Some clarity regarding the mark of the beast

#maklelan2244

[Lanarch]

Also, why putting a mark on everybody is a concept not possible until the 20th Century???

[Newton-Reuther]

But they didnt have hands or foreheads until the 20th century!!! /s

[hawkhollywood]

I'm still waiting on nero to come out of hiding

[MilwaukeeAtheists]

I always tell people that my favorite book of the Bible is revelation. The author is incredibly well read and references soooo many things in a unique way for his own polemics. Unfortunately, many people, especially atheists, just want to say he was high on drugs or just insane. Once we put this in the context of the Roman empire and the imperial cult, everything falls into place and it's incredible

[perrywilliams]

And the executioners went out and found the tattoo shops. And they all said "Oh, boy, this is going to be tricky.'' 😅😵‍💫

[rainbowkrampus]

People always talking about the Mark of the Beast.
Nobody's ever talking about the Dave of the Bird.

[theodorebear]

I have known for a while that this was a reference to nero from the calculated number.
Revelation was frustrating to me because I read it thinking "Okay now all this stuff is going to finally make sense."
Then, when I read it - it was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen.

[karldehaut]

Some people have a hard time understanding that a text written at one time for a specific audience has only one connection to a modern audience. It is to study that text to reconstruct how it was understood by different audiences. Two centuries from now, scholars studying the book of Revelation will probably produce an article or a paragraph on how that text has been understood in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There will be two distinct sides. One, the way biblical scholars have negotiated with the text, and the other, the way some people negotiate with the text. Think of it as how Shakespeare was understood by audiences in the eighteenth century and how he was understood by literary critics in the same period.

[keithjones]

So apocalyptic literature is kind of like cyberpunk, the dystopia that's 20 minutes into the future😎

[swedmiroswedmiro]

And today the mark is a red cap and in the right hand a gun.

[marshallmkerr]

Oh, Dan, you are such a spoilsport! What will people have left to be hysterical about, if you keep injecting rational scholarship into the conversation?

[QuinnPrice]

So the beast isn't Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys? I stand corrected.

[tussk.]

I find it both hilarious and saddening, in equal measure, that biblical scholars have spent centuries trying to decipher what is a poorly translated contemporaneous analogy, and finding new ways to make it a prophecy about whatever age they lived in. By my calculation, it has been the end times, the days of the beast and the great tribulation around 8000 times now, with no sign of much really changing. Each successive generation claims that the previous got it wrong because of some newly discovered translation, and that the rapture is close to hand. What is it that they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome?

[mugglescakesniffer]

LOL I just got finished watching a World of Warcraft video and thought "mark of the beast" was a new hunter talent. I thought it was what we call "Hunter's Mark". I have a Beast Mastery Hunter on WoW.

[Dloin]

If certain people would just move on, then what would they do with their lifes?

[Recluse]

I attended an evangelical university and the professor for the Bible class, when we got to Revelation, pointed out that in Revelation everyone gets marked you either are marked by thr beast or by god, so it becomes less of a question of not getting marked but by whom are you marked. Granted I can't remember his full explanation as this was 20 some years ago but still.

[sandroabate]

In modern days the mark of the beast is a MAGA hat.

[JustWastedHoursHere]

I heard that ancient Jews used letters of their alphabet to also indicate numbers and that it was a common thing to figure out the numeric value of people's names. So in the case of "666" (or in some cases "616" I believe) it is the numerical value of Nero, the emperor who was persecuting early Christians.

[tsemayekekema]

This is such a mouthful that I kept worrying for years how I would explain that multi-layered metaphor concerning the Mark of The Beast—Dr Dan has expressed it more eloquently than I imagined was possible for me (in my imaginary mental scenarios of me explaining the scholarly consensus to someone)

[brandonontama]

Do you have video where you talk about the prince (or patron) of persia who fought angel Gabriel and Michael in the book of Daniel?