and then chat over cigars about Friedrich von Hayek and Richard Weaver? Moreover, who can cover such a range with vivid images, punchy tag lines, and memorable turns of phrase? Not many, which is why I’ve come to think of Jim Jordan as one of the most important Christian intellectuals of our day.

Jim knows a great deal, but I have no doubt that the electricity in his writing and conversation come from his biblical vision. He does something remarkable. He takes the cultic core of the Old Testament—Temple and Priesthood, altar and sacrifice—and reads it into the full sweep of the biblical witness. The result is not the usual sort of “theological” interpretation we’re all familiar with: Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament explained by way of warmed-over theologies of substitutionary atonement or observations that really amount to little more than restating New Testament passages. Instead, Jim takes texts such as Leviticus seriously on their own terms. He brings to life the intense concreteness of tabernacle and sanctuary, and he allows the prophets a retrospective restoration as well as a prospective anticipation. As Jim has helped me see, the Scriptures are forever reaching back and renewing even as they reach forward to fulfillment in Christ.

We live in space and time. Our lives have a concrete and quotidian reality. Precisely because Jim’s reading of the Old Testament takes its bearings from the point of maximal particularity—the cultic focal point that is the most enduring and transparent anticipation of the Incarnation—his reading of the larger biblical witness is saturated with immediacy. Take a look at any of his writings on worship. The life of God’s people has a particular shape in Israel. The tabernacle and temple have a specific architecture. The sacrifices involve discrete patterns of action. As a result, we do not encounter nebulous theological concepts. The immediacy of the cult of Israel is accessible to us today. Indeed, it is more accessible and more immediate, because in Christ we have been brought into the inner sanctuary.

Any particular detail of Jim’s biblical theology is up for debate, but the larger project is compelling—and much needed today. Many of us have limited biblical imaginations. We have stock phrases and favorite passages. We think of ourselves as biblical, but our friends recognize that nine times out of ten we’re quoting from Paul’s Letter to the Romans or the Book of Revelation or the Gospel of John. The Old Testament functions as a hazy background. The Psalms have no living power. Although we would vigorously deny it, we are functionally allied with Friedrich Schleiermacher, who notoriously set aside the Old Testament, or Immanuel Kant, who rejected the “Jewish” parts of the Old Testament as unusable.

Should we be surprised, therefore, that our preaching and teaching remains “spiritual” or “theological” in an abstract and theoretical way? Nothing we say is heretical. Orthodoxy carries the day. But it all floats a few feet above the ground. The gears of faith never seem to do what Jim’s biblical theology does: mesh with the gritty realities of life.

If we diagnose ourselves honestly, then perhaps we can see that, unlike Jim, there are no biblical actualities at the center of our preaching and teaching, things to be seen and entered and touched. Perhaps, for example, we imagine ourselves agreeing with him because we endorse a “sacramental” view of the church. But there is a world of difference between “sacramental” and Jim’s trenchant reading of the Book of Revelation as a handbook for Christian worship, a reading that depends upon his interpretation of the cultic core of the Old Testament. Again, one can debate the details, or the biblical typology, or Jim’s assumptions about how to understand biblical inerrancy, or his conception of biblical history, or any number of other different technical questions. But of this I am certain. Jim does something few achieve, even (perhaps especially!) those who make loud claims about their biblical fidelity. He puts the living realities of the Bible at the center of his thought…

The rest of the foreword deals with the need for Jim’s sort of thinking in the Church today, but here I want to focus on his reading of the Revelation. The book is a “handbook” for Christian worship precisely because it is a worship service. We have little idea of the flow of what is going on because we haven’t internalized the books of Moses. Chilton started us in this direction, but it is Jordan who really makes sense of the details.

All the action takes place in the Temple court of God, and it brings with it all the baggage of Old Testament history. Well, not so much baggage as a royal entourage, tent and all. Revelation is not just a vision of the King of Kings, but of the King of Kings in His court. The detail of the Jewish war of AD66-70 is not what concerns Him. What concerns Him is the “changing of the guard” in His heavenly council. The shadowy concepts communicated by the Mosaic furnitures and rites have found their fulfilment in flesh, in the people of God. Instead of an Altar of Incense, we have actual elders with bowls of Incense, etc.

So, the structure of events cannot be interpreted through the lens of Josephus. The Jewish war is as relevant to the Revelation as the details of the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar are relevant to the book of Ezekiel. That is, not very much.

However, I do recommend you read Gentry’s brilliant work on the actual dating of the book of Revelation, Before Jerusalem Fell. Current scholarly opinion is wrong on this one, again because they don’t listen to Moses. And on this one Gentry gets it right.

________________________________________________

Jordan’s lectures are available from www.wordmp3.com (click link in right column).

Doug Wilson writes:

“The Levitical administration brought strong curses for disobedience (Heb. 2:2-3); the New Covenant administration brings much greater curses (Heb. 10:29; Heb. 12:25). Christians commonly assume that the really terrifying curses for disobedience were given in the Old Testament, and that under the New Testament all is grace. But this is precisely the opposite of the New Testament’s teaching on the subject” (To a Thousand Generations, pp. 28-29).

This is certainly a side of the New Covenant that Christians are never taught. The first time I ever heard of it was in David Chilton’s Revelation commentary The Days of Vengeance in 1989. But along with baptism (just had to throw that in), a rediscovery of the Old Covenant hammer makes everything in the New Covenant look like a nail. The Revelation is, after all, a book about the end of the Old Covenant.

It is very telling that all of these verses are in the book of Hebrews, written as a Deuteronomic warning to Jewish Christians throughout the empire who were being tempted to throw in the towel and head back to the Temple they had been chucked out of.

The curses here are, thus, Old Covenant curses, for Jews who had rejected their Messiah. Josephus called his book The Jewish War for a reason.

God certainly judges us under the New Covenant, but such a final judgment as this is still final, the one we get a glimpse of in Revelation 20.

And now that we have the Holy Spirit, Jesus has given us the ministry of judgment. Just as Israel was under the sword in Egypt, so Israel was handed the sword under Joshua, in order to take the Land. And I can tie this more mature ministry to baptism here as well. Israel “walked on water” as she passed through the Jordan.

So, I agree with a better understanding of the New Covenant containing curses. But, as with baptism, it is not the same. Our ministry is to put the entire world through the water (all men everywhere are called to repentance, which now includes them in the priesthood).

So the only final “cast off” judgments for now are those who judge Jesus to be a lie and remain in darkness. These are certainly personal, national and cultural judgments, but they are not AD70. God gives them up to their desires. It is water being trodden underfoot for the time being, not blood. There is still “a sacrifice for sin.” For now, God’s work moves on to those who will listen, as it did in Acts.

“Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps.” Numbers 10:2

The Bible Matrix aligns a lot of apparently unrelated incidents. When certain things appear repeatedly at the same point in the structure, we can confidently conclude, despite the earnest protestations of our learned friends, that these relationships are trustworthy indicators of the symbolic meanings God has given to the corresponding things. Liberal scholars believe that the idea of resurrection was “developed” by Hebrew theologians over the centuries. This is because they fail to see the contant symbols of the coming resurrection beating throughout the Old Testament in types and dark sayings. The drums reach a crescendo in the later New Testament epistles until the trumpets finally blast a terrifying staccato in the Revelation. This is the first resurrection.

Heralds of Change

The Feast of Trumpets was also known as the “ten days of awe.” At this time, Israel was summoned before God as an army, and every male over 20 (the military force) paid for the privilege. These ten days were a time to repent before the Day of Atonement, the “Day of the Lord.”

The first reference to the Feast of the Trumpets is found in Leviticus 23:24 “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest [shabbaton], a memorial proclamation with a blast of trumpets (ziccaron teruah), a holy convocation.” The Hebrew phrase ‘ziccaron teruah’, can be literally translated as “a remembrance blast.”

The second major reference is found in Numbers 29:1 “On the first day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It is a day for you to blow the trumpets (yom teruah).”

The Hebrew word in both references is teruah, which is a term for the series of staccato sounds on a wind instrument with the purpose of sounding an alarm. This unique feature of the ritual of the Feast of Trumpets was the blowing of the shofar, the curved ram’s horn announcing the beginning of the heavenly trial each year during which God judged each person with mercy and compassion before the execution of His judgment on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) when the destiny of each Israelite was revealed for the coming year determined by his response or failure to respond, to the call to repentance and reconciliation. Those who had fully repented before or by the end of Yom Teruah, were exempt from the process of the heavenly court trial in the ten days which followed.

The blowing of the Shofar is an awakening call upon the people to examine their lives, mend their ways, and experience divine cleansing and restore their relationship with God. “In the trial imagery,” writes Rabbi Irving Greenberg, “the shofar blast communicates: Oyez! Oyez! This court is in session! The Right Honorable Judge of the World is presiding!” (Rabbi Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way. Living the Holidays ( New York, 1988), p. 195)

God has always had a heart to warn people before He executes His judgment and this shofar ritual reflects Yahweh’s desire to alert and summon us to repentance so that He can vindicate us on His judgment day. [1]

Silver Nemesis

Now, here’s some correspondences.

1. The Feast of Trumpets correponds to Maturity in the Bible Matrix. It is about the summoning of the body. The symbols that communicate this are plural. It is not the Feast of “Trumpet.”
2. The trumpets were silver. At this point in the account of Abraham’s purchase of the field from Ephron, he buys it with silver. Gold is the head and silver the body, sun and moon. Trumpets also celebrated the new moon. In Solomon’s “bridal” kingdom, the king as head amassed gold so that silver became a common thing. The head was lifted up and the body became ubiquitous. This is postmillennialism in type.
3. The body is the body coming out of the grave. This sounds a warning to those who put it in the grave. It is music that cracks the ground. When Jesus rose, the soldiers became as dead men. But new soldiers rose from the grave as a testimony and went to Jerusalem to witness.
4. Throughout the Bible there are “two legal witnesses” after Testing. They always occur at Maturity. Firstly, two or more witnesses were required to make a judgment. Eyes and ears (and nostrils!) are plural. The apostolic witness is symbolised as these two witnesses, trumpeting a warning to those who slew the firstfruits church. The heavenly court was in session. [2]
5. Even more interesting is the time span of ten days. Daniel and his friends were (symbolically) resurrected after ten days (Dan. 1:15). The church in Smyrna was about to suffer severe persecution. Jesus gives them the symbol of ten days. If they were faithful they would be judged worthy of the crown of life. But this also carries the connotation that their suffering would be a testimony against their enemies, the Judaising synagogue of Satan.
6. Guess what also appears at Maturity? Yes, there is plunder (very frequently). But there are also plagues. In Exodus, Moses and Aaron were the two witnesses. Israel is the body coming out of the grave, and there are ten plagues. And then much Egyptian plunder. [3] The plagues, like the Ten Words from Sinai later on, are two groups of five, like two trumpets. Five is the number of military power. The blood and frogs and hail and lice were the fingers of God. They bore the sword of judgment against Egypt. They warned Pharaoh that the court was in session: the first plague being a reminder of his murder of the Hebrew infants, and the last being an atonement — Pharaoh’s “day of the Lord”  — for his crime.
   Later, twelve spies were sent into Canaan. The ten who were unfaithful were struck down (as plagues) and the faithful two, Joshua (Jew) and Caleb (Gentile [Kenizzite]) were the two trumpets. These two men were the only two who survived the wilderness. They pictured the resurrection body, a miraculous New Covenant.
   All these warnings were military in nature. They were two cherubim. God raises up armies ex nihilo, from the very created order. In the New Testament, John says He can raise up the rocks to praise Him, [4] which brings me to the final point.
7. The death and ascension of the Covenant head is silent. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter. The resurrection is the time for music and song. Hence Moses’ tent was silent — the sacrifice of blood — and David’s was filled with music (including Gentile worshippers – together in one body) — the sacrifice of praise. [5] The Old Covenant was the silent witness of the Law. The New is the worldwide testimony of the church. Jesus stood before His accusers and was basically without defense. Paul stood before his accusers and they couldn’t shut him up. One day in court wasn’t enough! The Trumpets are warnings, but they are also the song of the bride. She is an army of Holy Ones rejoicing over the destruction of her enemies like Miriam and Deborah and Mary.

So, we get the picture of what the apostolic testimony was really about. This makes a great deal of the historic interpretation of the diaspora epistles irrelevant, or at the very least, badly focussed. [6] All this imagery also makes sense of a testimony from the Jewish historian, Josephus:

On the twenty-first of the month Artemisium [the last day of the 2nd Passover season In A.D.66, there appeared a miraculous phenomenon, passing belief. Indeed, what I am about to relate would, I imagine, have been deemed a fable, were it not for the narratives of eyewitnesses and for the subsequent calamities which deserved to be so signalized. For before sunset throughout all parts of the county [everywhere throughout Judea] chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities. [7]

Two trumpets sound the warning — ten days. Seven trumpets bring the bowls — atonement.

“So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.” Revelation 8:6

Sharp Words, Soft Hearts

This subheading turns around one of Doug Wilson’s titles, “Smooth Words, Hard Hearts.”

Are you suffering? It is the conviction of the Spirit. Chastening that makes us chaste. The court is in session. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Although it often feels like 400 years, the staccato of the trumpets will come, and if you are faithful to Jesus, they bring vindication. That’s only personally, of course. You are a member of a body, and as a body, the church is faithful, an army of wise virgins. The day of corporate rejoicing will come. There is no “if.” In its way, the hard words of the Spirit are music in our ears.

During the Ten Days, God judges His people. We are judged now that we might not be judged later. At the end of this process comes Atonement. The veil is torn. The walls come down and we see Him as He is. He makes His face to shine upon us, as gold and silver, like sun and moon.

________________________________________
[1] From Hebrew Roots on wikibooks
[2] See Two Witnesses.
[3] See Vile Bodies or Bright Young Things.
[4] See Crying Stones.
[5] See The Sacrifice of Praise.
[6] See The Cosmic Lawsuit and Hebrews as Deuteronomy.
[7] See Angels in the Trees – 2.

Acacias, not Mulberries

So, acacia wood is at the heart of the Holy furniture. The Tabernacle is a wilderness world glorified by Spirit-filled men and brought into the tent of God,[1] under the wing of Boaz, under the friendly firmament of a new Covenant, under the great tree that grows to shelter the nations.

As this tree, the Tabernacle was cruciform and daubed with blood. Jacob’s ladder was a bloody tree to heaven.[2]  It is the cruciform man, Jesus. As with His mother, Israel, He has a crown of stars, warrior children. Angels are the stars of the Old Testament; the saints are the stars (“lights”) of the new (Daniel 8:10, 12:3; Phil. 2:15).

In the book of Numbers, the tribes were arranged around the Tabernacle, the door to God’s throne, in twelve constellations. They moved across the wilderness like the stars across the night sky. With their campfires around the Shekinah, they were a crown of glory for their King, a Pentecostal Eve army for a blood-covered Adam.

This adds another level both to 2 Samuel 5 and to the warnings to Israel before the Jewish war. In 2 Samuel 5, it was a stirring in the tops of the acacia trees. In Luke 21, it was a stirring above the Holy City. Here’s an excerpt from an article by Ernest L. Martin:

“Christ Jesus told the apostles that when they (or any of the saints) would see Jerusalem surrounded by armies then let the people of God flee from Jerusalem and Judea. ‘When you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh’ (Luke 21:20).

The meaning of this verse has puzzled many people. How can it be that when Jerusalem is completely surrounded (encircled on all sides) with armies, then the people of God are told to flee the whole area of Judea (of which Jerusalem is a part)? If this is the strategy, then it seems that Christ is saying to surrender to the armies. But this is not what Christ meant in his warning.

In actual fact, this prophecy of Christ Jesus was fulfilled to the letter in the period just before the war that destroyed Jerusalem from A.D.67 to 70. We have the eyewitness account of Josephus himself (he was the Jewish historian who accompanied the Roman armies to Jerusalem and saw or reported all that occurred in Judaea within that three and a half year event that occurred in the heavens that could not be identified as having its origin on earth. This was clearly a ‘sign’ from heaven and I have not the slightest hesitation in stating that it was an exact fulfillment of what Christ Jesus said would occur that is recorded in Luke 21:20. Note what Josephus said happened just before the war with the Romans commenced.

On the twenty-first of the month Artemisium [the last day of the 2nd Passover season In A.D.66, there appeared a miraculous phenomenon, passing belief. Indeed, what I am about to relate would, I imagine, have been deemed a fable, were it not for the narratives of eyewitnesses and for the subsequent calamities which deserved to be so signalized. For before sunset throughout all parts of the county [everywhere throughout Judea] chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities (War,VI.5.3 or Loeb VI.298, emphasis mine).

This is the very thing that Christ Jesus said to watch for. And then (about two weeks later) Josephus tells us:

Moreover, at the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests on entering the inner court of the temple by night, as their custom was in the discharge of their ministrations, reported that they were conscious, first of a commotion and a din, and after that of a voice as of a host, ‘We are departing hence’ (War, VI.209,300).

With these two signs what did the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea do? Eusebius tells us that this is the time they began to leave the region because of the command of Christ and went to a city called Pella on the east side of the Jordan River (Ecclesiastical History, III.5). They and the apostles obtained safety from the holocaust that soon enflamed Jerusalem and Judaea.

Chariots and armed forces seen in the skies all over Judaea and encompassing the cities of the Jews was similar to times recorded in the early history of Israel. Angelic powers (in this case, good angels) accompanied the armies of Israel when it was the normal period (in ancient Times) for hostilities to occur. The Bible says: ‘And it came to pass, after the year had expired, at the time angels go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon” (II Samuel 11:1). The King James translators (and most modern ones) read the Hebrew as ‘kings,’ not ‘angels.’ But there is no reason whatever for reading the text as ‘kings.’ The verse was intended to show that angelic powers were there to aid Israel in their battles when they went to war.

A further reference (which even corroborates angelic connections with wars or the preparations for wars on earth) is 11 Samuel 5:23-24. God said to David that when he heard “the sound of a going [forth] in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you [David] shall bestir yourself [to war].” This swishing sound in the tops of the trees of a turbulent waving action of the wind was recognized by David as caused by the Lord and his angelic hosts going to battle with David (see also Genesis 32:1.3 and II Kings 6:17 about angels accompanying God). But in A.D.66, instead of helping Israel win the war with the Romans that the people of Judaea were about to start, the angelic hosts were seen in the clouds in chariots and as armed soldiers encompassing the cities of Judaea and enclosing them on all sides for capitulation. This is precisely what Christ Jesus said to watch for in his Olivet prophecy.”[3]

A stirring in the tops of the acacias meant the Incense Altar army, the fragrant cloud of the Lord of Hosts, was on the move to scatter God’s enemies.[4] After AD70, the end of the Old Covenant and the installation of a human government in heaven [5], it is the saints who are the cloud of glory.[6]

_______________________________________
[1] See Unashamed Artisans. 
[2] See Servanthood Dominion.
[3] From Are UFO’s Real?
[4] This is exactly the same picture as David’s five smooth stones going before him. See The Holy Headbutt.
[5] See Jesus’ New Broom.
[6] The word Shekinah is feminine. The city of God, greater Eve, is a tent for the light of the Lamb. For more on long hair as “female” glory see Power on Her Head. and for the New Jerusalem as a robe see Healing in His… Tassels?

In the NT, I believe Hebrews functions as a “Book of Deuteronomy.” After an “exodus” from Jerusalem (as Egypt) and time in the wilderness, the Jewish Christians scattered throughout the empire were facing the destruction of their city (as Jericho). From Hebrews to Jude, the focus of these final New Testament writings shifts from the Gentiles back to the Jews.

Gospels – to the Jew
Acts – first to the Jew, then to the Gentiles: exodus from Jerusalem
Romans to Philemon – to the Gentiles
Hebrews to Jude – to the Jews again
Revelation – destruction of Jerusalem

So there is a Jew (Leviticus), Gentile (wilderness – Numbers), Jew (Deuteronomy) pattern repeated.

The Law is being repeated by Christ as Moses “speaking from heaven” before the crossing of the foetal church into the heavenly country as a new mediatorial government. The writer of Hebrews was warning them not to die in the wilderness as their ancestors did.

Josephus tells us that the Romans beseiged the city when Jews from all over the empire were in Jerusalem for Passover. Their table became a snare.

“Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it…

“Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them.”

“Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple], as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”*

*Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, (vi:v:3), quoted from David Chilton’s compilation in Paradise Restored, A Biblical Theology of Dominion. The chariots in the clouds were also reported by the Roman historian Tacitus: “In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure.” (Tacitus, The Histories,translated by Kenneth Wellesley).